Barbara Gittings & Kay Tobin

Barbara Gittings (July 31, 1932 – February 18, 2007) was a prominent American activist for gay equality. Anyone who knows the history of the LGBT movement knows the names of Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen, two of the original "gay pioneers."

Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen met in 1961 at a picnic in Rhode Island. 
"We hit it off, we started courting. I flew to Boston to visit her and got off the plane with a big bunch of flowers in my hand. I couldn't resist. I did not care what the world thought. I dropped the flowers, grabbed her and kissed her." That was not being done in 1961.

Indeed, at the time, homosexuality was considered a sickness, a mental illness. Throughout their relationship, Barbara and Kay worked tirelessly, side by side to dispel such misconceptions and to  bring visibility and  equal rights to the LGBT community. Barbara organized the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis and edited their magazine The Ladder, working alongside partner and photographer Kay. In 1965, Barbara was one of the first in a small group to picket the White House, the State Department and Independence Hall in Philadelphia, protesting the federal government's discrimination policies against hiring homosexuals.

When Barbara passed away in 2007, the community lost a hero and Kay lost her lover of 46 years.


Barbara Gittings met her partner, Kay Tobin Lahusen in 1961 at a picnic in Rhode Island, and described how they began: "We hit it off, we started courting. I flew to Boston and got off the plane with a big bunch of flowers in my hand. I couldnt resist. I did not care what the world thought. I dropped the flowers, grabbed her and kissed her. That was not being done in 1961." Lahusen moved to Philadelphia to be with Gittings. Gittings and Lahusen were together for 46 years, until Gittings's death.


Barbara Gittings is buried at Congressional Cemetery, Washington, District of Columbia, District Of Columbia, USA. The tombstone reads: Gay Pioneers who spoke truth to power: Gay is good. Partners in life, Married in our hearts.

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Gittings

Kay Lahusen (b. January 5, 1930 also known as Kay Tobin) is considered the first openly gay photojournalist of the gay rights movement. Lahusen's photographs of lesbians appeared on several of the covers of The Ladder from 1964 to 1966 while her partner, Barbara Gittings, was the editor. Lahusen helped with the founding of the original Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) in 1970, she contributed to a New York-based weekly newspaper named Gay Newsweekly, and co-authored The Gay Crusaders with Randy Wicker.

Lahusen was born and brought up in Cincinnati, Ohio and developed her interest in photography as a child. "Even as a kid I liked using a little box camera and pushing it and trying to get something artsy out of it," she recalled. She discovered while in college that she had romantic feelings for a woman and she had a relationship with her for six years, but after the woman left "in order to marry and have a normal life," Lahusen was devastated by the loss.

Lahusen spent the next six years in Boston working in the reference library of the Christian Science Monitor. She met Barbara Gittings in 1961 at a Daughters of Bilitis picnic in Rhode Island. They became a couple and Lahusen moved to Philadelphia to be with Gittings. When Gittings took over The Ladder in 1963, Lahusen made it a priority to improve the quality of art on the covers.

Where previously there were simple line drawings, characterized by Lahusen as "pretty bland, little cats, insipid human figures," Lahusen began to add photographs of real lesbians on the cover beginning in September 1964. The first showed two women from the back, on a beach looking out to sea. But Lahusen really wanted to add full-face portraits of lesbians. "If you go around as if you don't dare show your face, it sends forth a terrible message," Lahusen remembered. Several covers showed various women willing to pose in profile, or in sunglasses, but in January 1966 she was finally able to get a full face portrait. Lilli Vincenz, open and smiling, adorned the cover of The Ladder. By the end of Gittings' period as editor, Lahusen remembered there was a waiting list of women who wanted to be full-face on the cover of the magazine. Lahusen also wrote articles in The Ladder under the name Kay Tobin, a name she picked out of the phone book, and which she found was easier for people to pronounce and remember


Lesbian couple, portrait, 1977 (http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?1606450)

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kay_Lahusen

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Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story at a Time by Elisa Rolle
Paperback: 760 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (July 1, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1500563323
ISBN-13: 978-1500563325
CreateSpace Store: https://www.createspace.com/4910282
Amazon (Paperback): http://www.amazon.com/dp/1500563323/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Amazon (Kindle): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MZG0VHY/?tag=elimyrevandra-20

Days of Love chronicles more than 700 LGBT couples throughout history, spanning 2000 years from Alexander the Great to the most recent winner of a Lambda Literary Award. Many of the contemporary couples share their stories on how they met and fell in love, as well as photos from when they married or of their families. Included are professional portraits by Robert Giard and Stathis Orphanos, paintings by John Singer Sargent and Giovanni Boldini, and photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnson, Arnold Genthe, and Carl Van Vechten among others. “It's wonderful. Laying it out chronologically is inspired, offering a solid GLBT history. I kept learning things. I love the decision to include couples broken by death. It makes clear how important love is, as well as showing what people have been through. The layout and photos look terrific.” Christopher Bram “I couldn’t resist clicking through every page. I never realized the scope of the book would cover centuries! I know that it will be hugely validating to young, newly-emerging LGBT kids and be reassured that they really can have a secure, respected place in the world as their futures unfold.” Howard Cruse “This international history-and-photo book, featuring 100s of detailed bios of some of the most forward-moving gay persons in history, is sure to be one of those bestsellers that gay folk will enjoy for years to come as reference and research that is filled with facts and fun.” Jack Fritscher

