November

November  1

November 1, 1932 - The New York Times reviewed the play "Incubator," which dealt with the consequences of homosexuality in an all-male school.

November 1, 1948 - WMCA, a radio station in New York, broadcast a show in response to a letter from a man who was arrested after a police officer made advances. A judge who was a guest stated that the author of the letter had no right to complain about the entrapment and that police should use such tactics to weed out homosexuals.

November 1, 1971 - Canada's first gay rights magazine "The Body Politic" goes on sale.

November 1, 1999 - Nancy Katz became Illinois's first openly lesbian judge when she was sworn in as a Cook County associate judge.

November 1, 1999 - TV's Ally McBeal (Calista Flockhart) enjoyed a prolonged kiss with her office nemesis, Ling (Lucy Liu). Seventeen million viewers tuned in, the show's largest audience to date.

November  2

November 2, 1912 - Dr Douglas C McMurtrie published an article in a medical journal about female sexual inversion. He stated that identifying sexual inversion in females is more difficult
because women are naturally affectionate toward each other, and because "women are very generally ignorant of the details of
their sexual character, not recognizing themselves the character of their tendencies."

November 2, 1961 -Singer k d lang is born in Consort, Alberta.

November 2, 1969 - A nationwide poll of US doctors revealed 67% were in favor of the repeal of sodomy laws.

November 2, 1976 - US Representative Robert Dornan was elected to his first term. Dornan would prove to be rabidly anti-gay.

November 2, 1999 - A United Methodist Church committee found that operators of a church campground in Des Plaines, Illinois discriminated when they refused to rent a cabin to a gay couple.

November 3

November 3, 1970 - Bella Abzug was elected to the US House of Representatives. She would become the first to introduce a gay rights law in
Congress.

November 3, 1975 - A front-page article about the success of the gay newsmagazine "The Advocate" appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

November 3, 1979 - Gus Harris, mayor of Toronto borough of Scarborough, calls for gay rights at Human Rights rally.
The Gay Human Rights Day rally was organized by Ontario gay rights group CGRO. Messages of support were read from Stuart Smith and Michael Cassidy, leaders, respectively, of Ontario's two opposition parties, the Liberals and the NDP

November 3, 1981 - A committee of Toronto city council considers the Bruner Report on relations between the police and  gay community. It asks the police chief to issue statement recognizing legitimacy of gay community and setting up gay awareness program for police recruits but nothing is done.

November 3, 1983 - US Senator John Glenn told the National Gay Task Force that he does not support gay rights legislation and will not do anything which might be considered advocacy or promotion of homosexuality. He would later add that GLB people should not be allowed to teach or join the military.

November 3, 1999 - A jury found Aaron McKinney guilty of felony murder and second degree murder in the death of 21-year-old gay college student Matthew Shepard.

November  4

November 4, 1946 - Photographer Robert Mapplethorpe is born.

November 4, 1976 - Syndicated columnist Nicholas von Hoffman's column "Out of TV's Sitcom Closet" appeared. It stated that Americans were experiencing the "Year of the Fag" and claimed the National Gay Task Force was controlling at least one sitcom.

November 4, 1980 - Barney Frank was elected to his first term in the US House of Representatives. He would later become the second Representative to be openly gay.

November 4, 1999 - Aaron Mc Kinney, one of Matthew Shepard's killers, was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison.

November  5

November 5, 1969 - The Homosexual Information Center protested at the offices of the Los Angeles Times to protest the newspaper's refusal to
print the word "homosexual" in ads after it refused to print an ad announcing a group discussion on homosexuality.

November 5, 1970 - The New York Times reported that the Gay Activists Alliance's petition to incorporate as a non-profit organization
because of the use of the word "gay" in the organization's name.

November 5, 1973 - The US Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Florida's sodomy law.

November 5, 1974 - Elaine Noble was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, making her the first openly gay person to be elected to public office.

November 5, 1985 - The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed legislation to protect people with AIDS from discrimination.

