Elisa - My reviews and Ramblings

Everett Lysle Boyer (October 7, 1927 - August 31, 1998) & Forrest Leroy Snakenberg (March 17, 1932 - January 13, 1986) are buried together in Plot: Range 61 site 250 and 251 at the Congressional Cemetery, Washington, District of Columbia, not far from many other notable gay burials, like
- Leonard Matlovich: the gay activist who has the famous memorial reading "When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one")
- Butch Zeigler: onetime elementary school teacher, and co-owner of Capitol Prompting Service whose clients include both Heads of State and major corporations
- Frank Kameny: was a WWII veteran and the father of the modern gay rights movement
- William Boyce Mueller: the gay grandson of the founder of the Boy Scouts of America
- Frank Warren O'Reilly: a WWII veteran with a Ph.D. in International Relations, and a music critic for The Washington Times and founder of Miami’s Charles Ives Centennial Festival and the American Chopin Foundation which sponsors an annual national Chopin piano competition
- Tom Swann: a gay Marine Corps veteran and longtime activist for gay equality
- Larry Worrell & James Duell
- Dan Hering: a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, and served 20 years in the US Army
- Barbara Gittings: Barbara and her wife Kay were together for 46 years during which they were major figures in the gay rights movement. Both were close allies of Frank Kameny with whom Barbara helped convince the American Psychiatric Association to declassify homosexuality as a mental illness, and fought dismissals of gay civilian employees by the Department of Defense and other federal government agencies
- John Frey & Peter Morris: Together 43 years, they met while Catholic University students at DC’s then most popular gay male establishment, the piano bar/restaurant the Chicken Hut on H Street near Lafayette Park where biweekly, Sunday afternoon gay dances were later sponsored by the Mattachine Society of Washington in 1961 and 1962
- Kenneth Dresser & Charles Fowler: The “artistry [that] enchanted millions” referred to on Dresser’s side of the shared stone was the Electric Light Parade at Disneyland, the Electric Water Pageant at Epcot,, and the Fantasy of Lights at Callaway Gardens, Georgia — all designed by Dresser. Charles Fowler was an arts educator and writer, director of National Cultural Resources, Inc., and a guest professor at several American universities
- Peter Doyle: a veteran of the Confederate Army, is thought by historians to have been the greatest love of gay American poet Walt Whitman



Everett Lysle Boyer's tombstone reads: Arise up my love, Tis the time of singing birds (Song of Solomon 2:12), Forrest Leroy Snakenberg's, same style of that of Everett, reads: So be truely glad there is wonderful joy ahead (Peter 1:6)

Source: www.leonardmatlovich.com/images/HCC_Gay_Graves_Map_DRAFT-B.pdf

Peter Gregory McGehee (October 6, 1955 - September 13, 1991) was an American-born Canadian novelist, dramatist and short story writer.

Born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas to Frank Thomas and Julia Ann May McGehee, Peter moved with his family to Little Rock when he was six. He was the second of three children. McGehee played the trombone at Parkview High School in Little Rock where he graduated in 1973. McGehee studied at Southern Methodist University in Dallas before moving to San Francisco to work in theatre where he graduated from the University of San Francisco. While living in San Francisco, he wrote his first play and first comedic musical revue The Quinlan Sisters. That is where he later met Canadian activist Douglas Wilson, who became his partner. He moved to Saskatoon in 1980 to be with Douglas, and subsequently to Toronto in 1982.

He published his first novella, Beyond Happiness in 1985 and premiered his second revue, The Fabulous Sirs in 1987.

In 1988, McGehee and Wilson were both diagnosed HIV-positive. McGehee subsequently wrote two novels, Boys Like Us and Sweetheart, and a book of short stories, The IQ Zoo. Boys Like Us was published in 1991, shortly before McGehee's death of AIDS-related causes; Sweetheart and The IQ Zoo were both published posthumously.

Using notes that McGehee had written in preparation for his third novel, Wilson subsequently wrote Labour of Love before his own death in 1992. That novel was published in 1993.


Peter McGehee was an American-born Canadian novelist, dramatist and short story writer. While living in San Francisco, he met Canadian activist Douglas Wilson, who became his partner. He moved to Saskatoon in 1980 to be with Douglas, and subsequently to Toronto in 1982. In 1988, McGehee and Wilson were both diagnosed HIV-positive. Boys Like Us was published in 1991, shortly before McGehee's death. Using notes that McGehee had written, Wilson wrote Labour of Love before his own death in 1992.


Peter McGehee - AIDS quilt

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

Douglas Wilson (1950 - September 24, 1992) was a Canadian gay activist, graduate student, publisher and writer born in Saskatchewan. In 1975, he gained prominence in a fight for gay rights with the University of Saskatchewan. The University's Dean of the College of Education refused to allow Wilson into the school system to supervise practice teachers because of his public involvement with the gay liberation movement. Wilson was vice-president of the Gay Community Centre Saskatoon and had been trying to start a gay academic union at the university. The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission failed to protect Wilson and his case was unsuccessful.

Wilson spent most of his life fighting for human rights issues, activism and AIDS organizations. In 1977 he founded Stubblejumper Press, a small publishing house dedicated to works by Canadian lesbians and gay men. He served as executive director of the Saskatchewan Association on Human Rights from 1978 to 1983. In 1983 Wilson moved to Toronto to work for the Toronto Board of Education as an advisor to the Race Relations and Equal Opportunity Office. In 1984 he became one of the founding publishers of Rites: for lesbian and gay liberation.

Wilson was the first openly gay candidate to be nominated by a major political party to stand for Parliament, as a candidate of the New Democratic Party in the Toronto riding of Rosedale in the 1988 election. During the campaign he was diagnosed with AIDS. He spent the rest of his life as an AIDS activist, helping to found AIDS Action Now! and founding chairperson of the Canadian Network of Organizations for People Living With AIDS. Wilson published his partner Peter McGehee's novels, Boys Like Us (1991) and Sweetheart (1992). One month before his death, he completed McGehee's notes of his third novel, Labour of Love (1993). Wilson died on September 24, 1992 at the age of 42.


Doug Wilson - AIDS Quilt

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Wilson_(Canadian_gay_activist)

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More LGBT Couples at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

Eugene Luther Gore Vidal (born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer known for his essays, novels, screenplays, and Broadway plays. As a well-known public intellectual, he was known for his patrician manner and witty aphorisms. Vidal's grandfather was the U.S. Senator Thomas Gore of Oklahoma. In 1950, he met his long-term partner Howard Auster. Vidal once reported that the secret to his lengthy relationship with Auster was that they did not have sex with each other: "It's easy to sustain a relationship when sex plays no part and impossible, I have observed, when it does." Auster died in November 2003 and, in February 2005, was buried in a plot for himself and Vidal at Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Vidal died at his home in Hollywood Hills, California, at about 6:45 p.m. PDT July 31, 2012, of complications from pneumonia. He was 86. (Picture: Gore Vidal by Carl Van Vechten)

Vidal was a lifelong Democrat; he ran for political office twice and was a longtime political commentator. As well known for his essays as his novels, Vidal wrote for The Nation, New Statesman, the New York Review of Books and Esquire. Vidal's major subject was America, and through his essays and media appearances he was a longtime critic of American foreign policy. He developed this into a portrayal of the United States as a decaying empire from the 1980s onwards. He was also known for his well-publicized spats with such figures as Norman Mailer, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Truman Capote.


Gore Vidal was an American writer known for his essays, novels, screenplays, and Broadway plays. In 1950, he met his long-term partner Howard Auster. Vidal once reported that the secret to his lengthy relationship with Auster was that they did not have sex with each other: "It's easy to sustain a relationship when sex plays no part and impossible, I have observed, when it does." Auster died in November 2003 and, in February 2005, was buried in a plot for himself and Vidal at Rock Creek Cemetery.



Howard Auster died in November 2003 and was buried in a plot for himself and Vidal at Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, District of Columbia, District Of Columbia, USA, Plot: Section E-16. Gore Vidal was buried there in 2012. On one side of Gore Vidal (October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) & Howard Auster (1929 - November 2003) is the grave of Henry Adams, the American journalist, novelist, academic and historian who featured in Vidal's books. On the other side is the great love of Gore Vidal's life, indeed the person who he said was the only person he had ever loved, Jimmy Trimble, who died at Iwo Jima, March 1, 1945.

