Tag Archives: LGBT History

Watching The Defectives: My Annual Pride Rant

Gentle readers, I’m rerunning my annual Pride rant for the fifteenth year. I wrote this post in 2005 a couple of days after attending Pride in NYC. In the following years I’ve reposted it in advance of NYC Pride in the hope of encouraging you to attend your local events. Have a wonderful Pride Month. Love each other. Watching The …

Read More »

BREAKING: New York Police Commissioner Apologizes For 1969 Raid On Stonewall Inn: The NYPD Was Wrong

The New York Times reports: New York’s police commissioner, James P. O’Neill, apologized on Thursday on behalf of the Police Department for officers’ actions during the Stonewall riot, a seminal 1969 clash outside a Greenwich Village club that is widely regarded as a turning point for the modern gay rights movement. “I think it would be irresponsible to go through …

Read More »

New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson Calls On NYPD To Apologize For 1969 Raid On Stonewall Inn

New York City’s WINS radio reports: It’s been fifty years since police officers raided the Stonewall Inn — the legendary Christopher Street gay bar — and Corey Johnson thinks it’s about time that the NYPD apologize to the LGBTQ community for the raid, which gave birth to the modern-day LGBTQ rights movement. “The NYPD in the past has apologized for …

Read More »

AVAILABLE TODAY: Rainbow Warrior: My Life In Color, The Memoir Of Rainbow Flag Creator Gilbert Baker

Via press release from Chicago Review Press: The bright, exuberant colors on the rainbow flag have long been a symbol of pride and unity for the LGBTQ+ community. From the beginning of its creation, artist Gilbert Baker simply wanted to capture the joyful liberation of sexual identity. Little did he know, the flag would become an internationally recognized symbol that …

Read More »

Google Unveils “Stonewall Forever” Digital Monument

From Google’s corporate blog: The LGBT Community Center of New York City, with support from Google.org, has worked to preserve LGBTQ+ history for future generations by extending the Stonewall National Monument from its physical location in New York City to a digital experience that can be accessed by everyone, everywhere. Stonewall Forever is the result of the LGBT Community Center’s …

Read More »

Transgender Icons To Get New York City Monument

The New York Times reports: Marsha P. Johnson [screenshot above] and Sylvia Rivera, pioneering transgender activists who were at the vanguard of the gay rights movement, will be immortalized in a monument that may be placed down the street from the Stonewall Inn, the city said on Wednesday. Ms. Johnson and Ms. Rivera were both drag performers and vibrant characters …

Read More »

TRAILER: Renee Zellweger As Judy Garland In Judy

Entertainment Weekly reports: A star is reborn in the first trailer for Renée Zellweger’s Judy Garland biopic. The Oscar-winning actress brings the late Hollywood icon to life in the first official preview of theater director Rupert Goold’s upcoming chronicle adapted from Peter Quilter’s musical End of the Rainbow. In her first leading role in a movie since 2016’s Bridget Jones’s …

Read More »

Canada: Royal Mint Unveils “Gay Loonie” Coin [VIDEO]

The CBC reports: The Royal Canadian Mint has unveiled a commemorative loonie to mark what it called a key milestone for lesbian, gay, transgender, queer and two-spirited people, with the government saying the coin symbolized progress while highlighting the work that still needs to be done to advance equality. Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau was amongst a number of dignitaries …

Read More »

SF’s Beach Blanket Babylon To Close After 45 Years

The San Francisco Chronicle reports: For 45 years, the team at “Beach Blanket Babylon” has donned enormous hats and skewered politics and pop culture in a campy musical revue in a snug North Beach theater. The beloved show has become so ingrained in San Francisco culture that many rank it alongside the Golden Gate Bridge and cable cars. Though seemingly …

Read More »

Gay Couple’s 1971 Marriage Officially Recognized

NBC News reports: In 1971, gay couple Michael McConnell and Jack Baker applied for a marriage license from Blue Earth County, Minnesota. The clerk, not realizing one of the individuals listed on the application was male, issued the license — though stopped short of officially recording it. Nearly five decades later — after a prolonged legal battle to get their …

