Table of Contents

CanadianGay
presents
THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY
based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more …

Collected by Ted

July 5

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1842 Andrew Scott, better known as Captain Moonlite, was an Australian bushranger (d.1880). He was baptised on this day, so was probably born ony two or three days earlier. It was the practice in the early 19th century, because of high infant mortality, to baptise soon after birth.

Scott was born in Rathfriland, Ireland, son of an Anglican clergyman. Scott trained to be an engineer, completing his studies in London. The family moved to New Zealand in 1861, with Scott intending to try his luck in the Otago goldfields. However, the Maori Wars intervened and Scott signed up as an officer and fought at the battle of Oraku where he was wounded in both legs.

After a long convalescence Scott was accused of malingering and courtmartialed. He moved to Australia.

in Melbourne he met Bishop Charles Perry and, in 1868, he was appointed lay reader at Bacchus Marsh, Victoria with the intention of entering the Anglican priesthood on the completion of his service. He was then sent to the gold mining town of Mount Egerton.

On 8 May 1869, Scott was accused of disguising himself and forcing bank agent Ludwig Julius Wilhelm Bruun, a young man whom he had befriended, to open the safe. Bruun described being robbed by a fantastic black-crepe masked figure who forced him to sign a note absolving him of any role in the crime. The note read "I hereby certify that L.W. Bruun has done everything within his power to withstand this intrusion and the taking of money which was done with firearms, Captain Moonlite, Sworn."

Bruun claimed the man sounded like Scott but no gold was found in Scott's possession, so he was realeased. Scott left for Sydney soon afterwards.

In Sydney, Scott resigned his lay-readership, bought two horses, kept a groom and lived like a gentleman. On December, he sold at the mint 120 ounces of gold, resembling in qualities the metal taken from the bank at Egerton, although no-one made the connection at the time. He realized about £700, which he soon frittered away.

After this, he was there convicted on two charges of obtaining money by false pretences for which he was sentenced to twelve and eighteen months' imprisonment. Scott served fifteen months, after which time he returned to Sydney where, in March 1872, he was arrested on the charge of robbing the Egerton Bank.

Before trial, he escaped gaol by cutting a hole through the wall of his cell into the cell adjoining, which was occupied by another prisoner. Together they seized the warder when he came his rounds, gagged him, and tied him up, and making use of his keys to free four other prisoners, and the six men succeeded in escaping over the wall, by means of blankets cut into strips, which they used as a rope. Scott was subsequently re-captured and was sentenced to 10 years' hard labor.

Scott only served two-thirds of his sentence. After his release he made a few pounds by lecturing on the horrors of Pentridge Gaol. On regaining freedom, Scott re-joined with James Nesbitt, a young man whom he had met in prison. He is thought to be Scott's lover. Scott's actual handwritten letters profess this love. While we can only speculate on Scott and Nesbitt's sexual practices, it is obvious their relationship was a romantic one. With the aid of Nesbitt, Captain Moonlite began a career as a public speaker on prison reform, trading on his tabloid celebrity.

However this reputation came back to bite him. Throughout this period Scott was harried by the authorities and by the tabloid press who attempted to link him to numerous crimes in the colony and printed fantastic rumours about supposed plots he had underway.

Scott decided to live up to this legend and assembled a gang of young men, with Nesbitt as his second in command, along with Thomas Rogan (21), Thomas Williams (19), Gus Wreneckie (15) and Graham Bennet (18). Scott met these young men through his lecture tours or through male brothels - "molly houses".

The gang commenced their careers as bushrangers near Mansfield, in Victoria. They travelled north across the border into New South Wales to look for legitimate work, far from the police surveillance that stymied any opportunity of Scott's real employment in Victoria, but were just as unsuccessful here. It was in the southern district of the New South Wales colony that they entered upon the full practice of their new "profession."

