September 9

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1898 – John Beverley Nichols (d.1983), was an author, playwright, journalist, composer, and public speaker.

Between his first book, the novel Prelude, published in 1920, and his last, a book of poetry, Twilight, published in 1982, Nichols wrote more than 60 books and plays. Besides novels, mysteries, short stories, essays and children's books, he wrote a number of non-fiction books on travel, politics, religion, cats, parapsychology, and autobiography. He wrote for a number of magazines and newspapers throughout his life, the longest being weekly columns for the London Sunday Chronicle newspaper (1932–1943) and Woman's Own magazine (1946–1967).

A book about Nichols' city garden near Hampstead Heath in London, Green Grows the City, published in 1939, was another big best seller. That book introduced Arthur R. Gaskin, who was Nichols' manservant from 1924 until Gaskin's death in 1966. Gaskin was a popular character, who also appeared in the succeeding gardening books.

A later trilogy written between 1951 and 1956 documents Nichols's travails renovating Merry Hall (Meadowstream), a Georgian manor house in Agates Lane, Ashtead, Surrey, where Nichols lived from 1946 to 1956. These books often feature his gifted but laconic gardener "Oldfield". Nichols's final trilogy is referred to as "The Sudbrook Trilogy" (1963–1968) and concerns his late 18th-century attached cottage at Ham, (near Richmond), Surrey.

Nichols wrote on a wide range of topics, always looking for "the next big thing." As examples, he ghostwrote Dame Nellie Melba's 1925 "autobiography" Memories and Melodies (he was at the time her personal secretary - his 1933 book Evensong was believed based on aspects of her life). In 1966 he wrote A Case of Human Bondage about the marriage and divorce of writer William Somerset Maugham and his interior-decorator wife, Syrie, which was highly critical of Maugham. Father Figure, which appeared in 1972 and in which he described how he had tried to murder his alcoholic and abusive father, caused a great uproar and several people asked for his prosecution. His book about spiritualism was not well received, which disappointed him.

He was homosexual and is thought to have had a brief affair with the war poet Siegfried Sassoon. Nichols's long-term companion was Cyril Butcher, the main beneficiary of Nichols's will, amounting to £131,750.

1911 – Paul Goodman (d.1972) was a novelist, playwright, poet and psychotherapist, although now best known as a social critic, anarchist philosopher, and public intellectual. Though often thought of as a sociologist, he vehemently denied being one in a presentation in the Experimental College at San Francisco State in 1964, and in fact said he could not read sociology because it was too often lifeless. The author of dozens of books including Growing Up Absurd and The Community of Scholars, Goodman was an activist on the pacifist Left in the 1960s and a frequently cited inspiration to the student movement of that decade. A lay therapist for a number of years, he was a co-founder of Gestalt Therapy in the 1940s and '50s.

Goodman was born in New York City to immigrants. He had a Hebrew school education. His brother Percival Goodman, with whom Paul frequently worked, was an architect especially noted for his many synagogue designs. As a child, Goodman freely roamed the streets and public libraries of his native New York City, experiences which later inspired his radical concept of "the educative city".

In 1940, Goodman was removed from his University of Chicago faculty position for issues pertaining to his open bisexuality and affairs with students.

The freedom with which he revealed, in print and in public, his romantic and sexual relations with men (notably in a late essay, "Being Queer"), proved to be one of the many important cultural springboards for the emerging gay liberation movement of the early 1970s. He viewed sexual relationships between males as natural, normal, and healthy. In discussing his own sexual relationships, he acknowledged that public opinion would condemn him, but countered that "what is really obscene is the way our society makes us feel shameful and like criminals for doing human things that we really need."

In 1967, Goodman's son Matthew died in a mountain climbing accident. Paul's friends claimed that he never recovered from the resulting grief, and his health began to deteriorate. He died of a heart attack at his farm in New Hampshire just before his 61st birthday.

1946 - Jean-Nickolaus Tretter is a gay activist and archivist who founded the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) Studies housed at the University of Minnesota. Tretter was also the 16-year host and producer of Night Rivers, a program on KFAI described as "the only regularly broadcast gay and lesbian classical music show in America."

Tretter grew up in Little Falls, Minnesota. By 1972, Tretter came out as a gay man and left the Navy, where he had served during Vietnam as a linguist.

