#glbt rights

[notaplaceofhonour]

I came across to your campaign and I can see you need some assistance in getting your campaign funded, If I'm not mistaken.I can help you promote your campaign to the right audience, You can message me to share you some tips and strategies to get it funded and reach your targeted goals.

imagine seeing trans people begging for financial assistance to escape a government that’s currently trying to genocide them and seizing the opportunity to promote your skills as a promotional guru

if you want to help trans people in desperate need of help, please donate or share the campaign

gofundme

venmo

cashapp

[nerdygaymormon]

The LGBTQ community has seen controversy regarding acceptance of different groups (bisexual and transgender individuals have sometimes been marginalized by the larger community), but the term LGBT has been a positive symbol of inclusion and reflects the embrace of different identities and that we’re stronger together and need each other. While there are differences, we all face many of the same challenges from broader society.

In the 1960′s, in wider society the meaning of the word gay transitioned from ‘happy’ or ‘carefree’ to predominantly mean ‘homosexual’ as they adopted the word as was used by homosexual men, except that society also used it as an umbrella term that meant anyone who wasn’t cisgender or heterosexual. The wider queer community embraced the word ‘gay’ as a mark of pride.

The modern fight for queer rights is considered to have begun with The Stonewall Riots in 1969 and was called the Gay Liberation Movement and the Gay Rights Movement.

The acronym GLB surfaced around this time to also include Lesbian and Bisexual people who felt “gay” wasn’t inclusive of their identities. 

Early in the gay rights movement, gay men were largely the ones running the show and there was a focus on men’s issues. Lesbians were unhappy that gay men dominated the leadership and ignored their needs and the feminist fight. As a result, lesbians tended to focus their attention on the Women’s Rights Movement which was happening at the same time. This dominance by gay men was seen as yet one more example of patriarchy and sexism. 

In the 1970′s, sexism and homophobia existed in more virulent forms and those biases against lesbians also made it hard for them to find their voices within women’s liberation movements. Betty Friedan, the founder of the National Organization for Women (NOW), commented that lesbians were a “lavender menace” that threatened the political efficacy of the organization and of feminism and many women felt including lesbians was a detriment.

In the 80s and 90s, a huge portion of gay men were suffering from AIDS while the lesbian community was largely unaffected. Lesbians helped gay men with medical care and were a massive part of the activism surrounding the gay community and AIDS. This willingness to support gay men in their time of need sparked a closer, more supportive relationship between both groups, and the gay community became more receptive to feminist ideals and goals. 

Approaching the 1990′s it was clear that GLB referred to sexual identity and wasn’t inclusive of gender identity and T should be added, especially since trans activist have long been at the forefront of the community’s fight for rights and acceptance, from Stonewall onward. Some argued that T should not be added, but many gay, lesbian and bisexual people pointed out that they also transgress established gender norms and therefore the GLB acronym should include gender identities and they pushed to include T in the acronym. 

GLBT became LGBT as a way to honor the tremendous work the lesbian community did during the AIDS crisis. 

Towards the end of the 1990s and into the 2000s, movements took place to add additional letters to the acronym to recognize Intersex, Asexual, Aromantic, Agender, and others. As the acronym grew to LGBTIQ, LGBTQIA, LGBTQIAA, many complained this was becoming unwieldy and started using a ‘+’ to show LGBT aren’t the only identities in the community and this became more common, whether as LGBT+ or LGBTQ+. 

In the 2010′s, the process of reclaiming the word “queer” that began in the 1980′s was largely accomplished. In the 2020′s the LGBTQ+ acronym is used less often as Queer is becoming the more common term to represent the community. 

[queerasfact]

Happy birthday Ruth Ellis!

Lesbian centenarian Ruth Ellis was born on 23 July 1899 and lived until 5 October 2000. Despite having no queer role-models, Ruth came out as a lesbian in her teens, and in the 1930s, she began a relationship with Babe Franklin.

Ruth and Babe were together for 30 years, with their home in Detroit forming a centre for queer Black life, and a refuge for queer Black people in the years before the Civil Rights movement and Stonewall.

In 1999, when she turned 100, Ruth was celebrated as the USA’s oldest living out lesbian.

Check out our podcast on Ruth to learn more

[Image by Daniel Nicoletta, source GLBT Historical Society]

[lesbianlenses]

Cora Latz (left) and Etta Perkins (right) were a lesbian couple who met in 1972 and were together until Perkins’ death in 1998. In 1973, they held a commitment ceremony; in 1998, they privately renewed their vows with the staff who cared for them at the Jewish Home for the Aged. Credit to the GLBT Historical Society.

[olympic-paris]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more …

September 22

1939 – Bette Bourne, born Peter Bourne, is a British actor, drag queen and equal rights activist.

Born Peter Bourne in Hackney, east London, he made his stage debut at the age of four as one of the members of Madame Behenna and her Dancing Children. Encouraged to take part in amateur dramatics by his mother, he chose a career in the theatre at 16, working backstage at the Garrick Theatre, London.

He studied drama at Central School of Speech and Drama in London and went on to act on stage and on television throughout the 1960s. He appeared in TV series such as The Avengers and The Prisoner, and in 1969, he appeared alongside Sir Ian McKellen in a touring double bill of Christopher Marlowe's Edward II and Shakespeare's Richard II.

In the 1970s, he put his acting career on hold to become an activist with the Gay Liberation Front, becoming part of a gay commune in London. It was during this period that he started wearing drag and changed his name to "Bette".

In 1976, he joined the New York-based gay cabaret group, the Hot Peaches, performing with them in Europe, culminating in a show at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. When this group went back to New York, Bourne formed his own troupe, Bloolips. Featuring songs such as Let's Scream Our Tits Off, the shows were mostly written by playwright John Taylor with titles like Lust in Space and The Ugly Duckling. He toured the UK and the rest of Europe throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, winning an Obie Award (Off Broadway Theater Award) for the New York production of Lust in Space.

1953 – Richard Fairbrass is an English singer and television presenter, born in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey and raised in East Grinstead, West Sussex. He is the singer with the band Right Said Fred alongside his brother Fred Fairbrass, who became very popular for a short time in the UK in 1991 with their number 2 hit I'm Too Sexy, which they followed with Don't Talk Just Kiss and in 1992 Deeply Dippy, which was a number 1. Since then they have only occasionally troubled the lower reaches of the charts although they have had success in Europe and elsewhere.

I'm Too Sexy has entered popular culture and is often spoofed or parodied in shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy.

In April 2007 Fairbrass was reported to be planning to run for Mayor of London in the 2008 election. Shortly after, during a gay rights rally in Red Square, Moscow, on 27 May 2007 commemorating the 14th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Russia, Richard and Fred Fairbrass were assaulted by members of a counter-demonstration staged by ultra-nationalists. Richard Fairbrass sustained a cut under his eye. Speaking about the incident upon his return to the UK, Richard Fairbrass commented, "When it was over I actually felt more sorry for the guy that whacked me than I did for me ... How threatened can he be, how insecure is he to be threatened by a bisexual pop singer who's most famous for singing "I'm Too Sexy"?".

He is very open about his sexual orientation (bisexual) and once co-hosted (with Rhona Cameron) a TV series aimed at a lesbian and gay audience called Gaytime TV on BBC2. Richard had come out as bisexual in 1991 to The Sun. Richard's long term partner, from the early 1980s until the early 2000s, was Stuart Pantry, a BBC make-up artist. At the end In 2007, Richard said to the Metro: "My last relationship was with a girl, so I am on the cusp. I have never described myself as completely gay". Fairbrass has also said he appreciates "pretty guys who look like girls and girls who look like pretty guys."

1958 – Tim Miller was a little-known performance artist until he came to national attention as one of four people denied grants from the National Endowment for the Arts because of homosexual content in their shows. Since then he has built a reputation for his witty and engaging performances that are both poignant and politically acute. Miller's performances are rooted in his own life experiences, but they are also a form of glbtq activism.

Miller, the youngest of their four children, was born in Pasadena but grew up in nearby Whittier. As a youth Miller read the works of Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg and always felt a sense of otherness. In Boys Like Us, he wrote:

I was seventeen going on eighteen and I was desperate for love and dick. I searched everywhere for it. I hung around the Whittier Public Library, leaning suggestively against the stacks in the psychology section, waiting to be picked up by some graduate student. I leaned too far, once, and almost knocked over an entire row of bookshelves.