Scott's gang bailed up (took hostage) the Wantabadgery Station near Wagga Wagga on 15 November 1879 after being refused work, shelter and food. By this stage they were on the verge of starvation, after spending cold and rainy nights in the bush and in Moonlite's words succumbed to "desperation," terrorising staff and the family of Claude McDonald, the station owner . Scott also robbed the Australian Arms Hotel of a large quantity of alcohol and took prisoner the residents of some other neighbouring properties - bringing the number of prisoners to 25 in total.

A small party of four mounted troopers eventually arrived, but Scott's well-armed gang captured their horses and held them down with gunfire for several hours until they retreated to gather reinforcements - at which point the gang slipped out. The gang then holed up in the farmhouse of Edmund McGlede until surrounded by a reinforcement of 5 extra troopers.

As the boy Wreneckie was running to reach a better defensive position, he was shot dead. The police gradually advanced from tree to tree, and drove the remaining desperadoes into a detached back kitchen. Sergeant Carroll led an assault upon the kitchen, and in this rally Constable Bowen was fatally wounded by a bullet from Scott's rifle.

Nesbitt was also shot and killed, attempting to lead police away from the house so that Scott could escape. When Scott saw Nesbitt shot down and was distracted, McGlede took the opportunity to disarm the gang leader and with the other members wounded, or captured on attempting to flee, the fire fight came to a close. According to newspaper reports at the time, Scott openly wept at the loss of his dearest and closest companion. As Nesbitt lay dying, 'his leader wept over him like a child, laid his head upon his breast, and kissed him passionately'.

Both Scott and Rogan were given death sentences.

Scott and Rogan were hanged together in Sydney at Darlinghurst gaol at 8 o'clock on 20 January 1880, on Scott's father's birthday. Scott went to the gallows wearing a ring woven from a lock of Nesbitt's hair on his finger and his final request was to be buried in the same grave as his companion:

"My dying wish is to be buried beside my beloved James Nesbitt, the man with whom I was united by every tie which could bind human friendship, we were one in hopes, in heart and soul and this unity lasted until he died in my arms."

His request was not granted by the authorities of the time, but his remains were exhumed from Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney and reinterred at Gundagai next to Nesbitt's grave in January 1995.

 

1853Cecil Rhodes, South African politician, founder of Rhodesia born (d.1902); Like Carnegie, Nobel and many other multimillionaires who made their fortunes through the blood of others and are remembered today for the good that has lived on after them in bequests and charities and edifices that their money endowed, Cecil Rhodes is remembered for the scholarships to Oxford that bear his name. Although most people think that Carnegie is a hall and Nobel is a prize, it is less difficult to forget Rhodes' South African background, not if one has read a newspaper at any time during the past 50 years.

Rhodes was the owner of the Kimberley diamond mines, which he had expanded by expropriating the land of the Matabeles by trickery and was an active force in South African politics, where, to the chagrin of his native England, he was favorably disposed to the Boers. Many of today's problems in South Africa had their foundations laid during the time that Rhodes was the virtual dictator.

One of the grounds for selection as a Rhodes Scholar that has almost made it impossible for most "grinds" to apply is Rhodes insistence that a candidate have a "fondness for and success in manly outdoor sports, such as football and cricket." One wonders whether Rhodes homosexuality had anything to do with this requirement, or whether such athletic prowess was simply another demonstration of the benevolent superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race.

Rhodes never married, pleading "I have too much work on my hands" and saying that he would not be a dutiful husband. Some writers and academics have suggested that Rhodes may have been homosexual.

The scholar Richard Brown observed: "there is still the simpler but major problem of the extraordinarily thin evidence on which the conclusions about Rhodes are reached. Rhodes himself left few details... Indeed, Rhodes is a singularly difficult subject... since there exists little intimate material - no diaries and few personal letters."

Brown also comments: "On the issue of Rhodes' sexuality... there is, once again, simply not enough reliable evidence to reach firm, irrefutable conclusions. It is inferred, but not proved, that Rhodes was homosexual and it is assumed (but not proved) that his relationships with men were sometimes physical. Neville Pickering is described as Rhodes' lover in spite of the absence of decisive evidence."