November 5, 1992 - A New York State Bar Association committee issued a recommendation that low-income same-sex couples be granted
access to state-subsidized housing.

November 5, 1992 - A clause prohibiting anti-gay verbal abuse in public schools was repealed by the Fairfax (VA) county board of education because of complaints that it encouraged
homosexuality.

 

November  6

November  6, 1658-In Mexico, fourteen men were burned to death and one given 200 lashes after having been convicted of sodomy.

November  6, 1939-Arthur Bell, journalist and activist, one of the founding members of the Gay Activists Alliance is born.

November  6, 1971-An anti-Vietnam march in New York included a gay contingent. The Student Mobilization Committee's Gay Task Force
joined the protest to draw attention to parallels between America's oppression of gays and the racism of Vietnam.

November 6, 1975 - A Special Joint Committee on Canada's Immigration Policy recommends that homosexuals no longer be prohibited from entering Canada under revised Immigration Act.

November  6, 1984-West Hollywood was incorporated as a city.

November  6, 1990-San Francisco voters approved a domestic partners referendum and elected two lesbian women to the Board of Supervisors.

November  6, 1990-Deborah Glick becomes the first open lesbian elected to the New York state legislature.

November  7

November  7, 1989 - ABC lost $1.5 million in pulled ads when the television show "thirtysomething" showed two men in bed together.

November  7, 1990 - At age 44, Vito Russo died of complications from AIDS.

November  7, 1995 - The Australian Christian Coalition announced that it would fight gay and environmental activists in the next election.

November  7, 1998 - British Member of Parliament Nick Brown came out after he learned that a previous lover had offered to sell his story.

 

November  8

November  8, 1977 - Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, making him the first openly gay man to be elected in a major US city. Dan White, who would murder Harvey Milk just over a year later, was also elected.

November  8,1988 - Oregon voters repealed an executive order which prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation among state government employees.

November  8,1992 - The East Nashville Cooperative Ministry denied membership to Dayspring Christian Fellowship, a mostly gay and lesbian congregation.

November  8,1995 - In Zimbabwe, Tribal Chief Norbert Makoni addressed Parliament, saying gays and lesbians should be sentenced to whipping.

November  8,1995 - Representatives of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays approached television stations in four US cities to buy advertising time for two ads, one on the prevention of suicide among gay and lesbian youth and one about gay bashing. All stations refused to air the suicide ad, and only two cable stations and one network affiliate station would air the gay-bashing ad. They were told the ads offended community standards.

November  8,1996 - Transgender activists protested outside the offices of the American Psychiatric Association in Washington DC.

 

November  9

November 9, 1975 - The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission rules that "sex" in Human Rights Act includes sexual orientation and begins formal proceeding against University of Saskatchewan for discriminating against teacher Doug Wilson who had been fired after coming out.

November  9, 1985 - Openly gay Terry Sweeney joined the cast of Saturday Night Live.

November  9, 1992 - Approximately 100 people held a vigil outside the home of Chicago's Roman Catholic cardinal Joseph Bernardin to protest the church's teaching that homosexuality is a disorder.

 

November  10

November  10, 1928 - The New York Times reported that forty distinguished witnesses, mostly authors, appeared in a London court to testify in favor of the lesbian novel "The Well of Loneliness." The judge refused to hear any of them.

November  10, 1970 - The Stanford Gay Students Union was formed. It was the second Stanford organization for gay students-a previous
organization, the Student Homophile League, was short lived.

November 10, 1980 - Toronto's civic election sees defeat of George Hislop, the first openly gay candidate to run for municipal office in Canada. Gay-positive mayor, John Sewell was also defeated. The "Gay issue" figures prominently in campaign and brings out flood of anti-gay literature.

November  10, 1984 - Chris Smith came out and became the first openly gay member of UK Parliament.

November  10, 1989 - Craig Spence, a conservative lobbyist, committed suicide after it was discovered he ran a male prostitution ring.

