2008-01-15

DENISE SIMMONS became the first openly Lesbian African-American woman to be mayor of an American city after her election by the city council of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Previous Post1975-01-15 Next Post2008-01-15

Building Connections & Community for Gay Men since 1989

Subscribe to Gay Wisdom

Email *

Gay Wisdom – Today in Gay History

Died

1840 -

ANNE LISTER was a Yorkshire landowner, prolific diarist and enthusiastic traveller. She died on this date. She was also a woman who unapologetically loved women – and is sometimes called the “first modern lesbian” thanks to her self-knowledge and acceptance of her sexual orientation.

Her journal, written partly in code (or “crypt”), details the daily life of an unconventional woman in the early 19th century, including her love affairs and eventual ‘marriage’ to an heiress. Anne penned more than four million words, covering everything from negotiations over the price of her coal (local businessmen would NOT be allowed to get the better of her) to the Queen of Denmark’s birthday party in Copenhagen (quite fun; but no need to ever go again) to her bitter rows with younger sister Marian (“cock of the dunghill”).

Born in 1791, Anne Lister was fiercely intelligent and full of boundless energy. She was very close to her Uncle James and Aunt Anne and frequently stayed with them at Shibden Hall, near Halifax in Yorkshire. This was the Lister ancestral home, and it was to their beloved niece Anne that this childless couple left ownership of Shibden Hall. Her aunt, in particular, seems to have been well aware of Anne’s exclusive interest in the fairer sex – but took it in her stride, becoming one of the most important people in Anne’s life.

Anne Lister was a complicated character. She was considered to have a masculine appearance and stride, and stood out in Halifax thanks to her decision to dress only in black. She deviated from social norms – although she could use her charms and charisma to impress her posh friends when she wished to, working within the social framework of the late Georgian era. She had a passion for human anatomy and science and travel and mountaineering, and a huge appetite for new experiences.

At 23, Anne met ‘M’, or Marianna Belcombe. This was one of the most passionate of all Anne’s affairs, and lasted 16 or 17 years – but despite Anne’s early hopes that they could build a future together, ‘M’ bowed to convention and married a man.

The two wrote frank letters to each other for many years, sharing confidences as well as sharing a bed whenever she visited. But their relationship was also fraught with the pain of their romantic history, and sometimes with jealousy.

‘M’ spent years hoping for her unpleasant husband’s death so that she could reunite properly with Anne. But though ‘M’ was never far away from her thoughts, Anne was looking elsewhere for her “companion” and had also set her sights on a higher-class connection.

In the recent PBS series based on Lister's life, Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister, Anne Choma writes: “Anne was as determined as she had ever been to find a female life partner. She didn’t feel it was her nature to live alone – the nature which also dictated that settling for a man was never going to be part of the plan.”

In 1832, Anne Lister had an encounter with a wealthy heiress called Ann Walker. It was to change the path of her life.

The two had actually met several times before this point. As a child, Ann Walker had been involved in a carriage accident on Shibden land and had been given a cup of tea at the manor, but this did not evolve into any kind of friendship. In 1822, Anne had written caustically in her diary that young Ann Walker was “a stupid, vulgar girl indeed,” and while the Walker family were wealthy, they did not impress Anne who snobbishly looked down on “new money” gained from trade rather than ancient lineage.

However, after Anne’s return from Hastings, the two women’s paths crossed again.

Lister made it clear early in their relationship that she was after something serious: love, loyalty, and long-term commitment. She wanted Ann Walker to settle down with her, sleep with her, and travel with her. Finally, Ann gave Anne the answer she hoped for. They exchanged rings, they wrote each other into their wills, and then on Easter Sunday 1834 they ‘married’ by taking communion together at a church in York.

Both had a strong Christian faith. While Ann Walker’s lifelong bouts of mental illness had often led her into religious mania and guilt, Anne Lister’s faith gave her a more positive outlook. She had reconciled the way God ‘made her’ with her understanding of the Bible, and Christianity was a source of comfort throughout her life. The two women may not have been legally married, but as Anne Choma writes, “To Anne Lister, their commitment had been solemnized. They had been joined together in the eyes of God.”

Anne Lister died on 22 September 1840, aged 49, of a fever at Koutais (now Kutaisi in Georgia) while travelling with Walker. Walker had Lister's body embalmed and brought back to the UK, where she was buried in the parish church in Halifax, West Yorkshire, in April 1841. Her tombstone was rediscovered in 2010, having been covered by a floor in 1879.

