So often, the story of LGBTIQA+ rights is described as beginning with the Stonewall riots in 1969. While this was certainly a moment when a political movement gathered momentum, LGBTIQA+ people had been organising and making themselves known in the United States for many years beforehand.
In 1965 a silent picket was held at The White House in Washington D.C. The following day another was staged at the United Nations headquarters in New York City.
Protesters held silent vigils at both locations to draw attention to reports that Cuba was imprisoning gay people in forced labour camps.
The protests were organised by the Mattachine Society of Washington and its founder, Frank Kameny.
Kameny, an astronomer with a PhD from Harvard, had been fired from the Army Map Service in 1957 because he was gay. He took his case to court and, in 1961, became the first person to petition the US Supreme Court with a discrimination claim based on sexual orientation.
The day after the Supreme Court declined to hear his petition, Kameny contacted the Mattachine Society of New York—one of the earliest gay rights groups in the United States—and sought advice on starting a Washington chapter.
The protesters were reportedly surprised when none of them were arrested, so they quickly organised a repeat performance, staging several similar demonstrations in the months that followed.
In 2015 two men were given long prison sentences for murder of Perth man Warren Batchelor
In 2015 Daniel Wade Taylor and Mark Jones were convicted of murder of Warren Batchelor. The former DJ, who was well known in Sydney’s gay venues as DJ Coco, was beaten to death by the pair in November 2013.
On this day they were sentenced to to life imprisonment. The pair will both have to serve a minimum of twenty one years before being eligible for parole.
Taylor and Jones confronted Batchelor and another man as they engaged in consensual sex inside a toilet cubicle. The court heard that Taylor and Jones, who did not previously know each other, had met at the Middle Swan Reserve where they were both camping. Angered by men having sex around the park and within the public toilets they teamed up and attacked the two men.
The other man managed to escape the two attackers and raise the alarm. Batchelor died in a Perth hospital from his injuries.
In sentencing Taylor and Jones Supreme Court Justice Lindy Jenkins said the two men had a gross disregard for Batchelor’s life, and that they had both assaulted him and left him to die. The judge declared both men had shown little remorse for their actions.
The men’s sentences were backdated to the time of their arrest in 2013 making them eligible for release in 2034.
In 2013 New Zealand achieved marriage equality
New Zealand celebrated this day in 2013, when its Parliament voted to change the marriage laws and allow same-sex couples to wed.
The legislation was passed by 77 votes to 44 and received royal assent two days later. The new law came into effect on 19 August that year.
When the law passed, New Zealand became the first country in the Oceania region to achieve marriage equality, and only the fourth in the Southern Hemisphere.
The private member’s bill that changed the law was introduced by Labour MP Louisa Wall. When the bill passed, the public galleries in Parliament erupted in celebration, and people sang the traditional Māori love song Pōkarekare Ana.
New Zealand’s decision immediately put pressure on Australia’s federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, who was staunchly opposed to allowing same-sex marriage.
In the wake of the news from New Zealand, New South Wales Premier Barry O’Farrell voiced his support for marriage equality, while Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett said he was in favour of civil unions. Abbott, however, remained firmly opposed.
In 1897 Thornton Wilder was born
Thornton Wilder is the only person to win the Pulitzer Prize for both literature and drama.
He’s best known for his eternally popular play Our Town, but also found success with another theatrical work The Skin of Our Teeth.
The Bridges of San Luis Rey, The Cabala, Ides of March, The Eighth Day and Theophilus North are some of the novels he wrote.
Wilder never married and six years after his 1975 death Samuel Steward, a noted tattoo artist and pornographer, claimed in his autobiography that he’d had a sexual relationship with Wilder in 1937.
Historians have argued over whether the author was gay or not, and there is a variety of opinions.
In 1725 Leendert Hasenbosch was found guilty of sodomy
Leendert Hasenbosch was an employee of the Dutch East India Company who was marooned on an uninhabited island in the South Atlantic Ocean after being convicted of sodomy by his ship’s officers.
Hasenbosch was born in Holland, probably in The Hague, around 1695. When he was a teenager, his father—by then a widower—moved with his daughters to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies, leaving his son behind in the Netherlands. Batavia is now part of modern-day Indonesia.
In 1714, Hasenbosch joined the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), known in English as the Dutch East India Company. He served as a soldier and travelled to Batavia, where he remained for about a year. Between 1715 and 1720, he served in Kochi, in what is now India. He returned to Batavia in 1720 and was promoted to the rank of corporal.
On 17 April 1725, following a stop in Cape Town, South Africa, Hasenbosch was convicted of sodomy. As punishment, he was marooned on Ascension Island on 5 May 1725. The volcanic island lies approximately 1,600 kilometres from Africa and 2,300 kilometres from South America.
He was left with a tent, clothing, prayer books, writing materials, seeds, and about a month’s supply of water. Hasenbosch kept a diary documenting his attempt to survive on the barren island. Unable to find a reliable supply of fresh water, he reported drinking his own urine, as well as the blood of turtles and seabirds. It is believed he died of thirst after approximately six months, though his body was never found.
In January 1726, British sailors discovered Hasenbosch’s abandoned tent and diary. The original diary was later lost, but English translations were published in Britain beginning in 1726 under the title Sodomy Punish’d. These editions provide insight into his final months.
Over the centuries, multiple versions of the diary appeared in print, often attributed to an unknown sailor. With each new edition, inaccuracies and embellishments accumulated, reducing the reliability of later versions.
In 2002, Dutch historian Michiel Koolbergen conclusively identified the marooned man as Leendert Hasenbosch. His research was published posthumously in 2006 in the book Een Hollandse Robinson Crusoë, later translated into English as A Dutch Castaway on Ascension Island in 1725.
Two years after Hasenbosch was marooned, the Dutch East India Company ship Zeewijk was wrecked on the Houtman Abrolhos islands off the coast of Western Australia in June 1727. The survivors managed to live on the islands due to the presence of fresh water and abundant food sources, and later built a vessel from the wreckage to escape. In December 1727, two boys from the crew were convicted of sodomy and marooned on separate islands, where they were left to die.