November  10, 1992 - The Louisiana Baptist Convention voted 581-199 to exclude congregations which condone homosexuality. A similar resolution
was approved the same day by the North Carolina State Baptist convention.

November  10, 1992 - The Portland Maine school committee approved a ban on anti-gay discrimination in public school employment.

November  10, 1997 - Keith Boykin of the National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum and California state assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl participated in a White House conference on Hate Crimes.

November  11

November 11, 1975 - Two members of Gays of Ottawa lay wreath at National War Memorial. It is the first time gays allowed to participate in ceremony.

November  12

November 12, 354 - St Augustine is born in Tagaste, North Africa.  In his writing he discusses his love for his closest friend saying he contemplated joining him in death. "I felt that his soul and mine were one soul in two bodies." 

November  13

November  13, 1933 Top - level members of the Third Reich advised the Head of Police to deliver homosexuals and transvestites to concentration camp Fuhlsbuttel, which had just established homosexuals as a new category.

November  13, 1979 - San Francisco swore in its first openly gay and lesbian police officers.

November  13, 1985 - Manchester England elected Margaret Roff as mayor, making her the first openly lesbian mayor elected in Britain.

November  13, 1989 - A federal court ruled that the Armstrong amendment, which would have cut off Washington DC's entire 1989 budget unless the city council exempted religious educational institutions from the gay rights provisions of the city's human rights law, was unconstitutional. William Armstrong introduced the measure after the DC Court of Appeals ruled that Georgetown University was not exempt from the gay rights law and ordered the University to
provide facilities to gay & lesbian student organizations that are equal to those provided to other student groups.

November  13, 1995 - A group of lesbians protested an appearance by Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe at a meeting of Commonwealth heads of government in Auckland New Zealand. He had told a group of journalists that homosexuals are trying to destroy society.

November  14

November 14, 1908 - Joseph McCarthy was born in Appleton, Wisconsin.  The red baiting homophobe was actually a closet gay. The number of American lives destroyed in the '50s by his "outing Communists" numbered in the tens of thousands in America.  

November  15

November  15, 1636 - A set of laws was enacted for the Plymouth colony. Eight offences were deemed punishable by death, including sodomy.

November  15, 1887 - Bisexual artist Georgia O'Keefe is born

November  15, 1940 - Patricia Marion Fogarty, illustrator and photographer, lover of filmmaker Jayne Parker is born.

November  15, 1941- Heinrich Himmler announced a decree that any member of the Nazi SS or the police who had sex with another man would be put to death.

November  15, 1978 - Anthropologist Margaret Mead, who was bisexual, died at the age of 76. 

November 15, 1980 - Michael Harcourt, an alderman consistently supportive of the gay community, is elected mayor of Vancouver. An organization called Gay People to Elect Mike Harcourt campaigned actively in gay community. Harcourt would become NDP premier of British Columbia in 1991.

November  15, 1989 - Massachusetts passed a statewide gay rights law.

November  15, 1992 - Thirty-five members of The Cathedral Project, a gay Roman Catholic group, demonstrated in New York City at St. Patrick's Cathedral to protest a Vatican directive urging bishops to oppose laws banning anti-gay bias.

November  15, 1995 - The Florida Baptist state convention approved a resolution to encourage members to boycott the Walt Disney Co. because of
the company's extension of domestic partner benefits to its gay and lesbian employees.

November  16

November  16, 1970 - The London Gay Liberation Front attended a demonstration in support of the National Union of Students.

November  16, 1971 - Bruce Voeller, chairman of the Gay Activist Alliance State and Federal Affairs Committee, questioned Sen. Ted Kennedy.
Kennedy said he would support efforts to end policies which deny homosexuals the right to work gainfully in their professions.

November  16, 1984 - The West German government announced it would attempt to pass legislation making it a crime for a person with AIDS to have sex.

November  16, 1989 - The Center for Homosexual Lifestyles was established in Berlin. It was the first time in Germany that a public office was established specifically to deal with the concerns of lesbians and gay men.