Tretter returned to the Twin Cities and co-organized the first Twin Cities commemoration of the Stonewall Riots in June 1972. Around that same time, Tretter began to collect gay and lesbian materials.

He went on to study social and cultural anthropology at the University of Minnesota in 1973, but dropped out in 1976 and began working as a counselor at a residence for youths with multiple disabilities. Meanwhile, he continued to collect GLBT materials, advocate for GLBT causes and conduct research on GLBT history. In 2000, the Tretter Collection was donated to the University of Minnesota.

1949 – John Curry (d.1994) had a combination of athleticism and grace which brought him enormous success in figure skating. A five-time champion in his native Britain, he also won gold medals in world and Olympic competition. Although it was a potentially career-destroying move, Curry came out publicly as a gay man before the 1976 Winter Olympics, becoming one of the very few elite athletes to come out while still competing. Throughout his career, he consistently spoke candidly about his sexual orientation.

Curry was born in Birmingham, England, where his father was an engineer and factory-owner. As a small child Curry became fascinated with dance, but his father considered dancing inappropriate for boys and firmly vetoed the idea of dance lessons. He did, however, allow young Curry to take up figure skating at age seven. With his natural aptitude and dedication, Curry won his first competition a year later. He continued to have success and went on to win the British junior title in 1967. Although Curry's father had agreed to let the boy become a figure skater, he showed little enthusiasm for his son's athletic endeavors. Only twice did he see Curry skate.

After his father's death, Curry, then sixteen, moved to London, where he began taking the long-denied dance lessons and worked part-time to eke out enough money to pay for coaching for his skating. Curry placed second in the 1968 and 1969 British championships and won the first of his five national titles in 1970. Like his contemporary Toller Cranston of Canada, with whom he shared a number of traits, including homosexuality, Curry suffered from the prejudice of judges against his skating style, which emphasized grace and artistry, and which some considered "feminine," even though Curry also demonstrated mastery in jumping and other physically demanding aspects of the sport.

Curry bare-chested
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Curry's glory year was 1976. After a narrow victory over Robin Cousins in the British championships, he went on to win gold medals in the European Championships, the Olympic Games, and the World Championships. Curry had the honor of carrying the English flag at the opening ceremony of the Olympics, and after his triumph at the games, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire. He was also named England's sporting personality of the year. Curry had come out publicly as a gay man prior to the Olympics, and upon his return to Britain he spoke openly about his sexuality. Curry turned professional after his win at the World Championships. Saying that he "never could see the point of spending 12 years training to go dress up in a Bugs Bunny suit," he turned down lucrative offers from established ice shows and formed his own company, one that emphasized dance.

His Ice Dancing show was a hit on Broadway as well as in London, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. In his production Curry sought to explore the relationship between skating and dance. Twyla Tharp was among the choreographers with whom he collaborated. Curry also did choreography for the first show and took an increasing role in subsequent productions, choreographing fifteen of twenty-four numbers in the 1984 version of the show. These included Johann Strauss's Skater's Waltz, which Curry performed with JoJo Starbuck, and an ensemble piece to Aaron Copland's Rodeo.

Curry sporting a nice bunch
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In addition to his skating career, Curry appeared in a number of plays, including a 1980 Broadway production of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's Brigadoon that was choreographed by Agnes de Mille. Curry's performance of the "Sword Dance" was a highlight of the show.

Curry saw AIDS take a toll in the skating world. "It is hard to watch people in that situation, and it was frightening when people started to become ill," he said, adding "You start to think 'When is it going to be my turn?'" It was in late 1987 that Curry found out that he, too, was HIV-positive. The following year he participated in Skating for Life, a show to help fund AIDS research. His final skating performance in 1989 was part of another AIDS benefit.

Diagnosed with full-blown AIDS in 1991, Curry returned to England to spend his last years with his elderly mother. He died on April 15, 1994 in Binton, Warwickshire. Curry was held in high regard by the skating community. World and Olympic champion Peggy Fleming described him as "totally devoted to the art of skating," and Olympic medalist Paul Wylie lauded him as "the ultimate skater." Because of his artistic interpretation of the music of classical composers, Curry has been called the "Nureyev of the ice." He was also much admired for his candor and courage in coming out despite the potential risk to his athletic career. Curry was always forthright in this regard. In a 1992 interview he stated, "I never pretended not to be homosexual, ever."

