All tagged United States of America

23 Stories to End 2023

Dean Strauss

2023 has been an incredibly difficult year, but as we've written before, there are bright spots that are worth recognizing. As we push for safety, recognition, and support for our community in 2024, we can use this year's victories to guide us. We'd love to hear your highlights for the year too!

Alla Nazimova

Marc Zinaman

At one point billed as “The World’s Greatest Actress”, Alla Nazimova, who was also for a time the highest paid actress in the film industry, is somehow a name that is still relatively unknown to most. Despite the pioneering work she did in both movies and onstage, including being the first woman to start her own film production company in the 1910s, the majority of Nazimova’s career has been lost to history, as almost all of her films were never preserved. Additionally, having bedded some of the most famous queer women in the entertainment industry and coining the term “Sewing Circle” to refer to the community of lesbian and bisexual actresses and artists who concealed their true sexuality from the public, Nazimova was also an extremely pivotal but oft forgotten LGBTQ pioneer who has been dubbed the “Founding Mother of Sapphic Hollywood.”

Victor Hugo (Rojas)

Marc Zinaman

In the 2019 documentary film Halston, filmmaker Frédéric Tcheng questions Halston’s former illustrator and confidant Joe Eula about the nature of the fashion designer’s relationship with his lover, Victor Hugo. Tcheng asks, “Why did Halston put up with Victor?” to which Eula replies, “Because he was in love with him.” Tcheng then presses further, asking: “When did it fall apart?” and Eula, without skipping a beat, retorts, “The day they met.”   Victor Hugo was born Victor Rojas in Caracas, Venezuela during a coup d'état that took place on November 24th, 1948, when Carlos Delgado Chalbaud, Marcos Pérez Jiménez and Luis Felipe Llovera Páez overthrew the elected president, Rómulo Gallegos. Not much else is documented surrounding Rojas’ early life in Venezuela, but sometime in the early 1970s, he and his mother emigrated to the United States, landing in New York City.  

Francisco Moncion

Marc Zinaman

One way or another, in 1938 Monción was offered a scholarship to the recently established School of American Ballet, founded by the renowned Russo-Georgian-born choreographer George Balanchine, alongside Edward Warburg, and of course, Lincoln Kirstein. The school, which had only opened in 1934, had just begun recruiting male students at a time when few males in America were making their way into classical ballet. The School of American Ballet was looking to fill their roster, and so they accepted Monción as a scholarship student despite his dearth of experience. As a result, Monción only began professional dance training at twenty years old, an incredibly late age for any dancer to be starting out. Nevertheless, he immediately found himself in technique classes taught by the likes of accomplished dancers such as Pierre Vladimiroff, Anatole Oboukhoff, and Balanchine himself. Much like someone thrown into the deep end of a pool without knowing how to swim, Francisco was forced to adapt quickly.

Gilbert Baker & the Rainbow Flag

Dean Strauss

It’s unfortunately common in our community for people to be forgotten, so much so that projects like ours work just to remember. Sometimes that erasure is purposeful and sometimes it is only a matter of time. And other times still, we remember the important work that people have done without remembering them and the lives they led, such as in the case of Gilbert Baker. Baker, an openly gay man and a drag queen, was a creative and an activist for many causes, but he is most known for having designed the rainbow pride flag.

"Panama" Al Brown

Marc Zinaman

At 5’11” with a 76-inch reach, “Panama” Al Brown was one of the tallest and rangiest boxers in bantamweight history who died with a career of accomplishments that spoke for themselves but took a lifetime to achieve true recognition. Throughout his life, Brown pushed through adversity as a result of being Afro-Caribbean and the lifestyle choices that he made. Still, his skills and talent in the ring made it impossible for Brown to be ignored or erased, and via victory after victory he managed to win numerous championship titles and achieve numerous firsts in his sport of choice. With a life marked by constant tragedy and struggle, Brown persisted and pursued his dream job by day and the pleasures of life by night, ultimately living an unabashed and flamboyant life.

Freddie Mercury

Dean Strauss

Being queer in the public eye is a whole different domain from being queer as a regular person. We are not usually representatives for our community—though queer people of color and particularly black queer women are especially punished through hypervisibility. Choosing to be open or not is a personal choice, and it’s especially hard when most of your life is up for public consumption. Are queer people in the spotlight required to be open about their identity and experiences? Absolutely not. More importantly, are queer celebrities who don’t publicly “come out” living any less openly than your average queer person?

Walt Whitman

Dean Strauss

He is one of the most influential American poets, even called the poet of democracy. Poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet ... He is America." Whitman’s racism and his sexuality cannot be untangled, just as his work cannot be untangled from America itself, nor the racism they share.

Winnaretta Singer

Harper-Hugo Darling

In the creation of art, many different elements are necessary. There are plenty of arguments and books written as to what these elements are. One that is inarguable is also the most quickly ignored. There needs to be an artist who can create. For an artist to be able to create they generally require food, water, and shelter. Such needs are usually met with money, and that is the part of the artistic process where we find Winnaretta Singer.

Jackie Shane

Harper-Hugo Darling

When looking at history through a queer lens, it can be easy to generalize. It's a defense mechanism; with so many queer lives defined by pain, it's easier to narrow down our history to “it sucked then got sort of better.” When we do this, the stories that don't fit the mold can be passed over. When the story begins with a black transgender woman born in the American South during the 1940s, we can assume a lot about the ending, but Jackie Shane’s life is one that does not fit those expectations.

Holly Woodlawn

Harper-Hugo Darling

When talking about iconic transgender women in contemporary history, one of the most well known in America is Holly Woodlawn. Her name was in popular songs. She starred in queer cult classics. For a time she was even paid to go to parties. She was an openly transgender woman and the first many Americans knew of. With such an important place in so many people’s memories, the Puerto Rican actress was well-loved by famous and ordinary alike.

Claudio Bravo

Harper-Hugo Darling
Happy Endings

Artists are often deeply rooted in one country. For Amrita Sher-Gil it was India. David Paynter had Sri Lanka. Claudio Bravo had not one country, but many. Moving from his native Chile, he travelled through America, Morocco, Spain, and the Philippines without seeming too attached to any one country. A relatively successful painter, he was allowed more freedom to explore the world than many of his contemporaries and gave much more attention to his love of painting than any nationalistic inclination.

Leslie Hutchinson

Harper-Hugo Darling

A complex issue within the queer community, and looking back we see it has been an issue throughout queer history, is that of adultery. Something often painted as a clear black and white issue becomes blurrier as you look at it through a queer lens. In an ideal world, everyone would communicate with their partners and be transparent about their wants and needs, but that is not the world we live in nor have we ever. The further back you go, the more confusing the decision becomes. It is difficult to pass judgment on a queer person who may have been pressured to marry or enter a relationship for seeking people outside of that arrangement. While there is a glorious history of spouses supporting their queer partners, that is not a universal or even common experience.

Victoria Arellano

Victoria Arellano

Harper-Hugo Darling

Victoria Arellano moved to the United States of America from Mexico to live with her mother, Olga, in California when she was seven years old. From a young age, she knew she was transgender, drawing herself in pictures as a crying woman, and writing poetry about her identity. She would put on makeup before going to school, and sneak out of her window to avoid fighting with her disapproving mother.

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