November  16, 1995 - A directive was issued by the Canadian Government allowing workers in same-sex relationships to take time off in the event of a partner's illness or death.

November  17

November  17, 1889 - The New York Times published a report on the "Cleveland Street Scandal," a case involving a house of male prostitutes and members of British nobility.

November  17, 1925 - Rock Hudson, actor is born

November  17, 1928 - The New York Times reported that a London judge found the lesbian novel "The Well of Loneliness" obscene and ordered all seized copies of it destroyed.

November  17, 1971 - A group of sex researchers looking for physical differences between homosexual and heterosexual men announced that
heterosexuals have 40% more testosterone in their blood than homosexuals do.

November 17, 1979 - Vancouver Sun reverses course and  accepts ad from Gay Tide after a five-year court battle. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Sun had "reasonable cause" to refuse advertising. The first ad was submitted to Sun October 23, 1974.

November  17, 1991- OutRage, a London direct-action group, staged a zap against the Living Waters ex-gay movement at St Michael's Church in
Belgravia.

November  17, 1995 - James Woods III, co-author of "The Corporate Closet: The Professional Lives of Gay Men in America," died of complications
from AIDS at age 32.

November  17, 1997 - The National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum issued a press release applauding singer Janet Jackson for her use of sexual orientation themes in her album "The Velvet Rope."

November  17, 1999 - Methodist minister Jimmy Creech was stripped of his clerical status for presiding over a same-sex holy union.

November  18

November 18, 1972 - Gay McGill holds first of what were to become the most successful community dances in Montreal. Ended in May 1975 by withdrawal of liquor license by Quebec liquor board.

November  18, 1974 - The New Yorker published "Minor Heroism" by Allan Gurganis, its first gay-themed short story.

November  18, 1996 - Psychologist Dr. Evelyn Hooker died. Her research provided some of the earliest evidence that homosexuality is not a psychological disease.

November 18, 2003 - The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts rules that the state cannot bar same-sex couples from marrying and gives the legislature until June to rewrite the laws.

November  19

November  19, 1922 -  Canadian immigration authorities allowed the Irish lover of a Canadian citizen to immigrate legally. This was the first time in North America that a same-sex relationship was used as the basis for immigration.

November  19, 1933 - Christa Winsloe's book "The Child Manuela" was reviewed in the New York Times. It was a translation from a German book about a lesbian relationship in a school for girls. The reviewer referred to it as "a social document that is moving and
eloquent."

November  19, 1942 - Clothing designer Calvin Klein is born.

November  19, 1982 - Marilyn Barnett's palimony suit against Billie Jean King was thrown out of court.

November  19, 1997 - In Spanish Fork Utah, during a meeting of the Nebo County Board of Education, supporters of lesbian teacher Wendy Weaver and those demanding her resignation presented their cases. A month earlier Weaver was dismissed from her position as
volleyball coach and ordered not to discuss her sexual orientation with anyone, in or out of school.

November  19, 1998 - Prosecutors in Laramie Wyoming presented an outline of their case against Aaron McKinney, who had been arrested for the brutal murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard.

November 20

November 20, 1901 - A  policeman in Mexico City stopped to investigate a loud party. When he knocked the door was opened by a man in women's clothing. When reinforcements arrived the party was raided and 42 people were arrested. One was later released after police said she was discovered to be a real woman. Rumors spread that the person who was released was not a woman, but a close relative of President Diaz in drag.

November 20, 1934 - "The Children's Hour," a play by Lillian Hellman in which two school teachers are accused of having a lesbian relationship, opened on Broadway.

November 20, 1975 - Members of the Austin Lesbian Organization and Gay Community Services picketed the Austin-American Statesman for refusing to run ads for gay organizations and running housing and employment ads which specified "no gays." The paper agreed the next month not to print ads which state "no gays," and began printing ads from gay and lesbian organizations the following April when the Austin City Council passed a Public Accommodations Ordinance which outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation.