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

James Trimble III grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where he filled his time playing baseball and watching the Senators at nearby Griffith Stadium. He attended St. Albans, a prep school located in the shadow of the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., and was a star athlete for four years. Trimble was all-district end in football, captained the basketball team and stunned baseball onlookers with his blistering fastball and hard breaking curve. In his time at St. Albans, Trimble hurled three no-hitters and was rarely defeated. His coach Bill Shaw, who was a member of the 1932 U.S. Olympic baseball team, considered Trimble one of the finest prospects he had ever seen, but Trimble was not prepared to take all the glory for his success. "Buddy's the best catcher in the District," he said of batterymate Paul "Buddy" Cromelin. "Cromelin's been handling my pitches for five years now, and has made very few mistakes." Trimble was exceptionally popular during his years at St. Albans. His good nature was infectious and his colorful play on the athletic field endeared him to everyone. "The curly-haired Casanova spends many torrid weekends giving the local girls lessons in rug-cutting," declared the school yearbook in 1943.

During his senior year, Trimble's mound heroics caught the attention of Senators owner Clark Griffith, who invited him to a tryout on May 29, 1943. Manager Ossie Bluege was impressed with the youngster, and on June 4 Griffith gave him a $5,000 signing bonus and agreed to pay for a four-year scholarship to Duke University, where he would be under the direction of Jack Coombs, baseball coach and former major league pitcher who won 31 games for the Athletics in 1910. "Conservatively speaking," wrote Joe Holman in the Washington Times-Herald, "the happiest boy in Washington, D.C., today is Jimmy Trimble ... who yesterday signed a contract with the Washington Club and its president, Clark Griffith." Two days later, by way of celebration, Trimble pitched a 4-0 one-hitter for Chevy Chase A.C. against Mount Pleasant A.C. in the City League, striking out 16.

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Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Trimble_III

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
Amazon: Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story at a Time

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

Alfred Charles Kinsey (June 23, 1894 – August 25, 1956) was an American biologist, professor of entomology and zoology, and sexologist who in 1947 founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, now known as the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. He is best known for writing "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male" (1948) and "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female" (1953), also known as the Kinsey Reports, as well as the Kinsey scale. Kinsey's research on human sexuality, foundational to the field of sexology, provoked controversy in the 1940s and 1950s. His work has influenced social and cultural values in the United States, as well as internationally.

Kinsey married Clara Bracken McMillen in 1921, whose ceremony, like his college graduation, was also avoided by Alfred Sr. They had four children. Their first-born, Donald, died from the acute complications of juvenile diabetes in 1927, just before his fifth birthday. His daughter, Anne, was born in 1924, followed by Joan in 1925, and Bruce in 1928.

Kinsey was bisexual and polyamorous. He and his wife agreed that both could sleep with other people as well as with each other. He himself slept with other men, including his student Clyde Martin.

Kinsey designed his own house, which was built in the Vinegar Hill neighborhood of Bloomington, Indiana at 1320 First Street. There he practiced his deep interest in gardening.


Alfred Kinsey married Clara Bracken McMillen in 1921, whose ceremony, like his college graduation, was also avoided by Alfred Sr. They had four children. Their first-born, Donald, died from the acute complications of juvenile diabetes in 1927, just before his fifth birthday. His daughter, Anne, was born in 1924, followed by Joan in 1925, and Bruce in 1928. Kinsey was bisexual and polyamorous. He and his wife agreed that both could sleep with other people as well as with each other. He himself slept with other men, including his student Clyde Martin.
Shortly after he started collecting sex histories, Dr. Kinsey sought out funding for his research expenses. With a grant he received from the National Research Council, he was able to hire other researchers to assist him. The first one hired was Clyde Martin, in 1941. In 1943, he hired Wardell Pomeroy. These two researchers shared the credit with Dr. Kinsey for writing the landmark volume Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Martin had a degree in economics; he handled the early statistical analysis for the team. Pomeroy was a psychologist by training, with a graduate degree from Indiana University. The team's diverse background contributed to the success of the project. Photo credits: All pictures were taken by the Institute's staff photographer, William Dellenback, except the photos here entitled "Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey" (unknown photographer); "Authors of the Male Volume" (Indiana University's Audio-Visual Center) and "Dr. Kinsey Lecturing (unknown photographer). (http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/about/photo-tour.html)

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

Clara Bracken McMillen (2 October 1898 – April 1982) was an American researcher. The wife of Alfred Kinsey, she contributed to the Kinsey Reports on human sexuality.

Born in Bloomington, Indiana, McMillen majored in chemistry at Indiana University, graduating with Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, and other honors. She also attended graduate school which she eventually left after marrying Alfred Kinsey. She first met him briefly the May he visited Indiana University before joining the faculty and they met again at a zoology department picnic in 1920. The couple were married from 3 June 1921 until Alfred's death in 1956. Alfred was bisexual and polyamorous. Clara and Kinsey had an open relationship. Clara slept with other men (as well as with him) and Kinsey slept with other men, including his student Clyde Martin.

Alfred and Clara had four children: Donald (1922–1927), Anne (1924), Joan (1925), and Bruce (1928). Donald died of diabetes just before his fifth birthday.

Laura Linney earned an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of McMillen in the film Kinsey.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_McMillen

Clyde Martin (born January 2, 1918) was an assistant to Dr. Alfred Kinsey and a co-author of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male.

Martin commenced study in economics at Indiana University in 1937. Soon after in December 1938 Martin actively sought out Kinsey and gave Kinsey his sexual history. The pair formed a bond, and Kinsey offered the cash-strapped Martin work in Kinsey’s own garden. From spring 1939, he was assisting Kinsey with tabulation of his sexual history surveys. In 1941 when funding for the project was received from the National Research Council, Martin became the first researcher hired by the project. In 1960 he resigned from the Institute for Sex Research to pursue his doctoral degree, receiving his Ph.D. (in social relations) from Johns Hopkins University in 1966. From 1966 until 1989, he conducted research, specializing in gerontology and sociology at the Francis Scott Key Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland. He retired in 1989.

In May 1942, Martin married his girlfriend, Alice, in the garden of Kinsey’s house.

The 2003 musical Dr. Sex focuses on the relationship between Martin, Kinsey and his wife, with the character of Wally Matthews being based on Martin, Martin and Kinsey sharing Kinsey's wife as sex partner.

The 2004 biographical film Kinsey, written and directed by Bill Condon, stars Peter Sarsgaard as Martin.


The next step in the process after the interview was to get the information from the written answer sheet onto data punch cards. This picture shows Clyde Martin with the Institute's card sorter, the only data-processing option available to researchers at that time. Photo credits: All pictures were taken by the Institute's staff photographer, William Dellenback, except the photos here entitled "Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey" (unknown photographer); "Authors of the Male Volume" (Indiana University's Audio-Visual Center) and "Dr. Kinsey Lecturing (unknown photographer). (http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/about/photo-tour.html)

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_Martin

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Simon Doonan (born 1952) is the Creative Ambassador-at-Large of the New York City-based clothing store Barneys.

Doonan comes from the English town of Reading. His first retail job was a summer position at Heelas, a department store in Reading, owned by the John Lewis Partnership. After returning to work at the same store after university, he first got involved in the art of window dressing. He later left Reading for London and dressed windows at Aquascutum before moving to Nutters of Savile Row.

Invited to dress his windows by the proprietor of Maxfield, a department store in Los Angeles, Doonan moved to the United States in 1978. He joined the Barneys staff in 1986 as a window dresser.

In addition to his work at Barneys, he writes a column on style for Slate. Previously, he wrote a similar column for The New York Observer.

In his book, Eccentric Glamour, he decried porno chic in Western society in general. Interviewed for an article for the New York Daily News, he said, "There are two horribly worrying trends! Celebrities are becoming so gun-shy that there is no diversity, no sense of fun on the red carpet. There's no experimentation — which is incredibly important to fashion." On "porno chic," (the second trend) he said, "Imagine if you said to people 20 years ago that, in 2008, a significant number of women would be going around dressing like porno stars with fake hooters and butt cracks showing? No one would have believed you."


