small town gay seeks lesbian history

Published on this day in 1987, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fannie Flagg is an oft-overlooked and sanitized classic of lesbian literature. Weaving across time, the novel follows a bored 1980s housewife by the name of Evelyn Couch as she rediscovers her passion for life through hearing the tales of two women who unapologetically lived and loved in 1930s Alabama.

While visiting her mother-in-law at the Rose Terrace Nursing Home, Evelyn Couch meets an old woman named Ninny Threadgoode. Dealing with her own issues of depression and loneliness, Evelyn ignores the chatty Mrs. Threadgoode’s old stories at first, but with visit after visit she slowly but surely gets drawn in by the stories of Mrs. Threadgoode’s hometown of Whistle Stop, Alabama, the beloved long-gone Whistle Stop Café, and the love story of the two women who ran it – Idgie Threadgoode and Ruth Jamison. Taken in by the Threadgoode family from a young age, Ninny was given a front seat view of a decades-spanning drama; after her big brother is unexpectedly killed, tomboy Idgie is consumed by grief. It is only when an out-of-towner named Ruth Jamison comes to stay with the family  that Idgie is shaken out of her sadness and dives headfirst into a love affair with Ruth. Before long, Ruth is forced to return home to Valdosta, Georgia and fulfill her promise of marrying the wealthy Frank Bennett, but once Idgie discovers that Ruth is being abused by her new husband, Ruth is rescued and Frank Bennett mysteriously goes missing.

Although the words “lesbian” or “gay” are never used in the novel, it is obvious from the story that Idgie and Ruth are a couple; from the multiple “I love you”s to the fact that they raise a child together, the novel doesn’t waste time grappling with the idea of lesbians in the 1930s or going over the obvious homophobia they must have faced, but instead gives readers a nostalgic and endearing love story. When the novel was adapted into an Academy Award winning movie in 1991, the writers left in all the intriguing bits of death, murder, and depression, but Idgie and Ruth were gal pal-ed hard. In the film, the writers changed the story where Ruth was the grieving girlfriend of Buddy Threadgoode – the dead older brother – and Idgie was constantly turning down marriage proposals by the good ole’ country boys who just couldn’t get over the fact that she ~wasn’t like the other girls. Today, it is this version of the story that is most remembered and cherished by audiences and although the true, lesbian version of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café has been forgotten and buried under the legacy of its sanitized film adaptation, this only further proves the old saying: the book is always better than the movie.

Marsha P. Johnson

A leader of the Stonewall Riots. According to several eyewitnesses, Marsha was the one who “really started it”. She was “in the middle of the whole thing, screaming and yelling and throwing rocks and almost like Molly Pitcher in the Revolution or something”

Dedicated her life to activism:

Co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (later renamed Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries)

Ensured that the young drag queens, trans women and other street kids on Christopher Street were fed and clothed. Marsha also housed them whenever she could. 

In the 1980s, she was an activist and organizer in ACT UP. 

Stormé DeLarverie

Also a leader in the Stonewall Riots - has been identified as the “butch lesbian that threw the first punch” against the police officers.

Several eye-witnesses recollections also recognize her as the cross-dressing lesbian that yelled “why don’t you guys do something” at the bystanders that evoked the reaction from them that helped make Stonewall a defining moment in history.

Unofficially worked at gay bars who otherwise couldn’t afford security.

Bayard Rustin

Was a leading strategist of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement between 1955-1968:

The formidable behind the scenes figure of the civil rights movement who organized the March on Washington

Through his influence, the civil rights leadership adopted a non-violent stance.

Is and was often overlooked in African-American history because of the public’s discomfort with his sexual orientation.

Supported LGBTQ rights and movements.

Was posthumously awarded Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy

Another leader in the Stonewall Riots.

Has been involved in community efforts since 1978. She has worked at local food banks, provide services for trans women suffering from addiction or homelessness. During the AIDS epidemic she also provided healthcare and funeral services.

Is currently serving as the Executive Director for the Transgender GenderVariant Intersex Justice Project, working to assist transgender persons who are disproportionately incarcerated under a prison-industrial complex.

Alvin Ailey

At the young age of 22, Alvin AIley became Artistic Directer for the Horton Dance Company where he choreographed as well as directed scenes and costume designs.

Formed the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre in 1958 but continued to choreograph for other companies.

Ailey’s signature works prominently reflects his Black pride.

Is credited for popularizing modern dance. 

Was also posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

Happy birthday Gertrude Stein, born February 3rd 145 years ago!

Gertrude was a novellist, poet, and playwright. Her first well-known work was The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, told in the voice of her partner Alice. She also had several other explicitly lesbian works, including QED and Tender Buttons.

Vicki got off work early on Friday nights: 10:00 p.m. I would be parked in front of her club, and off we would go to our favorite lesbian night spot, the club Hi Dollie, which was a bit off the street on the corner of El Segundo and Western. The club was full of beautiful black lesbians – little ones, large ones, black skin, yellow lesbian women. Women as masculine as my Uncle Willie, women as sexy as my Aunt Kay. Many of the harder butches were bouncers and made sure there was no trouble. A few gay men patronized the club, and a handful of straight men who fancied lesbians were regulars. Other than those few, the club was strictly women.”

Lesbians and gay men have had tremendous impact on each other’s respective communities for so much of our history. We would have never gotten as far as we have if we didn’t work together in solidarity.

True, we’ve had times in which our communities clashed. The gay liberation movement wasn’t always welcome to lesbians. Lesbian activists weren’t always concerned with the struggles of gay men.