He had an epiphany while watching a PBS show about Oscar Wilde, Feasting with Panthers (directed by Adrian Hall and Rick Hauser) in 1975. As he recalled in a 1992 interview, "It was like a lightning bolt from Zeus or Diana or somebody came right into our living room in Whittier, California. It was like I watched it and I said, 'Oh, OK. I'm gay, just like Oscar Wilde, just like Socrates.'" He shared the revelation with his family, all of whom were very supportive.

Miller's interest in performance began in high school, where he took classes in theater and dance. At nineteen he moved to New York and studied dance with Merce Cunningham.

Two years later, in 1980, Miller joined with Charles Moulton and Charles Dennis to found P.S. 122, a space for performance art. The name derives from the former school building that houses the project. After seven years in New York, Miller returned to California and founded another performance space, Highways, in Santa Monica.

Miller developed shows based on his personal life as a gay man and also as an activist on behalf of the glbtq community. As a member of ACT UP and other organizations Miller has participated in numerous demonstrations to call for funding of AIDS research and treatment and to promote equal rights for glbtq people. His civil disobedience has led to his arrest on several occasions. He was beaten up by police when he protested at the Republican National Convention in 1992.

Supported in part by grants for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Miller staged his autobiographical shows before small houses until May 1990, when he suddenly found himself at the center of a political maelstrom. In the wake of the controversy over NEA sponsorship of a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit, Republican Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina led a campaign to prevent the NEA from funding "obscene or indecent" art.

In September 1989 a congressional committee adopted language to prohibit federal grants for art that "may be considered obscene, including, but not limited to, depictions of sadomasochism, homoeroticism, the sexual exploitation of children, or individuals engaged in sex acts and which, when taken as a whole, do not have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." On the basis of this amendment, in June 1990 NEA chairman John E. Frohnmayer denied four of eighteen proposed grants despite the unanimous favorable recommendation of a panel of artists. Three of the artists—Miller, John Fleck, and Holly Hughes—are openly gay or lesbian, and the fourth, Karen Finley, deals in her work with various aspects of sexuality including homosexuality. All were previous recipients of NEA grants. The NEA Four, as the group came to be known, sued the agency and Frohnmayer in federal court on the grounds that political rather than artistic motivations had led to the rejection of the grants.

"There is no question that the work of these artists is considered excellent in the arts community," stated Ellen Yaroshefsky, one of their lawyers, adding, "The works talk about the victimization and powerlessness of women in our culture, the victimization of gay people, and the victimization of people with AIDS, and all of them express the views that heterosexuals and homosexuals should be treated equally."

The case was eventually settled out of court in June 1993. The four plaintiffs each received their original grants and also $6,000 to compensate them for invasion of privacy because of alleged leaks of information about them by the NEA. The case cost the NEA over $200,000 in compensation to the plaintiffs' lawyers and also cost Frohnmayer his job after he admitted that he had departed from regular procedure by rejecting the panel's decisions on the NEA Four and by not permitting them to appeal his action.

Despite the settlement, however, the Clinton Justice Department appealed to preserve the "decency clause." After a trial court and a court of appeals declared the clause unconstitutional, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. In 1998, the Supreme Court ruled that the NEA could use "general standards of decency"--a decidedly vague concept--in making funding choices.

1959 – Mark Patton is an American actor and interior designer, known for A Nightmare on Elm Strret 2: Freddy's Revenge.

Mark Patton was born in Kansas City, Missouri. After graduating high school, Patton moved to New York City to pursue an acting career. Within a few months he landed the role of Joe Qualley in the 1982 Broadway production of Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. Patton reprised the role in the 1982 film of the same name. Although his character in the play and film was gay, Patton was not allowed to do an interview with the LGBT-interest magazine, The Advocate. Patton identified this as an early indicator of the homophobia in Hollywood at that time.

He is perhaps best known for his role in the 1985 horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge as Jesse Walsh, a teen whose body becomes possessed by Freddy Krueger. Critics and audiences noted the gay subtext of the film, something deliberately inserted by screenwriter David Chaskin. Chaskin initially blamed the subtext on Patton's portrayal of Jesse.

Patton says he gave up on his acting career following being cast in a planned CBS series in which he would have played a gay character.

"They began to ask me if I would be comfortable playing a gay character and telling people I was straight if they began to question my sexuality?...All I could think about was how everyone I knew was dying from AIDS and we were having this bullshit conversation. My heart just broke and that was the line for me. I knew I would never be able to do what they were asking, so I walked away from Hollywood and decided to move on to a place where it was totally acceptable to be gay."

In 2004, on his 46th birthday, Patton was diagnosed with HIV along with pneumonia, thrush and tuberculosis. His medications interacted badly and he was hospitalized. Upon recovering, he moved to Mexico, where he met and later married Hector Morales Mondragon. The couple owns and operates an art store in Puerto Vallearta.

Patton appears in the A Nightmare on Elm Street documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy, directed by Dan Farrands. In the documentary screenwriter Chaskin acknowledged that he was responsible for the film's gay subtext. Following his appearance in the documentary Patton began touring horror conventions where he is lauded as mainstream cinema's first male "scream queen". He donates most of his appearance fees to HIV treatment groups and charities benefiting LGBT youth such as The Trevor Project.

In December of 2015, it was announced that Patton was cast in the independent paranormal horror film, "Family Possessions", which is written and directed by Tommy Faircloth of Horse Creek Productions.

1972 – Matthew Rush is a bi-racial American gay pornographic film actor, magazine model, and a bodybuilder and personal trainer. He has competed at the Gay Games in Amsterdam and Sydney, Australia.

Rush was under a lifetime exclusive pornographic career contract with Falcon Studios that ended in 2009 so he could pursue other projects in the pornographic industry. His first post-Falcon project was a pornographic video and photo shoot with photographer Jon Royce on January 22, 2009.

Rush is a powerful top in many of his film roles, but he can also perform as a vocal bottom. His first post-Falcon porn shoot was with Pantheon Productions in San Francisco on January 23, 2009. In the film, titled Brief Encounters (Real Men, Vol. 17), Rush played a nasty son that "flip-flopped" with hairy daddy Tim Kelly. Rush's career was revitalized when he joined the website MenOver30.com in 2009. His easy going attitude and versatility has resulted with him receiving the 2010 Grabby Award and GayVN Award in the category "Best Versatile Performer".

Rush has appeared in the TV detective film Third Man Out, starring Chad Allen, and in the motion picture Another Gay Movie. From 2002 to 2005, he acted in a traveling stage production of Ronnie Larsen's Making Porn.

His retirement from the pornographic industry, announced in October 2011, was short lived when he returned to making pornographic films in January 2012.

1975 – On this date Oliver Sipple saved President Gerald Ford's life.

Sara Jane Moore attempted to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford outside the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, just seventeen days after Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme had also tried to kill the president. Moore was 40 feet away from Ford when she fired a single shot at him. The bullet missed the President because bystander Oliver Sipple grabbed Moore's arm and then pulled her to the ground, using his hand to keep the gun from firing a second time. Sipple said at the time: "I saw [her gun] pointed out there and I grabbed for it. I lunged and grabbed the woman's arm and the gun went off."

Sipple, a decorated Marine and Vietnam War veteran, was immediately commended by the police and the Secret Service for his action at the scene. The news media portrayed Sipple as a hero. Though he was known to be Gay by various fellow members of the Gay community, Sipple had not made this public, and his sexual orientation was a secret from his family. He requested the press did not report this. Several days later Herb Caen, a columnist at The San Francisco Chronicle, exposed Sipple as a Gay man and a friend of Harvey Milk.

2003 – John Alcorn has a role as a jazz singer in Timothy Findley's The Piano Man's Daughter. John Alcorn is a Canadian jazz singer who is active in the Toronto jazz scene.

Born in Toronto, Ontario and raised in Trinidad, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and New Hampshire, Alcorn returned to Toronto as an adult and began performing in jazz clubs. He released his first album in 1999, and was named Male Vocalist of the Year by the Jazz Report Awards. He also earned a Dora Award in 1997 as music director and composer for Theresa Tova's play Still the Night.

Alcorn has also acted in a number of television films, including Must Be Santa and The Piano Man's Daughter.

Alcorn is the partner of puppeteer and dramatist Ronnie Burkett. His daughter, Coco Love Alcorn, is also a noted Canadian jazz and pop singer.

