Famous/Highly Visible Queers

[Medusa]

Originally Posted by Nat

President James Buchanan



William Rufus DeVane King

from wikipedia:

King was close friends with James Buchanan, and the two shared a home in Washington, D.C. for fifteen years prior to Buchanan's presidency. Buchanan and King's close relationship prompted Andrew Jackson to refer to King as "Miss Nancy" and "Aunt Fancy", while Aaron V. Brown spoke of the two as "Buchanan and his wife". Further, some of the contemporary press also speculated about Buchanan and King's relationship. Buchanan and King's nieces destroyed their uncles' correspondence, leaving some questions as to what relationship the two men had, but surviving letters illustrate the affection of a special friendship, and Buchanan wrote of his communion with his housemate. Buchanan wrote in 1844, after King left for France, "I am now solitary and alone, having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection."

This is totally fascinating!

[Andrew, Jr.]

Calperna Addams does it for me. Yowza! Lynn Conway is also another looker for me, but she is married, and living stealth with her husband. Her eyes are gorgeous.

[Dante]

Anthony Perkins ....... actor
Best known for playing the deranged Norman Bates, in Psycho......
Born in 1932, died of AIDS in 1992.

[Nat]

Welsh Rugby Player Gareth Thomas



and a youtube where he talks about coming out

[Nat]

Michael Stipe

[Nat]

Annie Leibovitz



+

Susan Sontag



from pbs.org

Leibovitz met Susan Sontag in 1989 while photographing the writer for her book AIDS and its Metaphors. “I remember going out to dinner with her and just sweating through my clothes because I thought I couldn’t talk to her,” Leibovitz said in an interview with The New York Times late last year. Sontag told her, “You’re good, but you could be better.” Though the two kept separate apartments, their relationship lasted until Sontag’s death in late 2004.

Sontag’s influence on Leibovitz was profound. In 1993 Leibovitz traveled to Sarajevo during the war in the Balkans, a trip that she admits she would not have taken without Sontag’s input. Among her work from that trip is Sarajevo, Fallen Bicycle of Teenage Boy Just Killed by a Sniper, a black-and-white photo of a bicycle collapsed on blood-smeared pavement. Sontag, who wrote the accompanying essay, also first conceived of Leibovitz’s book Women (1999). The book includes images of famous people along with those not well known. Celebrities like Susan Sarandon and Diane Sawyer share space with miners, soldiers in basic training, and Las Vegas showgirls in and out of costume.

[Medusa]

Greg Louganis!

[Nat]

Margaret Cho

[Cyclopea]

[Cyclopea]

[Nat]

Former Republican National Committee chair and Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman says he's gay after years of denial.



While he was a top GOP operative, the Republican Party was actively pushing anti-gay marriage initiatives. Mehlman acknowledged that if not for his secret, he might have been a voice for a more conciliatory approach to gays, according to the interview on the Atlantic's website.

"It's a legitimate question and one I understand," Mehlman said. Now, he said, he will openly back gay marriage as consistent with such GOP principles as "individual freedom."

[Nat]

Gandhi

In letters, Gandhi wrote to Kallenbach, "How completely you have taken possession of my body. This is slavery with a vengeance. "

"Your portrait (the only one) stands on my mantelpiece in the bedroom," he writes. "The mantelpiece is opposite the bed."

This article also talks about his racism. :/

[Nat]

Paul Marcarelli - Verizon's "Can you hear me now" guy



Marcarelli, who is gay, also says that kids used to drive past his home in Guilford, Connecticut, at night, yelling, "Can you hear me now?" and spewing gay slurs. He says he never filed a police report because he was afraid of the publicity.

"I didn’t want to be put in a position to have to answer any uncomfortable question that would affect my income stream," says the actor.

[Nat]

Don Lemon - CNN anchor

[Nat]

W. H. Auden

(poet)

[Soon]

Originally Posted by Nat

Don Lemon - CNN anchor

What a great interview--love Don Lemon!

