on this day
On this day, January 18: Phillip Adams, ally
On January 18 1975, longtime queer ally Phillip Adams published an article in the Melbourne Age calling for the scrapping of laws against homosexuality. The sooner that happened, he wrote, “the better for all of us, homosexual and heterosexual alike.” Scroll down for the actual article. How to even begin to describe Phillip Adams AO? …
On this day January 17: Magnificent ally, Eartha Kitt
Eartha Kitt came into this world on January 17, 1927. A friend to our communities in good times and bad, she was also one of the most charismatic entertainers to ever grace stage or screen. Scroll down for videos Born on a cotton plantation, Eartha Kitt grew up in poverty. However, her talent saw her …
On this day January 16: sodomy & anal examinations
On January 16 1922, John Ogden and John Bonfield sat in a stinking hot Rockhampton jail cell awaiting trial for sodomy because a doctor’s anal examination supposedly proved buggery. Prior to the decriminalisation of sodomy in Australian jurisdictions, courts lent credence to the cockamamy evidence of quacks who claimed to identify gay bottoms by their …
On this day January 15: Mademoiselle de Raucourt
The French tragedienne Mademoiselle de Raucourt died on January 15, 1815. Her love affairs with men and women, of whom she preferred the latter, scandalised Europe. However, her royal admirers bailed her out of trouble, even after death. The daughter of an actor, La Raucourt’s debut at the Comédie Française proved a great success. During …
On this day January 14: Yukio Mishima
Yukio Mishima was born on January 14 1925. He emerged as the enfant terrible of Japanese literature in the late forties with Confessions of a Mask. Mishima’s early semi-autobiographical work dealt honestly with his homosexuality. However, he maintained respectability through a strategy of plausible deniability. In 1970, Yukio Mishima shocked the world when he attempted …
On this day January 13: Rosa Bonheur, artist
A January 13, 1858 newspaper advertisement invited the public to an English exhibition of The Horse Fair. The monumental painting brought French artist Rosa Bonheur international fame. The openly lesbian painter became the first woman to receive France’s highest award, the Legion of Honour. In 1928, the Kansas City Times recalled Rosa Bonheur as one …
On this day January 12: Black Rock Beach arrests
The Melbourne Age reported on January 12, 1977, that police admitted entrapping gays at Black Rock Beach by imitating supposedly homosexual mannerisms, including a ‘particular walk’. Image courtesy Australian Queer Archives. A particular walk? F_cking hell! Police told the Age they assigned ‘most unlikely looking policeman’ to the operation. Translation: hot young bathing-suit-clad recruits a …
On this day January 11: Enver Hoxha – was he?
Enver Hoxha deposed King Zog on January 11 1946, and then declared himself head of the People’s Republic of Albania. At his death in 1985, the tyrannical dictator was the world’s longest surviving Community leader. But what about the rumours that his secret homosexuality drove the bloodlust of his insular and paranoid regime? Enver Hoxha …
On this day January 10: Johnnie Ray, bi cry boy
The man Tony Bennett called ‘the father of rock and roll’, singer/songwriter Johnnie Ray was born January 10, 1927. Billed as the Cry Boy singer, the partially deaf pop star required police escorts during the fifties to stop riotous teenyboppers tearing his clothes off. At the age of 12, the Oregon farm boy lost fifty …
On this day January 9: Charles Holt, drag war hero
On January 9 1922, the Sydney Morning Herald reviewed the opening night of female impersonator Charles Holt and his Smart Set Diggers at Fuller’s Theatre in Castlereigh Street. “The make-believe girls removed their stage wigs when responding to the clamorous curtain call at the close of a frisky finale.” According to the Sunday Times, “Most …