Dale Olson

Dale Olson was born in Fargo, North Dakota on February 20, 1934. As a teenager, he lived in Portland, Oregon and he worked as a newspaper reporter. In that role, he managed to get an interview with Mae West. In 1951, Dale moved to Los Angeles. He began a side job working as the secretary for the Mattachine Society, but was forced to remain in the closet at his day job.

And then, in April of 1954 Dale Olson made gay history.The series “Confidential File”, hosted by Paul Coates, aired and episode titled “Homosexuals and the Problems They Present”, with a segment called “The Sex Variant in Southern California”. Dale Olson was interviewed, introduced as an “acknowledged homosexual” going by the alias “Curtis White“. Nevertheless, he confronted a number of the negative stereotypes people of the day had of homosexuals. When asked if he would want to be “cured” of his homosexuality, if it were possible, would he do it, Curtis/Dale replied “I’m speaking only for myself, but the answer is no.”

His face was blurred out, but he still admitted on the show that being there was going to cost him his job. It did. When Coates asked why he would do the interview despite the consequences, Curtis/Dale replied “I think that this way I can be a little useful to someone besides myself.”

This was the first time a homosexual man ever appeared on television to defend his sexuality. It was a local television show, shown only in Los Angeles, but it represented a change for the LGBTQ+ community. Independent stations and public access television were things they too could access — and they would.

The gay magazine “ONE: The Homosexual Magazine” covered the interview in an issue in 1954 — in which Dale assured readers that he had found another, higher paying job. Unfortunately, the US Post Office determined that ONE was obscene and decided it was unlawful to distribute through the mail — they destroyed most copies of the issue. (The Supreme Court would rule that ONE was not obscene and was legal to distribute through the mail, but not until four years later.)

Dale became a reporter, and then a publicist for Rogers & Cowan. While there, he gained a reputation for really well done and effective Oscar campaigns for his clients — which included Shirley MacLaine Maggie Smith, Marilyn Monroe, Gene Kelly, Clint Eastwood, Laurence Olivier and Robert Duvall. He was also responsible for publicizing a few movies you *might* have heard of — Superman, Rambo, Rocky, Halloween, to name a few. He eventually became head of the firm’s film division, before he left the company in 1985 to start his own — Dale C. Olson & Associates.

And it was through his work as a publicist that Dale would have another brush with gay history though this time behind the scenes. In 1985, one of his clients was Rock Hudson. The media began to speculate about Rock’s health that summer — at first, Dale lied to the public on behalf of his client. Dale constructed the initial statement that said Hudson had inoperable liver cancer on July 21 — but Dale was not convinced this was the best way to go, as he believed Hudson could use his fame to educate the public about AIDS. When Hudson finally agreed, Olson wrote a press release acknowledging that Rock Hudson had the disease. Hudson’s French publicist released the statement on July 25. This made an incalculable impact on the AIDS epidemic — putting the face of a major star on the issue. In the second half of 1985, donations to AIDS research more than doubled what had been given in all of 1984. Dale became an AIDS activist following his experience with Rock Hudson.

Dale survived the AIDS Epidemic and married his long-time partner (more than 30 years!), Eugene Harbin in 2008. In July 12 of 2012, Shirley MacLaine presented Dale with the Actor Fund Medal of Honor. Not quite a month later, on August 9, 2012, Dale Olson passed away from inoperable liver cancer. (Actual inoperable liver cancer.)

(Adapted from this Facebook post.)

Stonewall Riots

I’m sure almost everyone reading this site already knows about what is arguably the single biggest turning point in LGBT+ history: the Stonewall riots. Buckle up, this one is long but it couldn’t be more important.

