Category: #QueerHeroes

In June of 2018, I began posting a brief bio and picture/video of a different queer hero every day to Facebook to celebrate Pride. The posts became invigorating to write and research; a way to commemorate the reasons Pride exists.

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#QueerHeroes Day 15 – Jayne County

#QueerHeroes Day 15.
Jayne County.

Jayne is a trans singer and performer who was instrumental in the queer punk movement. She credits the start of her career with Jackie Curtis’s play Femme Fatale which ran at La MaMa (and also starred a then-unknown Patti Smith). Warhol cast her in his production of Pork soon after.

She moved to London in the 70’s and started Wayne County & the Electric Chairs, where she released the badass anthem “Fuck Off,” which ends with:

“In other words,
If you ain’t got time to take a ride with me on my meat rack [spits],
Then you can get the H-E-double L
Outta my bread line!”

She recently finished a retrospective in New York that showcased five decades of her work. She’s on Spotify, so check her shit out.

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#QueerHeroes Day 14 – Bayard Rustin

#QueerHeroes Day 14.
Bayard Rustin.

Rustin was born in 1912. His mother was a Quaker. He moved to Harlem in 1937 and his civil rights work quickly began garnering attention, including his work to free the wrongly accused Scottsboro Boys.

He began orchestrating some of America’s earliest freedom rides down South in the 1940’s. That decade, he also went to India to learn methods/philosophies of nonviolent resistance.

In the 50’s, he was arrested for “sex perversion” and served two months in jail. His homosexuality had become public and immediately halted a path that was basically going to make him one of the foremost faces of the civil rights movement. He was fired from the Fellowship of Recreation and began to work behind the scenes for the same causes.

He would be most influential as an adviser to Dr. Martin Luther King, jr. His sexuality ostracized him from many other civil rights leaders, nevertheless he organized the legendary March on Washington.

Rustin died in 1987.

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#QueerHeroes Day 13 – Alan Turing

#QueerHeroes Day 13.
Alan Turing.

Turing was the father of modern computing. Born in 1912, he started showing signs of mathematical genius at an early age. As early as sixteen, he grasped and expanded on Einstein’s theories.

After college, he theorized a machine that could take instructions from different combinations of 1’s and 0’s. At first, he imagined a person doing this. A person he called “The Computer.”

He was hired as a cryptographer by the British government, faced with the unenviable task of cracking the seemingly invincible German codes produced by their Enigma Machine. Even the best cryptographers were stumped until Turing invented the Bombe—a giant machine that could examine messages for patterns and deduce possibilities from them. When the machine was proven to work, Churchill himself commanded Turing’s department be granted any resources they asked. There were two hundred working bombes by the end of the war.

In 1952, Turing’s flat was robbed. He reported it to the police and confessed that his male lover may have been the culprit. Turing was charged with gross indecency. Given the choice between chemical castration or prison, Turing went with the chemical option.

Two years later, Turing was found dead of cyanide poisoning believed to have been suicide. There was a half eaten apple by his bed.

Legend has it that the apple went on to inspire the famous Apple logo. Turing was granted a royal pardon (not an apology) in 2013.

If you’re reading this, thank Alan Turing.

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#QueerHeroes Day 12 – The Pulse Shooting Victims

#QueerHeroes Day 12

Stanley Almodovar III

Amanda L. Alvear

Oscar A. Aracena Montero

Rodolfo Ayala Ayala

Antonio Davon Brown

Darryl Roman Burt II

Angel Candelario-Padro

Juan Chavez Martinez

Luis Daniel Conde

Cory James Connell

Tevin Eugene Crosby

Deonka Deidra Drayton

Simón Adrian Carrillo Fernández

Leroy Valentin Fernandez

Mercedez Marisol Flores

Peter Ommy Gonzalez Cruz

Juan Ramon Guerrero

Paul Terrell Henry

Frank Hernandez

Miguel Angel Honorato

Javier Jorge Reyes

Jason Benjamin Josaphat

Eddie Jamoldroy Justice

Anthony Luis Laureano Disla

Christopher Andrew Leinonen

Alejandro Barrios Martinez

Brenda Marquez McCool

Gilberto R. Silva Menendez

Kimberly Jean Morris

Akyra Monet Murray

Luis Omar Ocasio Capo

Geraldo A. Ortiz Jimenez

Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera

Joel Rayon Paniagua

Jean Carlos Mendez Perez

Enrique L. Rios, Jr.

Jean Carlos Nieves Rodríguez

Xavier Emmanuel Serrano-Rosado

Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz

Yilmary Rodríguez Solivan

Edward Sotomayor Jr.

Shane Evan Tomlinson

Martin Benitez Torres

Jonathan A. Camuy Vega

Juan Pablo Rivera Velázquez

Luis Sergio Vielma

Franky Jimmy DeJesus Velázquez

Luis Daniel Wilson

Jerald Arthur Wright

Every queer person in America remembers the feeling we had two years ago tonight. The Pulse Massacre was a searingly painful reminder that being queer in public is, and always has been, an act of rebellion. No matter how comfortable some of us get, until we are on an equal societal footing (which necessitates dismantling systems of not just queer oppression, but ALL oppression, for queer people exist within every oppressed group), our public existence will always be dissent. Horrifically and tragically, these heroes were reminded of that two years ago today.

I heard the news in the middle of a shift at work and found myself fighting tears the whole night. I went home and finally sobbed with my roommate. For white, cis gays like me, queer oppression often feels like an asterisk; a footnote in a long book—I know it’s there, but in most instances, I can ignore it if I choose because my life isn’t directly threatened and my existence is always validated. I have the luxury of treating it as forgettable because it’s, honestly, often undetectable. Most of the queer community doesn’t have that luxury.

These heroes died celebrating our collective, rebellious, radical joy. Not all were queer, but when my imagination gets the better of me and I visualize those horrific final moments, I can’t bring myself to make it matter, especially not enough to dive into who was and who wasn’t.

From The Upstairs Lounge to Pulse and all before, between, and after, I know in my heart that our collective life force will extinguish the hideous death that constantly shows its face. But only if we (especially those in the community) stop ignoring it.

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#QueerHeroes Day 11 – Larry Kramer

#QueerHeroes Day 11.
Larry Kramer.

Larry Kramer is the most cantankerous freaking genius gay activist there ever was. He doesn’t mince words, but he fought for our right to mince and I adore him. He was around during Stonewall to AIDS to right this fucking minute and I consider him to be one of the foremost keyholders to this entire movement because his life embodies it. It’s daunting right now to even begin to try to summarize what he’s done for our rights. I’m gonna focus on his work with ACT UP for simplicity’s sake.

He was instrumental in founding the organization, first of all. Then he was the voice of reason during the schism that would plague it. He wrote immortal works like those in The Normal Heart, Faggots, and more. He was arrested numerous times fighting for our rights.

If you couldn’t tell, I adore this man and this pathetic, makeshift “bio” is far too broad and I’m far too simple to ever convey the importance of his work and life. So, instead of a picture, I’m posting a video that I feel embodies him. It was the moment he took charge at the height of the AIDS crisis during an ACT UP meeting that, til he spoke up, had devolved into bickering and animosity.

Larry Kramer is a pioneer and it will be a sad, dark day when we inevitably lose him. I hate that the only clip i could find is censored, but please watch this video. It will mobilize you and it embodies all the work he’s done for us.