November 12

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1651 – Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés De La Cruz was born on this date (d.1695). Her library — which held Mexico's largest book collection — developed into a meeting-place for the intellectual elite. Those who frequented the salon included future viceroy Marquis de La Laguna and the Countess de Pareda, known to her intimates as Maria Luisa. Sor Juana has also been called "La Decima Musa" or the "Tenth Muse."

Maria Luisa and Sor Juana embarked on a passionate friendship that may have crossed the boundaries of the propriety of the day. In any case, it produced decidedly amorous poetry. Sor Juana wrote, "That you're a woman far away is no hindrance to my love: for the soul, as you well know, distance and sex don't count." Her poetry expresses a spiritual solidarity with women, a sublime affinity that transcends sex. That this solidarity excluded men is apparent in her anti-male work — in "You Men," the accused are a sniveling bunch "adept at wrongly faulting womankind."

However, it was not the Sapphic content of her verses that upset Sor Juana's contemporaries. Rather, she drew fire after a private letter criticizing a member of the clergy was published without her permission. When the Archbishop of Mexico tried to silence her, she wrote a defense entitled "La Respuesta." This letter is her defining work — and the instrument of her downfall. Sor Juana turned around the logic used by the Church to justify her oppression and subverted it into a magnificent defense for women's intellectual rights and education. Though the letter's tone is superficially humble, Sor Juana forcefully insists that women have a natural right to their minds. Her use of biblical evidence to support her call for strong, educated women is downright clever — and has earned her recognition for her rhetorical skills.

Naturally, "La Respuesta" brought indignation from the Church and unwanted attention from the Inquisition. To save herself, Sor Juana was forced to stop writing and to give up her books. She died a nun's death in 1695, succumbing to illness while caring for the poor during an epidemic.

1660 – Cardinal Francesco Maria de' Medici, was born in Florence, the son of Grand duke Ferdinando II of Tuscany and Vittoria Della Rovere (d.1711).

In 1683 he was appointed to governor of Siena, a position he maintained until his death. He was the grand prior of the Sovereign Order of Malta in Pisa; Abbot commendatario of S. Galgano, Siena; Abbot commendatario of S. Stefano, Carrara, 1675.

According to a family tradition was promoted to the cardinalate at a young age in 1686. He remained in Florence, in his villa of Lappeggi, devoting himself to a life not really religious, made of amusements and love affairs with men.

He resigned the cardinalate on June 19, 1709 and was named prince of Siena. He then was forced to marry in 1709 Eleonore Luisa Gonzaga, duchess of Guastalla, daughter of Vincenzo Gonzaga, in an attempt to save the dynasty, but they did not have children.

1679 – Sweden: Lisabetha Olsdotter is convicted of abandoning her husband and children, becoming a soldier, and marrying a woman. She is accused of “mutilating” her gender and mocking God. She is executed by decapitation.

1746 – Jacques Charles (d.1823) was a French mathematician and inventor, best known for his work with the hydrogen balloon.

Jacques was the only child of his parents. Jacques' education consisted of basic arithmetic , and no science at all. Other than this almost nothing is known about his earlier years.

Late in life Jacques married a creole woman, Julie Françoise Bouchaud des Hérettes, who was 37 years younger than himself. Many historians believe that his marriage was a cover up for his homosexual relationship with the poet, Alphonse de Lamartine.

In 1785 Charles became a professor at the French Académie des Sciences without having any formal science education himself.

Without Charles's contributions, the Hindenburg would not have even existed, so that accident would not have occurred, and we wouldn't have the one-way valve, or at least until someone else came up for the idea after Charles did.

Most notably Jacques Charles is known for the Hydrogen balloon which he built with the Robert Brothers. Jacques originally got the idea for using hydrogen gas as a lifting agent after intensive study of Boyle's Law. Previous to the use of hydrogen gas, hot air was used to make balloons fly.

Charles also is known for the invention of the gas valve, which he used on his hydrogen balloons, the hydrometer, and the reflection goniometer. He improved the heilostat and the arometer. Charles also confirmed Benjamin Franklin's electrical experiments. Charles is also responsible for Charles's Law, but did not publish it. It was published by Joseph Gay-Lussac in 1802, and Joseph named it in Charles's honor, crediting an unpublished work by Jacques Charles.

Jacques Charles outlived his young wife, and later died himself April 7, 1823 in Paris.

