Queer Ancestor Spotlight: David Kato
David Kato Kisule was a Ugandan teacher and LGBTQ+ rights activist, considered by many to be the father of the Ugandan gay rights movement. He was a founding member of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) and was deeply involved with the underground LGBTQ+ rights movement in his home country.
Queer Ancestor Spotlight: Federico García Lorca
Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theater director. He is considered one of the most important Spanish poets of the 20th century. He was a member of the Generation of ‘27, which was a group of poets who brought modern European artistic movements into Spanish literature. During the Spanish Civil War in the 1930’s he toured rural Spain and put on free theatrical shows of classical Spanish theatre before being arrested by Nationalist militias and assassinated.
Queer Ancestor Spotlight: Tryals of Thomas Vaughan and Thomas Davis
Glory holes. Arguably one of the most recognizable cultural artifacts of contemporary gay culture due to it's relationship to cruising and anonymous sex, something that marked the reality of the gay male experience in the Western world for centuries. When loving the person you want, either romantically or physically, is against the law and can land you in prison, an asylum, or worse, you find ways to satisfy your needs as safely and discreetly as possible.
Queer Ancestor Spotlight: Christopher Isherwood
Christopher Isherwood was an author, diarist, playwright, screenwriter, and autobiographer. He is best known for A Single Man, his semi-autobiographical novel Goodbye to Berlin which inspired the musical Cabaret, and his memoir Christopher and His Kind which connected him with the ongoing gay liberation movement.
Queer Ancestor Spotlight: Kiyoshi Kuromiya
Kiyoshi Kuromiya was a Japanese-American author, advocate, and activist who was involved in the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam War protests, gay liberation, and HIV/AIDS activism. He worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr., and was one of the founders of the the first medical treatment and competency guidelines produced by people living with HIV/AIDS for their community.
Queer Ancestor Spotlight: UpStairs Lounge Fire
The UpStairs Lounge was a gay bar located on the second floor of a three-story building located at 604 Iberville Street in New Orleans, Louisiana. On June 24, 1973 the bar was set on fire and thirty-two people died. It remained the deadliest attack on the LGBTQ+ community until the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2016.
Queer Ancestor Spotlight: Jean Diot and Bruno Lenoir
In 1750 Jean Diot and Bruno Lenoir were arrested in Paris for what one magistrate called “committing crimes which propriety does not permit us to describe in writing”. They became the last people legally executed in France as punishment for homosexuality.
Queer Ancestor Spotlight: Flawless Sabrina
Mother Flawless Sabrina was a New York City-based American LGBT activist and drag queen. She was one of the first widely known drag queens in the United States, and was considered a pioneer for the transgender and drag communities.
Queer Ancestor Spotlight: Perry Watkins
Perry Watkins was an out gay Black man and American military officer. He was unapologetic about who he was for his entire life and continually stared down the systems that sought to oppress LGBTQ+ people in the military. Following a nearly twenty year military career his sexuality was finally turned against him and he decided to fight it in the courts. He would go on to win the first appellate court case against the US military’s ban on lesbian and gay service members.
Queer Ancestor Spotlight: David Spada
How many of you are familiar with “Freedom Rings”? They are a set of six aluminum rings, each one a different color of the rainbow, and could be worn as rings, earrings, or necklaces. They were by New York artist David Spada in the early 1990’s and became a recognizable symbol of LGBTQ+ pride in the late 20th century.