[iphigeniacomplex]

rejoice! the glbt historical society has a digital archive collecting the writing of camille moran, a transgender activist for psychiatric survivor rights who advocated for the removal of gender identity disorder from the dsm

you may be familiar with moran from her statement in the fall '93 issue of ex-patient newsletter dendron, "why a transgendered woman calls for psychiatry's destruction". (if not, it can be accessed here, on page 17.) her writing on the psychiatric abuse she experienced as a transgender woman is crucial reading for anyone interested in the psychiatric survivors movement or anti-psychiatric perspectives.

[talisidekick]

@curiositycryptid

Two Spirit is an identity in some indigenous cultures in North America that describes a person who has both feminine and masculine spirits living in the same body. It's a non-binary gender identity that exists in First Nations cultures. In Canada, my country, a good example of this is Blake Desjarlais, a New Democrat Party Member who in 2021 became the first openly Two-Spirit member of Parliament.

For a long time the gender identity of Two Spirit individuals was largely unrecognized by Canada's Federal and Provincial Governments, and in many cases remains unrecognized today, but Canada is making strides to recognize the diverse gender identities it's citizens possess. In an ongoing battle to give recognition and make reparations to the First Nations communities past instances of our government have willfully attempted to harm and destroy, the recognition of Two Spirit identities in Canada has been a good step (note, a step) in the right direction after years of negligence and harm our government has both participated in, and allowed to happen under it's governance. They're a minority identity group that has faced, and does face, very real discrimination from Canada's government and Canadian Citizens.

For me personally, I've been writing the acronym 2SLGBTQIA+ deliberately for a few years now to highlight the systemic racism and casual abuse those who are Two Spirit face, and honour their struggle and commitment to the wider 2SLGBTQIA+ community that has largely gone underappreciated, much how the 'L' in LGBT was moved to the front from the original GLBT acronym, to highlight and honour the Lesbians who donated blood during the AIDs crisis to try and save the lives of suffering Gay and Bisexual men. Canada has begun doing the same but I'm unsure of the reasoning, though I hope it's the same as mine.

You can look up more, but please be aware that any news or journalistic coverage regarding anything that has to do with First Nations peoples and their culture is always compressed down to an easy to read article, which in effect, can and does white-wash and erase context. Additionally, no two First Nations communities are the same so what might be true for one, very well might not be the same for another. The First Nations and Indigenous peoples of Canada and North America are not a monolith, so if you're honestly looking to learn more, don't take the words of a white trans girl like me on this, reach out and let someone from the culture educate you on it if they're willing.

[pep-the-artemis]

When people say that LGBT and BLM or even LGB and T shouldn't be connected since they're separate issues they're dumb

Even ignoring how on a fundamental level they're all linked in a weird cobweb of problems, that doesn't matter. What matters is that the groups are being suppressed and discriminated against, we may be fighting different battles but it's all the same war.

For example, two things which couldn't be much more different are gay rights and miners rights but guess who stood by the miners when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher waged a class war against miners, who stood besides them... the GLBT community (or as we know them today the LGBT community but thats a story for another day).

The only reason to divide is to the advantage of our enemy, divide and conquer.

[placegrenette]

Longing for Dick and Laughing at Death: The Story of Diseased Pariah News

All right, Tumblr, gather round. This is not my usual style here, and I have missed World AIDS Day by a number of days, but I searched for “Diseased Pariah News” on this nonsense site and got all of two coherent hits, and that does not sit right with me. So let me tell y’all a story of black humor, porn, a pre-venture-capital-overrun Bay Area, lovingly photographed penises, recipe testing, friendship, and death. It’s all true but I wasn’t there; sources are linked throughout and compiled at the end.

Cover of Issue #3. This and all illustrations courtesy of the GLBT Historical Society and Calisphere, the online archives of the University of California. Support your librarians and archivists, kids!

“It’s My Party and I’ll Die If I Want To”

The short version of the story is: Diseased Pariah News was a zine that ran for eleven issues, all published between 1990 and 1999. It was edited almost completely by, and addressed pretty much exclusively to, PWAs, or People With AIDS.

To remind you whippersnappers: to know you were HIV positive in 1990 was to know that you were going to die a lot sooner than average, and probably not peacefully. As Jonathan Kauffman wrote in “Get Fat, Don’t Die,” a 2020 Hazlitt essay on DPN: “So many of the narratives of the time circled around two themes: memorializing the terror and adulterated sweetness of being alive as everyone they knew was dying, and shearing through the cordon of dehumanizing indifference that the public had erected around plague-struck communities. The experience of daily diarrhea or constant nausea may have been too visceral, too private, or simply too grinding to fit into the arc of a plot.” The diarrhea could go on for months, by the way. And that was separate from debilitating fatigue, potential blindness (from CMV retinitis), or constant prickly pain in your hands and feet (from peripheral neuropathy).

This was years before the development of protease inhibitors and “the cocktail” could prevent HIV-positive patients from developing full-blown AIDS; AZT could slow things down, but it came with nasty side effects. AIDS was not like the tuberculosis, or rather like the romantic conception of tuberculosis, in which one’s dying status could be signaled by paleness and the occasional discreet cough. AIDS was painful, and complicated.

So somebody had to have a sense of humor about all this.

Co-founder, original Serene Editor, and the guy who gets the credit for having the idea in the first place, Tom Shearer

Tom Shearer was a computer hardware engineer living in San Francisco, running a zine on the side called GAWK (it stood for Gay Artists and Writers Kollective) when a reader named Beowulf Thorne (more on him later) complained that GAWK looked terrible. Shearer challenged Thorne to do better; Thorne rose to the challenge; one thing led to another and the pair ended up collaborating on a whole new zine, this one focused on the experience of dealing with AIDS. Shearer got the title from an Advocate comic in which a flight attendant asked a passenger: “Would you like the smoking, non-smoking, or diseased pariah section?” (This was during a time when airlines not only had smoking sections but were occasionally refusing outright to transport PWAs.)

From the very beginning, Diseased Pariah News was meant to be funny, helpful, and obsessed with dick. Page 3 of the first issue lists a number of practical steps PWAs can take (“Call Pac Bell for low income phone rates”). There was also a Resources page, dedicated to advocacy groups, support groups, even mail-order pharmacies easy to work with, anyone whom the editors judged would treat PWAs fairly and not waste their time. In between those two was the debut of the column, “Get Fat, Don’t Die!,” dedicated to high-calorie recipes specifically designed to combat wasting disease, illustrated by a naked man in a come-hither pose; the debut of the column “Porn Potato,” which reviewed porn videos while keeping a much better sense of narrative than its subjects; a short-short story titled “I Fisted Jesse Helms”; and a contest to guess Shearer’s T-cell count. (Not included yet was the centerfold feature, which would include the model’s history of infections and T-cell count alongside his full-frontal glory; that would come in later issues.)

Shearer died in April 1991, as the second issue of DPN was going to press. (”Thanks to Mike for guessing optimistically high,” ran the conclusion to the T-cell count contest.) Issue #3 starts with Thorne recounting the aftermath of his death, including a visit to “Akbar and Jeff’s Cremation Hut,” and then, contemplating taking over DPN by himself, allowing himself a rare show of mourning:

Seriously though, the reality of Tommy's death isn't funny. But then, neither is it funny that the first President to preside over the age of AIDS couldn't make himself say the name of the syndrome. Or that a septuagenarian senator would obstruct prevention programs because he would rather see his nation's children die than "promote deviant sexual behavior" (all the while forcing us to endure tobacco subsidies and its retinue of smoking related deaths). Or...well, you know enough about this yourself, you fill in the blanks. What can I say about this situation? You can either laugh or cry, but crying gives you crow's feet.

Fortunately Thorne wasn’t alone for the rest of the ride: as “Cranky Editor,” he was joined by Tom Ace, christened “Humpy Editor,” and Michael Botkin, who already had a reputation around the Bay Area as a suffering-no-fools journalist and critic, as “Sleazy Editor.” DPN had found an eager audience to begin with--Shearer and Thorne had to double back to the printer when the first print run of the first issue sold out--but at its peak it had a circulation of 5,000 and could be bought in dozens of bookstores across multiple countries. The guys were dedicated and passionate without being self-important, and it showed.

Left to right: Sleazy, Cranky, and Humpy, in an undated photo (1994?), for a DPN Christmas card.

