14 Sunday

Mother's Day

May

Anarchist Emma Goldman, who was an early defender of homosexuality and was herself the love object of a sister anarchist, dies in Toronto, 1940.

15 Monday

Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, pioneering German homosexual emancipationist whose Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin

is wonderfully described in Christopher Isherwood's latest book and whose surviving works await the hand of a modern English translator, dies in Nice, 1935.

16 Tuesday

The Mazet Committee, investigating corrupt New York City officials, discloses the existence of numerous gay clubs, including the Bowery's famous Paresis Hall, "a well-known resort for male prostitutes," 1899.

17 Wednesday

Today is the birthday of writers Robin Maugham (1916), a chip off his uncle's block, and Merle Miller (1919), who chose to come out in the pages of The New York Times Magazine.

18 Thursday

A major study of homosexual men by the Sex Research Institute of Indiana University finds their "psychological well-being" as good as other men's and urges that they "end their tradition of silence" to fight discrimination; the study recommends ending laws and harassment directed against "adult consenting homosexuals," 1974.

19 Friday

Willa Cather:

The male hero of My Antonia is really the author.

The young (and gay) novelist Willa Cather, in an act typical of the day, condemns Oscar Wilde in her book column in the Lincoln, Nebraska, Journal, 1895.

20 Saturday

Charles Reich, who, in a passage of The Sorcerer of Bolinas Reef, confesses to the loss of his virginity to a San Francisco hustler at the age of forty-three, born in New York City, 1928.