American composer Aaron Copland died on this day in 1990, just a few weeks after his 90th birthday.

Born in New York in 1900, his family were immigrants who had come to America from Lithuania via Scotland, along the way changing their name from Kaplan to Copland. The young Aaron Copland began composing music at an early age and went on to study at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

After further study in Paris, and travelling around Europe he returned to the USA where he began his career as a composer.

His works involve slow changing harmonies, which many feel capture the wide openness of the American landscape and evoke a feeling a patriotism.

Appalachian Spring is one of the most admired works by composer Aaron Copland, surpassed perhaps only by his earlier work Fanfare for the Common Man.

Appalachian Spring (A Ballet) was commissioned by choreographer Martha Graham, and the work made it’s debut at the USA’s Library of Congress on October 30, 1944 with Graham dancing the lead role.

Copland later spoke about how it amused him when people told him the score perfectly captured the feeling of the Appalachian Mountains, because the decision to name the piece Appalachian Spring came after the music was written. He had originally simply titled the piece Ballet for Martha, and it was Graham who suggested naming the piece, taking inspiration from a Hart Crame poem.

Over his life Copland created over 100 works. He was very private about his personal life, but it widely accepted that he was gay and comfortable with his sexuality. Throughout his life he had a number of companions who travelled with him, they were usually talented young men who worked in the arts.

Jason Collins was born on this day in 1978

Professional basketball player Jason Collins was born on this day in 1978. Born in Los Angeles, just a few minutes ahead of twin brother Jarron, he became the first person in his sport at a professional level to share that they were gay.

He made his announcement at the end of the 2012-13 season, the following year he was a free agent and didn’t play again until 2014 when he was signed by the Brooklyn Nets. While Collins made the history books in basketball, he is also the second player to come out while playing professional sports in the USA. Soccer player Robbie Rodgers who was playing for the LA Galaxy shared his sexuality in 2013.

During his career Collins played for the Houston Rockets, Memphis Grizzlies, Minnesota Timberwolves, Atlanta Hawkes, Boston Celtics, Washington Wizards and the Nets.

In 2025 Collins shared that he was undergoing treatment for brain cancer.

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Alvin Ailey was one of the most acclaimed choreographers of modern dance.

Ailey’s life was cut short in 1989 when he died aged just 58. He requested that Doctors announce his cause of death as terminal blood dyscrasia, so that his aging mother would not have to deal with the social stigma of announcing that his was an AIDS related death.

Ailey was born in 1931 in Texas and grew up during the great depression, a time that saw racial segregation and violence against black people. Ailey was raised by his single mother.

The family moved to Los Angeles in the early 1940’s, Ailey’s mother finding work helping the war effort.

In his early 20’s Ailey started to learn to dance at Lester Horton’s Dance School in Los Angeles, the first multi-racial dancing school in the USA.

In the early 50’s Ailey moved to San Francisco where he met Margueritte Johnson, and the two created a nightclub act called ‘Al and Rita’, Years later Johnson would change her name to Maya Angelou, and become one of America’s most recognised poets and authors.

In 1954 Ailey formed the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre in New York City. At first the company only had African American dancers, but after a few years the company changed it’s approach and focused on being a multi-racial dance company.Ailey would go on to create 79 works for the company and they toured to many countries around the world.

On December 9, 1989, over 4,000 mourners attended his funeral at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The funeral, which lasted two hours, featured his friend Maya Angelou reading an oral interpretation of her poem For Alvin Ailey, drumming by Max Roach, and reading of a statement from President George H. W. Bush.

Today Alvin Ailey’s American Dance Theatre continues as one of the world’s leading modern dance companies, employing over 30 performers and commissioning new works from the world most innovative choreographers.

Find out more about Alvin Ailey at the company’s website. December 1st, the anniversary of Ailey’s death is also World AIDS Day.

OIP Staff, this post was first published in 2013 and has been updated.