Jonathan Adler and Simon Doonan with their Norwich Terrier Liberace, Lagerfeld exibition, Givenchy, 2006
Simon Doonan is the Creative Ambassador-at-Large of the NYC-based clothing store Barneys. In September 2008, he married his partner of 14 years, designer Jonathan Adler, in California. Doonan and Adler live in New York City with their Norwich Terrier, Liberace. Jonathan Adler is an iconic potter, designer, author, & personality. Adler launched his first ceramic collection in 1993 at Barneys New York. 5 years years later he expanded into home furnishings, opening his first boutique in Manhattan.

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

Jonathan Adler (born in 1966 in New Jersey, United States) is an iconic potter, designer, author, and personality. Adler launched his first ceramic collection in 1993 at Barneys New York. Five years years later he expanded into home furnishings, opening his first namesake boutique in Manhattan.

Jonathan Adler now has nineteen stores worldwide, a thriving e-commerce site, and a wholesale business boasting over 1,000 locations worldwide. While remaining committed to ceramic design, Jonathan has now grown far beyond the potter’s wheel to become an internationally recognized design brand offering decorative objects, tabletop collections, bedding, bath accessories, gifts, candles, furniture, rugs, pillows, lighting, and most recently handbags. Adler is dedicated to bringing style, craft and positivity to your home.

Jonathan’s creativity is fueled by various sources of inspiration: Mid-century modern, art and global pop culture combine to create the signature Adler aesthetic. The company prides itself on its ability to combine a serious design philosophy with a colorful sense of optimism. The guiding motto, "If your heirs won't fight over it, we won't make it," reflects Jonathan’s commitment to impeccable craftsmanship and irreverent luxury.

In addition to designing furniture and product, Jonathan has collaborated with many notable brands. In 2004, Jonathan redesigned the iconic California hotel, The Parker Palm Springs. In 2009, Mattel called upon Jonathan to design the modern-glam interiors for the “real” Barbie™ Dream House in celebration of Barbie’s 50th anniversary. He designed Starbucks 2010 (RED)™ card and mug which directly benefits The Global Fund, and most recently Jonathan was selected as LACOSTE’s 6th Annual Collectors series artist, debuting Holiday 2011.

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

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More Fashion Designers at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Art

More Designers at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Art

More LGBT Couples at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

Timothy Long (b. 1968) married Christopher Herbert (b. 1981), Martha Stewart's nephew, with a private ceremony in Stewart's home in Bedford, New York, in September 2010. Chris and Tim dated for several years before deciding to tie the knot. Like many couples, they met through work – Tim is a pianist and conductor, and Chris is a classical singer. After an audition by Chris at the Aspen Music Festival, Tim says he just couldn't get him out of his head. The pair connected through music, after a while started dating, then finally moved in together in New York.

While on a family vacation in 2009 they decided to take the next big step. "We wanted to be a family – officially," Tim says. When they broke the news to relatives who were on vacation with them, Chris says it triggered a "big group family hug." And when Aunt Martha found out a few days later, she graciously offered her farm as a venue. The next year, the happy couple had a legal ceremony in Massachusetts that coincided with a family reunion, then repeated their vows at a wedding with Martha's horse stables as the backdrop on a gorgeous day.

Chris and Tim feel lucky that their parents were so supportive, since they realize that not all gay couples have that. Indeed, one of their reasons for getting married was to bring their two families together. They are also mindful of the fact that gay couples can't get married in most of America. Tim points out, "The fact that we have to fight for marriage forces us to really consider what it's really about."


Tim Long married Christopher Herbert, Martha Stewart's nephew, with a private ceremony in Stewart's home in Bedford, New York, in September 2010. Chris and Tim dated for several years before deciding to tie the knot. Like many couples, they met through work – Tim is a pianist and conductor, and Chris is a classical singer. After an audition by Chris at the Aspen Music Festival, Tim says he just couldn't get him out of his head. After a while started dating, then finally moved in together in NYC.


Basset hound mix Pumpkin checks out potential new family members with dads Christopher Herbert (near right) and Timothy Long. Photo: Zandy Mangold (http://nypost.com/2012/08/05/dog-meets-dog-world/)

Source: http://www.whymarriagematters.org/stories/entry/chris-and-tims-story

More LGBT Couples at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

Boris Rodolfo Izaguirre Lobo (Caracas, September 29, 1965) is a Venezuelan-Spanish screenwriter, journalist, writer and showman. In February 2006 Izaguirre married his longtime boyfriend Rubén Nogueira.

Izaguirre wrote the scripts of some of the Venezuelan telenovelas: Rubí and La dama de Rosa. After their success in Spain, he went to live in Santiago de Compostela.

In Spain, Izaguirre started to write scripts and participate in TV shows. He is considered one of the most important showmen, especially after his participation in the TV show Crónicas Marcianas.

Izaguirre has written articles in several publications: Zero, El País Semanal, Fotogramas and Marie Claire. He was one of the presenters of the TV show Channel nº4 with Ana García-Siñeriz between 2005 and 2008 when the program was removed.

He was finalist of Premio Planeta in 2007 with his novel Villa Diamante.


Boris Rodolfo Izaguirre Lobo (Caracas, September 29, 1965) is a Venezuelan-Spanish screenwriter, journalist, writer and showman. In February 2006 Izaguirre married his longtime boyfriend Rubén Nogueira. He was finalist of Premio Planeta in 2007 with his novel Villa Diamante. After their success in Spain, he went to live in Santiago de Compostela. He is considered one of the most important showmen, especially after his participation in the TV show Crónicas Marcianas.

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Izaguirre

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More LGBT Couples at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

Jason Wu (born September 27, 1982) is a Taiwanese-Canadian fashion designer based in New York City. He is most famous for designing the dresses of Michelle Obama on several occasions, including during first and second inauguration of American President Barack Obama. He is in a relationship with Gustavo Rangel, who is also his business partner. (Photo: Marcelo Krasilcic, Patrik Shaw | China in my Hand)

"At first, we were friends -- I don’t remember when that line became blurry. I didn’t think he was my type, but things changed. When it’s unexpected, that’s the best—in anything in life, not just a boyfriend. Our first date was Mary Poppins, which is funny, but it turned into a romantic night.

When my company started growing, I asked Gus to help -- we work from different sides of the brain -- and he always works from the practical side. Like, when we’re shopping, he pulls me back and says, “Don’t buy that.” That’s how our relationship has played out. Working and living with someone -- that’s intense. We have to leave the baggage behind and have a personal life. We have that balance. We walk home, and once we go from the West to the East, there’s no more work talk. At Fifth Avenue, it ends.

It’s good to have someone that is real and honest. Sometimes you don’t see who you are after a long time, especially if you’re busy and working toward something. It’s nice to have someone who’s a mirror. You may not always like what you see, but it’s true." --Jason Wu (http://www.out.com/fashion/2012/01/11/jason-wu-boyfriend-gustavo-rangel-design)


Photo by Martien Mulder
Jason Wu is a Taiwanese-Canadian fashion designer based in New York City. He is most famous for designing the dresses of Michelle Obama on several occasions, including during first and second inauguration of American President Barack Obama. He is in a relationship with Gustavo Rangel, who is also his business partner. "We first met at a friend’s house on New Year’s Eve in 2005 and became friends. After about six months, it started to develop into something more." Gustavo Rangel



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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Wu

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More Fashion Designers at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Art

More LGBT Couples at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

Anne Fausto-Sterling (born July 30, 1944) is the Nancy Duke Lewis Professor of Biology and Gender Studies at Brown University. She participates actively in the field of sexology and has written extensively on the fields of biology of gender, sexual identity, gender identity, and gender roles. Fausto-Sterling is married to Paula Vogel, a Yale professor and Pulitzer-winning playwright. Fausto-Sterling's mother, Dorothy Sterling, was a noted writer and historian, and her father was also a published writer.

