BEAU BRUMMELL (born George Bryan Brummell) British fashion plate and dandy, born (d: 1840); Brummell is included here because he epitomizes the dandy, a type that has always characterized one aspect of gay life from Oscar Wilde and Ronald Firbank to Waugh’s Anthony Blanche and the ubiquitous queen who lives in the poshest apartment on the upper east side of every fashionable city in the world. Brummell loved fine clothes and lived beyond his means to attain them. He was oh so witty and oh so bitchy.

Brummell’s glib manner also led to a break with his patron with his arrogant remark – “I say, Alvanley, who's your fat friend?" This abruptly ended Brummell's social life and financial credit. In 1816, he escaped debtor’s prison by fleeing to France, where he died 40 years later, penniless and ill, in an insane asylum, hounded by creditors.

His bons mots have survived him. Asked if he ever ate vegetables, he replied that he “once ate a pea.” He also claimed to have caught a cold from a “damp stranger.” 

Beau Brummell is credited with introducing and establishing as fashion the modern man's suit, worn with a tie. He claimed five hours to dress, and recommended that boots be polished with champagne. D’accord!

ELIZABETH BOWEN, Irish novelist (d. 1973); Like the outlines of her own life, the novels of Elizabeth Bowen reflect marriage at the center of a woman’s life, with the love between women a primal need in adolescence and in widowed middle age. Her earliest novel, The Hotel (1928), is about the friendship between a young woman and a middle-aged widow. The character of the younger woman is clearly autobiographical.

After her own husband’s death, Bowen returned to this theme, switching roles. Late in her career, the novelist declared that she could find nothing “unnatural” in love between women. Her writing, she said, was “a substitute for something I have been born without -- a so-called formal relation to society.”

EDWARD FIELD, American poet, born; Edward Field recounts his life in his poetry. He portrays himself as an aging New York Jewish Gay poet who likes plants, traveling, and popular culture and never got enough sex and companionship though he now gets more of the latter. The short version of his life is told in "Bio" (Counting Myself Lucky, 1992); the long version is the sum of all of his poems.

The critical discussion of Field centers on two issues, his diction and the confessional nature of his poetry. Field's diction is straightforward and "unpoetic." He does not seem to force the language into producing special effects, nor does he require his readers to have arcane knowledge. Field's development as a Gay poet can be traced throughout his volumes. Apart from a sexually explicit version of the Ruth and Naomi story, which has not appeared in either of his collections of selected poems, and "Ode to Fidel Castro," there are few explicit references to homosexuality in his first book Stand Up Friend With Me (1963), which won the Lamont Poetry Selection for 1962. Field's life partner, Neil Derrick, with who he had spent 58 years, died in January 2018. His memoir The Man Who Would Marry Susan Sontag. For more: http://www.edwardfield.com 

NIKKI GIOVANNI, American poet, born; The civil rights and black power movements inspired her early poetry that was collected in Black Feeling, Black Talk (1967), Black Judgement (1968), and Re: Creation (1970). She has since written more than two dozen books including volumes of poetry, illustrated children's books, and three collections of essays. Giovanni's writing has been heavily inspired by African-American activists and artists. She has a tattoo with the words "Thug life" to honor Tupac Shakur, whom she admired. Her book Love Poems (1997) was written in memory of him, and she has stated that she would "rather be with the thugs than the people who are complaining about them." She also tours nationwide and frequently speaks out against hate-motivated violence.

At a 1999 Martin Luther King Day event, she recalled the 1998 murders of James Byrd, Jr. And Matthew Shepard: "What's the difference between dragging a black man behind a truck in Jasper, Texas, and beating a white boy to death in Wyoming because he's Gay?"

E.M. FORSTER, English author, died on this date (b. 1879); An English novelist, short story writer, and essayist, Forster is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th century British society. Forster's humanistic impulse toward understanding and sympathy may be aptly summed up in the famous epigraph to his 1910 novel Howard’s End: "Only connect".

Forster was homosexual, but this fact was not widely made public during his lifetime. His posthumously-published novel Maurice tells of the coming of age of an explicitly Gay male character. The film is ravishing.

ARCADIE, the first GLBT group in France, is formed by André Baudry. A former seminarian and philosophy professor, Baudry became interested in the debate about sexuality following the publication of the Kinsey Report in 1948, the Deuxieme Sexe (The Second Sex) by Simone de Beauvoir in 1952,the theology thesis of the same year entitled Vie Chrétienne et problèmes de la sexualité by Marc Oraison. This thesis, which clearly articulated the position for the Catholic Church to take a more inclusive attitude towards homosexuality, was blacklisted by the Church.

The Arcadie review was created by Baudry with the support of Roger Peyrefitte and Jean Cocteau. It was immediately forbidden for sale to minors and was censured. André Baudry was prosecuted in 1955 for "outrage aux bonnes mœurs" (outrage against good morals), convicted, and fined 400,000 francs. The review emphasized homosexuality as a form of consciousness and self-identity as opposed to a sexuality per se. Baudry sought to shape the popular image of homosexuals as conventional members of society with conventional desires. 

In 1960, at the time of the promulgation of the Mirguet amendment which cast homosexuality as the source of all social ills, Baudry eliminated the classified ads and photographs from the review, out of fear of being shut down. During its years of publication, Arcadie was the most influential homophile publication in francophone Europe