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He was known for his witty observations on life and society, and his flamboyant style of dress, and a headline grabbing defamation trial that exposed that he was homosexual and lead to his imprisonment.

He was born in 1854 in Dublin. Earlier in his career he wrote poems, a play and other literary endeavors. He later travelled to the USA where he gave lectures on ‘The English Renaissance’ in art. When he returned to London he gave public talks about his travels in the USA.

His only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray was published in 1890 and captured people’s imagination. He then wrote in quick succession four plays which were commentaries on English society.

An Ideal Husband, The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Windemere’s Fan and A Woman of No Importance have all become regular performed works for over a century.

In 1895 Wilde was found guilty of gross indecency and sentenced to two years imprisonment after a court ruled that he had engaged in homosexual activity.

Wilde had been involved in a civil legal battle with the father of his lover Lord Alfred Douglas, known as Boasie. His father, the Marquess of Queensberry, confronted the pair about their relationship on many occasions, but when he left his calling card at Wilde’s club inscribed “For Oscar Wilde, posing somdomite [sic]”. Wilde decided to take legal action suing for defamation.

The trial became a cause célèbre as details of Wilde’s private life were revealed in court. Queensberry had private detectives unearth details of Wilde’s dealings with sex workers and Wilde withdrew the action. The court declared Queensberry was innocent, and that Wilde was a homosexual.

This lead to Wilde being arrested by police for gross indecency. The resulting trial was reported all over the world and raised the profile of homosexual people dramatically.

Wilde was found guilty with the judge imposing the maximum sentence and declaring he wished he could have add more years. Justice Wills described the sentence as “totally inadequate for a case such as this”, and that the case was “the worst case I have ever tried”.

After two years in prison Wilde was released, he immediately left for France and never returned to England. Wilde died three years later and spent the final years of his life in poverty and exile. 

In 2017 he was given a posthumous pardon for his offenses, one of 50,000 British men pardoned under what is known as the Alan Turing law.

Wilde’s life was dramatised in the 1997 film Wilde with Stephen Fry portraying the playwright and Jude Law playing Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas. In 2018 Rupert Everett made his directorial debut with the film The Happy Prince where he also played Wilde. The film covers the period of Wilde’s life after he’s released from prison.

His works remain eternally popular, constantly performed around the world. In recent years there have been landmark productions in the West End of The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest.

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Billy Strayhorn was born in Dayton Ohio in 1915.

He originally aimed to be a composer of classical music, but as a black man he found there were few opportunities, so he turned his attention to jazz.

He first saw Duke Ellington perform in 1933 in Pittsburgh, and met him five years later when Elltington returned for another show. He explained how he would have arranged one of Ellington’s pieces differently, and soon Ellington was inviting his band members to hear Strayhorn play.

He worked alongside Duke Ellington for three decades and his well-known compositions include Take the ‘A’ Train, Chelsea Bridge, A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing, and Lush Life. 

Many of his works have become jazz standards and covered by hundreds of artists over the decades. While Strayhorn is remembered as one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time.

Strayhorn has a long-term relationship with jazz pianist Aaron Bridgers from 1939 until 1947. He was up front about his sexuality and was close friend of Dr Martin Luther King. Later in his career he worked with Lena Horne and put out some solo albums too.

He passed away in 1967 after battling esophageal cancer for many years. He was 51 years of age. At the time of his death it was reported that he died in the arms of Lena Horne, but this was true, she was away on tour when he passed. He died in the arms of his partner Bill Grove, something that newspaper would not report at the time.

After he died Ellington recorded a tribute album …And His Mother Called Him Bill. It won a Grammy Award n 1968. It contained some of the final works written by Strayhorn, including titles that documented his cancer journey. On the album is U.M.M.G. which stands for Upper Manhatten Medical Group, and his final composition Blood Count.

The final track on the album is a solo version of Strayhorn’s Lotus Blossom played by Count Basie at the piano, his band came be heard in the background packing up after the recording sessions.