Fausto-Sterling received her Bachelor of Arts degree in zoology from University of Wisconsin in 1965 and her Ph.D. in developmental genetics from Brown University in 1970. She has taught at Brown since earning her Ph.D.

She has written two books intended for the general audience. The second edition of the first of those books, Myths of Gender, was published in 1992.

Her second book for the general public is Sexing the Body, published in 2000. She stated that in it she sets out to "convince readers of the need for theories that allow for a good deal of human variation and that integrate the analytical powers of the biological and the social into the systematic analysis of human development."

In a paper entitled "The Five Sexes", in which, according to her, "I had intended to be provocative, but I had also written with tongue firmly in cheek," Fausto-Sterling laid out a thought experiment considering an alternative model of gender containing five sexes: male, female, merm, ferm, and herm. This thought experiment was interpreted by some as a serious proposal or even a theory; advocates for intersexual people stated that this theory was wrong, confusing and unhelpful to the interests of intersexual people. In a later paper ("The Five Sexes, Revisited") she has acknowledged these objections.


Paula Vogel is an American playwright and university professor. She received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play, How I Learned to Drive. Vogel married Brown University professor and author Ann e Fausto-Sterling in Truro, Massachusetts, on September 26, 2004. "We've been together for 16 years, and we are already accepted within our community and embraced within our family. What is surprising is the emotion of it being legal - to realize that marriage is not just a personal commitment"

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Fausto-Sterling

Paula Vogel (born 16 November 1951) is an American playwright and university professor. She received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play, How I Learned to Drive.

Vogel was born in Washington, D.C. to Donald Stephen Vogel, an advertising executive, and Phyllis Rita Bremerman, a secretary for United States Postal Service Training and Development Center. She is a graduate of The Catholic University of America (1974, B.A.) and Cornell University (1976, M.A.). Vogel also attended Bryn Mawr College from 1969 to 1970 and 1971 to 1972.

A productive playwright since the late 1970s, Vogel first came to national prominence with her AIDS-related seriocomedy The Baltimore Waltz, which won the Obie award for Best Play in 1992. She is best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning play How I Learned to Drive (1997), which examines the impact and echoes of child sexual abuse and incest. Other notable plays include Desdemona, A Play About A Handkerchief (1979); The Oldest Profession (1981); And Baby Makes Seven (1984); Hot 'N Throbbing (1994); and The Mineola Twins (1996).

Although no particular theme or topic dominates her work, she often examines traditionally controversial issues such as sexual abuse and prostitution. Asserting that she "writes the play backwards," moving from emotional circumstances and character to craft narrative structure, Vogel says, "My writing isn't actually guided by issues.... I only write about things that directly impact my life." Vogel adds, "If people get upset, it's because the play is working." Vogel's family, especially her late brother Carl Vogel, influences her writings. Vogel says, "In every play, there are a couple of places where I send a message to my late brother Carl. Just a little something in the atmosphere of every play to try and change the homophobia in our world." Carl's likeness appears in such plays as The Long Christmas Ride Home (2003), The Baltimore Waltz, and And Baby Makes Seven.


Paula Vogel, 1999, by Robert Giard (http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/brbldl_getrec.asp?fld=img&id=1125724)

American photographer Robert Giard is renowned for his portraits of American poets and writers; his particular focus was on gay and lesbian writers. Some of his photographs of the American gay and lesbian literary community appear in his groundbreaking book Particular Voices: Portraits of Gay and Lesbian Writers, published by MIT Press in 1997. Giard’s stated mission was to define the literary history and cultural identity of gays and lesbians for the mainstream of American society, which perceived them as disparate, marginal individuals possessing neither. In all, he photographed more than 600 writers. (http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/digitallibrary/giard.html)

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

( Further Readings )

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

More Real Life Romances at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

Archibald Willingham DeGraffenreid Clarendon Butt (September 26, 1865 – April 15, 1912) was an American journalist and United States Army officer. After a short career as a newspaper reporter, he served two years as the First Secretary of the American embassy in Mexico. He was commissioned in the United States Volunteers in 1900 and served in the Quartermaster Corps during the Philippine Insurrection. He gained notice for his work in logistics and animal husbandry, and received a commission in the regular United States Army in 1901. After brief postings in Washington, D.C., and Cuba, he was appointed military aide to Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. He died in the sinking of the RMS Titanic. (P: Lieutenant Archibald Butt in 1909)

Archibald Butt was born in September 1865 in Augusta, Georgia, to Joshua Willingham and Pamela Robertson (née Boggs) Butt. His grandfather, Archibald Butt, served in the American Revolutionary War. His great-grandfather, Josiah Butt, was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Continental Army during the same conflict. He was the nephew of General William R. Boggs of the Confederate States Army (CSA). He had two older brothers (Edward and Lewis), a younger brother (John), and a sister (Clara), and the family was poor. Butt attended various local schools while growing up, including Summerville Academy. Butt's father died when Butt was 14 years old, and Butt went to work to support his mother, sister, and younger brother. Pamela Butt wished for her son to enter the clergy.

With the financial help of the Reverend Edwin G. Weed (who later became the Episcopal Bishop of Florida), Butt attended the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. His mother worked as a librarian at the university, where she lived rent-free in an apartment in the library. While in college, he became interested in journalism and eventually was named editor of the college newspaper. Butt became acquainted with John Breckinridge Castleman, a former CSA major and guerrilla fighter during the American Civil War and who was, by 1883, Adjutant General of the Kentucky Militia. He joined the Delta Tau Delta fraternity, and graduated in 1888.


Looking northeast at the Butt-Millet Memorial Fountain near The Ellipse (the southern portion of the President's Park) in Washington, D.C., in the United States. This memorial fountain was erected in October 1912 in memory of Major Archibald Butt (military aide to President William Howard Taft) and Francis Davis Millet (painter). Both men died during the sinking of the RMS Titanic in April 1912.
Archibald Butt lived in a large mansion at 2000 G Street NW with the painter Francis Davis Millet. "Millet, my artist friend who lives with me" was Butt's designation for his companion. They were known for throwing spartan but large parties that were attended by members of Congress, justices of the Supreme Court, and President Taft himself. Some speculation exists that Butt was a homosexual. Davenport-Hines believes Butt and Millet were gay lovers. "They were together in death as in life."

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

Charles Warren Stoddard (August 7, 1843, – April 23, 1909) was an American author and editor.

Charles Warren Stoddard was born in Rochester, New York on August 7, 1843. He was descended in a direct line from Anthony Stoddard of England, who settled at Boston, Massachusetts, in 1639. While he was still a child his parents moved to New York City, where they lived until 1855, when they migrated to San Francisco, California. In 1857 he returned alone to New York, lived with his grandparents for two years, and then rejoined his family in San Francisco. In a short time he began writing verses, which he sent anonymously to a local newspaper. They met with great success and were later published with the modest title Poems by Charles Warren Stoddard. Poor health compelled him to give up his plans for a college education. He tried the stage, but soon realized that such a life was not his calling.

In 1864 he visited the South Sea Islands and from there wrote his Idyls — letters which he sent to a friend who had them published in book form. "They are," as William Dean Howells said, "the lightest, sweetest, wildest, freshest things that were ever written about the life of that summer ocean." He made four other trips to the South Sea Islands, and gave his impressions in Lazy Letters from Low Latitudes and The Island of Tranquil Delights. Several times he visited Molokai, and became well acquainted with Father Damien, the Apostle to the Lepers, and a Catholic saint as of 2009, and wrote his interesting little book, The Lepers of Molokai, which, with Stevenson's famous letter, did much to establish Father Damien's true position in public esteem. In 1867, soon after his first visit to the South Sea Islands, he was received into the Catholic Church, for which he had a most tender devotion. The story of his conversion he has told in a small book interestingly written: A Troubled Heart and How it was Comforted. Of this book he has said: "Here you have my inner life all laid bare."

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

Stoddard's work is laced with overtly erotic in tone and description scene. Here the narrator first meets Kana-ana:

So Kana-ana brought up his horse, got me on to it in some way or other, and mounted behind me to pilot the animal and sustain me in my first bare-back act. Over the sand we went, and through the river to his hut, where I was taken in, fed, and petted in every possible way, and finally put to bed, where Kana-ana monopolized me, growling in true savage fashion if any one came near me. I didn't sleep much, after all. I think I must have been excited.