All eleven issues have been archived and can be read in PDF form courtesy of the Gay and Lesbian Historical Society and the University of California’s online archiving efforts. Highlights include “AIDS Barbie,” in #8; an interview with playwright and ACT UP co-founder Larry Kramer in #9; Thorne’s evisceration of And the Band Played On author Randy Shilts (who had himself just died of AIDS) also in #9; and the Opportunistic Infection Merit Badges (OIMBs), introduced by Botkin in #10:

The outcome will be an array of badges and ribbons which tell the educated viewer, at a glance, just how progressed your HIV disease is. It will be particularly useful for health care providers, who instead of taking lengthy histories will instead be able to briefly study a PWA's array of service ribbons, badges, etc.... a careful study of my OIMBs would quickly reveal my obscenely low T-cell count (17 at last testing), the fact that I've had PCP, peripheral neuropathy, MAC, wasting syndrome, cryptococcal meningitis, and herpes, and that I've taken every nucleoside analogue known to man. This would allow those who want to fawn over or avoid me to act accordingly, and avoid the frustration of mistaken acquaintanceship.

I can’t speak for you, but the badges were what stuck in my mind: humor black enough to communicate the bleakness of its source. It’s funny how history can seem incommunicable. Odds are you reading this are young enough that if I try to tell you what it felt like to look down Lexington Avenue on the afternoon of September 11, 2001, and see a great column of smoke and no cars, you can place the reference but probably not the devastation. People dealing with the aftereffects of COVID now are having a hard time gaining empathy for what it feels like to have their body betray them; the distance of a couple decades or so is not going to help. To take history at all seriously is to admit that the various horrors of the past are ungraspable. But the badges allow you a glimpse of what it was like to live in the midst of this particular horror.

Which is not to say that the DPN guys were particularly concerned with history. Hamilton-style musings about legacies would have left them cold. History had, in a sense, been stolen from them, and so they were going to embrace the present they had left. Especially Thorne, who would be the guiding force behind DPN for the rest of its run.

The Story-within-a-Story of Beowulf “Biffy Mae” Thorne, Writer, Editor, Graphic Designer, Illustrator, Cartoonist, Recipe-Tester, Critic, Know-It-All, and Horndog Extraordinaire

and also, a babe. I don't care what your gender/sexuality combination is, you would've been at risk of doing some pining.

Beowulf Thorne--no, that wasn’t his birth name, but it seems to have been the name he used exclusively during DPN’s run, so that’s what we’ll stick with--was born in 1964 and grew up in southern California, but fled to the Bay Area in 1983. I saw one source say he tested HIV-positive as early as 1986, which is to say before the term “HIV” was even in widespread use. Suffice to say, dude had to start contemplating his mortality far, far earlier than he should have. He was enrolled at UC-Santa Cruz for a while, studying biology, but that whole contemplating-his-mortality part led him eventually to focus on graphic design and advocacy: first with various condom-promoting organizations, such as the Condom Resource Center in Oakland, and then DPN.

If he hadn’t been doomed, Thorne probably would’ve been one of those guys resented by his acquaintances, just for the sheer number of things he was good at. He was not only DPN’s chief writer and editor but its layout artist and the designer of its related merchandise (not to mention the OIMBs). While working as a graphic designer for Addison-Wesley, he would occasionally piss textbook authors off by pointing out errors in their text, even though he wasn’t supposed to be factchecking: he just couldn’t help it. He did full-page, multi-panel “Captain Condom” comics for several DPN issues; that takes some time and effort now, never mind with Adobe Illustrator as it was three decades ago. He tested all of the “Get Fat, Don’t Die!” recipes. He was a gardener who specialized in orchids, cacti, and meat-eating plants, and beautifully detailed plant sketches are scattered in his collected papers.

1994 version of the Condom Educator's Guide, co-written by Thorne and Daniel Bao (who would later work on DPN issues) and designed by Thorne on "his trusty Macintosh."

And he could write. Reading him, you’d never guess the man wasn’t a trained writer, or is now twenty-three years dead: his voice is unstoppable. I’m not the type who laughs out loud at books easily, and while reading the DPN back issues, I found myself giggling repeatedly at the turns of phrase in Thorne’s porn reviews.

Oh, yeah: he also was Porn Potato. And just generally an unabashed horndog. He and Ace met when Ace saw Thorne’s personal ad: “Relatively stable 25-year-old design student seeks other adventurous good-looking men for mutual sodomy and oral copulation.” When a POZ writer asked Thorne about this in 1997, Thorne--who by this point was dealing with neuropathy and killer candida that ate his gums down to the bone--said cheerfully of Ace: “He’s quite buxom. I’ve always had a letch on him.” If Thorne and DPN stood for anything, it was the conviction that an AIDS diagnosis could not take away the right and responsibility to live, and living included being sexual.

But You Already Know the End of the Story

The hardest issue of DPN to read is the eleventh and last one, which came out in 1999, three years after #10. “In the eternity since DPN #10 appeared,” ran a note under the masthead, “66.67% of the editorial staff expired.” Botkin had died in 1996; that left Thorne and Tom Ace. By this point there was a new set of treatments available, but they worked a lot better if you hadn’t already been fighting HIV (plus the side effects of AZT) for over a decade.

One of the last DPN pieces Thorne wrote was on viatication, the practice of selling your life-insurance policy to be able to collect cash while you’re still alive. His health was failing pretty fast at that point--another of the last pieces is about CMV retinitis blinding him--but the article is practical, funny, and devoid of self-pity. It will break your heart nonetheless.

Deciding to viaticate my policy started with some soulful contemplation. The first thing I had to face was my own impending mortality. It was as though signing the paperwork obliged me to kick the bucket on some kind of schedule. For an obsessive taskmaster such as myself, there were some control issues....

Finally, there's a little roulette. The closer to death's door you are—on an actuarial basis—the more moolah you get. You don't want to cash in too early for a measly 50% (two-year life expectancy). On the other hand, if you wait for that 80% jackpot (six-month life expectancy), you might croak before you can enjoy it all. I was feeling pretty grim at that point, so the time seemed right.*

* For all you voyeuristic sickies, It was necrotic periodontitis.

He died on May 8, 1999. Reportedly his friends tried and failed to create a snowglobe with some of his ashes and Astroglide lube.

Tom Ace, miraculously, is still in possession of his mortal coil, or at least was as of 2010, when Vice interviewed him. Kauffman was able to talk to several of Thorne’s friends for his 2020 Hazlitt article. Beyond that I didn’t find a lot of easily accessible information about DPN’s survivors, either editors or readers.

Why Remember Diseased Pariah News

It’s not for everyone, I’ll grant you that. It never was. Even setting aside the sharp (necessary) line it drew between PWAs and HIV-negative onlookers, it was very much a product of a small, dedicated group with its own goals. If you are not a white gay cis man, you were not going to feel seen, as the modern saying goes, reading DPN. And if you don’t draw as strong a link between sex and vitality as its editors did, the repeated explicit celebration of dick might well put you off.

It’s still worth remembering, and celebrating. DPN is the kind of work that’s not easy to preserve. There were thousands and thousands of zines in the 1990s, and we’ve got no hope of learning from all of them, or even a good percentage of them. Eventually the people who can remember getting zines in the mail (my husband still sometimes uses the term “trib,” short for “minimum acceptable contribution”) will be gone. Our ability to communicate has expanded so much in the last three decades that it’s hard to archive and learn from all that communication--think of all the lost MySpace and Geocities pages, bulletin boards, emails. Preservation will be by definition selective, and later generations’ sense of what was actually happening thereby skewed, but we ought to preserve what we can.

But also: these guys were trying to bring laughs, help, and comfort to a vulnerable population, and in 2022 we like to think we approve of that kind of thing. Meanwhile they themselves were vulnerable, far more so than they should have been, and they recognized the unfairness of their situation but they did not whine. They were brave in the face of death, which is hard, and physical pain and the deterioration of the body, which is even harder. And we still in these supposedly enlightened times don’t have a good mechanism for thinking of campy gay men as brave. They weren’t looking to be remembered. We should remember anyway.

Sources

All the back issues of DPN are archived on Calisphere, the archives of the University of California, with Beowulf Thorne’s papers. Direct links: #1 (1990), #2 (1991), #3 (1991), #4 (1991), #5 (1992), #6 (1992), #7 (1992), #8 (1993), #9 (1994), #10 (1996), #11 (1999). Some of the information comes from this collection of contemporary articles Thorne clipped.

