Florida

Published

THIS DAY IN LGBTQ HISTORY – MARCH

MARCH 1

1642

The Plymouth Colony Court heard a case brought against Edward Michell and Edward Preston for “lewd & sodomitical practices tending to sodomy.”

1649

The earliest known conviction for lesbian activity in North America occurs on this day when Sarah White Norman (ca. 1623-1654) is charged with “Lewd behaviour with each other upon a bed” with Mary Vincent Hammon (1633-1705) in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Since Mary was younger than 16 years old, she was only admonished, but Sarah, probably 10 years older, stood trial. Originally, Richard Berry (1626-1681), a neighbor, accused the two women and one man, Teage Joanes, of sodomy and other unclean practices. Later Berry said he had borne false witness against Joanes but he did not withdraw what he said against Sarah White Norman. Much later, the same Berry and other men, including Joanes, were prosecuted for homosexuality and ordered to “part their uncivil living together”.

1656

The New Haven, CT law is the first in the American colonies to make same-sex acts between women punishable by the death penalty. The code quotes Romans 1:26 “if any woman change the natural use into that which is against nature” as the basis for the law.

Published

THIS DAY IN LGBTQ HISTORY – FEBRUARY

FEBRUARY 1

1900

Marion Barbara ‘Joe’ Carstairs (1 February 1900 – 18 December 1993) was a wealthy British power boat racer known for her speed, her eccentric lifestyle and gender nonconformity. In the 1920s she was known as the ‘fastest woman on water’. She was also given a Steiff doll by a girlfriend, Ruth Baldwin (1905 – August, 1937), naming it Lord Tod Wadley. She became exceptionally attached to this doll, keeping it with her until her death, although she didn’t take it into her speedboats for fear of losing it. She had clothes made for it in Savile Row and had its name placed with her own on the name plaque on the door of her London apartment. Carstairs died in Naples, Florida in 1993 at the age of 93. The doll Lord Tod Wadley was cremated with her. Her ashes and those of Ruth Baldwin were buried in Oakland Cemetery in Sag Harbor, New York.

1902

James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) is born. He was an African American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called poetry and best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance in New York City. During his time in England in the early 1920s, Hughes became part of the Black expatriate community. Some academics and biographers believe that Hughes was homosexual and included homosexual codes in many of his poems, as did Whitman whom Hughes said influenced his poetry. Hughes’s story “Blessed Assurance” deals with a father’s anger over his son’s effeminacy and “queerness.” Unlike the generation of Black poets who came after him, Hughes approach to American racism was more wry than angry, but he helped set the mood for today’s Black movement. With his friend Countee Cullen who was also gay, he was the center of Harlem’s literary renaissance in the 1920s. On May 22, 1967, Hughes died in New York City at the age of 65 from complications after abdominal surgery related to prostate cancer. His ashes are interred beneath a floor medallion in the middle of the foyer in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem.

1942, Germany

A legal amendment formally extends the death penalty to men found guilty of having sex with other men.

Published

THIS DAY IN LGBTQ HISTORY – JANUARY

JANUARY 1

1849

We’wha (1849–1896) was a Zuni Native American from New Mexico, a notable fiber artist, weaver and potter. As the most famous lhamana on record, We’wha served as a cultural ambassador for Native Americans in general, and the Zuni in particular, serving as a contact point and educator for many European-American settlers, teachers, soldiers, missionaries, and anthropologists. In 1886, We’wha was part of the Zuni delegation to Washington, D.C.; during that visit, We’wha met President Grover Cleveland.

1879, UK

M. Forster (1879 – 1970) is born in London. After his brilliant novel A Passage to India in 1924, he produced no new works. His gay novel Maurice was written in 1914, but not published until after his death. For 50 years his lover was a married London police officer named Bob Buckingham.

1886, UK

English Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 takes effect. “Indecencies” between adult males in private become crimes punishable by up to two years imprisonment.