After the narrator returns to the United States, he misses his chum and muses on what it would mean to bring him to "civilization":

I could teach him to dress, you know; to say a very good thing to your face, and a very bad one at your back; to sleep well in church, and rejoice duly when the preacher got at last to the "Amen."

Stoddard presents a complicated relationship between the sexual freedom that Kana-ana represents and the narrator's desire to bring his friend to "civilization," even as he admits the civilization is riddled with repression and hypocrisies. Stoddard is concerned with finding a way to merge what he idealizes as sexual freedom and lack of social constraint with the conventions of the U.S. life. His attempts remains all the more powerful as a radical ideal, not a reality. --A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski

Francis Davis Millet (November 3, 1848 – April 15, 1912) was an American painter, sculptor, and writer who died in the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912.(P: Francis Davis Millet shortly before his death in 1912)

Francis Davis Millet was born in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts. Most sources state that his date of birth was November 3, 1846, but a diary which he kept during his military service stated that November 3, 1864 was his 16th birthday, thus indicating birth in 1848. At age fifteen, Millet entered the Massachusetts regiment, first as a drummer boy and then a surgical assistant (helping his father, a surgeon) in the American Civil War.

He repeatedly pointed to his experience working for his father as giving him an appreciation for the vivid blood red that he repeatedly used in his early paintings. He graduated from Harvard with a Master of Arts degree. He worked as a reporter and editor for the Boston Courier and then as a correspondent for the Advertiser at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition.

In 1876, Millet returned to Boston to paint murals at Trinity Church in Boston with John LaFarge. He entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts at Antwerp, Belgium, and won a silver medal in his first year (never before done), followed by a gold medal in his second. In the Russo‐Turkish war of 1877–78, he was engaged as a war correspondent by the New York Herald, the London Daily News, and the London Graphic. He was decorated by Russia and Romania due to his bravery under fire and services to the wounded.


An Autumn Idyll (painting), The Brooklyn Museum, 1892

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

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Ross Mathews (born September 24, 1979) is an American television personality who first rose to fame with his role as an intern, and later, a correspondent, for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, for which he was known as "Ross the Intern". Mathews has since gone on to numerous subsequent TV appearances, including Celebrity Fit Club, The Insider and as a weekly regular panelist on Chelsea Lately. Since 2008 he has been in a relationship with his boyfriend, stylist Salvador Camarena.

Mathews was born and raised in Mount Vernon, Washington, and is a graduate of the University of La Verne in La Verne, California. He was a communications major and a successful speech and debate competitor.

Mathews began as an intern behind the scenes on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. From December 2001, he covered movie premieres, the Academy Awards, two different Winter Olympics Games and other events.

Mathews has contributed commentary to the E! networks various 101... specials, and appears as a weekly panelist on E's late night talk show Chelsea Lately.

He appeared on the fifth season of VH1's reality television show, Celebrity Fit Club. During the course of the show, which premiered in April 2007, Mathews lost more than 40 lbs. and helped his team win the grand prize.


Ross Mathews (born September 24, 1979) is an American television personality who first rose to fame with his role as an intern, and later, a correspondent, for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, for which he was known as "Ross the Intern". Mathews has since gone on to numerous subsequent TV appearances, including Celebrity Fit Club, The Insider and as a weekly regular panelist on Chelsea Lately. Since 2008 he has been in a relationship with his boyfriend, stylist Salvador Camarena.

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Mathews

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More LGBT Couples at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

Hanan Kattan (born May 22, 1962) is a Jordanian-born, British-based film producer of Palestinian origin. She is also co-owner of online marketing agency EBS Digital and multi-media entertainment company Enlightenment Productions. She currently lives with her civil partner, writer and director Shamim Sarif, in Surrey. They have two sons.

Kattan created Enlightenment Productions and EBS Digital in partnership with Shamim Sarif.

Enlightenment Productions were Winner of the Kingston Business Excellence Awards 2014, Best Creative and Media Sector Business.

EBS Digital were Highly Commended in the Kingston Business Excellence Awards 2014 in the section for Best Business for Marketing and Social Media.

Kattan has produced three feature films through Enlightenment Productions including 1950s South African drama/love story The World Unseen and contemporary urban romantic comedy I Can't Think Straight. She also conceived the 2010 TEDx Holy Land Conference, which brought together Arab and Israeli women to discuss issues of mutual interest in technology, entertainment and design, which then became the subject of the 2011 documentary film, The House of Tomorrow, directed by Sarif.


Shamim Sarif is a British novelist and filmmaker of South Asian and South African heritage. Her roots inspired her to write her debut novel, The World Unseen, which explores issues of race, gender and sexuality, which she later adapted into a film. Producer Hanan Kattan and Sarif make a formidable pair. Together since 1997 (they married when civil partnership was legalized in the U.K and have two sons), the two have joined forces and formed the London-based Enlightenment Productions.

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

Shamim Sarif (born September 24, 1969) is a British novelist and filmmaker of South Asian and South African heritage. Her roots inspired her to write her debut novel, The World Unseen, which explores issues of race, gender and sexuality, which she later adapted into a film starring Lisa Ray and Sheetal Sheth. The novel won the Pendleton May First Novel Award and a Betty Trask Award. She has also adapted and directed a film based on her book I Can't Think Straight. Producer Hanan Kattan and novelist/filmmaker Shamim Sarif make a formidable pair. Together since 1997 (they married when civil partnership was legalized in the U.K and have two sons), the two have joined forces and formed the London-based Enlightenment Productions.

She is the recipient of Best Director awards for The World Unseen film from the South African Film and Television Awards, the Phoenix Film Festival and the Clip (Tampa) Festival.

Her 2011 film, The House of Tomorrow, is a documentary about the 2010 TEDx Holy Land Conference, which brought together Arab and Israeli women to discuss issues of mutual interest in technology, entertainment, and design.

At Cannes Festival 2013 Sarif announced her new film Despite The Falling Snow with Olga Kurylenko, Charles Dance, and Maria Furtwängler. The film will be produced by Enlightenment Productions and Hanan Kattan.

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamim_Sarif

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More LGBT Couples at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

Simon Sheppard is a writer of gay erotica and a sex-advice columnist from San Francisco. He lives with his husband William in San Francisco, where San Francisco magazine dubbed him “our erotica king.” They married on September 23, 2013: "William and I went down to San Francisco City Hall and got hitched. It was a whole lot of fun, and now we're happily husband and husband. Yippee!"

He is the author of many books of gay sex writing, including Man on Man: The Best of Simon Sheppard, Sodomy!, Jockboys, Kinkorama: Dispatches From the Front Lines of Perversion, In Deep, and Sex Parties 101.

He is also the editor of Homosex: 60 Years of Gay Erotica, winner of the 2007 Lambda Literary Award for LGBT erotica; the anthology Leathermen; and is the coeditor of the anthologies Rough Stuff and Roughed Up.

Sheppard's work is wide-ranging, often combining history, philosophy, and culture — high and low — with hardcore sex. His first book, Hotter Than Hell and Other Stories, won the Erotic Authors Association Award for Best Collection of the Year, and the title story of In Deep was shortlisted for the Rauxa Prize for Erotic Fiction. His work has also appeared in over 300 anthologies and magazines, including many editions of Best Gay Erotica and The Best American Erotica. He wrote the syndicated column "Sex Talk," and the online columns "Perv" and "Notes of a Cranky Old Fag." The online serial "The Dirty Boys' Club,” which he wrote for OutPersonals, was published as a novel in 2012. He also curates and co-hosts, with Carol Queen, the San Francisco performance series Perverts Put Out! Sheppard is openly gay, and is active in the queer artistic, political and AIDS-activist communities.