1875 – Washington Territory enacts a vagrancy law covering "disorderly persons." Since there is no sodomy law in the territory, this is the only law that can cover acts of sodomy.

1908 – United States Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun was born on this date (d.1999). An Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1970 to 1994, Blackmun is best known as the author of the majority opinion in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, overturning laws restricting abortion in the United States and declaring abortion protected under a constitutional right to privacy.

On the suggestion of Warren Burger, Blackmun was nominated for the Supreme Court by Richard Nixon in 1970, and confirmed by the United States Senate later the same year. The life-long Republican began his time on the court as a conservative jurist but slowly moved to a more liberal position.

Our interest in Blackmun has to do with his dissenting opinion in the landmark 1986 court case Bowers V. Hardwick that upheld the constitutionality of a Georgia sodomy law that criminalized oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults. The short majority opinion by Chief Justice Warren Burger emphasized historical negative attitudes toward homosexual sex, quoting Sir William Blackstone's characterization of sodomy as "a crime not fit to be named." Burger concluded, "To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching."

Opponents of sodomy laws criticized the Bowers decision not only for its result but also because of the Court's dismissive treatment of the liberty and privacy interests of Gay men and Lesbians.

In his blistering dissenting opinion, Blackmun attacked the majority opinion as having an "almost obsessive focus on homosexual activity." Justice Blackmun suggested that "only the most willful blindness could obscure the fact that sexual intimacy is 'a sensitive, key relationship of human existence, central to family life, community welfare, and the development of human personality.'"

Burger and Blackmun drifted apart, and as the years passed, their lifelong friendship degenerated into a hostile and contentious relationship. Bowers v. Hardwick was directly overruled by the decision in Lawrence v. Texas (2003) that held that such laws are unconstitutional. Blackmun would have been pleased.

1915 – Roland Barthes (d.1980), a French semanticist, symbolist, and philosopher, like André Gide and Marcel Proust, two of his favorite writers, was somewhat of an outsider. He was Protestant. (France is predominantly Catholic.) He was left-handed. (France is, of course, predominantly right-handed.) He was déclassé. (Barthes's father, a naval officer, died in the First World War, and his mother had to work as a bookbinder.) He was consumptive. (Barthes spent several years in sanatoria.) And he was expatriate. (Barthes spent the 1950s in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, working for cultural services.) He was also, like Proust, (if not like Gide, who saw himself as a pederast), a homosexual.

Barthes's critical writings are best understood in relation to this sexual marginality. Because Barthes sees homosexuality, and for that matter any transgressive and eccentric "perversion," as unclassifiable, he rejects the classification "inversion" as inaccurate—a notion that will come as a surprise to gays and lesbians who see themselves as "inverts."

Oddly enough, Barthes does not reject every gay male stereotype. Barthes rejects sexual inversion, but embraces "tricking" and "cruising," activities that he claims represent true sexual liberation. (Not that they did so for Barthes himself; his autobiographical texts suggest he had an unhappy love life.) Cruising, he writes, is "anti-natural, anti-repetition." It may be that Barthes is simply "protecting" his sexuality here (something he feels all writers do), or at least the macho ("phallocentric") part of his sexuality because whereas sexual inversion feminizes gay men, cruising for tricks is a rather manly (and purportedly desirable) thing to do.

Barthes sees tricking and cruising as desirable in another sense as well. The trick, he writes, "is homogenous to the amorous progression; it is a virtual love, deliberately stopped short on each side, by contract." Likewise, men cruise with "the invincible idea that one will find someone with whom to be in love." Some gays (who cruise for sex, not love) will find these descriptions unrealistic. Barthes, however, feels that sentimentality, in an age such as ours in which love doesn't make too much sense, is essentially—and even nonparadoxically—insignificant.

According to Barthes, "it is Western discourse as such" —discourse that marginalizes and stereotypes gays and lesbians—" that we must now try to break apart."

1930 – Bob Crewe (d.2014) was an American songwriter, dancer, singer, manager, record producer and fine artist. He was known for producing, and co-writing with Bob Gaudio, a string of Top 10 singles for the Four Seasons.

Born in Newark in 1930 and reared in Belleville, New Jersey, Crewe demonstrated an early and apparent gift for both art and music. Although lacking in formal musical training, he gravitated to learning from many of the great 19th- and 20th-century classical romantic composers as well as giants of jazz and swing, including Stan Kenton, Harry James, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Tommy Dorsey. He studied for almost a year at Parsons School of Design in New York City with the intention of eventually pursuing a career in architecture.