Ken O’Neill & Marcus Edward

Ken O'Neill's novel, THE MARRYING KIND won the 2012 Rainbow Award for best debut. It won the 2013 Independent Publisher Award Silver Medal for LGBT fiction and was a finalist for the 2013 International book award in the Gay and Lesbian fiction category. The book was also included on Smart Bitches Trashy Books list of top three favorite books of 2012.

Ken (born April 18) lives in NYC with his partner, Marcus Edward (born July 20), and their two cats. They have been together since the day they met: June 14, 1997. With the fall of DOMA they were finally able to legally marry on July 31, 2013.

When he's not checking his Amazon rating to see if anyone has purchased his book, he enjoys reading, dancing (though usually only when no one is watching) and eating dark chocolate, purely for medicinal reasons.

The Marrying Kind won a 2012 Rainbow Award as Best Gay Contemporary General Fiction and Best Gay Debut.


Ken O’Neill,s debut novel, The Marrying Kind, won the 2012 Rainbow Award for best debut. Ken lives in NYC with his husband, Marcus Edward, and their two cats. When Ken is not checking his Amazon rating to see if anyone has purchased his book, he enjoys reading, dancing and eating dark chocolate, purely for medicinal reasons. They have been together since the day they met: June 14, 1997. With the fall of DOMA they were finally able to legally marry on July 31, 2013.

Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story at a Time by Elisa Rolle
Paperback: 760 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (July 1, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1500563323
ISBN-13: 978-1500563325
CreateSpace Store: https://www.createspace.com/4910282
Amazon (Paperback): http://www.amazon.com/dp/1500563323/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Amazon (Kindle): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MZG0VHY/?tag=elimyrevandra-20

Days of Love chronicles more than 700 LGBT couples throughout history, spanning 2000 years from Alexander the Great to the most recent winner of a Lambda Literary Award. Many of the contemporary couples share their stories on how they met and fell in love, as well as photos from when they married or of their families. Included are professional portraits by Robert Giard and Stathis Orphanos, paintings by John Singer Sargent and Giovanni Boldini, and photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnson, Arnold Genthe, and Carl Van Vechten among others. “It's wonderful. Laying it out chronologically is inspired, offering a solid GLBT history. I kept learning things. I love the decision to include couples broken by death. It makes clear how important love is, as well as showing what people have been through. The layout and photos look terrific.” Christopher Bram “I couldn’t resist clicking through every page. I never realized the scope of the book would cover centuries! I know that it will be hugely validating to young, newly-emerging LGBT kids and be reassured that they really can have a secure, respected place in the world as their futures unfold.” Howard Cruse “This international history-and-photo book, featuring 100s of detailed bios of some of the most forward-moving gay persons in history, is sure to be one of those bestsellers that gay folk will enjoy for years to come as reference and research that is filled with facts and fun.” Jack Fritscher

Foster Gunnison, Jr. (October 30, 1925 – July 1994)

Foster Gunnison, Jr. was born in 1925 in Bronxville, New York. In 1944 he entered Haverford College and soon after transferred to Columbia University, graduating in 1949. (Picture: Foster Gunnison with cigar, 1971, by Kay Tobin Lahusen)

Gunnison moved to Hartford, Connecticut, in 1955 to pursue a Masters degree in psychology at Trinity College. After completing a second Masters degree at Trinity, in philosophy, he visited the New York City offices of the Mattachine Society. The year was 1964 and as Gunnison explained to receptionist Craig Rodwell, who would later emerge as a radical figure in the Society and an organizing force throughout the city, he had "known for some time that he was not developing into a heterosexual." Gunnison, who was in his early 40s, was looking for opportunities to volunteer.

Gunnison's decision to join the Mattachine Society, the nation's oldest homophile organization, established in San Francisco in the early 1950s, took place in the context of a growing public dialog about and resistance to the theories of Drs. Bieber and Socarides that characterized homosexuality as a pathological disorder. Within the rapidly growing and increasingly active homophile movement, organizations such as Mattachine, ONE and Daughters of Bilitis were joined by new groups such as the Society for Individual Rights and the Council on Religion and the Homosexual. Groups shifted attention from the dialog about the origins of homosexuality to efforts aimed at opposing discriminatory practices and promoting social reforms. In the late 1960s, few years before the Stonewall riots of 1969, student leaders and campus groups emerged as facilitating forces for change, bolstering the organizations' membership and in many cases their radicalism. Yet amid calls for centralization and unity within the movement, the new ranks challenged the "old guard" -- their leadership, agendas, and decisions on behalf of these organizations -- and facilitated the development of splinter groups and localized movements.