In 2023 Billy Porter brought a show paying tribute to Strayhorn to the stage. Porter grew up in the same Pittsburgh neighbourhood.

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The author is best known for her coming-of-age autobiographical novel Rubyfruit Jungle which was released in 1973.

In the 1970s Brown was active in a number of civil rights campaigns and criticised the marginalisation of lesbians within feminist groups.

Her writing career began in the late 1960s in New York where she wrote for feminist publication Rat and also contributed to the newspaper Come Out! that was published by the Gay Liberation Front.

Brown does not consider herself to be a lesbian writer, and has expressed the belief that most people are bisexual.

In a 2015 interview with The Washington Post she spoke about the different labels applied to sexuality and gender.

“I love language, I love literature, I love history, and I’m not even remotely interested in being gay. I find that one of those completely useless and confining categories. Those are definitions from our oppressors, if you will. I would use them warily. I would certainly not define myself — ever — in the terms of my oppressor. If you accept these terms, you’re now lumped in a group. Now, you may need to be lumped in a group politically in order to fight that oppression; I understand that, but I don’t accept it.” Brown said.

Brown has been a prolific author writing poetry, mystery novels, screenplays and works of non-fiction. All together she’s authored over 80 different works.

In Willy Russell’s acclaimed play Educating Rita the central character picks the name Rita for herself after reading Rubyfruit Jungle.

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On this day in 1835 James Pratt and John Smith were executed by hanging in front of Newgate Prison in London. They are the last two men who were executed in England for the crime of sodomy.

The pair were arrested in August of 1835 when they were visiting a man named William Bonhill who rented a room in a boarding house near Blackfriars Road in Southwark. Bonhill had lived in the boarding house for 13 months and his landlord later told the court that he often observed that pairs of men would visit him regularly.

The landlord said that on the 29th of August he saw Pratt (30 years) and Smith (40 years) visit Bonhill. Suspicious of what they might be doing in the room he found a vantage point at a nearby stable where he tried to see through the room’s window. Later he and his wife spied on the two men through the keyhole of the door, claiming they witnessed the two men being sexually intimate.

He broke down the door to confront the two men. Bonhill was not present but returned shortly afterwards with a jug of ale. The landlord fetched a policeman, and all three men were arrested.

Pratt was married with children and worked as a groom, some reports suggest the older man Smith was an unmarried labourer, but other reports say he was married and worked as a servant.

Both men appeared in court on September 21st, where they appeared before Baron Gurney who found them guilty of breaking the Offences Against the Person Act. He sentenced them to be executed by hanging.

Following their sentencing, Magistrate Hensleigh Wedgewood, who had committed them to stand trial, wrote to the Home Secretary arguing that the sentence was unjust. Wedgewood highlighted those wealthier men in society charged with the same crime would often be able to post bail, and then simply move abroad and live in exile.

While Pratt and Smith were being held at Newgate Prison (pictured above) they were observed by writer Charles Dickens, who was being given a tour of the prison. Dickens wrote about seeing the two men in their cell in his book Sketches by Boz. 

Over the September and October court sessions seventeen individuals had been sentenced to death, fifteen of them were given a remission on their sentences via a royal pardon. All except Pratt and Smith.

Their wives had pleaded for clemency for their crimes, as had the landlord and his wife, but it was to no avail. A large crowd gathered in front of the prison to watch the two men be executed on the morning 27th November.

Bonhill was sent to Australia, leaving England on 5th November 1835 he arrived in the Van Diemen’s Land penal colony on 21st February 1836. He died five years later, aged 74.

The statements made by the landlord and his wife in the case have been described as being somewhat dubious by modern legal experts. It is unlikely they could have seen all the events they claimed during a brief peak through a keyhole, and some of the things they claim to have seen are not anatomically possible.

The two men were posthumously pardoned for their crimes in 2017 when the United Kingdom enacted the Alan Turing Law, which removed all former convictions for the crimes relating to being homosexual.