1951 – (Ross Carl) Rocky Anderson is an American politician and lawyer who served two terms as the 33rd mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah, between 2000 and 2008. He is the Executive Director of High Road for Human Rights. Prior to serving as Mayor, he practiced law for 21 years in Salt Lake City.

As mayor, Anderson rose to nationwide prominence as a champion of several national and international causes, including climate protection, immigration reform, restorative criminal justice, LGBT rights, and an end to the "War on Drugs". Before and after the invasion by the U.S. of Iraq in 2003, Anderson was a leading opponent of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Anderson was the only mayor of a major U.S. city who advocated for the impeachment of President George W. Bush, which he did in many venues throughout the United States.

Anderson has been recognised by the Human Rights Campaign as one of the top ten straight advocates in the United States for LGBT equality. He has also received numerous awards for his environmental work.

Formerly a member of the Democratic Party, Anderson expressed his disappointment with that Party in 2011, stating, "The Constitution has been eviscerated while Democrats have stood by with nary a whimper. It is a gutless, unprincipled party, bought and paid for by the same interests that buy and pay for the Republican Party." Anderson announced his intention to run for President in 2012 as a candidate for the newly formed Justice Party. He withdrew from the race in August 2012.

Though Anderson has acknowledged the importance of some fundamental moral lessons he learned as a young member of the LDS Church, and has described the value he places on his Mormon heritage, Anderson has spoken out about the LDS Church's alleged discrimination against gays and lesbians. He has written about his views on this issue and appeared in the film, 8: The Mormon Proposition.

1957 – A mysterious sodomy prosecution begins in Coshocton, Ohio. Ten men are arrested and prosecuted, but nine of the prosecutions are kept out of the court records.

1958 – Michael Warner is an American literary critic, social theorist, and Seymour H. Knox Professor of English Literature and American Studies at Yale University. He also writes for Artforum, The Nation, The Advocate, and The Village Voice. He is the author of Publics and Counterpublics, The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life, The English Literatures of America, 1500–1800, Fear of a Queer Planet, and The Letters of the Republic. He edited The Portable Walt Whitman and American Sermons: The Pilgrims to Martin Luther King, Jr.

Warner is highly influential in the fields of early American literature, social theory, and queer theory. His first book, The Letters of the Republic: Publication and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century America, established him as a leading scholar in Early American literature, print culture, and public sphere theory. He later became a public figure in the gay community for his book The Trouble with Normal, in which Warner contended that queer theory and the ethics of a queer life serve as critiques of existing social and economic structures, not just as critique of heterosexuality and heterosexual society. His most recent work, Publics and Counterpublics is a collection of essays on the politics of communication in advanced capitalistic societies, or Habermasian public sphere theory.

In The Trouble With Normal, Warner critiques same-sex marriage activism and other moves more generally by the gay rights movement toward equality in normalcy. The book has been described as a classic of the debates on normalcy as a goal for the gay rights movement, and as an important contribution to queer theory.

1962 – Michael Rowe is an award-winning Canadian writer, journalist, novelist and anthologist. He has written for numerous publications in Canada and the United States including the National Post, The Globe and Mail, The United Church Observer, The Huffington Post and The Advocate.

As an author, Rowe has published two novels, a novella, four anthologies of original short fiction, and a variety of non-fiction books. His first, Writing Below the Belt: Conversations with Erotic Authors was an exploration of censorship, pornography, and popular culture. Looking for Brothers contains essays on the contemporary gay experience. Other Men’s Sons, which won the 2008 Randy Shilts Award for Nonfiction, is a collection of his work from 2000 to 2005.

His first novel, Enter, Night, a vampire story set in Northern Ontario in 1972, was published in October 2011. On April 13, 2012, Enter, Night was announced as a finalist for Canada's prestigious Prix Aurora Awards in the English Language Novel category. The Prix Aurora Awards are awarded annually to celebrate the best in Canadian speculative fiction.

In December 2013, Rowe's second novel, Wild Fell, a classic gothic ghost story set in Canada's Georgian Bay region was published by ChiZine Publications.

