Author who challenged Playboy’s audience on homosexuality was born on this day
On this day in 1929 author Charles Beaumont was born, and while he was not (as far as we know) LGBTIQ+, he wrote a story that had a significant effect on the fight for gay liberation.
Born Charles Nutt in Chicago he began his writing career in the 1950’s, and legally changed his name to Beaumont. He sold his first short story to sci-fi magazine Amazing Stories in 1950, beginning a career in speculative fiction.
Beaumont is remembered as the first author to have a short story published in Playboy magazine. His work Black Country was the first of hundreds of pieces short fiction the magazine would publish over the decades.
Acclaimed authors including Norman Mailer, Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl, Gabriel García Márquez, Joseph Heller and Margaret Atwood would be published in it’s pages, but Beaumont was the first.
The author’s relevance to the fight for gay liberation came in 1955 when Playboy published another of his short stories A Crooked Man.
It presented a flipside world, where heterosexuality was stigmatised. It told the tale of a man trying to meet his heterosexual lover in a gay venue, she has come in disguise dressed as a man. The couple meet illicitly behind closed door but are discovered.
Printed four years before the Stonewall Riots, it drew a lot of complaints from the magazine’s readers. The magazine’s founder Hugh Hefner voiced his support for the story saying “if it was wrong to persecute heterosexuals in a homosexual society, then the reverse was wrong too.”
Beaumont went on to write many scripts for TV show The Twilight Zone, and also wrote many sci-fi movies.
The author’s life was tragically cut short, in 1963 at just 34 years of age he was struck down by a mysterious illness that saw him age rapidly. He died four years later in 1967; he was 38 but friends have recounted that he looked closer to 90 when he passed. Beaumont was survived by his wife and four children.
Lynn Ann Conway was also born on this day
When Lynn Conway passed away in 2024 at the age of 86, she was remembered for her groundbreaking research in the field of computer science.
Conway was a tech pioneer who in the 1970s developed a new method of microchip design that is now used in everything from smart phones to televisions and modern vehicles.
After she retired from the technology industry she came out as transgender and shared details of her personal journey.
Born in 1938 in White Plains, New York, her career began in the 1960s. After graduating from Columbia University, she joined a top-secret computing project at IBM.
When the company learned of her plans to transition gender she was fired, something she later described as like being forced to start her career all over again with a new identity.
Joining the team at Xerox’s PARC research lab where she worked with California Institute of Technology professor Carver Mead to develop a technique known as ‘Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI)’ which was a set of rules for constructing microchips effectively.
Later in her career she joined the USA’s military research agency DARPA, before moving into academia. In recent years her contribution to computer science has been more widely recognised.
She joined Michigan University’s Engineering’s faculty in 1985 as associate dean for instruction and instructional technology. While she retired from U-M in 1998, Conway remained an influential part of the community—advising faculty members, speaking at events and even having lunch with students on occasion. She retained the title of Emeritus Professor.
In 2020 IBM made a public apology for firing her over half a century earlier.
In recent years Conway began to get recognition for many of the ground-breaking developments she’s been part of in the 1970s, as where previously her male colleagues had been lauded for their work with little acknowledgment of her impact. She coined the term ‘The Conway Effect’ to describe the process of transgender people being side-lined from history.
Speaking of her passing, Michael Wellman, the Lynn A. Conway Collegiate Professor and the Richard H. Orenstein Division Chair of Computer Science & Engineering at Michigan University said Conway was someone who showed great courage.
“Lynn Conway’s example of engineering impact and personal courage has been a great source of inspiration for me and countless others. I was privileged to know her as a colleague and honoured to hold a collegiate professorship in her name,” Professor Wellman said.
Also on this day in history…
Actor William ‘Billy’ Haines was born on this day in 1900, he was one of the first celebrities who refused to stay in the closet for the sake of their career. A film star of the black and white movie era, Haines gave up acting in the mid 1930’s, choosing his partner Jimmie Shields over fame and fortune.
He went to have a successful career as an interior designer. The couple remained together until Haines death in 1973. Actress Joan Crawford famously described them as “the happiest married couple in Hollywood.”
The company Haines founded, William Haines Designs, still exists today.
In 2014 on this day Russia’s popular gay nightclub Central Station was attacked when unknown people fired bullets at the venue. It was just one of a series of attacks the club faced, including the venue being attacked by an unknown gas substance.
The attacks came as Russia introduced it’s anti-propaganda laws against the LGBTIQ+ community. Within a few weeks the club was forced to close, but it later reopened at a new location with improved security including bullet-proof glass.
This post was originally published on January 2, 2020, and has been subsequently updated. mage of Lynn Conway by Charles Rogers. Published via a Creative Commons CC-BYSA 2.5 license.