November 20, 1990 - A London judge convicted 14 gay men of committing criminal assaults upon them- selves because of their participation in s&m.
All 14 receive prison sentences.

November 20, 1995 - Steven Powsner, who had been president of the New York City Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center from 1992-1994, died of complications from AIDS at age 40.

November 20, 1996 - The Ashland Wisconsin school district agreed to pay former student Jamie Nabozny $900,000 in damages. While he was a student, administrators took no action to alleviate the physical and verbal abuse he suffered because he was gay.

November 20, 1998 - John Geddes Lawrence and Tyrone Garner of Texas were ordered to pay fines of $125 each after being arrested for having sex in their home. The couple refused to pay and announced they would challenge the Texas sodomy law.

November  21

November 21, 1977 - In Toronto, The Body Politic containing article "Men loving boys loving men" goes on sale. The article by Gerald Hannon sparked a controversy that eventually led to the folding of the paper.

November  21, 1987 - In a series of raids on gay bars, the Los Angeles Police Department closed down the One Way for fire ordinance violations. The LAPD came to the conclusion that the manpower necessary to close the One Way would be ten police cars and several fire trucks and various other city vehicles.

November  21, 1997 - The University of California Board of Regents voted to extend domestic partner benefits to partners of lesbian and gay
employees.

November  21, 1999 - British writer Quentin Crisp dies at age 90.

November  22

November  22, 1869 - French writer Andre Gide is born.

November  22, 1913 - Benjamin Britten the British composer is born.

November  22, 1943 - Tennis player Billie Jean King is born

November  22, 1980 - Mae West died in LA at the age of 88. Rumors that she was really a man were finally proven false.

November  22, 1993 - Dolly Parton denied rumors that she's a lesbian, saying gal pal Judy Ogle was just her best friend.

November  23

November  23, 1933 - The New York tabloid Broadway Brevities, under the headline "FAGS TICKLE NUDES," published an article warning that "Pansy men of the nation" were invading steam baths and turning them into replicas of the orgy houses in Rome at the time of Nero.

November  23, 1981 - The New York City Council voted for the tenth time not to pass an anti-discrimination ordinance.

November  23, 1983 - A Louisville Kentucky bank which fired a branch manager for refusing to end his association with Dignity, an organization
for GLBT Catholics, was cleared of charges of discrimination and violating the employee's freedom of religion.

November  23, 1996 - Elton John was honored as the founder of the Elton John AIDS Foundation at a gala celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center.

November  23, 1998 - The Georgia Supreme Court voted 6-1 to overturn the state's sodomy law. In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Robert Benham wrote, "We cannot think of any other activity that reasonable persons would rank as more private and more deserving of protection from governmental interference than consensual, private, adult sexual activity." Since the decision was based on the Georgia constitution rather than the US constitution, the decision could not be appealed.

November  24

November  24, 1933 - A law was passed in Germany to allow surgical castrations as a crime prevention measure and a therapeutic treatment for homosexuality.

November  24, 1980 - Ronald Reagan's son Ron was married in New York City. His father frequently defended his son's heterosexuality because of his career as a ballet dancer.

November  24, 1984 - England's first national conference on AIDS began, and was organized by the Terrence Higgins Trust.

November  24, 1991 - Freddie Mercury, lead singer for Queen, died of complications from AIDS. It was only the day before that he acknowledged that he had the disease. He left most of his estate to a former girlfriend, Mary Austen, who cared for him during his final months.

November  24, 1997 - The Associated Press reported that Edgehill United Methodist Church in Nashville Tennessee announced that no weddings would be performed there until same-sex couples were given the right to be married there.

November  24, 1998 - About 100 people demonstrated to protest the firing of Alicia Pedreira, a lesbian, from Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children in Louisville. According to her termination notice she was fired because "admitted homosexual lifestyle is contrary to Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children core values." Five other employees resigned in protest.