Tom Ace, “Thorne on Our Side,” POZ, August 1, 1999

Mark Allen, “That’s Not Funny, Or Is It?,” Vice, December 31, 2010

Jonathan Kauffman, “Get Fat, Don’t Die,” Hazlitt, April 28, 2020

Greg Lugliani, “Last Laughs,” POZ, October 1, 1997

[historyisgaypodcast]

0.20. Dialing in to Gender: Tracing Trans Internet History with Avery Dame-Griff

In this interview episode, Leigh sits down with scholar and creator of the Queer Digital History Project Avery Dame-Griff to discuss his book The Two Revolutions: A History of the Transgender Internet and all it contains about the magic of the evolution of trans folks on the internet. From BBSes (bulletin board system) to Twitter, we discuss how trans people have always existed on and created their own unique spaces on the World Wide Web, tapping into Avery’s extensive research, interviews, and media archaeology.

Where to find more from Avery Dame-Griff online:

AveryDame.net

Mastodon: apdamegriff@aoir.social

Queer Digital History Project

Also, some additional awesome news about internet trans history!

As listeners may know, Leigh works at the GLBT Historical Society for their day job. And recently, a volunteer archivist, Cara Esten Hurtle, discovered an amazing CD-ROM containing the entirety of Transgender Forum, (TGForum.com) from 1995 to 1998, one of the largest trans communities online at that time, that Avery Dame-Griff also covers in his book! Hurtle uploaded the CD-rom online for anyone to peruse and it’s absolutely amazing to see the 90s trans community right there before your very eyes!

The discovery has been covered by them online in a fantastic article which you can read here: This Archive Offers an Incredible Window Into the Early Trans Internet.

And you can peruse the CD-Rom of TGForum.com here, where Cara uploaded the archive! Just click the “START.HTM” file in the tgfcd window, and browse to your heart’s content! Want Leigh to do an interview with Cara about her discovery? Let us know!

Want to help us continue to make the show? Support us on Patreon and get awesome goodies, behind-the-scenes access, special minisodes, and more! We have a Discord server for everyone to hang out in, exclusive O.G. Lesbian Sappho t-shirts, Pop-Culture Tie-In movie watches, and some really fun extras coming your way! You can also get merch in our store! Shirts, hoodies, totes, mugs, magnets, and other neat things!

If you’d like to help us transcribe the show for our d/Deaf and hard of hearing fans, please head on over to www.historyisgaypodcast.com/transcribe to join the team of volunteers!

Find our full list of sources and bonus content at www.historyisgaypodcast.com. Find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts! Don't forget to rate and review so more folks can see the show!

Newest episode of History is Gay for your queer ears to enjoy!

[californiastatelibrary]

Meet José Sarria, “Empress of San Francisco.”

In 1961, José Sarria ran for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and became the first openly gay candidate to run for office in the United States. After an unsuccessful run, Sarria’s activism gained speed. He helped found several gay organizations — SIR, or the Society of Individual Rights, the League for Civil Education, and the Imperial Court System, one of the oldest and largest LGBT organizations in the world.

The Imperial Court System is a grassroots network of organizations in the United States, Mexico and Canada that fundraises for charitable causes through the production of annual “Gala Coronation Balls.” Each court annually elects an “emperor” and “empress.” Sarria became Empress of San Francisco, Jose I and the Widow Norton — a nod to “Emperor” Joshua Norton, a well-known San Francisco Gold Rush era eccentric who in 1859 declared himself emperor of the United States and protector of Mexico.

In May 2019, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a resolution supporting Sarria’s induction in the California Hall of Fame, saying in part: “(He) paved the way for many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) candidates who followed to seek and win elected office across San Francisco, elsewhere in the United States and around the world.”

The photo in this post is via the José Sarria Papers at the GLBT Historical Society.

[inkspillforthecause]

The history of the acronym ‘LGBTQIA+’

The acronym ‘LGBTQIA+’ is used to describe those identifying outside of the gender and sexuality norms. The acronym stands for ‘Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual/Aromantic, plus’ each of which is a separate identity within the community. But how did this acronym come to be? And how can an acronym be so defining of a cause?

The term ‘homosexual’ had gained a negative connotation in the United states of America, even now it is only used in specific circumstances. The word ‘Gay’ then filled the linguistic gap and gained popularity in the 1970s, as it did not refer explicitly to sexual activity. As time went on, the word ‘Lesbian’ also became more widely known. However, disputes over what the main political aim should be; gay rights or feminism, led to a large number of lesbians branching off. This created other, smaller, social groups; one such example being the ‘Daughters of Bilitis’ who were the first lesbian civil rights activists. They eventually disbanded due to the idea that ‘butches’ and ‘femmes’ were heteronormative and patriarchal.

In the late 1970s or early 1980s, there was a push for bisexuality and transgender inclusion. After the relief felt post the stonewall riots, there was less acceptance of bisexuality leading to the misguided belief of bisexuals being men or women too scared to come out as gay. Transphobia was also common with the idea that these people were simply upholding stereotypes and traditional norms. These beliefs have been carried forth by parts of the community even to modern day, with the idea that ‘Transgender’ should be removed from the acronym.

Around 1988, the acronym ‘LGBT’ had solidified as a term used for the queer community throughout the United States. Since then the acronym has evolved and adapted to be more inclusive of an increasing number of marginalised groups, each adaption carries controversy with it.

The addition of the letter ‘Q’ includes ‘queer’ or ‘questioning’ people into the community. The word ‘Queer’ was often used as an insult and has since been reclaimed by the community. This has led to the development of ‘LGBTQ’ and ‘LGBTQQ’, however many believe that the word ‘queer’ should not be associated with the community and this argument has carried over to this day.

Around the same time, ‘GLBT’ came into existence– this was fundamentally the same, but had ‘Gay’ in front of ‘Lesbian’. The order in which the letters appeared was not standardised in any way which led to international discrepancies between the queer communities, Spain uses LGTB due to their specific preferences.

Other sexualities and gender identifications were recognised under the label of either bisexual or transgender. This is when the use of ‘LGBT+’ began gaining popularity since it meant ‘lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and all other related identities’, others began using a letter like ‘U’ for unknowing, or ‘C’ for curious. There was a pull in many directions with a call for the addition of an ‘H’ for ‘HIV infected person’, a ‘P’ for those in polyamorous relationships, and an ‘O’ for ‘other'.

In 1990, the community and activists began to take in different cultures’ approaches to gender. ‘TS’ or ‘2S’ was used to represent ‘Two Spirit’ people, these are people indigenous to America who use to describe people fulfilling a traditional third gender. In India, ‘LGBTIH’ is sometimes used to include the third gender of ‘Hijra’ and related identities.

At this point, it becomes difficult to pinpoint when exactly the acronym evolved as it was happening through speech alone. Sometime during the early 2010s, the addition of ‘Intersex’ was controversial as many believed that it should fall under the ‘transgender’ label. Intersex people, too, were against the addition as they believed it impeded the progress being made on the rights of intersex people. Julius Kaggawa of the SIPD Uganda wrote that while the queer community ‘offers us a place of relative safety, it is also oblivious to our specific needs’. Emi Koyama has written that the LGBT community could fail to recognise intersex-specific struggles.

In roughly 2015, aromanticism and asexuality became more accepted and understood and joined the community and therefore the acronym. The ‘A’ in ‘LGBTQIA+’ stands for ‘Asexuality’, ‘Aromanticism’, ‘A-spec’, and ‘Agender’, as well as the related communities. People outside the community have claimed that the ‘A’ stood for ‘Ally’, which was met with immediate contradiction as it was erasure of part of the queer community.

The acronym is still debated to this day as many use a shorter version; ‘LGBTQ+’ and others argue that it is queer erasure. People still call for the removal of transgender as they believe the community should be focused on sexuality, and there is still bisexual and asexual erasure by a large party within the community. However, ‘LGBTQIA+’ is recognised as the full acronym to describe the queer community.

Sources: ‘The Handbook of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Public Health: A Practitioner's Guide to Service’ by Michael D. Shankle, ‘Sipdug.org’, ‘The Transfeminist Manifesto’ by Emi Koyama, ‘From LGBT to LGBTQIA+: The evolving recognition of identity’ by Erin Blakemore.

[olympic-paris]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more …

August 17

1893 – On this date Mae West, the American actress, sex-positive, gender-blurry icon, was born (d.1980). West was born Mary Jane West in Bushwick, Brooklyn, delivered at home by an aunt who was a midwife. She was eldest surviving child of John Patrick West and Matilda "Tillie" Doelger, who had emigrated with her family from Bavaria.At five years old, West first entertained a crowd, at a church social, and she started appearing in amateur shows at the age of seven. She often won prizes at local talent contests. She began performing professionally in vaudeville in the Hal Clarendon Stock Company in 1907 at the age of fourteen. West first performed under the stage name Baby Mae, and tried various personas including a male impersonator, Sis Hopkins, and a blackface coon shouter. She was was said to have been inspired or influenced by female impersonators Bert Savoy and Julian Eltinge, who were famous during the Pansy Craze. Her first appearance in a legitimate Broadway show was in a 1911 revue A La Broadway put on by her former dancing teacher, Ned Wayburn. The show folded after just eight performances. She then appeared in a show called Vera Violetta, whose cast featured Al Jolson.

