Tobias brings you a monthly round-up of queer folk from history, some familiar, some not.
Holy cow, Queer-A-Day’s third full month is already over! I couldn’t let that pass by unobserved, so QAD held a miniature competition for the 100th post slot. Freddie Mercury, the legendary crowd-wooing wizard from the British rock band Queen, won the day by a tidy margin. Fun fact: The bisexual singer with the tight pants and killer mustache was born in India with the name Farrokh Bulsara.
Growing up I remember teasing a friend who got a kick out of gay male culture and said she might be one with the classic line, “Doesn’t that make you a straight woman?” Small wonder I was confused: Until Lou Sullivan rode in on a wave of classic magazine editorials, not even the gender clinics – who were, let’s not forget, paid to be experts on trans people – acknowledged the possibility of a gay trans man. His story was cut short when he passed away due to AIDS-related complications, but he got in one final well-aimed parting dig: “I took a certain pleasure in informing the gender clinic that even though their program told me that I could not live like a gay man, it looks like I’m going to die like one.”
In the realm of the still living, Tammy Baldwin is an American lesbian political success story. She was both the first openly gay person elected to the House of Representatives and to the Senate, along with a host of other Wisconsin-specific groundbreaking titles. (My home state, the Land of Milk and Cheddar, is hit or miss on queer issues, but when we hit, we hit home runs.)
If pulp magazines are your thing, Russian bisexual Felix Yusupov was the real high adventure deal. In classic origin story style, he was born to the wealthiest family in the country, then helped orchestrate the murder of none other than Rasputin, advisor to the Rominovs. I won’t spoil the rest of his hijinks, but I will say that they’re mighty entertaining.
Maurice Sendak, the gay children’s book writer and illustrator responsible for Where the Wild Things Are, drew cosmetic inspiration for his monsters from his extended family, but his disdain for the concept of childhood innocence came from how many of them were lost to the Holocaust. While he never did come out to his parents, they did have the opportunity to meet his psychoanalyst partner.
Finally, as part of a short run honoring San Francisco queers to celebrate my adopted city’s Pride weekend, QAD took on Harvey Milk, the first out LGBT public official in the US. Although he’s remembered more for his death than his life (and the sensationalism surrounding his murderer’s trial didn’t help), he helped orchestrate the Castro’s shift into a mecca for gay men and prove to the city once nicknamed ‘Sodom by the Sea’ that the homosexual voting block was a force that could not be ignored.
Happy Pride, everyone! Tune in next month for more queer history highlights, or just follow the blog for regular updates.
Every month I’ll be highlighting five fascinating (mostly) men profiled on The Queer-A-Day-Project. The other ~25 can be found in the Table of Contents alongside luminaries from prior months.
Photo: Claire Quigley/Flickr