Famous/Highly Visible Queers

[The_Lady_Snow]

Minnie Bruce Pratt (b. September 12, 1946 in Selma, Alabama) is an U.S. educator, activist, and award-winning poet, essayist, and theorist. Pratt was born in Selma, Alabama, grew up in Centreville, Alabama and graduated with an honors B.A. from the University of Alabama (1968) and a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of North Carolina (1979). She is a Professor of Writing and Women’s Studies at Syracuse University where she was invited to help develop the university’s first Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender Study Program. She emerged out of the women’s liberation movement in the 1970s and 1980s and has written extensively about race, class, gender and sexual theory. Pratt, along with lesbian writers Chrystos and Audre Lorde, received a Lillian Hellman-Dashiell Hammett award from the Fund for Free Expression to writers "who have been victimized by political persecution." Pratt, Chrystos and Lorde were chosen because their experience as "a target of right-wing and fundamentalist forces during the recent attacks on the National Endowment for the Arts."[1] Her political affiliations include the International Action Center, the National Women's Fightback Network, and the National Writers Union. She is a contributing editor to Workers World newspaper. Pratt's partner is author and activist Leslie Feinberg.

[Soon]

"No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow."

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."

"I have learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart."

"When life descends into the pit
I must become my own candle
Willingly burning my self
To light up the darkness around me."


"What did it mean for a black woman to be an artist in our grandmothers' time? In our great-grandmothers' day? It is an answer cruel enough to stop the blood."

[Nat]

Langston Hughes

Cafe: 3 a.m.

Detectives from the vice squad
with weary sadistic eyes
spotting fairies.
Degenerates,
some folks say.

But God, Nature,
or somebody
made them that way.

Police lady or Lesbian
over there?
Where?
----------------------------------

I Dream a World

I dream a world where man
No other man will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom's way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day.
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free,
Where wretchedness will hang its head
And joy, like a pearl,
Attends the needs of all mankind-
Of such I dream, my world!

---------------------------

Minstrel Man

Because my mouth
Is wide with laughter
And my throat
Is deep with song,
You do not think
I suffer after
I have held my pain
So long?

Because my mouth
Is wide with laughter,
You do not hear
My inner cry?
Because my feet
Are gay with dancing,
You do not know
I die?

------------------------------------

Joy

I went to look for Joy,
Slim, dancing Joy,
Gay, laughing Joy,
Bright-eyed Joy-
And I found her
Driving the butcher's cart
In the arms of the butcher boy!
Such company, such company,
As keeps this young nymph, Joy!

-----------------------------------

Port Town

Hello, sailor boy,
In from the sea!
Hello, sailor,
Come with me!

Come on drink cognac.
Rather have wine?
Come here, I love you.
Come and be mine.

Lights, sailor boy,
Warm, white lights.
Solid land, kid.
Wild, white nights.

Come on, sailor,
Out o' the sea.
Let's go, sweetie!
Come with me.

[Nina]

suzie orman...the one who does all the money stuff...

(I dunno how to do all the picture posting stuff...this is the best I got!)

[Jess]

I'm not sure if anyone has posted this..

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_lis...90B6A637BB6B53

[Nat]

President James Buchanan



William Rufus DeVane King

from wikipedia:

King was close friends with James Buchanan, and the two shared a home in Washington, D.C. for fifteen years prior to Buchanan's presidency. Buchanan and King's close relationship prompted Andrew Jackson to refer to King as "Miss Nancy" and "Aunt Fancy", while Aaron V. Brown spoke of the two as "Buchanan and his wife". Further, some of the contemporary press also speculated about Buchanan and King's relationship. Buchanan and King's nieces destroyed their uncles' correspondence, leaving some questions as to what relationship the two men had, but surviving letters illustrate the affection of a special friendship, and Buchanan wrote of his communion with his housemate. Buchanan wrote in 1844, after King left for France, "I am now solitary and alone, having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection."

[Nat]

Walt Whitman

And when I thought how my friend, my lover, was on
his way coming, then O I was happy,
Each breath tasted sweeter – and all that day my food
nourished me more – and the beautiful day passed well,
And the next came with equal joy – and with the next,
at evening, came my friend,
And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll
slowly continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands, as directed
to me, whispering to congratulate me,
For the friend I love lay sleeping by my side,
In the stillness his face was inclined toward me, while the
moon's clear beams shone
And his arm lay lightly over my breast – and that night I was happy.

[Nat]

Edna St. Vincent Millay

From Sappho.com: In Great Companions, Max Eastman relates an interesting story about Millay that, if true, reveals something of her attitude about own sexuality. According to Eastman, while at a cocktail party Millay discussed her recurrent headaches with a psychologist. He asked her, "I wonder if it has ever occurred to you that you might perhaps, although you are hardly conscious of it, have an occasional impulse toward a person of your own sex?" She responded, "Oh, you mean I'm homosexual! Of course I am, and heterosexual, too, but what's that got to do with my headache?"

[Cyclopea]

[cinderella]

Mercedes de Acosta b. 1893, & d. 1968 in NYC. Wealthy socialite, Playwrite, screenwriter, poet, novelist. Little remembered for any literary work, but notoriously famous for being lover to the most beautiful and glamourous stars of classic cinema.

