Author Alan Hollinghurst celebrates his birthday Author Alan Hollinghurst celebrates his 69th birthday today. The author won the 2004 Man Booker Prize for his novel In The Line of Beauty which told the story of a young gay man and his contemporaries from university against the backdrop of Margaret Thatcher’s Britain in the 1980s. The book was […]
Oscar Wilde was found guilty of gross indecency and sentenced to two years hard labor. On this day in 1895 author Oscar Wilde was found guilty of gross indecency and sentenced to two years imprisonment. At the time Wilde was at the height of his career having found success with novels and plays including The Importance […]
Louise Pratt delivered her inaugural speech to the WA parliament In 2001 Louise Pratt delivered her inaugural speech to the Western Australian parliament, setting out an agenda for gay and lesbian law reform. The politician was elected to the parliament at the 2001 state election. As the third candidate on the party’s upper house ticket many […]
Feminist, Activist and musician, Alix Dobkin died on this day in 2021 Alix Dobkin made her mark creating what could arguably be described as one of the first lesbian albums. A performer on New York’s folk scene in the 1960s Dobkin discovered feminism after hearing radio show host Liza Cowan interview Germaine Greer in 1970. […]
On This Gay Day: The first report about HIV/AIDS was published in 1981 It’s often reported that the first information about what would later be identified as HIV/AIDS was when on 5 June 1981 the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention published a notice about gay men who had died from rare, and usually […]
US politician Annise Parker was born Politician Annise Parker was born on this day in 1956, today she celebrates her 65th birthday. Parker was elected Mayor of Houston in late 2009, assuming office in 2010. She was one of the first LGBT people to elected to the position of Mayor of a US city, and […]
The play ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ made its debut in 1990 John Guare’s play Six Degrees of Separation made its off-Broadway debut on this day in 1990, opening at the Lincoln Center in New York. It transferred to Broadway in November and ran for 485 performances, closing on 5th January 1992. The play tells the story […]
Author Armistead Maupin was born on this day in 1944 and is celebrating his birthday today. Maupin is best known for his Tales of the City novels which have also been turned into a series of television programs. First published as a column in the San Francisco Chronicle. The series encompasses nine hugely popular novels: Tales of […]
On this day in 1989, the cash box for the Westside Observer was stolen The Westside Observer was for many years the source of news and information for Perth’s LGBTIQ+ communities. When it was launched in 1988 the A5 sized magazine cost $2 a copy, but the cover price was abandoned not long after. Back in […]
10th May 1972: Academic George Duncan is murdered in Adelaide Dr George Duncan was a law academic at Adelaide University, in 1972 he was attacked and thrown into the River Torrens, where he drowned. The public outrage over his death lead to the push for the decriminalisation of homosexuality, and in 1975 South Australia became […]
