Gay Trivia

Our pink triangle is actually called a Rosawinkel. The pink triangle badge was used by Nazis to identify homosexuals in the concentration camps. A German gay rights organization campaigning for compensation for gay camp survivors reclaimed the name and symbol.

American painter Romaine Brooks was born on May 1, 1875. In 1915, while living in Paris, Brooks met and fell in love with writer Natalie Barney, with whom she spent the next fifty years, building a home together, sharing a bank account, and even arranging to be buried together.

In 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that federal law prohibiting sexual harassment covers cases of same-sex sexual harassment.

In Berlin in 1919, Magnus Hirschfeld produced the first film depicting positive images of gay life, Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others).

Charles Socarides was one of the most vocal anti-gay psychiatrists of the 1950s and 1960s. He claimed he was able to cure homosexuality. Guess the cure didn't work, at least not on his own gay son Richard Socarides who went on to become President Clinton's liaison to the lesbian and gay community.

In 1987, the Homomonument was erected in Amsterdam, Holland, by designer Karin Daan. The monument has three interlocking pink granite triangles which commemorate victims of homophobia.

French writer Andre Gide (1869-1951) was the first out-gay man to receive a Nobel Prize for Literature. The prize was awarded to him in 1947.

The top Hollywood box office star of the 1930s was actor William Haines who lived in an openly gay relationship with Jimmy Shields for almost fifty years.

Metropolitan Community Church was founded by the Rev. Troy Perry. Perry was a Pentecostal minister until 1967, when he was excommunicated after refusing to denounce his homosexuality.

In June 1997, before three hundred gay pride marchers paraded through the streets of Bozeman, Montana, members of the town's Klu Klux Kan distributed flyers warning residents to stay inside and not breathe the air in order to avoid getting AIDS.

In June 1997, the Southern Baptist Convention voted to boycott the Walt Disney Company because of their belief that the company promotes homosexuality in its films and television programs, and because Disney offers domestic partner benefits to its employees.

The Group (1966), was the first mainstream Hollywood film to use the word "lesbian". It starred Candace Bergen in the lesbian role.

Before words like gay and homosexual, gay men were referred to as Urnings. It was coined by German sexologist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in the 1860s and referred to a "third sex", a man's body with a female spirit trapped inside.

David Kopay was the first professional football player to come out as gay. While Kopay disclosed his sexual orientation after his playing career had already ended, he was unable to get a coaching job as a result of this disclosure and ended up working at his uncle's linoleum store.

In July of 1997, Harvard University became the first major university to allow same-sex couples to hold commitment ceremonies in the school's main chapel.

Gay Comics. D.C. Comics has produced a four-book miniseries, Metropolis S.C.U. (Special Crimes Unit), in which the main character is Captain Maggie Sawyer, a lesbian superhero.

In 1986, William Hurt became the first actor to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of a gay character. The film? Kiss Of The Spiderwomen.

On August 14, 1997, members of the American Psychological Association voted to limit attempts to "cure" homosexuality and agreed to require the reading of a statement to gay patients affirming that being gay is normal and healthy.

Television What show of the 1960's and 1970's had the most homosexual actors? Answer: Bewitched with actors Dick Sargent (Darrin), Diane Murphy (Tabatha), Agnes Moorehead (Samantha's mother, and Paul Lynde (Samantha's uncle).

Founded in San Francisco in 1979, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is an order of gay "nuns" involved in charitable and political activities. Today, the Sisters have grown to include houses in Europe (England, Germany, and France) as well as in New Zealand and Australia.

The I Ching, a Chinese text used as a divination tool by means opf interpreting patterns called hexagrams, includes one pattern (the thirteenth hexagram, T'ung Jen associated with same-sex relationships.

Katharine Lee Bates, best known for writing the lyrics to the song American the Beautiful, also wrote six volumns of poetry, textbooks, and children's fiction. Her twenty-five year romance with Katharine Coman ended with Coman's death, and Bates expressed her grief through a book of forty-seven sonnets, Yellow Clover: A Book of Remembrance, which was published after Bates died in 1929.

Hall of Shame In 1997, on the occasion of its seventy-fifth anniversary, Time magazine published a commemorative issue high-lighting the major events that had taken place since it first began publication in 1923. Not one item mentioned gay rights or the AIDS epidemic.

Dr. Mary Walker was presented with a Metal of Honor by President Andrew Johnson in 1865 for her service as a battlefield doctor during the Civil War. In 1917, the medal was revoked because of Walker's feminist activities and the fact that she dressed as a man. In 1977, the Army posthumously restored her medal.

*original page