Her famous walk was said to have originated in her early years as a stage actress. West had special eight-inch platforms attached to her shoes to increase her height and enhance her stage presence. Though she had not yet matured, the slinky, dark-haired Mae was already performing a lascivious "shimmy" dance in 1913 and was photographed for a song-sheet for the song "Everybody Shimmies Now." She was encouraged as a performer by her mother, who, according to West, always thought that whatever her daughter did was fantastic.

She began writing her own risqué plays using the pen name "Jane Mast." Her first starring role on Broadway was in a play she titled Sex, which she also wrote, produced and directed. Though critics hated the show, ticket sales were good. The notorious production did not go over well with city officials and the theater was raided with West arrested along with the cast. She was prosecuted on morals charges and, on April 19, 1927, was sentenced to 10 days in jail for public obscenity. While incarcerated on Welfare Island (now Roosevelt Island), she was allowed to wear her silk panties instead of the scratchy prison issue and the warden reportedly took her to dinner every night. She served eight days with two days off for good behavior. Media attention to the case enhanced her career.

Her next play, The Drag, was about homosexuality and alluded to the work of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. It was a box office success but it played in New Jersey because it was banned from Broadway. West regarded talking about sex as a basic human rights issue and was also an early advocate of homosexual rights. She famously told policemen who were raiding a Gay bar, "Don't you know you're hitting a woman in a man's body?" — a daring statement at a time when homosexuality was not accepted. During her entire lifetime she surrounded herself with Gay men and stood up for Gay rights at any and every opportunity.

In 1932, West was offered a motion picture contract by Paramount Pictures, when she was 38 years old (although she kept her age ambiguous for several more years). She made her film debut in Night After Night starring George Raft. At first, she did not like her small role in Night After Night, but was appeased when she was allowed to rewrite her scenes. In West's first scene, a hat check girl exclaims, "Goodness, what beautiful diamonds." West replies, "Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie." Reflecting on the overall result of her rewritten scenes, Raft is said to have remarked, "She stole everything but the cameras."

She brought her Diamond Lil character, now renamed Lady Lou, to the screen in She Done Him Wrong (1933). The film is also notable as one of Cary Grant's first major roles, which boosted his career. West claimed she spotted Grant at the studio and insisted that he be cast as the male lead. The film was a box office hit and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. The success of the film most likely saved Paramount from bankruptcy.

She appeared in a series of hits, many of which caused controversy because of their risque nature. They included I'm No Angel, Klondike Annie, and Go West Young Man. In 1939, Universal Pictures approached West to star in a film opposite W. C. Fields. Having left Paramount eighteen months earlier and looking for a comeback film, West accepted the role of Flower Belle Lee in the film My Little Chickadee (1940). Despite their intense mutual dislike, and fights over the screenplay, My Little Chickadee was a box office success, outgrossing Fields' previous films.

West appeared in her last movie during the studio age with The Heat's On (1943) for Columbia. She remained active during the ensuing years. Among her stage performances was the title role in Catherine Was Great (1944) on Broadway, in which she spoofed the story of Catherine the Great of Russia, surrounding herself with an "imperial guard" of muscular young actors, all over six feet tall. The play was produced by Mike Todd and went on a long national tour in 1945. She also starred in her own Las Vegas stage show, singing while surrounded by bodybuilders.

When Billy Wilder offered West the role of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, she refused and pronounced herself offended at being asked to play a "has-been," similar to the responses he received from Mary Pickford, Greta Garbo, and Pola Negri. Ultimately the more amenable Gloria Swanson was cast in the role. In 1958, West appeared at the Academy Awards and performed the song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Rock Hudson. Her autobiography, titled Goodness Had Nothing To Do With It, was published by Prentice-Hall in 1959.

The famous West quip "Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?" is accurately attributed to her. She made it in February 1936, at the train station in Los Angeles upon her return from Chicago, when a Los Angeles police officer was assigned to escort her home. She first delivered the line on film in My Little Chickadee, and again to George Hamilton in her last movie, Sextette. It is one of the most quoted lines in movie history. Another favorite, said to Ezra Pound, no less, "An ounce of erection is worth a pound of allure."

After a 26-year absence from motion pictures, she appeared in the role of Leticia Van Allen in Gore Vidal's Myra Breckinridge (1970) with John Huston, Raquel Welch, Rex Reed, Farrah Fawcett, and Tom Selleck in a small part. This movie failed at the box office, despite popular excitement. It became a camp classic, however, due to its sex change theme. It has since been re-released several times doing much better than originally and has also had successful multiple releases on DVD and VHS. Near the end of her life, she was known for maintaining a surprisingly youthful appearance. She stated in her autobiography that she spent two hours every day massaging cold cream into her breasts to keep them youthful. West continued to surround herself with virile men for the rest of her life, employing hunky companions, bodyguards and chauffeurs. Mae West is buried, with her family, in Cypress Hills Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York.

1907 – Roger Peyrefitte (d.2000) was born in Castres in south western France and educated in Catholic boarding schools in the region. The most lasting effect of this religious education was his life-long hostility to the Roman Catholic Church. He went on to study at the University of Toulouse and in Paris.

He had his first homosexual experience at eighteen and thereafter led an active sex life, hunting for teenage boys across Europe. He also had occasional affairs with women, whom (by his own account) he introduced to the delights of anal sex.

Peyrefitte entered the French diplomatic service in 1931 and served as secretary at the French embassy in Athens from 1933 to 1938. Forced to resign in October 1940 because of his relations with a fourteen-year-old boy, he was recalled to duty three years later to serve the collaborationist Vichy government in German-occupied Paris.

After the Liberation, France's provisional government dismissed him on suspicion of collaborationism in February 1945. Peyrefitte later appealed his dismissal and the Council of State finally ruled in his favour in 1962, but the Foreign Ministry refused to reintegrate him. He was by then, in any case, a professional writer with no desire to return to state service.

Peyrefitte's first, best, and best-known novel, Les Amitiés Particulières (Special Friendships), tells the story of love between two teenage boys in a Catholic boarding school. The book may have been based on his own experience. Peyrefitte later explained, 'I was a young diplomat, and I wanted to show the origin of those things: [i.e. homosexuality] that it was not simply under the influence of a disgusting adult that young boys could feel that sort of attraction.'

Critically well-received, the novel won the Prix Renaudot. It caused a first scandal when it appeared in 1944 and a second when made into a movie in 1964. During the making of the film, Peyrefitte befriended a fourteen-year-old extra, Alain-Philippe Malagnac, who eventually became the great love of his life as well as his secretary and business partner.

In the course of his long life (he died at 93), Peyrefitte published dozens of books, including numerous novels, a three-volume fictionalised biography of Alexander the Great, and two volumes on Voltaire (whom he claimed to have been homosexual). He also wrote about Baron Jacques d'Adelsward-Fersen's exile in Capri (L'Exilé de Capri, 1959) and translated Greek pederastic love poetry.

Much of his work provoked scandal for his wide-ranging accusations and implications that various people (and popes) were homosexuals, Nazi-collaborators, or both.

In his memoirs Propos Secrets, he wrote extensively about his youth, his sex life (homosexual mainly and a few affairs with women), his years as a diplomat, his travels to Greece and Italy,] and his troubles with the police for sexually harassing male teenagers.

In two volumes of oral memoirs (1977 and 1980), he divulged the secrets (especially sexual) of numerous celebrities, including himself. Among those he portrayed in a negative light were Alain Delon, André Gide, and Marcel Proust.

Peyrefitte appeared to value the commercial success of his books far more than he cared about their quality.

Peyrefitte was certainly no radical gay liberationist, but he did support gay businesses - he financed a gay nightclub, Le Colony, and Paris's first gay sex bar, Le Bronx, both of which opened on the Rue Sainte-Anne in late 1973.

His political views were deeply conservative: 'I have a profound respect for order. . . . I hate all revolutionary movements. . . . I am too bourgeois . . . to approve of . . . the enemies of the bourgeoisie.' In his last years, he came out in open support of the extreme right-wing politician Jean-Marie Le Pen and his xenophobic and homophobic party, the National Front.