Rhodes was close to Pickering; he returned from negotiations for Pickering's 25th birthday in 1882. On that occasion, Rhodes drew up a new will leaving his estate to Pickering. Two years later, Pickering suffered a riding accident. Rhodes nursed him faithfully for six weeks, refusing even to answer telegrams concerning his business interests. Pickering died in Rhodes' arms, and at his funeral Rhodes was said to have wept with fervor.

His successor was Henry Latham Currey, the son of an old friend, who had become Rhodes's private secretary in 1884. When Currey got engaged in 1894, Rhodes was deeply mortified and their relationship split

Rhodes also remained close to Leander Starr Jameson after the two had met in Kimberley, where they shared a bungalow. In 1896 Earl Grey came to give Rhodes bad news. Rhodes instantly jumped to the conclusion that Jameson, who was ill, had died. On learning that his house had burnt down he commented, "Thank goodness. If Dr. Jim had died, I should never have got over it." Jameson nursed Rhodes during his final illness, was a trustee of his estate and residuary beneficiary of his will, which allowed him to continue living in Rhodes' mansion after his death. Rhodes' secretary, Jourdan, who was present shortly after Rhodes' death said, "Jameson was fighting against his own grief ... No mother could have displayed more tenderness towards the remains of a loved son".

Jameson died in England in 1917, but after the war in 1920 his body was transferred to a grave beside that of Rhodes on Malindidzimu Hill or World's View, a granite hill in the Matopo National Park 40 km south of Bulawayo.

 

 Cocteau with Jean Marais

1889 – Born: Jean Cocteau, prolific French poet, novelist, critic, essayist, artist, and film maker (d.1963). Paris cafes, boulevards, theatres, salons, galleries, and lovers provided Cocteau a lifetime of education and entertainment. The ballet brought him into contact with Nijinsky and Sergei Diaghilev, who in 1912 demanded of the youth: 'Astonish me.'

Taking this advice to heart, Cocteau began an unending quest for the new. He met and worked with Amedeo Modigliani, Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, Erik Satie, Andre Gide and a host of other literary, artistic, and musical innovators. By the 1950s he had managed to be part of four avant-gardes.

As a young man, Cocteau had sought collaborations with older men such as Eduoard de Max or Igor Stravinsky but soon he found what he called his 'enfants', a series of younger lovers and collaborators.

In 1937, Jean Marais, a young actor, joined Cocteau, who spurred him to become a matinee idol of French cinema. Marais, who allowed himself to be moulded in Cocteau's image, inspired the writer to become a filmmaker and scriptwriter. Today, Cocteau is best remembered for his cinema. He has been recognised as a pioneer in film - he was significant in introducing Surrealism - a word coined to describe his Ballet Russes work Parade (1917) - into film and later was an influence on French New Wave cinema, and his films continue to inspire viewers and other film-makers.

Cocteau is best known for Les enfants terribles (1929), his 1948 play Les parents terribles, his film of Beauty and the Beast (1946) and his stylish and iconic line drawings.

He struggled with an opium addiction for most of his adult life - searching for a higher consciousness - and was openly gay, though he had a few brief and complicated affairs with women. He died from a heart attack aged 74, within a few hours of hearing of the death of his friend, Edith Piaf.

 

1879 – Born: Wanda Landowska (d.1959), a member of Natalie Clifford Barney's famed lesbian salon, who was almost single-handedly responsible for the revival of the harpsichord as a performance instrument in the twentieth century.

Landowska, born in Warsaw, Poland, was a musical prodigy who began playing the piano at the age of four, and from a very young age was trained at the Warsaw Conservatory. At fifteen, she went to Berlin to study composition, and, although she was a rather rebellious student, began to win prizes in major competitions for her songs and piano works. While in Berlin, she met Polish folklorist Henry Lew, who encouraged her research and performance of early music, and assisted her in writing her book, Musique ancienne (1909). In 1900, she married Lew and moved with him to Paris, where she was able to gain a greater audience. While the relationship was a mostly supportive one, Landowska wished to be relieved of the sexual aspects of marriage. Accordingly, she arranged a ménage à trois, by hiring a maid who would also function as Lew's mistress. The situation was apparently satisfactory for all involved, and, even after Lew died in 1919, the maid remained in the musician's service until the latter's death.