However, we needed to band together in order to survive in the homophobic and heteronormative society that existed then, and we still need to stand in solidarity now in order to thrive in the homophobic and heteronormative society that still exists today.

If we didn’t support each other, we wouldn’t have made the magnificent strides in the journey to fight for our rights that we have made together. We would have lost so many more lives, to police brutality, to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, to suicide, and more.

Anne Lister (Gentleman Jack) (deceased)

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Lesbian

DOB: 3 April 1791  

RIP: 22 September 1840

Ethnicity: White 

Occupation: Landowner, diarist, mountaineer, traveller

Recovering collective memory is itself an act of struggle. It allows the generational currents of the white-capped river of our movement to flow together — the awesome roar of our many waters. And the course of our movement is not fixed in its banks like the Hudson River — it is ours to determine. From Selma to Stonewall to Seattle, we who believe in freedom will not rest until every battle is won.

I am typing these words as June 2003 surges with Pride. What year is it now, as you read them? What has been won; what has been lost? I can’t see from here; I can’t predict. But I know this: You are experiencing the impact of what we in the movement take a stand on and fight for today. The present and past are the trajectory of the future. But the arc of history does not bend towards justice automatically — as the great Abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed, without struggle there is no progress. …

[…] The last chapter of this saga of struggle has not yet been written.

Compilation: Love between women as allegories in art throughout history

Italy Grateful to France. Vincenzo Vela, ca. 1862. France receives a kiss from a liberated Italy, whose broken chains lie at her feet.

Italy and Germany. Johann Friedrich Overbeck, 1828. A friendship allegory that symbolizes the artistic ideals of the two, specifically the espousal of early-Renaissance Italian and German art in the form of a pair of dark- and fair-haired maidens holding hands. 

Peace and Justice. Attributed to Ciro Ferri, 1600s. 

Charlotte Bunch and Roxanna Carrillo. Bunch is an American lesbian activist, writer, teacher, and organizer in the feminist and human rights movements. Carrillo is a Peruvian feminist who pioneered the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)’s work on human rights and violence against women, and was a co-founder of Centro de la Mujer Peruana Flora Tristan, one of the first non-governmental feminist organizations in Peru.

Roxanna: I arrived to the airport. Here I find, you know, Charlotte and Betty [for the Latin American Feminist Encuentro]. And there’s like a, sort of a group of people with them. And I’m like, “Who are these?” And I turn around, and Charlotte introduced me to some of the women that have come, and the women said, "Yeah, chica, we are from New York.” Next day, I go to the organizing committee, and said, "I went to pick up my friend from New York who came with another friend. They’re coming to the encuentro, et cetera. And there’s a whole bunch of lesbians that have arrived. They want to take over our conference. What are we gonna do?”

Charlotte: This is all about two weeks before Roxanna and I get together. Though she was straight, but she didn’t stay that way.

Roxanna: It raised lots of questions for me. It opened up another world of possibilities. Both Betty and Claudia left, and she stayed. And then she decided to stay longer. And then… (laughs)

Charlotte: I told Roxanna that I would come to Peru. She said she was gonna organize a course for me to teach in Lima.

Roxanna: So we did a six-week course of feminist theory for movement activists in which we invited people from all different women’s groups in Peru. But of course, the word got out in other countries in Latin America, so they invited us to do the same all over Latin America.

Charlotte: The amount of time and anxiety that Roxanna and I had in our lives worrying and trying to make sure, what are we gonna have to do to be sure we can be together and simply be in the same country, we wouldn’t have that if we had lesbian and gay rights. I have fears that she could be deported, or she could be denied a green card.

Roxanna: It’s having like a sword over our heads. We never know what will happen.

Claude Cahun 1894-1954

“If there is horror, it is for those who speak indifferently of the next war. If there is hate, it is for hateful qualities, not nations. If there is love, it is because this alone kept me alive. –Claude Cahun

Born Lucy Schwob, Claude Cahun was a Jewish, non-binary, lesbian photographer (before the term “non-binary” was popularized, of course) from France. She* was part of the Dadaist and Surrealist movements.

Her mother was institutionalized when Cahun was young, so she was mainly raised by her grandmother, who was blind. Cahun briefly attended boarding school, where she battled anorexia and depression, which manifested in suicidal thoughts. (It is unclear whether Cahun ever attempted to take her own life.) The bright spot at the boarding school came in the form of a young lady named Suzanne Malherbe, who later became known as Marcel Moore. The two first became lovers, then stepsisters when their Moore’s mother mardried Cahun’s father. Cahun described the two women’s meeting as a “thunderbolt encounter.” She went on to study Literature and Philosophy at Sorbonne.

Cahun’s work was not so much about changing gender, but about escaping it altogether. She described herself as “neuter,” (neutral?), and was described by others as “one of the most curious spirits of our time.”

Nearly all of Cahun’s most famous photographs were created in in the 1920′s. In addition to photography, she was also a writer and published Heroines and Aveux Non Avenues.

In 1937 Cahun and Moore moved to the British island Jersey, which was invaded by Nazis in 1940. Rather than fleeing, the couple chose to take part in the resistance by creating leaflets intended to demoralize Nazi troops and encourage them to desert.

Eventually they were arrested and sentenced to death. They were held in separate cells for one year until the island was liberated and WWII ended in 1945. Much of their art had been destroyed by Nazis.

In 1945 Cahun received the French Medal of Gratitude.