THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY AUGUST 28

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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

AUGUST 28

1825 - This is the birth date of German lawyer, writer and Gay rights pioneer KARL HEINRICH ULRICHS (d. 1895).  He wrote under the pseudonym Numa Numatis till 1868. He was born in Aurich, Hannover and died in L'Aguila, Italy.  He is considered the first person to stand in public for the rights of homosexuals.  And all this before the word homosexual, or heterosexual for that matter, existed.  Ulrichs is seen today as a pioneer of modern Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender movements.

He studied law at the universities of Göttingen and Berlin (1844-47) and became a junior attorney in the civil service of the Kingdom of Hanover. In 1854 he left state service to become a free-lance journalist and private secretary of a representative to the German Confederation in Frankfurt am Main.

In Frankfurt he used embryology to develop a theory of homosexuality that he presented in a series of five booklets (1864-65) titled Forschungen über das Rätsel der mannmännlichen Liebe (Research Into the Riddle of Love Between Men). This he later extended to twelve booklets with the last appearing in 1879.

He assumed that love directed towards a man must be feminine and used the Latin phrase anima muliebris virili corpore inclusa (a female soul trapped in a male body), and he coined the term 'Urning' (Uranian) for such a person. This was a reference to Plato's Symposium in which Pausanias postulates two gods of love, the Uranian (Heavenly) Eros who governs principled male love, whereas the Pandernian (Vulgar) Eros governs heterosexual or purely licentious relations. Károly Mária Kertbeny later invented alternative words such as Homosexualität. 

Ulrichs regarded homosexuals as neither criminal nor sick and tried to organize them for their own welfare. In 1864 he was planning to publish a homosexual periodical and in 1870 he started it but it only lasted for one issue through lack of support.

Also on August 28th. 1867 he became the first self-proclaimed homosexual to speak out publicly for homosexual rights when he pleaded at the Congress of German Jurists in Munich for a resolution urging the repeal of all anti-homosexual laws. He was shouted down.

1968 - On this date the writer, editor and publisher STEVE BERMAN was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He grew up in New Jersey and studied in New Orleans and Los Angeles before returning to New York City and the world of magazine publishing. A seven-time finalist for the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards, Berman has been twice-nominated for Lambda Literary Awards for Charmed Lives: Gay Spirit in Storytelling (co-edited with Toby Johnson) and Wilde Stories.

1971 - About 100 young lesbians, gay men and allies descend on Parliament to make public a brief called We Demand. At the same time, a larger group of some 150-200 people in Vancouver take to the courthouse steps to show support for the Ottawa event. These are the first-ever official Canadian gay demonstrations.

1982 - The first GAY GAMES (Gay Games I) began on this date in San Francisco.  Originally called the Gay Olympics, it was the brainchild of the former Olympian Tom Waddell, whose goals were to promote the spirit of inclusion and participation, as well as the pursuit of personal growth in a sporting event. With the current situation developing in Russia, it is useful to remember that the International Olympic Committee has never been a friend of the LGBT community, suing to prevent the use of "Gay Olympics" which resulted in the change of name to "Gay Games."

1985 – the Academy award-winning American actress and writer RUTH GORDON died on this date (b. 1896). She was perhaps best known for her films roles such as the over-solicitous neighbor in Rosemary's Baby and the eccentric life-loving Maude in Harold and Maude. In addition to her acting career, Gordon wrote numerous well known plays, film scripts and books. Harold and Maude is a cult classic movie directed by Hal Ashby in 1971. The film, featuring slapstick, dark humor, and existentialist drama, centers around the exploits of a morbid young man -- Harold -- who drifts away from the life that his detached mother prescribes him as he falls in love with septuagenarian Maude.

The film is number 45 on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Funniest Movies of All Time, and number 42 on Bravo's 100 Funniest Movies. In 1997, it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. It is particularly noteworthy as having an enormous and zealous cult following.  The film was a commercial failure when it was released and the critical reception was extremely mixed. The screenplay upon which the film was based was written by gay writer, Colin Higgins, based on his M.F.A. thesis, and published as a novel in 1971. The movie was shot in the San Francisco Bay Area. Harold and Maude was also a play on Broadway for some time. The movie has given rise to two new words: "Harolding" (hanging around cemeteries) described by Douglas Coupland in "Harolding in West Vancouver" (1996); and "Maudism" or "Maudianism", the philosophy of living each day to the fullest.

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