In 1953 Crewe met and partnered professionally with Frank Slay Jr., a young pianist from Texas. Their collaboration created several hit songs (including a small record label XYZ), for which Crewe performed as the demo singer. Crewe and Slay's 1957 recording session with the Rays for their XYZ label (picked up nationally by Cameo Records) produced two big song hits. Produced by Crewe, the record's A-side, "Silhouettes", became a doo-wop anthem of the era. Climbing to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 1957, "Silhouettes" displayed the flair for story-driven lyrics, innovative musical "hooks", and a final lyrical twist that were to become known as Crewe trademarks. "Daddy Cool" was the B side of that same 1957 session. His song-writing career was launched.

As a songwriter, his most successful songs included "Silhouettes" (co-written with Frank Slay); "Big Girls Don't Cry", "Walk Like a Man", "Rag Doll", "Silence Is Golden", "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Anymore)", "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" and "Bye, Bye, Baby" (all co-written with Gaudio); "Let's Hang On!" (wriiten with Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell); and "My Eyes Adored You" and "Lady Marmalade" (both co-written with Kenny Nolan). He also had hit recordings with the Rays, Diane Renay, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, Freddy Cannon, Lesley Gore, Oliver, Michael Jackson, Bobby Darin, Roberta Flack, Peabo Bryson, Patti LaBelle, and his own Bob Crewe Generation.

Since 2005 Crewe has been featured as a supporting character (played originally by Peter Gregus) in Jersey Boys, the multiple Tony Award-winning, long-running Broadway musical (later a film) based on the story of Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons that has gone on to become an international hit. Crewe is credited as the show's lyricist. He used his proceeds from the show to start a foundation supporting people with AIDS, gay rights, and bringing music and art to children in deprived communities.

Crewe was portrayed as "overtly gay" in "Jersey Boys," but his brother Dan told The New York Times he was discreet about his sexuality, particularly during the time he was working with the Four Seasons.

"Whenever he met someone, he would go into what I always called his John Wayne mode, this extreme machoism," Dan Crewe told The New York Times. He was then asked if any of the songs his brother wrote were based on a romance with another man and he demurred, "Bob was just a good story teller." But were they stories about his boyfriends, changed into stories about girlfriends?

1946 – James F. Amos is a retired United States Marine Corps four-star general who served as the 35th Commandant of the Marine Corps. As a Naval Aviator, Amos commanded the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing during the Iraq War in 2003 and 2004. He served as the 31st Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps. He is the first Marine Corps aviator to serve as commandant.

As Commandant, Amos opposed the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding homosexuals openly serving in the U.S. military. After President Obama signed the legislation setting the conditions for repeal, Amos led the Department of Defense in carrying out the will of the nation's civilian leadership. In late November 2011, Amos stated that his opposition to gays openly serving in the military has proven unfounded and said that Marines have embraced the change, describing the repeal as a "non-event."

1947 – A New York appellate court overturns the sodomy conviction of a "man of education and culture" accused by a mentally retarded vagrant, thus showing class bias.

1958 – Eric Marcus, born in New York City, is an American non-fiction writer. His works are primarily of LGBT interest, including Breaking the Surface, the autobiography of gay Olympic diving champion Greg Louganis, which became a #1 New York Times Bestseller and Making History: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, 1945-1990, which won the Stonewall Book Award. Other topics he's addressed in his writing include suicide and pessimistic humor.

Marcus received his B.A. from Vassar College in 1980 where he majored in Urban Studies. He earned his Master's degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1984 and a Master's degree in real estate development in 2003, also from Columbia University. He was an associate producer for Good Morning America and CBS Morning News.

Eric Marcus is the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Senior Director for Loss and Bereavement Programs. He wrote his best-seller Why Suicide? in order to come to terms with his own father's suicide when Eric was twelve years old.

Other popular works include What If Someone I Know Is Gay? Answers to Questions about What It Means to be Gay and Lesbian, and The Male Couple's Guide: Finding a Man, Making a Home, Building a Life.

1964 – The first depiction of a same-sex relationship is found in an Egyptian tomb. Nyankh-khnum and Khnum-hotep are discovered buried together side by side. The wall art shows the two men kissing. They were ancient Egyptian royal servants. They shared the title of Overseer of the Manicurists in the Palace of King Nyuserre Ini, sixth pharaoh of the Fifth Dynasty, reigning during the second half of the 25th century BC. They were buried together at Saqqara and are listed as "royal confidants" in their joint tomb.