In addition to his nonfiction and fiction writing, Rowe has edited several collections of gay horror, the most notable being Queer Fear for which he won a Lambda Literary Award.

McDermid-Rowe Wedding

Rowe married his partner, Dr. Brian McDermid, in a Holy Union ceremony at the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto in 1985. The two re-wed in 2003 when gay and lesbian marriage became legal in Canada, which he wrote about in the essay "From This Day Forward" which appeared in Other Men's Sons. They were among the first gay couples in Canadian history to be legally married, and are believed to be the first gay couple in history to be married inside a United Church of Canada. They currently reside in Toronto.

In October 2015, Rowe's essay "Some Thoughts On My 30th Wedding Anniversary in the Summer of Equal Marriage", which was first published in the Huffington Post on August 24, 2015, won the Love Wins essay prize from New Millennium Writings.

1968 – Nathan Lee Graham is an American actor and singer. His roles in feature film include Zoolander and Zoolander 2, Sweet Home Alabama, Hitch, and the Fox comedy series LA to Vegas. He has appeared in independent films including Confessions of an Action Star, Bad Actress and Trophy Kids.

His stage credits include the original Broadway cast of The Wild Party and the Tony Awards nominated Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. He won a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Feature Performer in a Musical in The Wild Party LA Premiere in 2005.

Nathan Lee Graham is a graduate of Webster University in St. Louis, MO.

In 2017, Graham won the José Esteban Muñoz Award from CLAGS: the Center for LGBTQ Studies (formerly known as Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies) at The Graduate Center, CUNY. The award is given to an LGBTQ Activist who promotes Queer Studies outside of academia.

1968 – Jamie Pedersen is an American lawyer and politician from the state of Washington who has served as a member of the Washington State Legislature since January 2007. He currently represents the 43rd District in the Washington State Senate.

Pedersen grew up in Puyallup, Washington and attended Puyallup High School. He graduated summa cum laude in American Studies from Yale and received his law degree from Yale Law School. Pedersen was an active member of the Yale Russian Chorus while an undergraduate and law student, and remains active in the alumni of the Yale Russian Chorus.

Pedersen was elected to the Washington House of Representatives from Washington's 43rd legislative district in downtown Seattle in 2006. He won a very competitive six-way Democratic primary election on September 19, 2006 with 23-percent of the vote. His election campaign won the support of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, which provided financial and strategic assistance. In the general election, he faced only nominal Republican opposition, defeating his opponent by a margin of more than four-to-one. He was re-elected unopposed in 2008, 2010 and 2012.

Pedersen is openly gay and is one of seven LGBT members of the Washington State Legislature. Pedersen is married to Eric Cochran Pedersen, a high-school assistant principal whom he met in 2004 while attending Seattle's Central Lutheran Church. Pedersen and his husband have four sons: Trygve Cochran Pedersen and a set of triplets - Leif, Anders, and Erik - born in early 2009.[13] The children were all given traditional Norwegian names by Pedersen who is ethnically Norwegian.

1970 – Molly McKay is an attorney and a civil rights activist for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered individuals. McKay was the former Co-Executive Director of Marriage Equality California and the former Media Director for Marriage Equality USA. She has also been active in Californians for Same Sex Marriage and the California Freedom to Marry Coalition, and was the Associate Executive Director of Equality California. McKay married her longtime partner Davina Kotulski in 2004 when Gavin Newsom made same sex marriage legal for one day in San Francisco.

Beginning in February 2001, McKay and her ex-wife, Davina Kotulski, began going to city halls in the Bay Area asking for marriage licenses and organizing annual "Marriage License Counter" protests to draw attention to the hundreds of rights same-sex couples are denied. In the United States, marriage licenses are commonly issued at the local city hall, or office of government for the municipality, with a city employee on one side of a counter, and the applicant on the other side.

In response to having her San Francisco Marriage License invalidated, McKay joined her ex-wife Kotulski in organizing the "Marriage Equality Express", an educational bus tour across the United States that culminated in the first national marriage equality rally in Washington, DC, on October 11, 2004. Time and Parade magazines included the rally when citing the importance of marriage equality activism as one of the top ten issues of 2004. Molly McKay co-founded Marriage Equality USA in 1996, along with several other activists, and continues to work with them to this day.