Truman Copote's naughty game of International Daisy Chain, whose object is to link people sexually using as few beds as possible, quipped: "Mercedes is the best card to hold - you can get to anyone from the Duchess of Windsor to Cardinal Spellman."

Mercedes' most famous lovers were Marlene Dietrich & Greta Garbo. But add to that list the likes of Tallulah Bankhead, Alla Nazimova, Ona Munson (played Belle Watling in Gone With The Wind), Isadora Duncan, Elenor Roosevelt (so rumored), Catherine Cornell, Eva Le Gallienne, etc., etc., etc. Names relatively unknown today, but giants of the theater and cinema in their time. Mercedes was a very busy 'lady' indeed!! She is at once a fascinating and riviting individual. Her story reads like a who's who (or who's sleeping with who) of Hollywood & Broadway!

[Nat]

Eddie Izzard

describes himself as "a complete boy plus half a girl"

[Jess]

Originally Posted by Cyclopea

ahem.. yumm.. carry on..

[Cyclopea]

Originally Posted by Jess

ahem.. yumm.. carry on..

she's mine! mine! all mine! (as soon as she gets rid of that silly love-of-her-life wife thingy) :P

[cinderella]

And, you can have her. Sorry, but I don't think I've ever seen a more ugly girl...guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

[Cyclopea]

%%#%$@ **%($

[Gemme]

Originally Posted by cinderella

And, you can have her. Sorry, but I don't think I've ever seen a more ugly girl...guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Wow.

Harsh, much?

While she may not be my cuppa, I don't think she's ugly. If she is, then what the FUCK am I, because I assure you, she is more attractive than I am.

*shakes head*

[Nina]

Originally Posted by cinderella

What can I tell you...I think she's ugly. We all have different tastes and aesthetics. Last time I checked, we could voice our oppinions on here without grief. This is not a personal attack, just my oppinion, that's all.

WOW...what a slippery slope..."ugly"...about a physical presentation?...kinda makes my eyes bleed to read that...it's just...really...like Really?

ugly?...what's the point?...

voicing an opinion is just that...and, when said opinion causes a reader to shudder or have *their* own opinion...and makes a comment it's not really 'grief' then is it?---seems it's just one more personal opinion...

(yes...I am ultra sensitive today and should keep my fingers shut, but just can't at the moment)

[cinderella]

"...voicing an opinion is just that...and, when said opinion causes a reader to shudder or have *their* own opinion...and makes a comment it's not really 'grief' then is it?---seems it's just one more personal opinion..."

Yes, just one more *personal* opinion. I used the word 'grief' because the previous poster appeared to take this as a personal insult, and implied by comparison that I was calling *her* ugly. I don't know what she looks like, so how can I possibly comment on her looks, which comment would again be my own personal opinion. Opinions are just that, oppinions, not necessarily fact.

From some of the postings I've read on this site, and the language used to express oppions, I am really surprised that the word 'ugly' is creating such controversy. It seems to me that there are some 'thick-skinned' folks on here, who have voiced or heard words that are much worse then 'ugly'.

Ok, silly me for perpetuating this line of convo. This will be my last post on the matter...let's move on to other discussions instead of going back and forth about what we find attractive, and what we don't.

Originally Posted by Neen

WOW...what a slippery slope..."ugly"...about a physical presentation?...kinda makes my eyes bleed to read that...it's just...really...like Really?

ugly?...what's the point?...

voicing an opinion is just that...and, when said opinion causes a reader to shudder or have *their* own opinion...and makes a comment it's not really 'grief' then is it?---seems it's just one more personal opinion...

(yes...I am ultra sensitive today and should keep my fingers shut, but just can't at the moment)

[The_Lady_Snow]

Addams grew up in Nashville, Tennessee.[2] She served as a Hospital Corpsman with the Navy and United States Marine Corps. During her last year in the military she came out as a transgender woman.[3] Addams chose the name "Calpernia" from the William Shakespeare play Julius Caesar (a variant spelling of Caesar's wife Calpurnia) and its appearance on a tombstone in the film The Addams Family.[3]

In 1999, while working as a performer, Addams began dating PFC Barry Winchell. Word of the relationship spread at Winchell's Army base where he was harassed, and ultimately murdered, by fellow soldiers.[4] Addams' and Winchell's romance and the crimes of their abusers are depicted in the film Soldier's Girl, released in 2003. Addams was portrayed by Lee Pace. A subsequent New York Times article, "An Inconvenient Woman", documented the marginalization and misrepresentation of transgender sexuality even by gay rights activists.[5]

[Medusa]

Originally Posted by Nat

President James Buchanan



William Rufus DeVane King

from wikipedia:

King was close friends with James Buchanan, and the two shared a home in Washington, D.C. for fifteen years prior to Buchanan's presidency. Buchanan and King's close relationship prompted Andrew Jackson to refer to King as "Miss Nancy" and "Aunt Fancy", while Aaron V. Brown spoke of the two as "Buchanan and his wife". Further, some of the contemporary press also speculated about Buchanan and King's relationship. Buchanan and King's nieces destroyed their uncles' correspondence, leaving some questions as to what relationship the two men had, but surviving letters illustrate the affection of a special friendship, and Buchanan wrote of his communion with his housemate. Buchanan wrote in 1844, after King left for France, "I am now solitary and alone, having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection."

This is totally fascinating!