One of my personal heros: Lt. Dan Choi


http://theworldofhowey.files.wordpre...0/danchoi3.jpg

THIS! THIS was worth the whole thread! I had no idea she was queer!
I mean, even if she didnt say word-for-word "I . Am. A. Lesbo", this quote certainly feels queer.

And "Little Women" has always been a fave! :)

I think it makes sense why Jo always felt so queer. :) I think she said that in a response to a question about why she never married. I think in the same interview, she also says the only reason she married Jo off to the professor was because of all the fangirls who were begging her to marry Jo off to Laurie, and she was determined to thwart them. Sadly the article is difficult to find online but I think my mom sent me something about the interview. I can look for it if you find your research heading in that direction.

Which reminds me...

Radclyffe Hall

http://www.computerconsultingservice...ages/hall2.jpg

Oscar Wilde

http://blogs.suntimes.com/food/2009/...ar%20Wilde.jpg

Rufus Wainwright

http://www.papermag.com/blogs/2007_1221_rufus.jpg

(sorry, if i have repeated any...!)

Tracy Chapman
 

http://www.billystrayhorn.com/biography.htm

Billy Strayhorn, jazz composer. Worked a great deal with Duke Ellington. If you know "Take the A Train," you know Billy Strayhorn. He composed "Take the A Train" based on the lyrical quality of Duke Ellington's voice on the telephone, as Ellington gave him directions to his house in Harlem.

I am a huge, huge jazz fan...and a major fan of Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington.

A sidenote: Ellington was heterosexual. In an interview I saw with his daughter, she acknowledged the close friendship between her father and Strayhorn, saying they were as close as two men could be and not actually be lovers.


[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb2w2m1JmCY"]YouTube- Duke Ellington, "Take the A Train"[/nomedia]

Bayard Rustin, chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, where Martin Luther King delivered his amazing "I Have a Dream" speech. Rustin was a colleague of Dr. King.

http://rustin.org/

Buck Angel.

http://blogs.the217.com/withtongue/f...buck-angel.jpg

A personal hero of mine...
 

http://www.cammermeyer.com/

Grethe Cammermeyer, who challenged the military's ban on gays and lesbians serving, and was reinstated. I think it's cool, too, that she is still with her partner, Diane Divelbess.

Last one for now...
 

Elena Kagan, currently serving as the U.S. Solicitor General (and the first woman to do so), and also currently on the short list to become the next U.S. Supreme Court Justice when Justice Stevens retires this summer. And, shhhhhh.....she's an out lesbian.

I salute Lt Dan Choi............and there were never many LTs I was happy to salute.......

James Baldwin

http://www.focusdep.com/images/James...9552122863.jpg

http://www.legacy.com/UserContent/ns...s/hepburn3.jpg

Katharine Hepburn dressed as a boy in the movie Sylvia Scarlett. (AFP/Getty Images)

There has been a lot of speculation regarding Katharine Hepburn's orientation and gender experience, and though she was rumored to have affairs with some women, if she was queer, she was not out. There is a biography that says she had a boy alter-ego named Jimmy when she was a kid and that she had several affairs with women, and that she and Spencer Tracy were basically beards for each other. But there is a lot of refutation of the things said in that biography and I can't put my hands on the source material.

Anyway, here she is being adorable and letting some girl put an eyeliner mustache on her.

On my computer the image didn't show up, so I am including one:

http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/i...4a16addc4c.jpg

http://www.countrymusicgreats.com/im...8740100929.jpg

Ferron - folksinger, poet

catie curtis--musician
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.queersigh...urtis-blog.jpg

Langston Hughes--poet/writer

http://harlemworldblog.files.wordpre...onhughe_25.jpg


Dreams


Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?