¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The documentary includes a brief clip of a 1954 televised newscast about the rise of homosexuality. The host of the program interviewed psychologists, a police officer, and one “known homosexual”. The “known homosexual” is 22 years old. He identifies himself as Curtis White, which is a pseudonym; his name is actually Dale Olson.

So I tracked down the newscast. According to what I can find, Dale Olson may have been the first gay man to appear openly on television and defend his sexual orientation. He explains that there’s nothing wrong with him mentally and he’s never been arrested. When asked whether he’d take a cure if it existed, he says no. When asked whether his family knows he’s gay, he says that they didn’t up until tonight, but he guesses they’re going to find out, and he’ll probably be fired from his job as well. So of course the host is like …why are you doing this interview then? and Dale Olson, cool as cucumber pie, says “I think that this way I can be a little useful to someone besides myself.”

1954. 22 years old. Balls of pure titanium.

Despite the pseudonym, Dale’s boss did indeed recognize him from the TV program, and he was promptly fired the next day. He wrote into ONE magazine six months later to reassure readers that he had gotten a new job at a higher salary.

Curious about what became of him, I looked into his life a little further. It turns out that he ultimately became a very successful publicity agent. He promoted the Rocky movies and Superman. Not only that, but get this: Dale represented Rock Hudson, and he was the person who convinced him to disclose that he had AIDS! He wrote the statement Rock read. And as we know, Rock Hudson’s disclosure had a very significant effect on the national conversation about AIDS in the U.S.

You've got people out here making youtube videos about the legacy of dragons and dragonriding in fantasy fiction without talking about the dragonriding Grand Master of SFF herself Anne McCaffrey.

This isn't some obscure thing where I'm trying to promote someone who is only kind of known because of forgotten representation. Anne McCaffrey was A HOUSEHOLD NAME when I was a kid when it comes to fantasy literature. She's the first woman to win a Hugo and to win a Nebula. In 2002 there was a TV pilot filmed for Dragonriders of Pern.

Eragon, Temeraire, Toothless, and the dragons of Fourth Wing exist because these people grew up on the blueprint set by the Pern novels. Talking about dragons and not mentioning Pern is like talking about Orcs and not mentioning Lord of the Rings.

Me before I came out, when I did pageants and modeling.

This was me the day of my junior prom. The dress weighed around 20 lbs, was the first one I tried on, and my makeup was done by someone who still thought brown lip liner looked good on white people. I spent the entire day being photographed and generally hating how I looked and wishing I could figure out why, when everything was technically perfect.

Came out in 2016, here's nine years of transformation (in reverse order, sorry)

Turns out I'm neither a Normal Guy nor a woman, but a much weirder type of faggy masc thing.

In my lifestyle lolita egg era. Somehow getting to dress like a princess gave me the will to get up in the morning

granted being a big ol goth doesn't really fit the bill of "socially acceptable heterosexual femininity" but i was HYPER feminine when i was closeted, especially in the years between when i FIRST tried to come out (age 16 - around the time of those first photos) and when i actually made the jump (age 19 - about a year after the last photo)

you can tell in that second to last photo i literally got a tattoo that said "MAD GIRL" which was an exercise in many things, including abstract self-harm, a visual reminder that i had given up on myself, and wildly underestimating the number of dudes who would misread it as BAD GIRL and take that as a cue to say gross shit to me while i was at work

anyway never kill yourself

haha yeah 🫣

consciously dipped my toes into the gender fuckery pool at around 15/16 but I was pentecostal at the time and well. took them out real quick

i tried very very hard to be “femme” for a LONG time but during covid lockdowns I didn’t have to perform for anyone and I slowly started to let it all go and now I’m a silly little man 😌