First, let’s talk about the Stonewall Inn itself. The Stonewall Inn was (and is, to this day) located at 51 and 53 Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York. It was owned by members of the Genovese crime family because, backtracking a bit, during Prohibition when the sale of alcohol was forced to go underground, organized crime had essentially taken over the gay bar industry. There really weren’t any gay-owned and operated nightlife establishments, not like we see now. On the one hand, this was good because that meant the police were often paid not to raid these bars — on the other hand, it meant that the owners of these operations were only in it for the money and so they overcharged for watered down drinks and generally treated their customers badly. In fact, it’s theorized that the owners of Stonewall were making more money off of blackmailing their wealthier regulars than from their liquor sales. But their customers did not have many other places to go. Some of the patrons of the club were homeless, gay eighteen year-olds who literally had nowhere else to go. For them, Stonewall wasn’t just a bar — it was home. In every sense of the word.

To prevent any cops from coming into the establishment, a bouncer peered through a peephole at anyone trying to come in. Anyone who was permitted in either needed to “look gay” or be someone the bouncer recognized. All visitors had to write their names in a guest log, although it was very rare for anyone to use their real name. On weekends, there was a $3 cover charge that came with two drink tickets. (The 1960’s definition of “overcharging for drinks” is not the same as our modern definition of “overcharging for drinks”. If I get a drink ticket with my cover charge, I am extremely happy. Especially on a Saturday night!) If a cop was spotted, bright white lights would turn on — the bar was kept intentionally as dark as possible, but these lights would signal that everyone needed to stop dancing together and stop touching at all.

Police raids were increasingly common in the period leading up to June 28 1969, but the Genovese crime family was always — up to that point — tipped off before a raid happened. At 1:20 am, however, they discovered that there was a first time for everything. Detective Charles Smythe and Deputy Inspector Seymour Pine arrived at the door with four plainclothes officers and two uniformed patrolmen, banged on the door and shouted “Police! We’re taking the place!” The Genoveses had not been tipped off, which they would later learn was because the raid was actually ordered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, who suspected them of bootlegging their liquor (correctly, I might add.) There were also four undercover police (two male and two female) who were already inside the bar.

From the beginning, the raid did not go as planned. In a typical raid, the patrons were lined up and asked to show their identification, and anyone dressed as a female was sent to the bathrooms with a female officer in order to verify their sex. (Why, yes, that was as invasive as it sounds!) The patrons of the bar refused to line up — some attempted to flee from the bar immediately, but the police blocked off the doors. Others lined up but refused to present their IDs, and still others refused to go to the bathrooms with female officers. Some of the lesbians present were inappropriately touched while being frisked by male police officers.

The police decided that they were simply going to make arrests of anyone who did not cooperate. The patrol wagons hadn’t arrived yet, so the police lined up the people they were arresting. The patrons who were not being arrested were released by the front door. Instead of leaving, however, they waited and watched. A crowd began to form, which quickly grew to be over 100 people in size. Deputy Inspector Pine would later say it was “ten times the number of people being arrested”. The crowd began singing “We Shall Overcome” and shouting “Gay Power!” and other various catchphrases to deter the police from their current course. As the patrol wagons arrived, pennies and beer bottles were thrown at them.

Stormé DeLarverie

The police attempted to force a woman into one of the arriving wagons — by most accounts she was “typical New York butch” Stormé DeLarverie. She was clubbed over the head for complaining her handcuffs were too tight — and that set her off. She fought four police officers for ten minutes, before looking at the crowd and saying “Why don’t you guys do something?” At that point, she was tossed into the patrol wagon — but they were too late. She’d struck the match.

Marsha P. Johnson

The popular version of events holds that Marsha P. Johnson threw the first brick — which would have been right at this moment. Johnson’s own telling of the events says she wasn’t there until about an hour and a half later — after she’d heard about the riot, she went to find her friend Sylvia Rivera before joining in. The other two names often given for the possible “first brick thrower were Jackie Hormona (also unlikely, in my opinion) and Zazu Nova (that’s who my money is on!) There are countless different versions of what happened, depending on who you ask. There was no organization except — according to Michael Fader, who was present — “a collective feeling like we’d had enough of this kind of shit.” According to various accounts, including Fader’s, there was a feeling in the air that this night was going to change things and “we were never going to go back”. That could not have been more true.