Peyrefitte died on November 5, 2000, in Paris, after a long battle with Parkinson's disease.

Wesley Eure, Then and Now

1951 – Wesley Eure is an American actor, singer, author, producer, director, charity fundraiser, and lecturer. He is best known for appearing as Michael Horton on the American soap opera Days of Our Lives from 1974 to 1981, during which he also starred on the popular children's television series Land of the Lost. He later hosted the popular children's game show Finders Keepers in 1987 and 1988, and co-created the children's educational television show Dragon Tales in 1999. He subsequently published several books (for children and adult), and has produced plays and raised funds for HIV/AIDS and other causes.

Eure wanted to be an actor since the age of five. While the family lived in Illinois, he enrolled in a summer program at Northwestern University, where he took acting lessons. His first break came when he was 17 years old and working part-time at the New Frontier Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas selling artwork. He was hired as a driver for Robert Goulet and Carol Lawrence during their summer tour. He spent most of 1968 and 1969 as their driver.

Eure moved to Los Angeles in 1973 after discovering it was cheaper to live there but offered just as much opportunity to become an actor. He was hired to star in a pilot for a Kaye Ballard TV series, The Organic Vegetables, created and produced by the team behind The Monkees. When that series was not picked up due to the 1973 writers' strike, Eure answered an ad in an industry trade publication to audition for a television show. He learned that David Cassidy was threatening to leave The Partridge Family, and that the audition was for a role as a "neighbor boy" who would take over the lead in the family band from Cassidy. Eure won the audition, but never joined the show. Why is not clear, as Eure has said that Cassidy agreed to stay on the show but also that the show was canceled before the next season started.

Although his acting career seemed stalled, Eure continued to sing. He became friends with Shaun Cassidy and Leif Garrett, and some of his music was produced by Bobby Sherman. Motown Records placed him under contract, and he was in a boy band whose music was produced by Mike Curb. He also sang a few times with the Jackson Five.

In 1974, Eure tried out for and won a role on NBC's Days of Our Lives. Eure had previously met producer Sid Krofft and committed to do an audition for a new children's show he was working on. Eure flew to New York City at the request of Broadway producer David Merrick to try out for a role in a theatrical production of Candide, and didn't want to audition for Krofft due to his commitment to Days and because he'd be playing a 16-year-old boy. But Eure auditioned and won the role of Will Marshall on Land of the Lost. He kept his commitment to both shows after the Kroffts repeatedly asked him to star on Land of the Lost.

Although Eure had sexual relationships with women, he knew he was homosexual. He met movie star Richard Chamberlain in the early 1970s, and they entered into a serious relationship in 1975. According to Eure, the two men lived together until their breakup in 1976, after which Chamberlain met his long-term partner Martin Rabbett. During this time, Eure says, he lived a fairly open life with Chamberlain, with many of his co-stars, producers, and crew aware of their relationship and Eure's homosexuality. Eure says of the relationship, "It broke my heart. I was destroyed. I was a kid, and he was a much older guy. ... I remember we broke up and I was on Days of Our Lives, I couldn’t stop shaking. I was crying so hard. I was a kid, comparatively. I went to the studio that day, and I was sobbing in the dressing room."

Eure was fired from Days of Our Lives in 1981. According to Eure, he was given many reasons for the cancellation of his contract after nine years on the show. But Eure says he believes the real reason was his homosexuality, which attracted attention and threatened more deeply closeted producers and actors. Years later, Eure says he met Earl Greenburg, the head of NBC's daytime programming division at the time he was fired. Greenburg confirmed that Eure was fired because of rumors about his homosexuality. Eure also says one of the stars of Days of Our Lives confirmed that Eure's sexuality was the cause of his dimissal.

When Chamberlain was outed by a French magazine in 1989, Eure (who had already been named in one book as a closeted homosexual) feared he would be exposed as well. But with the assistance of a friend at the National Enquirer, Eure's name was kept out of the American tabloid press

Eure did not act in film or television for six years after leaving Days of Our Lives, and attributes this difficulty to Hollywood gossip about his sexual orientation. He continued to sing, however, and had a Las Vegas act at Harrah's casino. During this time, some of his recording was produced by singer Bobby Sherman, but a full album was never completed

It was during the premiere of the Land of the Lost film in 2009 that Eure decided to come out of the closet. He attended the premiere with a friend, Days of Our Lives production assistant Deanne Anders. While on the red carpet, Eure decided he would never again hide his sexuality. Already scheduled to do an interview with the LGBT news and lifestyle Web site AfterElton.com about his HIV/AIDS charity work, Eure decided to come out of the closet in the interview.

During the 1980s, Eure lost most of his gay friends to AIDS—including one of his best friends, the director John Allison. Subsequently, Eure became a fund-raiser for a number of HIV/AIDS causes. He has helped to organize and host the LalaPOOLooza HIV/AIDS fund-raiser in Palm Springs, California, for many years. He has also raised funds for and assisted with Project Angel Food, a nonprofit organization that feeds homebound AIDS patients.

1951 – Richard Hunt (d.1992) was an American puppeteer, best known as a Muppet performer on Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, and other projects for The Jim Henson Company. His roles on The Muppet Show included Scooter, Statler, Janice, Beaker and Sweetums.

Hunt was born in The Bronx, New York City. The family eventually moved to Closter, New Jersey some years later. Hunt came from a family of performers. As a student in middle school and high school, he put on puppet shows for local children, and was a fan of the then-fledgling Muppets. After high school graduation, and a four-month stint of doing weather reports at a local radio station, Hunt pursued a meeting with Jim Henson. He cold-called from a payphone and was invited to audition.

After being hired to work on Sesame Street, Hunt mostly performed background characters. One of his first major performances was as Taminella Grinderfall in The Frog Prince, physically performing the character while Jerry Juhl portrayed the voice. Hunt performed Scooter and shared Miss Piggy with Frank Oz until the final quarter of the first season of The Muppet Show.

His characters on Sesame Street included Forgetful Jones, Placido Flamingo, Don Music, Gladys the Cow, and Sully; Hunt also briefly performed Elmo before Kevin Clash was cast in that role. On Fraggle Rock, Hunt's main role was the performing the facial expressions and voice of Junior Gorg; he also performed Gunge (one of the Trash Heap's barkers) as well as several one-shot or minor characters.

Hunt also worked as a director of several home video releases such as Sing-Along, Dance-Along, Do-Along and Elmo's Sing-Along Guessing Game, as well as an episode of Fraggle Rock. Hunt was close friends with fellow puppeteer Jerry Nelson. Several of their characters were paired, such as Nelson's Floyd Pepper with Hunt's Janice; the Two-Headed Monster; and Nelson's Pa Gorg to Hunt's Junior Gorg on Fraggle Rock.

Hunt was openly gay. When Rudolf Nureyev, also openly gay, made a guest appearance on The Muppet Show, Nureyev bluntly flirted with Hunt. Hunt was in a relationship with Nelson Bird, a painter from Alabama, until his death in 1985.

On January 7, 1992, Hunt died of HIV/AIDS related complications at Cabrini Hospice in Manhattan, aged 40. He was cremated, and some of his ashes were sprinkled over the flower beds at the Hunt Family home in Closter, New Jersey. The Muppet Christmas Carol was dedicated to his memory.

1960 – Sean Penn is an American actor, screenwriter and film director, also known for his left-wing political and social activism (including humanitarian work). He is a two-time Academy Award winner for his roles in Mystic River (2003) and Milk (2008), as well as the recipient of a Golden Globe Award for the former and a Screen Actors Guild Award for the latter.

On February 22, 2009, Penn, a heterosexual, received the Academy Award for Best Actor for the film Milk. In his acceptance speech, Penn said

" ... I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren's eyes if they continue that way of support. We've got to have equal rights for everyone!"

1969 – An Atlanta art theatre was raided during a showing of Andy Warhol’s film Lonesome Cowboys saying it was a hotbed of homosexuality. Police photographed everyone in attendance as reference material for the vice squad. Written by Paul Morrissey, the film is a satire of Hollywood westerns. It won the Best Film Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival.

1982 – Ryan Driller, aka Jeremy Bilding, is an American pornographic actor, director, and model who has appeared in both straight and gay pornography. In 2016, he received the XBIZ Award for Male Performer of the Year. Men's Health has described him as "one of the biggest names in the industry".

Driller was born and raised in Littleton, Colorado. Driller was a member of the Boy Scouts. At 18, he moved to Key West, Florida, where he lived for seven years. Before entering the adult film industry, he worked as a radio promotions coordinator.

