1) Tony DeBlase (1942-2000), the creator of the Leather Pride flag, was also known as “Batman” because he was a world authority on bats.
2) One of the Jack the Ripper suspects was Francis Tumblety (c.1833-1903), an Irish-American quack doctor who kept a large collection of female body parts in jars. Before moving to London (just before the first Ripper murder) he had a stormy love affair with Hall Caine (later Sir Hall Caine). He was arrested for gross indecency with four men and skipped bail by running away to France. The Ripper never struck again.
3) The world’s first specifically-designed flag to represent the lgbt community was probably the black flag with a pink triangle in the centre adopted by the organisers of the Australian Gay Pride Week in September 1973.
4) The Russian Orthodox Christian Church was founded in the year 988. The first people to be made Russian Orthodox saints were St. Boris and his male lover St. George the Hungarian in 1071. They were both martyred in 1015.
5) The first James Bond novel would never have been published if Ian Fleming’s gay friend William Plomer hadn’t persuaded him to do so. Only after it became a success did Fleming decided to write more.
6) Angela Ponce (b.1991) was the first transgender contestant to win a national Miss Universe title. In 2018 she became Miss Spain.
7) The most northern Pride (so far), at 69 degrees north, was the 3rd Sápmi (Lapland) Pride held in Kautokeino, Norway, in August 2017.
8) And the most southern Pride (so far) took place at 51 degrees south in the McMurdo Station on Antarctica on 9th June 2018.
9) The oldest known member of the lgbt community was Swiss opera singer Hughes Cuénod. He died on 6th December 2010 at the age of 108 years and 164 days.
10) And the previous oldest known member of the lgbt community was Australian teacher and educator Ethel May “Monte” Punshon, who died on 4th April 1989 at the age of 106 years and 146 days.
11) The first person in the world to survive a bone marrow transplant from someone who wasn’t a relative was Simon Bostic (b.1972) in 1973. Simon has gone on to become a campaigner for bone marrow donation. He has also win a silver medal in dancesport at the 1998 Gay Games in Amsterdam, and a bronze medal at the 2000 Eurogames in Zurich. His bone marrow donor, Joan McFarlane, died last November and Simon wrote her obituary for The Guardian newspaper.
12) The first printed instance of the term “Gay Pride” appeared in the Chicago Tribune on 28th June 1970. It was in a report on Chicago’s Gay Pride. This was held a day before the commonly believed first Pride event, New York’s Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade held to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.
13) The annual ancient Greek festival called the Diocleia, held in Megara every spring, included a kissing contest in which young men were required to kiss the male judges. The judges then had to decide which youth gave the “sweetest” kiss. The prize was a garland of flowers. The festival was founded in memory of Diocles, an Athenian soldier who died in battle protecting his young male lover.
14) The tune of “The Star Spangled Banner”, USA’s national anthem, was originally used by the 18th-century Anacreontic Society, a gentlemen’s club formed to promote “wine, women and song”. The society gets its name from the ancient Greek poet Anacreon who wrote poems on those same subjects. Anacreon, like all Greek men of his time, was partial to having sex with boys.
15) The word “buggery”, referring to gay sex, originates in the 13th century. It derives from the name of a heretical sect called the Bogomils, who were said to practice gay sex as part of their religious beliefs. The sect was based in the area now occupied by the nation of Bulgaria – the country gets its names from the Bogomils.
16) There are an estimated 100 million people who owe their existence to King Edward II of England (1284-1327) – they are his descendants. These include many thousands of lgbt people, among them are :
comedian and talk-show host Ellen
Degeneres,
Hollywood legend Marlon Brando,
writer and wit Sir Noël Coward,
astronaut Sally Ride,
drag actor Divine,
Rt. Rev. Mary Glasspool, Assistant
Bishop of New York,
Russian spy Anthony Blunt,
Laurence of Arabia,
American Gladiator Shelley Beattie
(Siren),
gay porn star Ben Barker,
US Founding Father Alexander Hamilton,
Oscar Wilde,
composer and suffragette Dame Ethel
Smyth,
writer Tennessee Williams,
Romantic poet Lord Byron,
…. and myself.
17) The director of the first episode of
“Doctor Who”, the world’s longest running television science fiction series,
was a young gay Asian man called Waris Hussein (b.1939). It was broadcast on
23rd November 1963.
18) The bisexual Russian Prince Felix
Yusopov is responsible for all movies including the general disclaimer “all
characters and events portrayed in this film are fictional, and any resemblance
to person living or dead is purely coincidental”. The Prince was a leading
protagonist in the murder of the mad monk Rasputin in 1916. When MGM produced a
film about Rasputin in 1932 Prince Felix successfully sued the film company for
defamation and intrusion of privacy. Even the recent films “Rocket Man” and
“Bohemian Rhapsody” are officially fictional, not fact.
19) The famous statue in Piccadilly
Circus, London, is NOT Eros. It portrays his half-brother Anteros, the god of
love returned, who was born spontaneously out of the love between Poseidon, god
of the sea, and a male sea deity called Nerites.
20) Apart from being known as “the
Wickedest Man in the World” who was openly bisexual and practiced mystical
occult sex “magic” with both men and women, Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) was a
member of the first expedition to attempt to reach the top of K2, the second
highest mountain in the world, in 1902.
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