Sylvia Rivera

The police were ultimately forced back into the bar by the crowd, where they were essentially captives. Garbage was set on fire and forced through the windows of the bar. The NYPD’s Tactical Patrol Force (TPF) was called in, in order to help free the stranded police officers and get them medical treatment (which a few of them needed). The TPF also tried to clear the streets by forming a phalanx and pushing the crowd back — but the crowd made a joke of it. They formed a kick line in response to the police’s formation. Those in the kick line sang a parody of the popular vaudeville song “Ta-ra–ra Boom-de-day” with lyrics that went “We are the Stonewall girls/We wear our hair in curls/We don’t wear underwear/We show off our pubic hair.” The TPF did not appreciate the humor, and launched into a full-scale assault on the kick line, hitting them with nightsticks and bats.

That enraged the crowd even more. The mob started chasing the police, flipping cars, By four in the morning, however, the streets had been cleared. News of the riot appeared in several local papers, and rumors flew about what had caused them. That night, the riots picked up again — many people came back from the night before, but this time they were joined by activists who had been present, by people who enjoyed provoking the police, and even by some tourists. Thousands of people gathered outside the Stonewall Inn. Accounts vary on which night was more violent but there was one notable change — homosexual men and women were making out with each other openly on the street. One witness described it: “From going to places where you had to knock on a door and speak to someone through a peephole in order to get in. We were just out. We were in the streets.” Traffic trying to get through Christopher Street was stopped, with cars and buses being blocked and harassed until the occupants would announce their support for the demonstrators. Police cars were vandalized. More than a hundred police officers were sent — but every time someone would get arrested, the mob would rush out and recapture them from the police. By 4 am, the second night of rioting had died down.

For the next several nights, there were smaller altercations between police and the LGBT community in New York City. Less than a week later, a bus was chartered to get activists from New York safely to Philadelphia for what would be the last of the Annual Reminders. Following the riots, many of the people present became members of the newly formed Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in order to further fight for equality for the queer community.

(Adapted from this Facebook post.)

Alfred Kinsey

June 23 is a pretty big day for LGBT+ people, apparently. Not only is it my birthday (and isn’t that enough?) and the birthday of Alan Turing, it is also the birthday of Alfred Kinsey. You might be thinking “gosh, that last name sounds super familiar” but more likely you immediately associated the name with the Kinsey Scale. But Kinsey’s contributions to society and to LGBT culture went far beyond a simplified way of explaining fluid sexuality.

Alfred Kinsey was born in 1894 in Hoboken, New Jersey (his first mistake). Kinsey’s family was poor for the majority of his childhood, which meant they could not provide proper medical care for a number of illnesses that Kinsey contracted — including Rickets, which left him with a slight stoop. This would later prevent Kinsey from being drafted into World War I.

Kinsey also had a love of nature and enjoyed camping — he became one of the first Eagle Scouts in the Boy Scouts of America in 1913. In high school, Kinsey showed a keen aptitude for science — particularly biology, botany, and zoology. He cited his high school biology teacher Natalie Roeth as the most important influence on his decision to become a biologist. (A decision which seemed to cause a rift between Kinsey and his seriously overbearing father.)

Kinsey got his doctorate and traveled widely, studying gall wasps and other insects. Of the 18 million insect samples at the American Museum of Natural History, an estimated 5 million are gall wasps collected by Kinsey. He also published “An Introduction to Biology” in 1926, which was widely used in high schools (and I swear was the textbook we used at my high school. I’m kidding. I think.)

Kinsey is most known for his work as a sexologist. He became interested in the topic while discussing the mating habits of gall wasps with a colleague. Early on in his studies, he developed the Kinsey Scale — where a person’s sexual orientation could be rated from 0 (for exclusively heterosexual) to 6 (for exclusively homosexual). Kinsey believed everyone was bisexual ot varying degrees, probably because of his own bisexuality. He did later add a rating of “X” for “no socio-sexual contacts or reactions”. In his youth, Kinsey had routinely physically punished himself for his homoerotic feelings — so this scale was likely not just an effort to normalize for society, but to normalize them for himself.