November  25

November  25, 1970 - The Seattle Gay Liberation Front severed ties with the Young Socialist Alliance because their exclusion of homosexuals mirrored Stalin's practices.

November  25, 1997 - In South Africa, a demonstration was held at the Johannesburg High Court in support of an application to decriminalize sex between men.

November  25, 1998 - Federal judge Bruce Jenkins ruled that Spanish Fork High School in Salt Lake City Utah violated the rights of teacher Wendy Weaver, who was dismissed from her position as volleyball coach and ordered not to discuss her sexual orientation, even out of school. The judge ordered the school to offer her the coaching position, lift the gag order, and pay her $1,500 in damages.

November  26

November  26, 1978 - ABC aired a lesbian themed movie, A Question of Love, about a custody battle for one of the women's children.

November  26, 1990 - The Minneapolis Minnesota civil rights commission ruled that Roman Catholic officials violated anti-discrimination laws by evicting Dignity from holding services in a church owned facility.

November  27

November  27, 1700 - A new law concerning sodomy was passed by the Pennsylvania assembly. If committed by a white man, sodomy was punishable by life in prison and, at the discretion of the judge, a whipping every three months for the first year. If married, the man was castrated and his wife was granted a divorce. If committed by a black man, the punishment for sodomy was death.

November  27, 1970 - Marty Robinson and Arthur Evans of the Gay Activist Alliance appeared on the Dick Cavett Show.

November 27, 1978 - Formation of first Parents of Gays group in Canada.

November  27, 1978 - Conservative Dan White, after discovering that he would not be re-appointed to his seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, took a gun and extra ammunition and goes to City Hall. He entered through a lower level window to avoid the metal detectors and went to the office of Mayor George Moscone, who was supportive of the gay community, and fired four shots, two to the head. Those who heard the gunshots did not realize what they were hearing, giving him time to reload his gun and go to the office of Supervisor Harvey Milk (the first openly gay man to be elected in a major American city) and fire five shots. Both men were pronounced dead. Dan White would later be convicted of manslaughter and serve only about five years.

November  27, 1998 - Former Zimbabwean President Canaan Banana was convicted of eleven counts of sodomy and indecent assault.

November  28

November  28, 1944 - Rita Mae Brown, author of "The Rubyfruit Jungle" is born

November  28, 1977 - Aspen became the first city in the state of Colorado to pass a gay rights ordinance.

November  28, 1980 - The National Coalition of Black Gays held its second national conference in Philadelphia.

November  28, 1989 - A judge in Texas was censured for giving a light sentence to a teenager who murdered two men because they were gay. He explained the sentence by saying that he couldn't give a life sentence to a teenage boy "just because he killed a couple of homosexuals."

November  29

November  29, 1628 - John Felton, murderer of George Villiers (King James I's lover) was hanged.

November  29, 1834 - John Mead of Australia was executed for an "unnatural crime," most likely sodomy.

November  29, 1933 - Adolf Brand, who began publishing one of the earliest gay publications in Berlin, wrote a letter to his supporters saying he was unable to continue. Nazi raids and seizures had left him financially ruined.

November 29, 1979 - A Quebec Superior Court judge rules that the Montreal Catholic School Commission did not have justifiable grounds to refuse to rent space to gay rights group ADGQ and therefore was not exempt from the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. The ruling overturns the province's human rights commission's second opinion in 1978 and becomes the first legal victory against discrimination since adoption of the gay rights clause in Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms of the Constitution in December 1977.

November  29, 1984 - Less than a month after being established as a city, West Hollywood approved a gay rights ordinance.

November 30

November 30, 1900 - Oscar Wilde died. 

November 30, 1987  -Author James Baldwin died. 

November 30, 1988 - National League Baseball president Bart Giamatti fired umpire Dave Pallone for being gay.

November 30, 1989 - Columbus Ohio mayor Dana Rinehart signed a hate crimes bill which included the term sexual orientation but asked the city
council to remove the term sexual orientation from it, saying the term was vague and did not belong in the ordinance. The council refused.