Landowska's fame grew quickly, and in 1903 she gave her first public performance on the harpsichord, an instrument that, by the nineteenth century, was considered "feeble" in its dynamics and rendered obsolete by the piano. Landowska ferociously championed its use through her performances and writings; she commissioned the construction of new harpsichords; and, in 1913, she returned to Berlin to establish a class devoted to the instrument at the Hochschule für Musik.

In 1920, Landowska settled in Paris, where she became a frequent guest in Barney's circle, often providing musical accompaniment for the various artistic functions of the renowned lesbian salon. While she toured extensively and recorded during the 1920s, she also began another phase of her career by establishing the École de Musique Ancienne near Paris, which attracted students from many nations. She was recognized as one of the great music teachers of her time, and was rumored to have engaged in a rivalry with Nadia Boulanger, the other great female musical pedagogue, for the romantic affections of a number of young women in their tutelage.

The great harpsichordist apparently had no illusions about the number of homosexuals in music. She is reputed to have startled an American performer who had come to study with her, by asking him, without batting an eyelash, "Et vous êtes un pédéraste, naturellement?" ("And you are a homosexual, of course?")

In the 1930s, Landowska met Denise Restout, who became, in turn, her student, her life companion, and the preserver of her artistic legacy. Landowska's fame and success continued to grow through the 1930s, but, with the Nazi invasion of France in 1940, she lost her school, her property, her extensive library, and all her instruments. She and Restout escaped to southern France and then to Lisbon and finally arrived in New York as refugees. Although Landowska had virtually nothing left to her but her talent, she nonetheless re-established herself in the United States as a performer and teacher.

Through the 1940s, she toured extensively and made her landmark recording of Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations, a work she restored to performance on the instrument for which it had been composed. She continued to work tirelessly until her death on August 16, 1959, at her home in Lakeville, Connecticut. After her death, Restout devotedly edited and translated her writings on music. Landowska had thoroughly transformed the performance and reception of early music in the modern period, and, through her pioneering efforts, the harpsichord is frequently heard in many diverse musical genres today.

 

1904Harold Acton, American writer and dilettante (d.1994); British writer, scholar and dilettante, among the "Bright Young Things" of British society during the 1920s, few shone quite as brightly as Harold Acton. Known for his flamboyant dandyism and his extraordinary demeanor, he was the object of frequent mention in gossip columns. He may also have been the inspiration for the notorious Anthony Blanche, the outré homosexual undergraduate character in Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited (1945), although Waugh himself claimed that Brian Howard inspired the character.

Although he was at various points in his long life a poet, novelist, historian, university lecturer, Royal Air Force officer, and philanthropist, Acton's true vocation was that of an aesthete with a mission, in his own words, to "excite rage in the hearts of the Philistines."

Acton's own works include Memoirs of an Aesthete and The Bourbons of Naples, 1734-1825, a gossipy history of the Bourbon rulers of the Kingdom of Naples in the 18th century. He also wrote Peonies and Ponies, the satirical book about the clash between European and Chinese culture.

In 1974 he was named a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE). When he died in 1994, he left his Italian home, Villa La Pietra, to New York University. Following Acton's death at the age of 89, DNA testing revealed the existence of a half-sister, whose heirs have gone to court to challenge Acton's $500 million bequest to NYU.

 


Hoogen and Heine in front of Cafe Megalomania

1947Hans-Peter Hoogen (né Johannes-Peter Hoogen) is a German gay activist and proprietor of the Frankfurt restaurant "Café Megalomania". Hessian Prime Minister Roland Koch awarded him the Hessian Order of Merit on ribbon in 2005 as the first gay activist.