Read More »

Stonewall Monument Preserved In “3D Digital Record”

Fascinating project. Via press release: CyArk, a heritage preservation non-profit, has completed the first ever 3D digital record of the Stonewall National Monument in New York, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising. The project — the first of its kind to detail an LGBTQ historic site and national monument — uses data to create a photorealistic digital …

Read More »

BBC Viewers Vote Alan Turing As “Most Iconic” Person Of 20th Century After Stunning Speech By Presenter

ABC News reports: World War II codebreaker Alan Turing has been named the most “iconic” figure of the 20th century, fighting off competition from international leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela. The scientist was chosen in a public vote during a live broadcast of BBC Two’s Icons: The Greatest Person Of The 20th Century. One of …

Read More »

Exclusive First Look: Edith Windsor’s Coming Memoir

Our friends at St. Martin’s Press have provided JMG readers with an exclusive first look at the coming memoir of late LGBT activist and marriage equality champion Edith Windsor: Edie Windsor became internationally famous when the Supreme Court ruled in her favor in her case seeking recognition from the US government for her marriage to her partner Thea Spyer. The …

Read More »

I Will Hold You Ten Times

As longtime readers know, there are four or five JMG entries that I repost every year. This is one of them. My dear friend Daniel Johnson, who threw the most kickass Groundhog Day birthday parties for himself, would have been 62 years old today. His was a life that burned brightly and I am illuminated still. Daniel Johnson, 1957-1997. I …

Read More »

CANADA: Royal Mint To Issue $1 Coin Marking 50th Anniversary Of Decriminalization Of Homosexuality

The CBC reports: The Royal Canadian Mint is releasing a new $1 coin design next year, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality in Canada. Same-sex sexual activity between consenting adults was decriminalized in 1969, two years after then-justice minister Pierre Trudeau introduced amendments to the Criminal Code, famously declaring “there’s no place for the state in the …

Read More »

Macy’s Parade Features Its First Same-Sex Kiss [VIDEO]

People Magazine reports: The cast of Broadway’s The Prom musical gave the LGBTQ community something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day. Actors, including leads Caitlin Kinnunen and Isabelle McCalla, burst out of the theater and into the streets for Macy’s big holiday parade Thursday. Closing out their performance of the big number, Kinnunen and McCalla shared a kiss on …

Read More »

Matthew Shepard Interred At DC’s National Cathedral

ABC News reports: The ashes of Matthew Shepard were interred at the National Cathedral in Washington Friday, giving him a “home that is safe” 20 years after his brutal murder, his father said. “To the National Cathedral, I cannot thank you enough … for leading the way and showing acceptance and inclusiveness for any and all who enter these grounds,” …

Read More »

20 Years After His Death, Ashes Of Matthew Shepard To Be Interred At Washington National Cathedral [VIDEO]

The New York Times reports: For 20 years, the ashes of Matthew Shepard have not been laid to rest. Mr. Shepard’s killing in 1998, when he was a 21-year-old college student, led to national outrage and, almost overnight, turned him into a symbol of deadly violence against gay people. Mourners flocked to his funeral that year in Casper, Wyo., but …

Read More »

Philadelphia Names City Block For Edith Windsor

Pink News reports: A street sign in honor of lesbian campaigner Edie Windsor was unveiled on October 7. “‘Don’t Postpone Joy’ today and take a stroll The Edie Windsor Way,” Windsor’s widow Judith Kasen-Windsor—her second wife—wrote on Facebook on Sunday, quoting one of the campaigner’s mantras. Windsor died in September 2017 aged 88 after spending most of the past decade …

Read More »

Beloved NYC Figure Ms. Colombia Found Dead

The Jackson Heights Post in Queens reports: Ms. Colombia, a colorful and beloved figure in the Jackson Heights LGBT community, has been found dead, Council Member Daniel Dromm has announced. Ms. Colombia, whose birth name was Osvaldo Gomez, was found dead in the waters off Jacob Riis Park, Dromm’s office said. No foul play is currently suspected, although the Office …

Read More »