1970 – Craig Parker, born in Suva, Fiji, is an actor from New Zealand, known for his roles as Haldir in the films The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) and The Two Towers (2002), Darken Rahl in the television series Legend of the Seeker, Stéphane Narcisse in the CW television series Reign, and Gaius Claudius Glaber in the television series Spartacus.

Parker first publicly discussed being gay in an interview with New Zealand’s Sunday Herald back in 2008. Regarding his sexuality, the very private Parker told the reporter that as a gay man, he doesn’t care what people say about his sexuality and that:

1975 – Guy Branum is an American actor, comedian, and writer best known as the head writer of, and a sketch performer on, X-Play on the G4 network and was a regular panelist on Chelsea Lately on the E! network.

Branum was born and raised in Yuba City, California. He attended the University of California, Berkeley from 1994-1998 where he was a history and political science major. He wrote a column for the Daily Californian, one of which brought the United States Secret Service to his apartment in November 1997 before the Big Game between Berkeley and Stanford University, in which he made suggestions that Berkeley students murder Stanford Freshman Chelsea Clinton.

He then moved to Minnesota, where he attended the University of Minnesota Law School, and was on the U of M Quiz Bowl team that placed third at CBI nationals in 1999. After graduating he returned to California.

After being recommended by co-hostess Laura Swisher, Branum was hired as a writer for Unscrewed with Martin Sargent while it was still on TechTV in San Francisco. On Unscrewed, he regularly appeared as a sweater model and as The Ambassador of Gay. He was also a writer and producer on G4tv.com, and head writer on the G4 channel program X-Play. He also contributed to the comedy podcast Weezy and the Swish. In December 2007, Branum became a writer and an onscreen comedy performer on Chelsea Lately. He made his feature film debut in January 2011 in No Strings Attached. In 2012 Branum became a writer for the show Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell, performing a recurring segment "No more Mr. Nice Gay." He appeared on the eighth season of Last Comic Standing.

Branum is openly gay.

1976 – Tevin Campbell is an American singer, songwriter and actor. He performed gospel in his local church from an early age. Following an audition for jazz musician Bobbi Humphrey in 1988, Campbell was signed to Warner Bros. Records.

In 1989, Campbell collaborated with Quincy Jones performing lead vocals for "Tomorrow" on Jones' album Back on the Block and released his Platinum-selling debut album, T.E.V.I.N. The album included his highest-charting single to date, "Tell Me What You Want Me to Do", peaking at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100.

His double-Platinum-selling second album, I'm Ready, released in 1993, included two high-charting songs. In 1996, Campbell released his third album, Back to the World, which was not as commercially or critically successful as his first two releases. His fourth and most recent album, Tevin Campbell, was released in 1999, but performed poorly on Billboard's album charts.

Apart from music, Campbell commenced an acting career, by appearing in the sequel to Prince's Purple Rain named Graffiti Bridge and made guest appearances on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Moesha television programs, voiced fictional pop star Powerline in Disney's A Goofy Movie and was cast as Seaweed in the Broadway musical Hairspray in 2005.

Campbell earned 5 Grammy Award nominations, and he has certified sales of 4.5 million records in the United States, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

Campbell has dealt with speculation of his sexuality for years without directly addressing anything. Campbell had long denied rumors that he was a homosexual but in 1999 was arrested after offering to perform a sexual favor on a male undercover police officer. According to a report released by the Los Angeles Police Department, Campbell, on July 8,1999, he solicited a lewd act from an undercover officer. Also following the arrest, officers recovered a substance resembling marijuana and a pipe containing possible marijuana residue.

In 2018, he has stated that he can't figure out why people are still so interested in whether or not he's gay. There has been rumors that Quincy Jones sexually assaulted him as a minor, which Campbell denied. In 2020, he threatened to file a lawsuit against Jaguar Wright for claims that he had become a sex worker.

1980 – James Ryan Clabots , best known as Jimmy Clabots, is an American physical therapist, actor, and screenwriter. In 2009 he became a male escort, and retired in 2012. Since 2014 he’s been working as a writer and physical therapist in Los Angeles.

In 2000 he became a model. In 2008 Clabots started his career as an actor in the comedy film Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild!. In 2011 he starred in Showtime's Gigolos, showing male escorts in Las Vegas, but left the show in 2012 when he retired from escorting.