Thanks for sharing, Nat.

[Nat]

Espn's Jared Max

Thursday, May 19 was a typical day for most people. However, for sportscaster Jared Max, his world would be changed forever—by his own doing.

That morning, Max announced on his ESPN 1050/WEPN early morning show that he was gay.

“I had to do this for myself,” Max admits. “I’m 37 now [at] what point do I say, ‘This is the one life we know we’re going to have, what the hell am I keeping quiet for? Why am I doing this to myself?”

Max, who came out to his mother when he was 21, was ready to make peace on a larger scale thanks to his cats.

“I remember telling my cat Mush the night before, ‘I think something might happen tomorrow.’”

By the next morning, Max still uncertain told his other cat, “Things might be a little different when I come home.”

As he arrived at the station, the potential decision obviously weighed heavily on his mind. Max began to work on scripts for his show, starting with a piece on his being gay. He had it saved for the program’s end.

“It wasn’t until 10, 15, 20, 30 seconds before that I knew, ‘Ok, I’m doing it,’” Max admits.

Max, well known to commuters for his morning drive sports reports on WCBS 880 for more than a decade, joined 1050 on March 30.

“It’s just that great fear that I wouldn’t be able to be myself,” Max says. “And for the first nine days on the air, I really wasn’t myself.”

Once he told his audience, Max admits that his confidence was back.

“Then on Friday, I went in and for the first time I had felt I had the exact same swagger back that I had while I was at CBS.”

Part of the reason Max jumped ship to ESPN was to host his own 5 a.m. show, before handling local updates on The Mike and Mike Show. That helped to suppress the veteran sports anchor from coming out at 880.

“I did two-minute sportscasts and where was I going to squeeze it in,” Max says.

But Max also had timing on his side. In recent weeks, a couple of high-profile sports figures said they were gay. Rick Welts, the Phoenix Suns president and CEO, became the first team sports exec to come out. Former Villanova basketball standout Will Sheridan also told the world about his sexuality. In addition, CNN anchor Don Lemon joined the growing list of notable personalities finding comfort in their own skin.

Max, who has been single since November 2010, says being in a relationship isn’t easy—straight or gay—when you’re getting up for work at 1 a.m.

Now, as Max makes his way publicly through the second phase of his career, he is overwhelmed by the positive feedback, especially by his new employer.

“They’ve just been absolutely phenomenal,” Max says. “I got a phone call on Friday afternoon from George Bodenheimer, the president of ESPN, calling to offer his support, congratulations, and good luck.”

With so many text messages and emails from other well-wishers, Max knew almost instantly he made the right decision.

“This has taken off in a way that I never knew could be this way,” Max says. “I felt things later that day after coming out [that] I never knew I would feel. Life is good… I have such an incredible wealth of friends and love and support and knowledge. I feel like one of the richest men in the world.”

[tapu]

Leonard Cohen, composer

Susie Bright, Lesbian pornographer

Betty Ford, ha ha just kidding

[Starbuck]

Amy Ray and Emily Saliers.

[Toughy]

I don't know why, but Leonard came to my mind today at the SF VA Medical Center. I had the honor and privilege of knowing him.


"The epitaph he chose to mark his grave is still as fresh as today's headlines: 'When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one'." -- The Associated Press.

It has been an unfathomable thirty-five years since TSGT Leonard Matlovich, the first service member to out himself to fight the military's ban, walked out of the Langley Air Force Base hearing where his discharge had just been announced and held a Kennedy Bicentennial half dollar up to waiting mesmerized reporters. Ironically, it was engraved with an image of Philadelphia's Independence Hall where his mentor gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny had first led a gay rights demonstration a decade before. Leonard told them:

"It says '200 Years of Freedom'. Maybe not in my lifetime but we are going to win in the end."

www.leonardmatlovich.com

He was right.