When Marriage Equality California merged with Equality California in 2004, McKay led the Marriage Equality Project for the joint organization becoming Equality California's Field Director. McKay eventually left the organization in 2006 to rejoin Marriage Equality California's prior parent organization Marriage Equality USA.

McKay and her ex-wife, Kotulski, were the 17th same-sex couple married in San Francisco in 2004 and have appeared together on CNN, Newsweek, Time and USA Today. They are featured in three documentaries, the 2005 Carmen Goodyear- and Laurie York-directed Freedom to Marry (shown in seven countries and featured on PBS), the Geoff Callan and Mike Shaw 2007 release, Pursuit of Equality, and I Will, I Do, We Did following the San Francisco marriages that took place in 2004. They have also appeared on several television shows including American Quest, documenting the National "Marriage Equality Express", and a Queer Nation TV special in New Zealand.

In June 2011 McKay announced that she and Kotulski had separated, ending their 15 year relationship.

1971 – Eric Stonestreet is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for portraying Cameron Tucker in the ABC mockumentary sitcom Modern Family, for which he received two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series out of three nominations.

Stonestreet first rose to prominence in a recurring role on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He has appeared in films and telefilms including Bad Teacher (2012), Identity Thief and The Loft (both 2013), and Confirmation (2016), and provided the voice of Duke in The Secret Life of Pets (2016).

Stonestreet was born in Kansas City. During his childhood, he wanted to become a clown. As a child, he created a clown character named Fizbo, and by age 11 was performing at 6- and 7-year-olds' birthday parties; Stonestreet recalled in 2012, "I don’t know where the name Fizbo came from. I do know one day that's what my dad was calling me and that's the name that I printed on my business cards." The name Fizbo was used for a clown character he periodically plays on Modern Family.

Despite his most prominent role being a gay character, Stonestreet is heterosexual and has lightheartedly described himself as "openly straight". His gay co-star, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who plays Stonestreet's character's partner Mitchell Pritchett, jokingly called Stonestreet "gay-for-pay". Stonestreet is a supporter of the LGBT community; he declined to be photographed with Rick Santorum, an opponent of same-sex marriage.

1976 – A California appellate court upholds the disorderly conduct conviction of two men for kissing in their car

1980 – Metro Toronto Council, the governing body of greater Toronto area, refuses to pass Metro Bill of Rights which includes sexual orientation, and substitutes weaker declaration about being an equal opportunity employer.

1985 – In the New York City borough of Queens, parents launch a school boycott after the city allows a second-grader with AIDS to attend classes.

1997 – Dylan Geick is an American social media personality, writer, and amateur wrestler. He speaks on his experience as an LGBTQ person in athletics and the army. Geick wrestled for the Columbia Lions from 2017 to 2018. Geick served in the United States Army for a brief period of just over one year, before leaving.

Geick was born on in Buffalo Grove, Illinois. At Stevenson High School, Geick was a three-time member of the Illinois Freestyle national team and came in 4th in 152 lb and 160 lb weight divisions at the Illinois High School Sports Association state Championships 2 years in a row.

In 2017, Geick self-published Early Works: A Collection of Poetry. He is a YouTuber and speaks on his experience as an out LGBT athlete and Internet celebrity. For a time Geick was involved in a relationship with fellow YouTuber and internet celebrity Jackson Krecioch. In 2019, Geick helped advise the National Collegiate Athletic Association on its compensation policy.

After his 2017 graduation from Stevenson, Geick went to Columbia University. Shortly after committing to attend, a series of homophobic, sexist, and racist comments surfaced in the wrestling team's GroupMe. The coach, Zach Tanelli, reached out to Geick to condemn the comments. Geick joined the Columbia Lions wrestling team and studied English. In late 2019, Geick went on leave from the school and enlisted in the United States Army.

In 2016, Geick began posting pictures of him with his boyfriend on Instagram and then came out as gay to some schoolmates. He came out to wider audiences in 2017 in an article in Stevenson's school newspaper and a profile in Outsports. From 2017 to 2019, he was in an on-again, off-again relationship with YouTuber Jackson Krecioch.