Simon Sheppard is a writer of gay erotica and a sex-advice columnist from San Francisco. He lives with his husband William in San Francisco. They married on September 23, 2013: "William and I went down to San Francisco City Hall and got hitched. It was a whole lot of fun, and now we're happily husband and husband. Yippee!" He is the author of many books of gay sex writing, including Man on Man: The Best of Simon Sheppard, Sodomy!, Jockboys, Kinkorama: Dispatches From the Front Lines of Perversion, In Deep, and Sex Parties 101.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Sheppard_%28writer%29

Douglas Sadownick (born April 20) is a gay American writer and psychologist. He co-created The Buddy Systems (1985) with Tim Miller, with whom Sadownick was involved in a 14-year relationship.

Born in the Bronx, he attended Columbia College for his B.A., New York University for his graduate work in English, and the graduate program in clinical psychology at Antioch College in clinical psychology. He received his Ph.D. from Pacifica Graduate Institute in Clinical Psychology in 2006. His dissertation was entitled, Homosexual Enlightenment: A Gay Science Perspective on Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

He is the director of the nation's first LGBT Specialization in Clinical Psychology, at Antioch University. He is also the co-founder of the Institute for Contemporary Uranian Psychoanalysis, which offers continued education units to licensed psychotherapists on the issues of gay-affirmative psychotherapy. He was also a principal co-founder of Highways Performance Art Space in 1989. (Picture: Tim Miller)

His work Sacred Lips of the Bronx was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. His second book was called Sex Between Men: An Intimate History of the Sex Lives of Gay Men, Postwar to Present. His articles have appeared in the Advocate, the Los Angeles Times, Genre, High Performance, the New York Native, and the L.A. Weekly. He received a GLAAD award for excellence in reporting. He works as a private practice psychotherapist in Los Angeles. His most recent paper, "Reading Literature Gay-Affirmatively: A Homosexual Individuation Story," was published in Spring 2006 in the journal Arts and Humanities.


Tim Miller has been an inspiring figure for 25 years and is the author of The Buddy Systems, created with writer Douglas Sadownick, with whom Miller was involved in a 14yo relationship. Douglas Sadownick is the director of the nation's first LGBT Specialization in Clinical Psychology, at Antioch University. His work Sacred Lips of the Bronx was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. His second book was called Sex Between Men: An Intimate History of the Sex Lives of Gay Men, Postwar to Present. 

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

In researching this essay I located a New York Times article from 1994: Coping: Growing up Gay in the Heart of the Bronx, a short profile of the author in the year his novel was published. The article contained a surprising confession: Hector didn‘t exist. While Mike found first love in the Bronx, in real life the young Sadownick never repeated any of his rendezvous with the boys he met on the Grand Concourse. ―Hector in the book was a way for me to redeem what I see now as a lot of missed opportunities.
How discourteous to contradict an author‘s interpretations concerning his book, much less his own life, but Sadownick made that observation while still pretty young; the longing and unusual jealousy that Sacred Lips of the Bronx inspired dissipated once I kissed the right boy. What I had considered ―missed opportunities‖ were simply the necessary preparations for the experiences that ended up counting the most. That rush to recapture what I had mistakenly considered lost had nearly cost me everything. The book at the bottom of my sleeping bag was in no way illicit but a rather splendid and sturdy diving board. --Tom Cardamone, The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered

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A pathbreaking performance artist and dancer, John Jeffery Bernd (May 8, 1953 - August 28, 1988) melded dance with "out" gay performance, thereby establishing himself as a prime mover in the downtown performance scene. Also an activist and organizer, Bernd organized a weekly improvisation group called "Open Movement" held at P.S. 122. Originally from Nebraska, Bernd graduated from Antioch College in Ohio with a B.A. in Dance and Performance Studies. After moving to New York, he worked at P.S. 122 and frequently collaborated with Tim Miller, ex-lover and friend. He was one of the first New York performers to die of AIDS.

His large circle of surviving friends included Jennifer Monson, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Michael Stiller, Lori E. Seid, Yvonne Meier, Lucy Sexton, Annie Iobst, Jeff McMahon, Richard Elovich, Fred Holland, Jeannie Hutchins, Dona McAdams, and Johnny Walker.

Other dancers who knew or worked with Bernd include Joe Pupello, Suchi Bronfman, Deborah Oliver, and Donald Byrd.

According to Tim Miller and Ishmael Houston-Jones, Dona Ann McAdams was Bernd's main photographer, she shot practically everything he did at P.S. 122 and most pieces at other places as well. A beautiful photo of John, as well as some of his drawings, appears in her book Caught in the Act (Aperture). Photographer Kirk Winslow, with whom John collaborated on several projects, passed away from AIDS complication on summer 2002. Kirk was the son of the artist Maryette Charlton who is responsible for getting John's archives to Harvard. Maryette Charlton was a New York artist and filmmaker who had a particular interest in performance art and apparently knew Bernd.


Tim Miller and John Bernd in Live Boys (1981), ©Gene Bagnato
A pathbreaking performance artist and dancer, John Bernd melded dance with "out" gay performance, thereby establishing himself as a prime mover in the downtown performance scene. Bernd organized a weekly improvisation group called "Open Movement" held at P.S. 122. Bernd graduated from Antioch College. After moving to New York, he worked at P.S. 122 and frequently collaborated with Tim Miller, ex-lover and friend. He was one of the first New York performers to die of AIDS.

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Source: http://www.artistswithaids.org/artforms/dance/catalogue/bernd.html

Tim Miller (born September 22, 1958 in Pasadena, California) is an American performance artist and writer, whose pieces frequently involve gay identity, marriage equality and immigration issues. He was one of the NEA Four, four performance artists whose National Endowment for the Arts grants were vetoed in 1990 by NEA chair John Frohnmayer.

Miller was born in Pasadena, California but grew up in nearby Whittier.

He has developed shows based on his personal life as a gay man and as an activist. A member of ACT UP and other campaigning organizations, Miller has participated in numerous demonstrations to call for funding of AIDS research and treatment and to promote equal rights. His civil disobedience has led to his arrest on several occasions.

I was seventeen going on eighteen and I was desperate for love and dick. I searched everywhere for it. I hung around the Whittier Public Library, leaning suggestively against the stacks in the psychology section, waiting to be picked up by some graduate student. I leaned too far, once, and almost knocked over an entire row of bookshelves. -— Tim Miller, Boys like us, 1996

Miller's interest in performance began in high school, where he took classes in theater and dance. He played the lead role of John Proctor in Lowell High School's production of The Crucible by Arthur Miller. At nineteen he moved to New York and studied dance with Merce Cunningham.


In 1999 in Glory Box, Tim Miller took on the topic of immigration rights for gay and lesbian partners of American citizens, the immigration issue a personal cause as Alistair McCartney, his partner since 1994, is Australian. In 2003 in Us, Miller returned to the theme of the problems of Americans with same-sex life partners, the title refers both to his relationship with McCartney and to the laws in the US which could prevent them from being together. Miller & McCartney married on June 26, 2013.


Tim Miller and Douglas Sadownick, 1994-1996, by Robert Giard (http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/brbldl_getrec.asp?fld=img&id=1082041)

American photographer Robert Giard is renowned for his portraits of American poets and writers; his particular focus was on gay and lesbian writers. Some of his photographs of the American gay and lesbian literary community appear in his groundbreaking book Particular Voices: Portraits of Gay and Lesbian Writers, published by MIT Press in 1997. Giard’s stated mission was to define the literary history and cultural identity of gays and lesbians for the mainstream of American society, which perceived them as disparate, marginal individuals possessing neither. In all, he photographed more than 600 writers. (http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/digitallibrary/giard.html)

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Miller_(performance_artist)

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

More Real Life Romances at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

Warren Allen Smith (born 27 October 1921) is an American gay rights activist, writer and humanities humanist. In 1961, Smith started the Variety Recording Studio, a major independent company off Broadway, New York City, with his business partner and longtime companion Fernando Rodolfo de Jesus Vargas Zamora. Smith ran the company for almost thirty years (1961–90). In 1969, Smith participated in the Stonewall riots. Warren Allen Smith met Fernando Rodolfo de Jesus Vargas Zamora (September 22, 1928, Costa Rica - February 20, 1989) in 1949, the first week after hitchhiking to New York City from Iowa. The two remained together for 40 years.

Smith was one of the signatories of the 1973 Humanist Manifesto II as well as the Humanist Manifesto III in 2003.