Hoogen grew up as a Catholic farmer's son on the Lower Rhine. His move to Frankfurt am Main in 1971 marked a personal turning point - he had a girlfriend in the first semesters of his law studies in Münster; in Frankfurt he was became only interested in young men.

In the autumn of 1971 he joined the Frankfurt "Red Cell Gay". There was little interest in the leftist student movement in the concerns of homosexuals, and pronounced macho was more socially acceptable there.

Hoogen and Hans-Jurgen Heine set up a gastronomic business with the “Cafe megalomania” that opened in December 1978. The pub is still one of the popular and multiple award-winning restaurants in Frankfurt.

Hoogen also campaigned publicly for the civil partnership: in August 1992, he kissed Fritz, his boyfriend at the time, in front of the Römer town hall in Frankfurt so deeply that the photo of the two was seen throughout the country.

In 1996 he founded "40 plus", a forum for older gay men, which offers discussion evenings on the subject of aging as a gay man and leisure activities to counteract the loneliness of older gays.

In 2001, Hoogen played a key role in bringing about the city's "Round Table on the Situation of Lesbians and Gays in Frankfurt". There he was one of the spokesmen for the gay members of the round table and campaigned for the recognition of the interests of older lesbians and gays in work with the elderly. Hoogen has made a significant contribution to the nationwide discussion of the situation of homosexual people in need of care and is also committed to the development of new projects and structures in the field of care for the elderly.

In the early 1980s, Hoogen began to campaign politically for support against the immune deficiency disease AIDS. Hoogen lost a large number of friends of the same age. "I hardly know gay men of the same age," said Hoogen in a newspaper interview. He has actively supported the work of AIDS-Hilfe Frankfurt since it was founded in 1985, including five years on the board.

In 1989, Hoogen and friends co-founded the initiative group memorial homosexual persecution (IMH), which succeeded in setting up the “Frankfurter Engel” by the sculptor Rosemarie Trockel in 1994, and renaming the square between Schäfergasse and Alter Gasse to “Klaus-Mann-Platz” in 1995.

 

1949Richard Labonté is a Canadian writer and editor, best known as the editor or co-editor of numerous anthologies of LGBT literature.

Originally from Edmonton, Alberta, Labonté studied English and political science at Carleton University in Ottawa, where he was an editor for The Charlatan. Following school he joined the Ottawa Citizen in 1972 as an editor, later writing film and book reviews, and was a contributor to The Body Politic. In 1980, he contributed to an Ottawa Citizen series on gay life in Ottawa, becoming one of the first Canadian journalists ever to come out in the pages of a mainstream newspaper.

During his time contributing to the Citizen, Labonté began a relationship with Norman Laurila, then an employee at Glad Day Bookshop in Toronto. The couple subsequently moved to Los Angeles, where they would become co-founders of the influential LGBT bookstore A Different Light. Although their relationship broke up in 1983, they both remained involved in the store, with Labonté managing the Silver Lake store and Laurila managing a new branch in New York City.

After Michael Thomas Ford stepped down as editor of Cleis Press's annual Best Gay Erotica series in 1996, Labonté was invited to become editor of the series, because the deadline for the next anthology was imminent and his job as a bookstore manager meant he would have extensive contacts in the gay literary world whose work he could call in quickly. He remains the editor of the series to this day, and has also edited numerous other themed anthologies for the company. He has also published several anthologies with the Canadian Arsenal Pulp Press, and has written book reviews for Books to Watch Out For/Gay Men's Edition, Book Marks, PlanetOut, Q Syndicate and Publishers Weekly.

He has won three Lambda Literary Awards for his work as an editor, for Best Gay Erotica 2005, First Person Queer (coedited with Lawrence Schimel) in 2008 and Best Gay Erotica 2009; his other titles have included The Future Is Queer, Second Person Queer and I Like It Like That: True Tales of Gay Desire.

Labonté and his husband, Asa Dean Liles, moved back to Canada in 2001 and currently reside on Bowen Island in British Columbia.

