This Day in Queer History

On this day, playwright Laurence Housman was born. Along with his siblings, classicist A. E. Housman and suffragist Clemence, all three were gay. Mentored by Oscar Wilde, Laurence's greatest triumph was Victoria Regina.

On this day in 1882, a new edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass was released after his former publisher rejected it on obscenity charges. The first printing of 1,000 copies sold out in one day.

On this day, Dick Button was born. The two-time Olympic champion figure skater invented the flying camel spin and in 1978 survived a brutal gay-bashing in Central Park that left him with permanent hearing loss.

Today in queer history, historian Lillian Faderman was born. Her acclaimed books on lesbian and LGBTQ history reshaped the field, with The Guardian naming Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers a top radical history text.

On this day in 1966, people picketed Compton's Cafeteria in San Francisco after management used police to harass LGBT customers. This action preceded the historic August 1966 riot, one of the first transgender rights protests in the U.S.

On this day, Elizabeth Gilbert was born. The author of Eat, Pray, Love came out in 2016 when she announced her relationship with writer Rayya Elias. They celebrated a commitment ceremony in 2017 before Elias died of cancer in 2018.

On this day, Patricia Todd won Alabama's Democratic primary by just 59 votes, becoming the state's first openly gay elected official and a fierce advocate for equality in the Deep South.

On this day, the White House announced President Obama would sign an executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT employees, advancing workplace protections at the federal level.