Warren Smith was born in Minburn, Iowa. His father, Harry Clark Smith, who played for and was a scout for the Chicago Cubs' Portland farm team, after service in France including the Battle of Verdun, (the greatest and lengthiest during World War I) was a grain dealer in Minburn and Rippey, Iowa. His mother, [Ruth Marion Miles (1891-1975), was the daughter of a pioneering homesteader, L. D. Miles, who came to the Dakota Territory from Michigan in 1882. 

Drafted into the U.S. Army (1942-1946), he landed on Omaha Beach near St. Laurent Sur Mer (1944, the largest amphibian landing in history) and became Chief Clerk of the Adjutant General's Office in the Little Red Schoolhouse, Reims, France. In 1948, he received his B.A. (English, music) from the University of Northern Iowa and in 1949 his M.A. (American Literature Since 1870; advisor was Lionel Trilling from Columbia University.


Warren Allen Smith is an American gay rights activist, writer and humanities humanist. In 1961, Smith started the Variety Recording Studio, a major independent company off Broadway, New York City, with his business partner and longtime companion Fernando Rodolfo de Jesus Vargas Zamora. In 1969, Smith participated in the Stonewall riots. Smith met Fernando Rodolfo de Jesus Vargas Zamora in 1949, the first week after hitchhiking to New York City from Iowa. The two remained together for 40 years.

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Source: http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/bios4/smith29.html

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More Real Life Romances at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

Kay Ryan (born September 21, 1945) is an American poet and educator. She has published seven volumes of poetry and an anthology of selected and new poems. Ryan was the sixteenth United States Poet Laureate, from 2008 to 2010. She was named a 2011 MacArthur Fellow. Since 1971, she has lived in Marin County, California, and has taught English part-time at the College of Marin in Kentfield. Carol Adair, who was also an instructor at the College of Marin, was Ryan's partner from 1978 until Adair's death in 2009. They were married in a ceremony at San Francisco City Hall in 2004

Ryan was born in San Jose, California, and was raised in several areas of the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert. After attending Antelope Valley College, she received bachelor's and master's degrees in English from University of California, Los Angeles.

Her first collection, Dragon Acts to Dragon Ends, was privately published in 1983 with the help of friends. While she found a commercial publisher for her second collection, Strangely Marked Metal (1985), her work went nearly unrecognized until the mid-1990s, when some of her poems were anthologized and the first reviews in national journals were published. She became widely recognized following her receipt of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize in 2004, and published her sixth collection of poetry, The Niagara River, in 2005.

In July 2008, the U.S. Library of Congress announced that Ryan would be the sixteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress for a one-year term commencing in Autumn 2008. She succeeded Charles Simic. In April 2009, the Library announced that Ryan would serve a second one-year term extending through May 2010. She was succeeded by W.S. Merwin in June 2010.


Kay Ryan is an American poet and educator. She has published 7 volumes of poetry. Ryan was 16th United States Poet Laureate, from 2008 to 2010. She was named a 2011 MacArthur Fellow. Since 1971, she has lived in Marin County, California, and has taught English part-time at the College of Marin in Kentfield. Carol Adair, who was also an instructor at the College of Marin, was Ryan's partner from 1978 until Adair's death in 2009. They were married in a ceremony at San Francisco City Hall in 2004. (@Kay Ryan)

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kay_Ryan

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More Real Life Romances at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

Paul Huson (born 19 September 1942) is a British-born author and artist currently living in the United States. In addition to writing several books about occultism and witchcraft he has worked extensively in the film and television industries. Huson currently lives in Los Angeles. His frequent collaborator and life partner for forty nine years was William Bast.

Huson was born on 19 September 1942 in London, the son of the author Edward Richard Carl Huson and painter and motion picture costume designer Olga Lehmann. Huson attended Leighton Park School from 1956 through 1959, then entered the Slade School of Fine Art at the University of London as a Diploma student from 1959 through 1963, with a principal in painting under Andrew Forge and a subsidiary in theatrical design under Nicholas Georgiadis and Peter Snow. In 1963 he was awarded an Associated Rediffusion Scholarship to study film under Thorold Dickinson for a further post graduate year.

After a walk-on role in René Clément's film starring Gerard Phillipe, Monsieur Ripois, Huson acted in Laurence Olivier's film of Richard III playing the part of Edward, Prince of Wales, one of the two Princes in the Tower.

From 1965 through 1968 Huson worked as an Art Director for BBC television and Columbia Pictures, UK, before emigrating to the United States, where he began writing books and stories and scripts for American television, which included the television series Family and James at 15. Between 1982 and 1987 he and his partner William Bast wrote and produced three television series Tucker's Witch, The Hamptons, and The Colbys (a spin-off of the Aaron Spelling series Dynasty); The Colbys won the 1986 People's Choice Award. In 1989 he and Bast wrote a two-part series Twist of Fate, followed in 1991 by The Big One: the Great Los Angeles Earthquake, another two-parter, which was instrumental in alerting Los Angeles to their inadequate earthquake response arrangements at that time. In 1995 Huson and Bast wrote the teleplay for Danielle Steel's popular novel Secrets. In 1995 they wrote Deadly Invasion: The Killer Bee Nightmare; a paranormal thriller The Fury Within; and Power and Beauty, a controversial biographical teleplay about socialite Judith Exner and her relationship with President John F. Kennedy.


Paul Huson (born 19 September 1942) is a British-born author and artist currently living in the United States. In addition to writing several books about occultism and witchcraft he has worked extensively in the film and television industries. Huson currently lives in Los Angeles. His frequent collaborator and life partner for forty nine years was William Bast. William Bast (April 3, 1931 – May 4, 2015) was an American screenwriter and author. In addition to writing scripts for motion pictures and television, he was the author of two biographies of the screen actor James Dean.

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Huson

William Bast (April 3, 1931 – May 4, 2015) was an American screenwriter and author. In addition to writing scripts for motion pictures and television, he was the author of two biographies of the screen actor James Dean. He was partnered in work and life to Paul Huson.

Bast was born in Wauwatosa, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, the son of Gilbert Bast and Bernice Fleischmann. He began his early education in Milwaukee, transferring to Kenosha when his family moved there. Moving back to Milwaukee, he subsequently graduated from Wauwatosa High school, then enrolled at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. When his family moved to Los Angeles, he transferred to the UCLA, where he majored in Theater Arts, rooming with a fellow Theater Arts student from Indiana named James Dean. In 1952 he moved to New York to join Dean and pursue a career in radio and television. There, he initially worked in the Press Relations department at CBS and subsequently, in 1953, wrote his first scripts for the NBC television sitcom The Aldrich Family.

After the death of Dean in an automobile accident in 1955, Bast chronicled his five-year relationship with the actor in James Dean: a Biography. After moving to London, Bast wrote The Myth Makers for Granada Television, a fictionalized drama inspired by Dean's funeral, which Bast perceived as grotesque and publicity-driven, with a shattering effect on Dean's rural-American family and his hometown of Fairmount, Indiana. In the United States, the script was produced again by NBC's Dupont Show of the Month and aired under the title The Movie Star.

In 1975, Bast produced and scripted James Dean: Portrait of a Friend for NBC, a movie for television based upon his first James Dean biography.

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Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bast

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James Howe (born August 2, 1946, Oneida, New York) is the American author of over 80 juvenile and young adult books, including the Bunnicula series, about a vampire rabbit that sucks the juice out of vegetables. On September 17th, 2011, Howe married Mark Davis, a partner in the New York law firm Engel and Davis, and his partner since 2001, at a home in Dorset, Vermont.

At the age of nine or ten, Howe wrote a play based on the "Blondie" comic strip as well as a variety of short stories and self-published newspapers, his favorite being "the Gory Gazette," made for a self-founded club: Vampire Legion.

Howe would continue to write plays during his theater studies at Boston University, and eventually move to New York City to pursue a career as an actor and model while directing plays and working as a literary agent.