Their story is remembered in the play Particular Disposition written by Benjamin Fulk, and in the song 45 George Street by English folk band Bird in the Belly.

OIP Staff, this post was first published in 2022.

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Queen singer Freddie Mercury passed away on this day in 1991. The music superstar died almost three decades ago but has been a constant fixture in popular culture since his passing.

Mercury achieved international fame in the 1970’s and 1980’s as the lead singer of British rock band Queen, his flamboyant style and impressive vocal abilities made him stand out from other musicians of the time. Throughout their career Queen combined a variety of musical influences into their pop-rock sound and they topped the charts around the globe.

Don’t Stop Me Now, Bohemian Rhapsody, We Are the Champions, We Will Rock You, Who Wants to Live Forever, It’s a Kind of Magic, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Radio Gaga and I Want to Break Free are just a handful of the many hits the band enjoyed. Mercury also released a solo album Mr Bad Guy and collaborated with opera star Montserrat Caballé on an album that combined opera and pop sounds.

Mercury was bisexual, and while he did make multiple comments about his sexuality during his life, he did not publicly align himself with LGBTI causes. The day before his death he released a statement confirming that he had been tested for HIV and received a positive diagnosis. Mercury requested the media respect his privacy.

There has been speculation that Mercury was ill for some time, which increased after he appeared looking gaunt in promotional videos for Queen’s most recently releases.

Less than 24 hours later the news broke, he had passed away.

Since his passing a posthumous Queen album has been released, and his life was depicted in the 2018 biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. There’s been countless documentaries and books about his life and legacy.

Mercury’s passing is seen as a significant point in increasing public awareness about HIV as he was one of the most famous people to be lost to the disease. Following his death the remaining three members of Queen founded the Mercury Phoenix Trust which has raised millions of dollars for HIV research and support services.

In April 1992 a star-studded fundraising concert was held at Wembley Stadium. In front of a crowd of 72,000 people Liza Minnelli, Def Leppard, David Bowie, Annie Lennox, Lisa Stansfield, Extreme, Seal, Guns and Roses, Elton John, Paul Young, Metallica and others joined the remaining members of Queen to perform their hits. The band’s collaboration with George Michael on Someone to Love became a chart-topping hit.

Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor continued the band teaming up with former Free singer Paul Rogers for several years, before collaborating with Adam Lambert in recent years.

The story of Queen was brought to the screen in the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody.

George Michael performed ‘Jesus for a Child’ for the first time in 1994

At the 1994 MTV Europe Awards George Michael performed a new song Jesus to a Child. The song was a homage to Micheal’s partner Brazilian fashion designer Anselmo Feleppa who had died of an AIDS related illness the previous year.

At the time George Michael had not publicly shared that he was gay. The world would find this out when he was arrested for cruising in a Los Angeles public toilet in 1998.

Michael later shared that following Feleppa’s death he had been unable to write music, but Jesus to a Child, which reflected on thier relationship, was written in under an hour.

The song would not be released until 1996 and would serve as the lead single to Michael’s Older album. The album saw George Michael return to the album charts after a five- and half-year break that involved legal battles with his record company.

Whenever the singer performed the song in concerts, he took a moment to dedicate it to Anselmo. The video for the song is filled with symbolic images including two men holding hands while trapped inside boxes.

Lou Reed’s ‘Walk of the Wild Side’ was released in 1972

Lou Reed’s song Walk on the Wild Side was released on this day in 1972. It’s one of the first pop songs to make reference to someone being transgender.

The song shares the stories of several characters, based on real people, and touches on gender identity, male sex workers, oral sex, and drug use. Name checked in the tune are many of the luminaries from Andy Warhol’s New York studio The Factory, including Holly Woodlawn, Candy Darling, Joe Dallesandro, Jackie Curtis and Joe Campbell.