Clabots is of Cuban and Spanish descent.

1985 – Ben Aldridge is an English actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Thomas Wayne in the crime drama series Pennyworth and "Arsehole Guy" in the tragicomedy series Fleabag.

Having worked with the National Youth Theatre, Aldridge graduated from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art with a bursary from the Genesis Foundation for young actors. He left early to begin filming the 2009 ITV film Compulsion alongside Ray Winstone and Parminder Nagra.

In 2008, Aldridge made his television debut in Channel 4's four-part miniseries The Devil's Whore, playing Harry Fanshawe, husband of the title character. That same year, he was featured on Screen International's "Stars of Tomorrow" list. In addition to First Light, Lewis, Toast and Vera, Aldridge also appeared as Daniel Parish in the BBC One period drama Lark Rise to Candleford. In 2011, the American network The CW cast Aldridge as the lead in the pilot Heavenly. Later on he spent time in Belgrade shooting the partially improvised romance short film In the Night for director Ivana Bobic and award-winning cinematographer Rain Li, alongside supermodel Danijela Dimitrovska.

In 2013, Aldridge starred in Almeida Theatre's production of American Psycho as Paul Owen, opposite Matt Smith as Patrick Bateman. The musical thriller featured a book by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa based on Bret Easton Ellis's cult novel, with music and lyrics by Duncan Sheik.

In September 2014, he joined BBC's original drama series Our Girl as Captain Charles James. He is currently the longest serving cast member.

In December 2014, Aldridge joined The CW's series Reign as King Antoine of Navarre.

On 27 June 2020, Aldridge came out as a member of LGBT community on his Instagram.

"The journey to pride was a long one for me. I love the LGBTQ+ community and am incredibly proud and thankful to be a part of it," Aldridge wrote.

The actor also shared some black-and-white photos from historic Pride marches along with a short video showing him kissing a man on the cheek.

1994 – Guillaume Cizeron is a French ice dancer. With his partner, Gabriella Papadakis, he is the 2018 Olympic silver medalist, a four-time World champion (2015–2016, 2018–2019), a five-time consecutive European champion (2015–2019), the 2017 and 2019 Grand Prix Final champion, and a six-time French national champion (2015–2020). They have won ten gold medals on the Grand Prix series. Earlier in their career, they won silver at the 2012 Junior Grand Prix Final and 2013 World Junior Championships.

Papadakis and Cizeron have broken world records 28 times, which is in itself a record across all figure skating disciplines since the introduction of the ISU Judging System in 2004. They are the current and historical world record holders in short/rhythm dance, free dance, and combined total. They are the first team to have broken the 90-point barrier in the rhythm dance, the 120-point and 130-point barriers in the free dance, and the first team to score above the 200-point, 210-point and 220-point barriers in the combined total score.

The pair are recognized for their graceful and balletic style. Their programs, inspired by modern dance, have been described as lyrical, and commentators have frequently acclaimed the quality of their skating skills.

Guillaume Cizeron was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. His father, Marc, is president of the Auvergne Clermont Danse sur Glace skating club.

Cizeron studied fine arts in Lyon before moving to Canada. He relocated to Montreal, Quebec, Canada from France on 14 July 2014, following his coach, Haguenauer.

On 17 May 2020, in honour of the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, he came out as gay with a post on Instagram showing him with his boyfriend. He had been out to his family and friends for a while but was convinced his doing so would help people in places that were not as open to LGBTQ people.

While Cizeron had never publicly confirmed his sexuality before recently, he says that he never felt that he was in the closet.

"I would not consider myself in the closet before…So I don't really consider it coming out. Even though I have never spoken publicly about my sexual orientation, I am one of those who think that it is not something that community members should have to do."

With the pandemic affecting international travel, the ISU opted to assign the Grand Prix based primarily on geographic location, but Papadakis/Cizeron were nonetheless assigned to the 2020 Internationaux de France, necessitating traveling from Canada to France. However, the Internationaux was ultimately cancelled due to the pandemic as well. Both skaters contracted COVID-19 in July of 2019, after contact with a third individual, resulting in them being away from the ice for three weeks.

On November 11, 2020, L'Equipe reported that Papadakis/Cizeron would skip both the French and European championships for that season to focus on the World Championships in Stockholm, citing the difficulty of traveling back and forth between countries frequently.

2010 – Columbia: Protests in Bogota take place after the Columbian court rules against same-sex marriage.