 

1952 David Dreier is Chairman of the Annenberg-Dreier Commission on the Greater Pacific, launched in February 2013. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1981-2013, and was Chairman of the Rules Committee. He is a member of the Republican Party.

Following the indictment of Tom DeLay on September 28, 2005, Dreier was widely expected to temporarily assume the position of House Majority Leader. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert favored Dreier for the position. However, a conference of rank-and-file Republican representatives disapproved of the choice of Dreier in such a senior position largely because many conservative Republican House members believed that Dreier was too politically moderate.

However, rumors about Dreier's homosexuality may have affected his leadership bid. When openly gay congressman Barney Frank was asked whether Dreier was passed over for the position because of his "moderate" views, told a crowd of reporters "Yes, in the sense that I marched in the moderate pride parade last summer and went to a moderate bar."

The House Majority Leader position instead went to then Majority Whip Roy Blunt.

On February 29, 2012, Drier announced that upon completion of his current term as a member of the United States Congress that he would not be seeking re-election.

 

1970Wayne Besen is an American gay rights advocate. He is a former investigative journalist for WABI-TV, a former spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, and the founder of Truth Wins Out. Besen came out to his parents before starting his Truth Wins Out Organization. After coming out to his parents, they bought him an ex-gay DVD that could supposedly hypnotize people and turn them straight. It was that and the invitation by President George W. Bush of ex-gay leader Alan Chambers to the White House that led him to start the Truth Wins Out organization.

Besen has interviewed hundreds of former and current "ex-gays", and is an outspoken critic of organizations such as Homosexuals Anonymous.

Besen announced on his truthwinsout.org website that he got married to his boyfriend of five years Jamie Brundage on December 8, 2011 in the City Hall of Burlington, VT.

In September 2000, Besen photographed ex-gay activist John Paulk, then Chairman of Exodus International, in a Washington D.C. gay bar called Mr. P's. Paulk said he was simply there to use the washroom, but Besen and other witnesses allege he was drinking and flirting for over 20 minutes. Besen went public with the story, and wrote about it in his book Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth. The book was nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards in 2003.

Besen's photograph of Paulk in September 2000 (and the subsequent release of the story) was instrumental in the ultimate removal of Paulk as Chairman of Exodus International. Exodus International was a major organization in the "Ex-gay movement" until it was disbanded in June 2013. As noted by The Washington Post in October 2002, "John Paulk had been the most famous success story of the Christian ex-gay movement, which seeks to persuade gay men and lesbians to accept Jesus and renounce homosexuality. He had appeared on 60 Minutes, Oprah and the cover of Newsweek."

In June 2013, Exodus International reversed its positions on reparative therapy, apologized to the gay community for the "trauma" and "hurt" the organization had wreaked on them, and disbanded the organization.

 

1973 Douglas Stewart, Jr., a member of the Latter Day Saints Church, was born in Provo, Utah (d.2006). He committed suicide in St. Louis, Missouri, on March 8, 2006, exactly 30 years to the day his grandfather committed suicide. Douglas was 32.

Doug was a gifted cellist, and was a Utah Sterling Scholar in music. He served an honorable mission for the LDS Church starting in the Hamburg Germany Mission and finishing in the Minneapolis Minnesota Mission.

Shortly after his mission, he married in the temple, but after a year of marriage he divorced his wife, came out as a homosexual to his family and friends, and became actively involved in the fight for gay rights.

Doug's maternal grandfather was Carlyle D. Marsden, another gay Mormon, who was outed, and took his life in 1976.

 

1978Ivo Widlak, born in Knurów, Poland, is an international press, radio and tv journalist.

He started as a very young reporter at weekly newspaper in his hometown titled "Przegląd Lokalny". Then he started hosting TV show for children and teenagers called "Kleks" on TVP Katowice. The same year, in 1995, wrote scripts and hosted "5-10-15", another show for children and teenagers on TVP1 on Telewizja Polska. Later he co-developed and co-hosted "Twój Problem Nasza Głowa" on Telewizja Wisła later TVN (Poland).