In the mid-1970s, Howe's mother-in-law encouraged him and his wife, Deborah Howe, to create a children's story based on a character the two had created while watching older Dracula movies, which at the time were played late at night on TV in the 1970s. With his wife, he created Bunnicula: A Rabbit Tale of Mystery, about a pet rabbit suspected of being a vampire. The book would go on to win more than ten Children's Choice awards, including the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award and the Nene Award, and eventually evolve into a series. Shortly after Bunnicula was published Deborah fell victim to cancer and died, inspiring the creation of The Hospital Book.


(c) leslie j. yerman photography
James Howe (born August 2, 1946) is the American author of over 80 juvenile and young adult books, including the Bunnicula series, about a vampire rabbit that sucks the juice out of vegetables. On September 17th, 2011, Howe married Mark Davis, a partner in the New York law firm Engel and Davis, and his partner since 2001, at a home in Dorset, Vermont. After the death of his first wife, Howe remarried and fathered a daughter, Zoey. Howe and his second wife divorced after Howe came out as gay.

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

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Totally Joe by James Howe
Age Range: 9 and up
Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers (April 24, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0689839588
ISBN-13: 978-0689839580
Amazon: Totally Joe
Amazon Kindle: Totally Joe

"Everybody says you and Colin were kissing."

"What? That's ridiculous!"

"For heaven's sake, Joe, if you and Colin want to kiss, you have every right to."

"We did not kiss," I told her.

Addie shrugged. "Whatever."

What was it with my friends?

From the creator of The Misfits, the book that inspired NATIONAL NO NAME-CALLING WEEK, comes the story of Joe Bunch....

Gr. 6-9. Joe, one of the characters in The Misfits (2001), has his say, in a voice uniquely his own. Twelve-year-old Joe knows he is gay. He played with Barbies as a young child, prefers cooking to sports, and has a crush on a male classmate. Written in the form of an assignment--an "alphabiography"--the story takes readers through the school year, one letter at a time: G is for the Gang of Five, Joe's misfit friends, who are utterly loyal when he falls for Colin. But Colin is less secure about his sexuality than Joe is, and when the rumor goes around that the boys have been seen kissing, he quashes the relationship. Joe survives the crush, and the book has an upbeat ending. Actually, despite a few worries, the whole book is cheerful and optimistic. Joe's family is supportive, and the kids from the nasty (Christian) family that wants to stop the Gay-Straight Alliance are removed to a different school. In other words, there's nothing terribly realistic about the scenario; in many ways, the book is reminiscent of David Levithan's Boy Meets Boy (2003), which was for a slightly older audience. Obviously, the novel will be problematic for some--not only because of the gay theme and Joe's age but also the stereotypic portrayal of the bullying Christian family. Joe himself often comes off as a cross between Niles Crane and Harvey Fierstein. But he also reacts like a kid, and readers in his situation will wish for the love and support he receives from friends and family, as well as the happy life he so clearly envisions. (Ilene Cooper)

"A character that lives and breathes with all the inconsistencies, fears, and longings of your normal, average seventh-grade homosexual." -- Kirkus Reviews

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Charles Adams (May 29, 1770 – November 30, 1800) was the second son of President John Adams and his wife, Abigail (Smith) Adams. He died of alcoholism on November 30, 1800.

At the age of nine he traveled with his father and older brother John Quincy to Europe, studied briefly in Passy, Amsterdam, and Leiden. He matriculated in Leiden January 29, 1781.

In December 1781, Adams returned to America unaccompanied by family members. After graduating from Harvard University in 1789, he studied law and established his practice in New York.

John W. Mulligan, Jr., was the son of John “Hercules” Mulligan, Alexander Hamilton’s roommate. Young Mulligan had been living with Adams. The future president and his wife, concerned about the intense nature of the relationship, insisted that Adams and Mulligan split up. The anguished boys wrote to Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben of their devastation at being separated. With compassion for the heartbroken couple, Steuben offered to take both young men into his home. Adams lived with Mulligan and Steuben for a little while, but Mulligan stayed on for many years, serving as Steuben’s secretary until the baron’s death. When Steuben died, to Mulligan he bequeathed his library, maps, and $2,500.

On August 29, 1795, Adams married Sally Smith (1769–1828), the sister of his brother-in-law, William Stephens Smith. They had two daughters, Susanna Boylston (1796–1884) and Abigail Louisa Smith (1798–1836).

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Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Adams_%281770%E2%80%931800%29

A hero of the American Revolution, Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Rudolf Gerhard August von Steuben knew that discipline has its virtues. And that’s just what he instilled in the Continental Army through the bitter winter of 1778 at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. (P: ©Charles Willson Peale (1741–1827)/ Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Baron Friedrich William von Steuben, 1780 (©4))

The former aide to FREDERICK the Great fled his native Prussia for the new world amid allegations of improper relations. An anonymous member of the court of Baden wrote:

It has come to me from different sources that M. de Steuben is accused of having taken familiarities with young boys which the laws forbid and punish severely. I have even been informed that that is the reason why M. de Steuben was obliged to leave Hechingen and that the clergy of your country intend to prosecute him by law as soon as he may establish himself (Picture: Pierre-Étienne DU PONCEAU)anywhere.

Steuben made his way to America, where George Washington was desperate for experienced officers. Washington asked Steuben to help bring some order to the tattered Continental troops fighting the British.

On February 23, 1778, the ragtag soldiers at Valley Forge were astonished by the spectacle of the silk and fur-robed baron arriving in a grandiose twenty-four-belled sleigh drawn by black Percheron draft horses, caressing his sleek miniature greyhound Azor. He was followed by a retinue of African servants, a French cook, his aide-de-camp Louis de Pontiere, and his seventeen-year-old private secretary/lover, Pierre-Étienne DU PONCEAU. Steuben quickly took matters into his own hands and began intensive training of one hundred soldiers as a model company. They in turn schooled others in his military tactics.

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Stern, Keith (2009-09-01). Queers in History: The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Historical Gays, Lesbians and Bisexuals (Kindle Locations 11309-11319). Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.

Peter Stephen Du Ponceau or DuPonceau, born Pierre-Étienne Du Ponceau, (June 3, 1760, Saint-Martin-de-Ré, France – April 1, 1844, Philadelphia) was a French linguist, philosopher, and jurist. After immigrating to the colonies in 1777, he served in the American Revolutionary War. Afterward, he settled in Philadelphia, where he lived the remainder of his years. He contributed significantly to work on indigenous languages of the Americas, as well as advancing understanding of Chinese writing. (

Travis Michael Wall (born September 16, 1987) is an American dancer and dance instructor, specializing in contemporary dance and jazz dance. He is best known for his 2007 appearance as a competitor on the second season of the television show So You Think You Can Dance, which airs on the Fox Network. In 2011, he was nominated for an Emmy for his work on the show's seventh season. In 2012, he starred in the reality show All The Right Moves on Oxygen, where he, Teddy Forance, Nick Lazzarini and Kyle Robinson attempt to launch their own dance company called Shaping Sound. Since beginning of 2011 he is dating Dom Palange, who moved from Miami to LA to stay with Wall, and then followed him in NYC while he was working in Bare.

Wall was born in and grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia. His mother, owner and operator of the eponymous Denise Wall's Dance Energy, recalls putting him in a walker and watching him imitate the dancers. He began dancing at the age of three, training at his mother's studio, and competing in a number of conventions.

His professional career officially started at the age of nine when he appeared in a Dr. Pepper commercial. In 1999, he won the Junior National Outstanding Dancer Scholarship Award. On April 27, 2000, at age 12, he started a two-year run in The Music Man on Broadway, playing a resident of River City/Winthrop Paroo understudy. This gig led to him being chosen to perform at the 2000 New York City Dance Alliance's closing night gala. In 2006, New York City Dance Alliance awarded Wall its Teen Outstanding Dancer of the Year award and he toured with them for a year.


Travis Wall is an American dancer and dance instructor. He is best known for his 2007 appearance as a competitor on the second season of the television show So You Think You Can Dance. In 2011, he was nominated for an Emmy for his work on the show's seventh season. In 2012, he starred in the reality show All The Right Moves. Since beginning of 2011 he is dating Dom Palange, who moved from Miami to LA to stay with Wall, and then followed him in NYC while he was working in Bare.

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_Wall

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