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Source: http://doddcenter.uconn.edu/findaids/gunnison/MSS19960009.html  

( Foster Gunnison, Jr., 1992, by Robert Giard )

( Further readings )

More Particular Voices at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Particular Voices

UK Meet: Morticia Knight

Starting from June 1, 2015, I will daily feature authors attending the three conventions I will join, Euro Pride in Munich (July), UK Meet in Bristol (September) and GRL in San Diego (October).

For the UK Meet in Bristol, September 11-13, 2015, today author is Morticia Knight (Morticia Knight will join also GRL in San Diego): M/M Erotic Romance author Morticia Knight enjoys hot stories of men loving men forever after. They can be men in uniform, Doms and subs, rock stars or bikers - but they're all searching for the one (or two!) who was meant only for them.

When not indulging in her passion for books, she loves the outdoors, film and music. Once upon a time she was the singer in an indie rock band that toured the West Coast and charted on U.S. college radio. She is currently working on more installments of Sin City Uniforms and The Hampton Road Club, as well as the follow-up to Bryan and Aubrey's story from Rockin' the Alternative.

Further Readings:

Held Hostage (Sin City Uniforms) by Morticia Knight
Series: Sin City Uniforms
Paperback: 198 pages
Publisher: Pride Publishing (July 4, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1784306509
ISBN-13: 978-1784306502
Amazon: Held Hostage (Sin City Uniforms)
Amazon Kindle: Held Hostage (Sin City Uniforms)

SWAT officer Cole can handle just about anything, until he rescues Brett—a man who makes him question all he’s ever believed about love. As a member of the Las Vegas Police Department’s SWAT team, Cole has seen his fair share of danger, but he’s never taken a chance on love. He’s willing to have some fun when the mood strikes him, but he’s married to the job. Called in on a hostage situation, Cole is prepared for anything and everything… Except for the brave and beautiful Brett. Brett has been burned before, most recently by Officer Parker McLean. He’s hoping to settle down in Vegas, perhaps find someone he can build a life with. The last thing Brett’s looking for is another man in uniform, but when he meets Cole, there’s an attraction that can’t be denied. He doesn’t expect to fall for the chiseled alpha, though. What begins as nothing more than two people experiencing a great night together spirals into something far deeper. But will Brett be able to handle the stress that comes with having a lover who constantly puts his life in jeopardy? And can Cole risk his heart on an everyday hero, or will the job he knows so well remain his top priority?

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GRL: Christina E. Pilz

Starting from June 1, 2015, I will daily feature authors attending the three conventions I will join, Euro Pride in Munich (July), UK Meet in Bristol (September) and GRL in San Diego (October).

For the GRL in San Diego, October 15-18, 2015, today author is Christina E. Pilz: " I was was born in Waco, Texas in 1962. After living on a variety of air force bases, in 1972 my Dad retired and the family moved to Boulder, Colorado. There amidst the clear, dry air of the high plains, as the moss started to grow beneath my feet, my love for historical fiction began with a classroom reading of "Little House on the Prairie" by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I attended a variety of community colleges (Tacoma Community College) and state universities (UNC-Greeley, CU-Boulder, CU-Denver), and finally found my career in technical writing, which, between layoffs, I have been doing for 18 years. During that time, my love for historical fiction and old fashioned objects, ideas, and eras has never waned.

In addition to writing, my interests include road trips around the U.S. and frequent flights to England, where I eat fish and chips, drink hard cider, and listen to the voices in the pub around me. I also love coffee shops, mountain sunsets, prairie storms, and the smell of lavender. I am a staunch supporter of the Oxford comma."

Further Readings:

Oliver & Jack: At Lodgings In Lyme by Christina E. Pilz
Publisher: Blue Rain Press (June 22, 2015)
Amazon Kindle: Oliver & Jack: At Lodgings In Lyme

An ex-apprentice and his street thief companion flee the dangers of Victorian London and the threat of the hangman’s noose in search of family and the promise of a better life.

After Oliver Twist commits murder to protect Jack Dawkins (The Artful Dodger), both must flee London’s familiar but dangerous environs for safety elsewhere. Together they travel to Lyme Regis in the hopes of finding Oliver’s family. Along the way, Jack becomes gravely ill and Oliver is forced to perform manual labor to pay for the doctor’s bills.

While Oliver struggles to balance his need for respectability with his growing love for Jack, Jack becomes disenchanted with the staid nature of village life and his inability to practice his trade. But in spite of their personal struggles, and in the face of dire circumstances, they discover the depth of their love for each other.