Flashback Friday: On This Day in Queer History, Oct. 3rd

Hey queers, for flashback Friday, let's see what went down on this day in history, shall we? Let's dive right in!

1928

Erik Belton Evers Bruhn (3 October 1928 – 1 April 1986) is born in Copenhagen. At nine years old he is chosen to study at the Royal Danish Ballet. He graduates in 1947, joining the company, and is offered solos two years later. he would eventually leave that company to join the American Ballet Theater, and would go on to dance around the world with several companies. He would finish off his distinguished career as director of the National Ballet of Canada. Throughout much of his later life he had a volatile, on again-off again relationship with famed dancer Rudolf Nureyev until his death.

1961

The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) made a change to its production code affecting the display and characterization of the LGBTQ+ community in films. “In keeping with the culture, the mores and the values of our time, homosexuality and other sexual aberrations may now be treated with care, discretion and restraint.” This made it possible for more explicitly gay titles like The Children's Hour starring Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine to find a distributor. The revision was later amended tepidly: “sexual aberration” may be “suggested but not actually spelled out.”

Hey, it was a step in the right direction.

1973

Former New York City Health Services Administrator and physician, Dr. Howard Brown, publicly came out as gay. This helped to change the image of the queer community in America, from that of effeminate narcissists to professional and mainstream. As Ronni Sanlo states on their LGBTQ history website: "The discovery that a distinguished public figure, the very epitome of respectability as a physician, could also be a homosexual gave the cause of gay liberation a tremendous boost." In 1974, the Howard Brown Memorial Clinic (now known as Howard Brown Health Center) opens in Chicago, catering to gay men and lesbians and offering alternative health care, specifically geared toward the community, and targeting sexually transmitted diseases. It is still "the premier Midwest health center specializing in the medical and psychosocial needs of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community."

1980

Republican U.S. Representative Robert Bauman from Maryland and a staunch Moral Majority supporter and founding member of the American Conservative Union, is arrested for soliciting a 16-year-old male prostitute.

1997

26-year-old professional kickboxer Paul Bradford Cain is sentenced to 25 years to life for the murder of gay scientist Dr. Stanley Keith Runcorn. Cain's defense was that he was the actual victim, seeing as how the older Runcorn had made a pass at him. At his sentencing, the judge stated, “I hope you rot in hell because what you did was callous and cruel.” Dr. Runyon was a physicist whose work with plate tectonics revived and solidified the theory of continental drift.

1997

A court ruling in Ontario commands that the province's Insurance Act include same-sex couples in its definition of "spouse."

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