Kinsey, through his two books (“Sexual Behavior in the Human Male”, 1948 & “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female”, 1953) that are collectively called “The Kinsey Reports” also laid the groundwork for the sexual revolution of the 1960s. He argued against the commonly accepted (by men) belief that women were not sexual beings. He insisted that clitoral orgasms were superior to vaginal orgasms. Both books became bestsellers, and Kinsey attained celebrity status.

Unfortunately, that celebrity status came with a lot of controversy. Kinsey was criticized for his research methods, for his own participation in sexual experiments, and for filming some of these experiments in his attic. Others criticized his survey samples, which were heavily homosexual and even more heavily white. He also caught the attention of U.S. Customs because he traveled around the world and brought back his research material, and Customs confiscated a lot of said material.

Kinsey died on August 26, 1956. He was inducted into the Legacy Walk, an outdoor museum honoring LGBT history, in 2012. (He is the third person I’ve covered so far who is honored there, the others being Alan Turing and Christine Jorgensen.)

(Adapted from this Facebook post.)

Christine Jorgensen

Christine Jorgensen was the first US citizen to receive gender reassignment surgery (or, gender confirmation surgery, as we call it now). She was born May 30, 1936 in the Bronx, New York and given the name George William Jorgensen Jr.

In 1945 she graduated high school and was drafted into the army. She served in World War II. After the war she attended Mohawk Valley Community College, the Progressive School of Photography in New Haven, and the Manhattan Medical and Dental Assistant School.

At some point after returning home from the war, she learned about gender reassignment surgery and decided that was something she wanted to pursue. Guided by Dr. Joseph Angelo, the husband of a classmate at the Manhattan Mental and Dental Assistant School, she learned everything she could about the surgery. At the time, the only doctors who would perform the surgery were in Sweden. While traveling there, she met a Dr. Christian Hamburger who specialized in rehabilitative hormone therapy. Christine opted to stay in Denmark a have hormone replacement therapy with Dr. Hamburger. She ultimately chose the name Christine for herself in Dr. Hamburger’s honor.

Christine managed to get special permission from the Danish government to undergo the surgeries she was seeking at a hospital in Copenhagen. On October 8, 1951 — only partially through the series of surgeries — she wrote a letter to friends in the United States where she stated:

“As you can see by the enclosed photos, taken just before the operation, I have changed a great deal. But it is the other changes that are so much more important. Remember the shy, miserable person who left America? Well, that person is no more and, as you can see, I’m in marvelous spirits.”

After her second surgery (a penectomy), she returned to the United States where she would eventually get vaginoplasty, with the help of Dr. Angelo, once it was permitted in the country.

On December 1, 1952, the New York Daily News put Christine on their front page with the headline “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Bombshell: Operations Transform Bronx Youth”. The article claimed that Christine was the first person to receive a “sex change”. Because of this article, Christine became an instant celebrity — and Christine used this platform to speak up on behalf of transgender people everywhere.

After her vaginoplasty, Christine tried to marry twice. First, she became engaged to a labor union statistician named John Traub, but the engagement was called off. In 1959 she got engaged to a typist named Howard J. Knox. Knox lost his job when news of the engagement became public — and their request for a marriage license was denied because Christine was still legally considered a man.

Christine began working as an actress and a nightclub performer — noted for singing songs like “I Enjoy Being a Girl”. One of her performances was recorded and is available on iTunes — or so I’m told by Wikipedia; I haven’t checked yet but I did check Spotify and it definitely is not there. (Though I did find a song called “Christine” by a Jimmy Jorgensen but I’m really sure there’s no connection.) She toured and spoke at college campuses throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s, giving transgender people even greater visibility.

In 1989, Christine stated that she had given the sexual revolution a “good swift kick in the pants”. She passed away on May 3 of that year due to bladder and lung cancer. In 2012, she was inducted into the Legacy Walk.

(Adapted from this Facebook post.)