Flashback Friday Looks at Today in Queer History

Sorry, yer boy Hank here just couldn't pull it together in time to give you a Throwback Thursday. Don't throw anything at me! I was busy with play rehearsals for a show I'm in. Come check it out! But here's a FF (get yer mind outta the gutter!) that I hope will appease. Let's take a gander at notable news in queer history on September 13th!

1931, Lilli Elbe Dies

Elbe, who was possibly intersex, we can't be sure at this point, was the first recipient of the first sex-reassignment surgery. Married to Gerda Gottlieb in 1904, a marriage that would be invalidated in 1930 by the King of Denmark. She was an accomplished painter and cause céleb. She underwent a series of gender-affirming operations over a period of two years with help from the notable Magnus Hirschfeld Institute. She died of complications from the fourth surgery, an attempt to implant a uterus. The film The Danish Girl starring Eddie Redmayne is based on her life.

1977, TV's Soap Premiers

(Highlights of Billie Crystal as "Jodie" from Season 1.)

Open discussions about gay people were still rather verboten on television in 1977. All In the Family and a couple other daring shows dabbled in a character here and there, but until Soap burst onto the scene, we never saw a regularly appearing character, much less a positive one. Sure the show over its short life dealt with philandering husbands and wives, race politics, organized crime, demon possession, alien abduction, and split personalities all with dark, cutting humor.

But it was a still-unknown Billie Crystal's performance as series regular "Jodie Campbell" that really shook people. He starts off his storyline with the usual negative stereotypes: suicidal, effeminate cross-dresser, willing to undergo sex reassignment for the football player he loves, and confusedly bi at one point. But Crystal quickly used his character's popularity to give him the leverage to even Jodie out, lose the trans and suicidal elements, and make him less of a caricature and more relatable to middle America. They even had him father a child which turned into a fantastic storyline about parental rights. Crystal was a huge LGBTQ+ ally before we had a term for it! By the show's end, Jodie was the most down-to-earth and "normal" one of the crazy bunch! The show also spawned the equally popular spin-off, Benson.

1995: The Celluloid Closet Premiers at the Toronto Film Festival

This groundbreaking and lauded documentary based on Vito Russo's equally impactful book traces the history of depictions of LGBTQ+ characters through film history. From the disdainful stereotypes of yesteryear to the powerfully positive characters and storylines of more contemporary films, this stunning work narrated by Lily Tomlin is a must for anyone who wants to understand where we came from in film. It had a limited release in theaters before it moved to HBO. A most memorable scene is when Shirley MacLaine, who costarred with Audrey Hepburn in the film version of the play The Children's Hour basically apologizes for having worked on such a negative depiction of affection between two women.

2001: Scamvangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson Respond to the 9/11 Attacks by Blaming Gays. Because Sure, Why Not?

Gays, Feminists, "abortionists," Pagans, the ACLU, Lesbians, The People for the American Way, and the federal court system (?!) all were on the receiving end of their bloated, fear-mongering blame for the attacks that had occurred just two days earlier. It's okay. They're both dead.

2004: The Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Corral Sea Islands is Established

This "micro nation" was a slightly humorous protest, thought certainly quite earnest, in response to Australia's Parliament's refusal to to legalize same-sex marriage and that body's passage of a law that established only heterosexual marriage as legal. Based on the uninhabited Coral Sea Islands off the NE coast, it was a symbolic political protest that established queer nationalism. It was disbanded in 2017 when Australia passed same-sex marriage rights.

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