In 1998 he moved to Warsaw to co-host "Rower Błażeja" on TVP1 on Telewizja Polska. During his career he worked for Radio Puls in Gliwice and Radio ZET in Warsaw.

He rose to prominence as an investigative journalist in the United States, for uncovering corruption and irregularities that took place with the renovation of the building of the Polish Consulate General, Chicago titled "Consulgate."

On December 14, 2012, pinknews.co.uk reported that Ivo Widlak is facing the risk of deportation from the United States due to his bisexuality. Widlak has been married for ten years to a woman, Lale. However, someone in the local Polish community, later revealed to be attorney Christopher Kurczaba, reportedly went to authorities and claimed that Ivo and Lale were in a sham marriage, and that Ivo was in fact homosexual.

The Widlaks are not a same-sex couple, so they do not fall under the protection of an executive order that President Obama signed in September 2012. That order stated that foreigners in a same-sex relationship with an American citizen have the same anti-deportation protections as foreigners married to an American citizen.

1978 – In Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, an hour-long "Gay News and Views" begins on local station. It is the first regularly scheduled gay radio program in Canada.

1978 The Quebec Human Rights Commission decides that the Montreal Catholic School Commission's refusal to rent facilities to a gay group is discriminatory. It is the first such finding by the commission since inclusion of "sexual orientation" in the provincial Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

1980 – The national convention of Liberal Party of Canada adopts a resolution to include sexual orientation in Canadian Human Right Act.

 

1985 – François Landriault-Barbeau, known professionally as François Arnaud, is a Canadian film and television actor. He is best known for his work as Cesare Borgia on Showtime's period drama series The Borgias, Manfred Bernardo on NBC's Midnight, Texas, and Tommy Castelli on UnReal.

Arnaud was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec. In 2007, Arnaud trained at the Conservatoire d'art dramatique in Montreal.

Arnaud started his career in his home country by landing a role in a comedy series called Taxi 0-22 and guest starring in several other Canadian shows. Later he became known for his performance as Cesare Borgia in the Showtime series The Borgias. He also starred as Antonin Rimbaud in the French-Canadian film I Killed My Mother, directed by Xavier Dolan. Arnaud received a VFCC Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Canadian Film for the role.

He portrayed Oscar in the NBC drama series Blindspot. Arnaud currently stars in Midnight, Texas, portraying the role of a troubled psychic, Manfred Bernardo.

On 20 September 2020, Arnaud came out as bisexual on his Instagram.

"Without a doubt, stigmas of indecisiveness, infidelity, deception and trendiness are still clinging to bisexuality. But here's the thing. Silence has the perverse effect of perpetuating those stereotypes, making bi guys invisible, and leading people to doubt that we even exist. No wonder it's still a chore to acknowledge bisexuality without getting into lengthy explanations."

He concluded by writing, "labels are frustrating and words, imperfect."

"I've always considered myself bisexual," he said. "Not disloyal. Not ashamed. Not invisible."

 

1985 Megan Rapinoe is an American professional soccer midfielder who currently plays for Olympique Lyonnais in the French League and is a member of the United States women's national soccer team. She is widely known for her crafty style of play and her precise cross to Abby Wambach which tied the game in the 122nd minute of the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup quarterfinals against Brazil. She scored 3 goals and tallied a team-high 4 assists to lead the United States to a gold medal in the 2012 Summer Olympics.

On July 2, 2012, Rapinoe came out as a lesbian in an interview with Out magazine. Rapinoe confirmed that she had been dating Australian soccer player Sarah Walsh for three years. After approximately five years together, Rapinoe and Walsh ended their relationship in 2013. Rapinoe has since been dating Sub Pop recording artist Sera Cahoone. Rapinoe and Cahoone announced their engagement in August 2015.

On November 10, 2012, Rapinoe was given the Board of Director's Award by the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center.

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