The Names Project is formed and leads to the AIDS Memorial Quilt

In 1985 at an AIDS Candlelight vigil in San Francisco activist Cleave Jones conceives the Names Project. It resulted in the creation of the AIDS Memorial Quilt which has become one of the largest community art projects of all time.   The final quilt as of 2020 if assembled weighs an estimated 54 tones.

Learn more about the AIDS Memorial Quilt here.

OIP Staff, this post was first published in 2021 and has been updated.

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On this day back in 1992 the Keating government decreed that gay, lesbian and bisexual people could openly serve in the military. Prior to this personnel who were discovered to be same sex attracted were dismissed from their roles.

The decision followed a complaint to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission from a female reservist who claimed the ban was discriminatory. The commission called for a review of the longstanding ban leading to debate amongst politicians.

On November 23rd 1992 Prime Minister Paul Keating announced the decision to remove the ban, despite Defence Minister Robert Ray having stated in support for the current rules.

At the time Keating said the decision to lift the ban “reflected community support for the removal of employment discrimination and brings the ADF into line with tolerant attitudes of Australians generally… The ADF acknowledges there are male and female homosexuals among its members and has advised the Government that these members are no longer actively sought out or disciplined because of their sexual orientation.”

Alexander Downer, who was the Opposition spokesperson for defence, said if his Liberal party was elected the ban would be reinstated if the chiefs of the defence forces asked for it. However when the Howard government came to power they did not follow through with the promise.

When the cabinet documents of the period were released decades later it was revealed that Defence Minister Robert Ray and military leaders were firmly against the move to allow gays and lesbians into the services.

The wide range of opinions with the cabinet on the issue had already been shared by politician Neal Blewett in his 1999 memoir A Cabinet Diary. At the time Blewett was the Minister for Social Security.

It would be 2010 before transgender people were allowed to serve in the military. In 2002 the Defence Force Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Intersex Information Service (DEFGLIS) was founded providing support for LGBTIQ+ service personnel and their families.

In 2021 Defence Minister Peter Dutton ordered that IDABOBIT (International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism and Transphobia), could no longer be marked by defence force personnel. The ban was overturned when the Albanese government was elected.

In 2021 a Royal Commision into veteran suicides commented. Among those giving testimony at the inquiry were many LGBT personnel who had been discharged from the armed forces over their sexuality.

OIP Staff, This post was first published in 2021 and has subsequently been updated. 

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English composer Benjamin Britten was born on this day in 1913. A central figure in music in the 20th century he composed well known operas, orchestral and vocal music. He is best known for the opera Peter Grimes, War Requiem and The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. 

Born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, Britten was the son of a dentist, and he showed a talent for music from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music and privately with the composer Frank Bridge.

He garnered attention with his 1934 composition A Boy is Born. The choral work sets a variety of religious based texts to music and was scored as a cappella for a boys’ choir. HIs 1945 opera Peter Grimes made him world famous.

Over the next 28 years he wrote 14 more operas, making him one of the most prolific composers of opera in the 20th century. Alongside large scale works he also wrote smaller pieces designed for smaller venues and companies. He often wrote works with particular singers in mind, many of his works were written specifically for his partner, the tenor Peter Pears.

Prior to his death Britten was given a peerage becoming Baron Britten of Aldeburgh in June 1976. He passed away in December of the same year from congestive heart failure.

Listen to Lawrence Power play Britten’s Elegy for a Solo Viola. 

Billie Jean King is also celebrating a birthday

Tennis champion Billie-Jean King (nee Moffitt) was born on this day in 1943. A former World Number 1 she won 39 Grand Slam titles during her long career.

Regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time she was named Time magazine’s person of the year in 1975. King has been a long standing advocate for gender equality and social justice.

In 1973 she took part in a series of tennis matches dubbed the Battle of the Sexes which saw male and female tennis players take each other on. King beat her male counterpart Bobby Riggs, it’s seen as a defining moment in the acceptance of women’s sport. In was dramatised in the 2017 film Battle of the Sexes starring Emma Stone and Steve Carrell.