In her will, Lister's estate was left to her paternal cousins, but Ann Walker was given a life interest. After being declared insane, Walker spent some years in the care of Dr. Belcombe, and because of her mental state, was unable to make a valid will. She died in 1854 at her childhood home, Cliff Hill in Lightcliffe, West Yorkshire.

More than 40 years after her death, while reporting on a dispute over the ownership of Shibden Hall, the Leeds Times in 1882 stated, "Miss Lister's masculine singularities of character are still remembered". Indeed. Yes they are.

Born

1889 -

JAMES WHALE, British stage and film director, born (d: 1957) Most famously, the director of four classics of the macabre, Frankenstein (1931), and perhaps the best of all, the witty Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Among his many other films is the best of the three Hollywood depictions of Showboat, the 1936 black-and-white version with Irene Dunne. Whale lived openly as a Gay man in a then-as-now closeted Hollywood. His long-time lover was the producer David Lewis. But by 1940, no studio would hire him, and he never worked again. His later life was famously portrayed in the film Gods and Monsters (1998), starring gay actor Ian McKellan and the estimable Brendan Fraser. One of the most critically acclaimed films of 1998 and winner of several awards including the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, Gods and Monsters is a compassionate speculation about the final days of Whale Adapted and directed by Bill Condon from Christopher Bram's novel Father of Frankenstein, the film stars McKellen in a sublime performance as the white-haired Whale, who is portrayed as a dapper gentleman and amateur artist prompted by failing health into melancholy remembrance of things past. Flashbacks of lost love, World War I battle trauma, and glory days in Hollywood combine with Whale's present-day attraction to a newly hired yard worker (Fraser) whose hunky, Frankenstein-like physique makes him an ideal model for Whale's fixated sketching.

The friendship between the handsome gardener and his elderly Gay admirer is by turns tenuous, humorous, mutually beneficial, and ultimately rather sad – but to Condon's credit Whale is never seen as pathetic, lecherous, or senile. Equally rich is the rapport between Whale and his long-time housekeeper (played with wry sarcasm by Lynn Redgrave), who serves as protector, mother, and even surrogate spouse while Whale's mental state deteriorates. Flashbacks to Whale's filmmaking days are painstakingly authentic (particularly in the casting of look-alike actors playing Boris Karloff and Elsa Lanchester), and all of these ingredients combine to make Gods and Monsters (executive produced by horror novelist-filmmaker Clive Barker) a touchingly affectionate film that succeeds on many levels. It is at once a keen glimpse of Hollywood's past, a loving tribute to James Whale, and a richly moving, delicately balanced drama about loneliness, memory, and the passions that keep us alive.

1947 -

NORMA McCORVEY, better known by the legal pseudonym "Jane Roe", was born on this date. She was the plaintiff in the landmark American legal case Roe v Wade in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that individual state laws banning abortion were unconstitutional.

McCorvey was born in Simmesport, Louisiana. She was raised at her family's residence in Lettsworth in Pointe Coupee Parish. Later in her childhood, the family moved to Houston, Texas. McCorvey's father, Olin Nelson, a TV repairman, left the family when she was 13 years old, and her parents subsequently divorced. She and her older brother were raised by their mother, Mary, a violent alcoholic. McCorvey's father died on September 27, 1995.

While working at a restaurant, Norma met Woody McCorvey (born 1940), and married him at the age of 16 in 1963. She later left him after he allegedly assaulted her. She moved in with her mother and gave birth to her first child, Melissa, in 1965. After Melissa's birth, McCorvey developed a severe drinking and drug problem. Soon after, she began identifying as a lesbian. She went on a weekend trip to visit two friends and left her baby with her mother. When she returned, her mother replaced Melissa with a baby doll and reported her to the police as having abandoned her baby, and called the police to take her out of the house. She would not tell her where Melissa was for weeks, and finally let her visit her child after three months. She allowed McCorvey to move back in. One day, she woke McCorvey up after a long day of work; she told McCorvey to sign what were presented as insurance papers, and she did so without reading them. However, the papers she had signed were adoption papers, giving her mother custody of Melissa, and McCorvey was then kicked out of the house. The following year, McCorvey again became pregnant and gave birth to a baby, who was placed for adoption

In 1969, at the age of 21, McCorvey became pregnant for a third time and returned to Dallas. According to McCorvey, friends advised her that she should assert falsely that she had been raped by a group of black men and that she could thereby obtain a legal abortion under Texas's law, which prohibited most abortion; sources differ over whether the Texas law had such a rape exception. Due to lack of police evidence or documentation, the scheme was not successful, and McCorvey later said it was a fabrication. She attempted to obtain an illegal abortion, but the recommended clinic had been closed down by authorities. Her doctor, Richard Lane, suggested that she consult Henry McCluskey, an adoption lawyer in Dallas. McCorvey stated that she was only interested in an abortion, but agreed to meet with McCluskey.

