Soccer player Robbie Rogers came out on this day in 2013
Soccer player Robbie Rogers came out as gay on February 15th 2013 via a post on his personal blog saying, “Secrets can cause so much internal damage. People love to preach about honesty, how honesty is so plain and simple. Try explaining to your loved ones after 25 years you are gay. I always thought I could hide this secret. Football was my escape, my purpose, my identity. Football hid my secret, gave me more joy than I could have ever imagined”.
Later in the year Rogers signed with LA Galaxy. At the time very few professional soccer players had come out publicly while they were still actively playing the game, a statistic that remains today. Rogers later started dating television producer Greg Berlanti. In 2016 the coupled welcomed their first son via surrogacy. They were married in 2017.
Bill T Jones was born on this day in 1952
American dancer and choreographer Bill T Jones was born on this day in 1952. In 1971 while attending college he met Arnie Zane who at the time was an aspiring photographer. After living in Amsterdam for a year the pair returned to American, with both of them working as choreographers and dancers, and joining a collective that specialised in contact improvisation.
In the early 1980’s they moved to New York, and in 1982 formed the Bill T Jones / Arnie Zame Dance Company. Arnie Zane died of an AIDS related illness in 1988, Jones continued on and many of his subsequent works have been influenced by his own HIV positive status, particularly his 1994 work Still/Here.
Aside from creating over 100 works for his own company, Jones has also worked for many of the leading dance companies around the world, as well as creating the choreography for the musical Spring Awakening. His work on the musical earned him the 2007 Tony Award for Best Choreography. In 2010 Jones was a Kennedy Center Honoree, alongside Oprah Winfrey, Paul McCartney, singer Merle Haggard and composer Jerry Herman.
At the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riot, Jones was named one of the Pride50 trailblazing individuals who created a pathway for equality and recognition.
In 1992 Jeffrey Dahmer was found guilty of 15 murders
On this day in 1992, one of the world’s most infamous serial killers, Jeffrey Dahmer was found guilty of 15 murders that had taken place in Ohio. He later pleaded guilty to a 16th killing that had occurred in Wisconsin.
A sex offender and serial killer, Dahmer murders and dismembered 17 men and boys between 1978 and his arrest in 1991. Dahmer, who was gay, often targeted other gay and bisexual men. Many of his later killings featured necrophilia and cannibalism. Police only became aware of his activities when when one of his intended victims escaped.
He was imprisoned with multiple life sentences. Dahmer was killed in 1994 by another prison inmate.
In 2022 Daher – Moster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story arrived on Netflix. The 10-part series from Ryan Murphy saw actor Evan Peters portray the serial killer on screen.
This post was first published in 2021 and has been subsequently updated.
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