King married her husband Larry in 1965. In the early 1980’s King acknowledged she’d been in a relationship with her secretary for many years, when she was the subject of a palimony lawsuit. She remained married to her husband for several more years, but the couple divorced in 1987 when she fell in love with her doubles partner Ilana Kloss.

King and Kloss were married in 2017.

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Sting wrote a song about him, a film about his life made John Hurt a star, and he had a memorable turn opposite Tilda Swinton in Orlando. Today we remember the marvelously caustic Quentin Crisp.

Born Denis Pratt in the town of Sutton, Surrey in 1908, he changed his name to Quentin Crisp when he arrived in London in the 1930’s aged in early 20’s.

He began painting nails, dying his hair a vivid crimson colour, and dressing effeminately. He worked as a life model for artists. He applied to join the army during World War II but was turned away because of his “sexual perversion.”

Crisp’s documentation his life working as life model and living as an openly gay effeminate man began with his first autobiography The Naked Civil Servant.

In 1976 the first volume of his autobiography was adapted for television, the program made a star of both actor John Hurt and the man he was portraying.

Crisp soon developed a one man show, which he toured around the United Kingdom and also took to New York. In 1981 he relocated to the Big Apple where he lived for the remainder of his life.

In New York, the raconteur famously had his phone number publicly listed, and would chat to anyone who called him, he often accepted dinner invitations from complete strangers – as long as they agreed to pay the bill.

Sting wrote the song An Englishman in New York about Crisp and he appeared in the music video for the track. Sting said the song was a little about himself, and a lot about Crisp – who he described as a personal hero. Boy George also listed Crisp as a teenage inspiration his his autobiography Take It Like a Man.

In the 1990’s Crisp appeared in several films, playing Queen Elizabeth in Sally Potter’s Orlando, he also appeared in the AIDS drama Philadelphia and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar. Alongside his autobiography he also published a series of book on modern manners.

In 1993  Britain’s Channel 4 broadcast Crisp’s Christmas Message as an alternative to the annual speech form Queen Elizabeth II.

Throughout his life the provocative author often made comments that upset other members of the LGBTI community, he was criticised for saying AIDS was a fad, and homosexuality was a disease.

Crisp passed away on November 21, 1999, he was 90 when he died of a heart attack.

In 2017 the third and final installment of his memoirs were published. The Last Word was written by Crisp with the help of his best friend, Phillip Ward, who tape-recorded and later transcribed Quentin’s words between 1997-1999.

Remembering Joey Stefano 

Adult film star Joey Stefano died on this day in 1994. He’d found fame as in the adult film industry as a “hungry bottom” and he quickly became a top selling performer in the era of VHS.

Born Nicholas Anthony Iacona Jr, he grew up in Chester, Pennsylvania. When his father died when he was just 15 he struggled with substance abuse. He found success in films after completing a six month substance abuse program.

Stefano stood out from the other adult film performers of his time. He appeared as a model in Madonna’s Sex book, and author Charles Isherwood wrote a biography of his life titled Wonder Bread and Ecstasy. 

Over his five year career appeared in 58 gay adult films, two of Madonna music videos as well as her Sex book, and was a popular burlesque performer at New York’s Gaiety Theater. Controversially Stefano ‘outed’ media mogul David Geffen during an interview in 1990.

Sadly he relapsed into drug use and was found dead in motel room in Hollywood in 1994. The coroner determined his death was caused by a speedball overdose, a mixture of cocaine, heroin, morphine and ketamine was found in in system.

Aside from his life being documented in the book by Isherwood, British celebrity photographer David Bret published a biography about Stefano in 2015. He was also the subject of a play Homme Fatale: The Fast Life and Slow Death of Joey Stefano, which was by Australian playwright Barry Lowe.

The play was performed in Perth at the 2000 Perth Fringe Festival.

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