Eventually, McCorvey was referred to attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, who were looking for pregnant women who were seeking abortions. The case took three years of trials to reach the Supreme Court, and McCorvey never attended a single trial. In the meantime, she gave birth to the baby and placed it for adoption. Soon after, she met and began a long-term relationship with Connie Gonzales.

McCorvey revealed herself to the press as being "Jane Roe" soon after the decision was reached, stating that she had sought an abortion because she was unemployable and greatly depressed. In 1983, McCorvey told the press that she had been raped. In 1987, she said the rape claim was untrue.

Later, McCorvey became a Roman Catholic activist in the anti-choice movement. McCorvey had stated that her involvement in Roe was "the biggest mistake of [her] life."

However, in what McCorvey referred to as her "deathbed confession" during an interview shortly before her death, she said she had been paid for her anti-abortion activism, and it had been "all an act." McCorvey said her anti-abortion activism had been "all an act", which she did because she was paid, stating that she did not care whether a woman got an abortion. "I was the big fish. I think it was a mutual thing. I took their money and they'd put me out in front of the cameras and tell me what to say. That's what I’d say," McCorvey said. "If a young woman wants to have an abortion, that's no skin off my ass. That’s why they call it choice," she added.

On May 22, 2020, a documentary titled AKA Jane Roe aired on FX, describing McCorvey's life and her alleged financial incentives to change her views on abortion. Robert Schenck, an evangelical pastor who worked with McCorvey, supported what was in the documentary. He acknowledged that his group had paid McCorvey to speak against abortion and stated: "Her name and photo would command some of the largest windfalls of dollars for my group and many others, but the money we gave her was modest. More than once, I tried to make up for it with an added check, but it was never fair."

As Roe v. Wade made its way through the courts, McCorvey began a relationship with Connie Gonzalez. They lived together in Dallas for 35 years. After converting to Christianity, McCorvey continued to live with Gonzalez, though she described their relationship as platonic. Later in life, McCorvey stated that she was no longer a lesbian. McCorvey moved out of the house she shared with Gonzalez in 2006, shortly after Gonzalez suffered a stroke.

McCorvey died of heart failure in Katy, Texas on February 18, 2017, at the age of 69.

1958 -

TIM MILLER, playwright and performance artist was born in Pasadena, California. He was one of the NEA Four, four performance artists whose National Endowment for the Arts grants were vetoed in 1990 by NEA chair John Frohnmeyer.

Miller's interest in performance began in high school, where he took classes in theater and dance. He played the lead role of John Proctor in Lowell High School's production of The Crucible by Arthur Miller. At nineteen he moved to New York and studied dance with Merce Cunningham.

In 1980 Miller joined with Charles Moulton, Peter Rose 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. In 1987 Miller returned to California and with Linda Frye Burnham founded another performance space, Highways, in Santa Monica.

In 1993 Miller was featured in the episode of The Larry Sanders Show called The Performance Artist. He played himself as the titular performance artist, who appears as a guest both on Larry Sanders' show and on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno performing a portion of My Queer Body. In 1997 Miller published Shirts & Skin, a compilation of personal stories that he had told in his shows over the previous decade. He also launched a show of the same name.

Miller took on a new topic, immigration rights for gay and Lesbian partners of American citizens, in Glory Box (1999). The immigration issue is a personal cause as Alistair McCartney, his partner since 1994, is Australian.

In 2002 Miller published Body Blows, a collection of scripts from six of his shows with associated essays.

Miller returned to the theme of the problems of Americans with same-sex life partners in the show Us in 2003. The title refers both to his relationship with McCartney and to the laws in the United States which could prevent them from being together.

Noteworthy

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." The single shot which Moore did manage to fire from her .38-caliber revolver ricocheted off the entrance to the hotel and slightly injured a bystander.

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 but would eventually report on his outing by Harvey Milk and other San-Francisco Gay activists. 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 asked the press to keep his sexuality off the record, making it clear that neither his mother nor his employer had knowledge of his orientation; however, his request was not complied with. The national spotlight was on him immediately, and Milk responded. While discussing whether the truth about Sipple's sexuality should be disclosed, Milk told a friend: "It's too good an opportunity. For once we can show that Gays do heroic things, not just all that ca-ca about molesting children and hanging out in bathrooms." Milk contacted the newspaper.