Driller entered the adult film industry after reaching out to agents about performing and receiving replies. He has performed in straight pornography under the name Ryan Driller and in gay pornography under the name Jeremy Bilding. He appeared in an episode of The Burn with Jeff Ross, in which Ross did a comedy skit during one of Driller's porn shoots.

1982 – Jon Lovett is an American screenwriter, speechwriter, television producer, and podcaster. After working as a speech and joke writer for President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Lovett co-created the NBC White House sitcom 1600 Penn, and served as a writer and producer on the third season of HBO's The Newsroom. He is a founder of Crooked Media and currently hosts the podcasts Pod Save America and Lovett or Leave It.

Lovett was born to a Reform Jewish family in Woodbury, Long Island that operated a box factory started by his grandfather. He attended Syosset High School. Lovett graduated from Williams College in 2004 with a degree in math. His senior thesis, Rotating Linkages in a Normed Plane, led to a publication in American Mathematical Monthly. Lovett was also the 2004 Williams College Class Speaker at his commencement. After graduation, Lovett spent a year working as a stand-up comic in New York.

In 2004, Lovett volunteered for John Kerry's presidential campaign. He was asked to write a statement for the candidate, and his work led to an offer of a writing internship. He then briefly worked in Jon Corzine's Senate office. He was hired in 2005 to assist Sarah Hurwitz as a speechwriter for then-Senator Hillary Clinton, and he continued to write speeches for her through her 2008 presidential campaign.

When Clinton lost the 2008 Democratic primary contest, Lovett won an anonymous contest to write speeches for President Barack Obama in the White House. Lovett wrote speeches in the Obama administration for three years, working closely with Jon Favreau and David Axelrod. Prominent speeches that he wrote include policy speeches on financial reform and don't ask, don't tell, as well as remarks at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

Lovett officiated the first same-sex marriage in the White House, secretly and counter to the policy of the Obama administration.

Before Barack Obama ran for re-election, Lovett moved to California to become a screenwriter. Lovett collaborated with Josh Gad and Jason Winer on 1600 Penn, of which Lovett was a co-creator, executive producer, and writer from 2012 until 2013. Lovett then worked as a writer, producer and advisor on season three of HBO's The Newsroom.

Starting in March 2016, Lovett co-hosted The Ringer's political podcast Keepin' it 1600 with former fellow Obama staffers Jon Favreau, Dan Pfeiffer, and Tommy Vietor.

Shortly after the November 2016 election, Lovett, Favreau and Vietor founded their own company, Crooked Media, and launched a new podcast, Pod Save America. In March 2017, Lovett began hosting Lovett or Leave It, a panel show podcast from Crooked Media, recorded in front of a live audience in Los Angeles. Lovett and Crooked Media have embarked on national and international tours featuring live versions of Pod Save America and Lovett or Leave It.

Lovett's partner is Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ronan Farrow, son of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen.

Today's Gay Wisdom: Mae West

Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie. - in response to an exclamation, "Goodness! What lovely diamonds!"

I only like two kinds of men, domestic and imported. - I'm No Angel (1933)

When I'm good, I'm very good. When I'm bad, I'm better. - I'm No Angel (1933)

I used to be Snow White, but I drifted. - I'm No Angel (1933)

Between two evils, I generally like to pick the one I never tried before. - Klondike Annie (1936)

A man in the house is worth two in the street. - Belle of the Nineties

It's not the men in your life that matters, it's the life in your men. - I'm No Angel (1933)

When women go wrong, men go right after them. - She Done Him Wrong

One and one is two; two and two is four; and "five will get you ten" if you work it right! - My Little Chickadee

I feel like a million tonight. But one at a time. - Myra Breckinridge

To a young actor: How tall are you without your horse? Six foot, seven inches. Never mind the six feet. Let's talk about the seven inches! - Myra Breckinridge

An orgasm a day keeps the doctor away.

On handling men: Tell the pretty ones they're smart and tell the smart ones they're pretty.

Give a man a free hand and he'll run it all over you.

He who hesitates is a damned fool.

His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.

I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it.

I consider sex a misdemeanor; the more I miss, de meaner I get.

I do all my best work in bed.

It is better to be looked over than be overlooked.

Love conquers all things except poverty and a toothache.

Marriage is a fine institution, but I'm not ready for an institution.

Men are like Cigars, If you don't attend to them, they go out.

Sex is an emotion in motion.

Sex is like bridge; if you don't have a good partner, you better have a good hand.

Sex with love is the greatest thing in life. But sex without love — that's not so bad either.

She's the kind of girl who climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong.

Too much of a good thing can be simply wonderful.

You can say what you like about long dresses, but they cover a multitude of shins.

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.

[hecateisalesbian]

The Pride of June: Lesbian

The Lesbian Flag is the Flag used for all Non men that love Non men. This mostly included only Cis/Trans women who loved only Cis/Trans women but recently had a definition change to include nonbinaries and others. It is the Second most well known Sexual Orientation and is the first letter in the LGBTQ+ acronym. The lesbian flag is also the Second most well known next to the Queer/Rainbow Flag

Fun History Fact: The L (Lesbian) did not use to be first in the acronym LGBT. It used to be GLBT. The fight for Lesbians wasn’t as popular as the fight for Gays were and Gay men often looked down on lesbians as they’re fight began the same time the fight for women’s rights were, meaning that most women still had no rights. Lesbians fought instead for women’s rights instead of their own rights while being looked down upon by their male counterparts. This changed however, when the AIDS crisis struck America. Gay Men were the most likely to have it, and since most people in America still discriminated against Gay people, nurses and doctors would refuse to take care of Gay Men. Lesbians however, being the least likely to have AIDS, stepped up despite the cruelty Gay Men had shown and took care of them, saving the lives of thousands. Gay men decided to honor the lesbians that helped them by putting the L first in the acronym, and began helping the fight for Lesbians. The started the term Gay/Lesbian solidarity (or also known as mlm/wlw solidarity).

Tumblr User: @outmaww

Media Character: Recent Media characters include Amity Blight from The Owl House, Catra and Adora from She Ra, and Arizona from Grey’s Anatomy.

Why the colors? The Lesbian Flag depicted in the Calendar is the five color one, but this one derived from the 7 color Lesbian Flag. The dark orange showed gender non-conformity, orange signified independence, light orange signifies community, white represents unique relationships to womanhood, pink signifies serenity and peace, dusty pink signifies love and sex, and dark rose showed femininity

Where can I find the calendar? The calendar is my pinned post on my blog @hecateisalesbian! This will be occurring all throughout June, and tags such as #The Pride of June and #PoJ Project can be used to find my post

[female-malice]

Bisexual academics have historically been annoying.

Check out this abstract from an academic article in the Journal of Bisexuality from 2003:

GL vs. BT: The Archaeology of Biphobia and Transphobia Within the U.S. Gay and Lesbian Community

Heterosexism against bisexuals and transgenders exists not only in the straight community, but in the gay and lesbian community as well. Are "biphobia" and "transphobia" examples of "phobias"- irrational fears? No, such heterosexist attitudes are all too rational, mirroring social tensions, which only appear to be an ahistorical psychological phenomenon. Rather, as the GLBT community developed, power relations arose which resulted in the four different groups (G/L/B/T), assigning them different social locations. Prejudice in gay and lesbian communities against bisexuals and transgenders is heterosexism because it is, among other things, an accommodationist attempt to disavow these more "radical" forms of sexuality.

–

So, it's been 20 years of this.

In the US in 2003, gay people had no legal protections or marriage rights. Religious conversion therapy was booming. Gay people were regularly the victims of hate crimes. And gay suicides were common. Many people lived their lives closeted.

Meanwhile, bisexual activists found the time to write academic articles about how homosexuals created an anti-bi/anti-trans social hierarchy. 1990s bisexual activists started a petty culture war against gay activists. Then, in the early 2000s, they grouped themselves with the transgender movement. They argued that the B and T were the lower classes suppressed by the L and G ruling class. They argued that the B and T faced a common problem: the closed-minded attitudes of gay people.

[bi-kisses]

I saw terfs claiming that being trans (as it is currently known) was invented by porn addicts on forums and that any people who lived as the opposite sex historically did so to escape homophobia, as if FTM newsletter didn't exist in the '80s or gay trans men just showed up in the current century or Christine Tayleur hadn't dedicated herself to transgender activism in the early nineties...

The best resource to prove how fucking stupid they are is GLBT Historical Society so feel free to read up on how trans people have always been right there fighting alongside us.