LGBT “icons” from the South Central region

Staff Report

For LGBT History Month, the website www.LGBTHistoryMonth.com features 31 gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender “icons” – one for each day of the month. But the site also identifies icons from each state, and the states in The Gayly’sarea are no exception.

Here are some LGBT icons from our area, with a few that may surprise you.

Kansas

Melissa Etheridge is a Grammy and Academy Award-winning singer and songwriter. She was born in Leavenworth, Kansas. She came out at the 1993 Triangle Ball, the Clinton administration’s inaugural gala for gays and lesbians, when she exclaimed, “Gee, I’m really excited to be here, and I’m really proud to have been a lesbian all my life!”

Missouri and Kansas

Langston Hughes

 A celebrated poet and novelist, Langston Hughes is one of the most significant voices to emerge from the Harlem Renaissance. A major contributor to American literature, his legacy includes 25 published works. Like most artists of his time, Hughes was not open about his sexuality. Literary scholars point to Montage of a Dream Deferred,  Desire, Young Sailor and Tell Me as gay-themed works. Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri. After his parents divorced, he moved to Lawrence, Kansas, where his grandmother raised him until her death.

Missouri

Keith Boykin

Keith Boykin is a political commentator, a New York Times best-selling author and a veteran of two presidential campaigns. Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, Boykin became politically focused working on local campaigns while in high school. At Dartmouth, he was the editor of the daily newspaper and graduated with a B.A. in government. Boykin worked as special assistant to President Bill Clinton and served as Clinton’s liaison to the LGBT community. In 1994, Boykin became the executive director of the National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum and completed his first book, One More River to Cross: Black and Gay in America.

Leslie Feinberg

Leslie Feinberg is a leading transgender activist, speaker and writer. Feinberg was born in Kansas City, Missouri, into a working-class family. As an FTM transgender man, Feinberg is an outspoken opponent of traditional Western concepts about how a “real man” or “real woman” should look and act. Feinberg supports the use of gender-neutral pronouns such as “ze” instead of he or she, and “hir” instead of him or her.

Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams was one of the most influential American playwrights. He transformed the darkest aspects of human existence into poetic theater. He was raised in St. Louis, Missouri. The Glass Menagerie (1945) earned the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award and launched Williams’s playwriting career. Often set in the South and featuring characters seeking salvation and meaningful human connections, his plays were infused with aspects of Williams’s personal struggles.

He sparked controversy by including gay characters. His award-winning plays include A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), The Rose Tattoo (1951), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) and The Night of the Iguana (1961). Williams and his partner, Frank Marlo, were together for more than 10 years. Their relationship ended when Marlo died of cancer in 1963.

Oklahoma

Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal's career as a novelist, essayist, screenwriter, critic and political activist spans six decades. Boldly challenging the status quo, Vidal has weathered censorship and criticism for his progressive writing and politics. Although Vidal is widely considered to have been gay, he never came out. He told the London Times, “I don’t believe in these exclusive terms.”

Vidal’s Oklahoma roots run deep. His maternal grandfather was Oklahoma Sen. Thomas Gore, who served from statehood in 1907 to 1921, and again from 1931 to 1937.

Texas

Texas touts over a dozen LGBT icons. Among them are Annise Parker, Lupe Valdez, and Dustin Lance Black.

Annise Parker

In 2009, when Annise Parker was elected, Houston became the largest city in the nation with an openly gay mayor. Houston is the fourth most populous city in the United States. In 1997, she won a seat on the Houston City Council, making her Houston’s first out elected official. In 2003, Parker was elected city controller. She served two additional terms before being elected mayor.

Parker’s mayoral triumph didn’t come without a fight and controversy. Conservative groups criticized Parker for her “gay agenda” and distributed fliers featuring Parker and her partner, asking the question, "Is this the image Houston wants to portray?"

Despite the attacks, Parker won the election in a state that continues to fight every effort toward LGBT rights.

Lupe Valdez

On November 2, 2004, Lupe Valdez became the first woman, the first ethnic minority person, and the first lesbian to be elected Sheriff of Dallas County, Texas. She ran as a Democrat in a heavily Republican state, which led The Dallas Morning News to comment that, "Dallas County voters managed to shatter at least four different stereotypes in one fell swoop."

In addition to her other "firsts," Valdez is the first former migrant worker to be elected Sheriff of Dallas County.

Dustin Lance Black

Dustin Lance Black is a screenwriter, director and producer. In 2009, he received an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Milk, about openly gay San Francisco politician Harvey Milk.

In 2009, Black topped The Advocate’s list of the “Forty under 40” most influential openly gay people. He is an outspoken LGBT activist, serving on the boards of The Trevor Project and the American Foundation for Equal Rights. Black frequently speaks about gay rights to college students across the country.

Black is engaged to Olympic diving bronze medal winner Tom Daley.

There were no LGBT icons identified for Arkansas.

Copyright 2016 The Gayly – October 8, 2016 @ 4:15 p.m.