Several days later Herb Caen, a columnist at The San Francisco Chronicle, outed Sipple as a gay man and a friend of Milk. Sipple was besieged by reporters, as was his family. His mother, a staunch Baptist in Detroit, refused to speak to him. Although he had been involved with the gay community for years, even participating in Gay Pride events, Sipple sued the Chronicle for invasion of privacy. President Ford sent Sipple a note of thanks for saving his life. Milk said that Sipple's sexual orientation was the reason he received only a note, rather than an invitation to the White House.

Sipple filed a $15 million invasion of privacy suit against Caen, seven named newspapers, and a number of unnamed publishers, for publishing the disclosures. The Superior Court in San Francisco dismissed the suit, and Sipple continued his legal battle until May 1984, when a state court of appeals held that Sipple had indeed become news, and that his sexual orientation was part of the story.

According to a 2006 article in The Washington Post, Sipple went through a period of estrangement with his parents, but the family later reconciled with his sexual orientation. Sipple's brother, George, told the newspaper, "(Our parents) accepted it. That was all. They didn't like it, but they still accepted. He was welcomed. Only thing was: Don't bring a lot of your friends."

Sipple's mental and physical health sharply declined over the years. He drank heavily, gained weight to 300 lb, was fitted with a pacemaker, became paranoid and suicidal. On February 2, 1989, he was found dead in his bed, at the age of forty-seven. Earlier that day, Sipple had visited a friend and said he had been turned away by the Veterans Administration hospital where he went concerning his difficulty in breathing. His $334 per month apartment near San Francisco's Tenderloin District was found with many newspaper clippings of his actions on the fateful September afternoon in 1975. His most prized possession was the framed letter from the White House.

Sipple held no ill will toward Milk, and remained in contact with him. The incident brought him so much attention that, later in life, while drinking, he would regret grabbing Moore's gun. Sipple, who was wounded in the head in Vietnam, was also diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic according to the coroner's report. Sipple's funeral was attended by 30 people, and he was buried in Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, California.

A letter addressed to the friends of Oliver Sipple was on display for a short period after his death at one of his favorite hangouts, the New Belle Saloon:

"Mrs. Ford and I express our deepest sympathy in this time of sorrow involving your friend's passing..." President Gerald Ford, February, 1989

In a 2001 interview with columnist Deb Price, Ford disputed the claim that Sipple was treated differently because of his sexual orientation, saying, "As far as I was concerned, I had done the right thing and the matter was ended. I didn't learn until sometime later — I can't remember when — he was gay. I don't know where anyone got the crazy idea I was prejudiced and wanted to exclude gays."

2019 -

This is the AUTUMNAL EQUINOX in the Northern Hemisphere and the Vernal Equinox in the Southern Hemisphere. An equinox in astronomy is the moment in time (not the whole day) when the center of the Sun can be observed to be directly above the Earth’s equator, occurring around March 20 and September 23 each year. Today this moment is 5:18 pm on the East Coast.

The September equinox marks the first day of Mehr or Libra in the Iranian calendar. It is one of the Iranian festivals called Jashne Mihragan, or the festival of sharing or love in Zoroastrianism. The September equinox was "New Year’s Day" in the French Republican Calendar, which was in use from 1793 to 1805. The French First Republic was proclaimed and the French monarchy was abolished on September 21, 1792, making the following day the equinox day that year, the first day of the "Republican Era" in France. The start of every year was to be determined by astronomical calculation, (that is: following the real Sun and not the mean Sun as all other calendars).

A folk tale claims that only on the March (Vernal) equinox day (some may add the September equinox day or may explicitly not), one can balance an egg on its point. However one can balance an egg on its point any day of the year if one has the patience.

For more on egg balancing: http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/errata/a/equinox_eggs.htm

Although the word "equinox" implies equal length of day and night, as is noted elsewhere, this is not true. For most locations on earth, there are two distinct identifiable days per year when the length of day and night are closest to being equal. Those days are commonly referred to as the "equiluxes" to distinguish them from the equinoxes. Equinoxes are points in time, but equiluxes are days. By convention, equiluxes are the days where sunrise and sunset are closest to being exactly 12 hours apart. This way, you can refer to a single date as being the equilux, when, in reality, it spans sunset on one day to sunset the next, or sunrise on one to sunrise the next

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/EarthSeasons.php

White Crane Institute

2008-01-15

Related

Building Connections & Community for Gay Men since 1989