THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY DECEMBER 3

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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

DECEMBER 3

1830 – BARON FREDERICK LEIGHTON, English sculptor and painter, born (d: 1896); Leighton’s painting, long in disfavor, but coming back in style as more and more people learn to appreciate the Victorian Renaissance Revival, was enormously popular in his lifetime. Since Leighton’s sympathies were with the Italian Renaissance tradition, his paintings – with their often mythological subject, monumental compositions, and figures clad in classical drapery – are among the last examples of the grand traditional manner in European art. Leighton’s paintings appealed to a large and influential segment of the Victorian public, which craved an art of “high seriousness.” Because he played by the established rules of the game, Leighton, whose sexuality was widely known, pursued his career and his pleasure with discretion. He died at 65, the day after being made a baron, the first English painter to be so honored.

1895 - Pioneering psychologist and daughter of Siggy, ANNA FREUD was born on this date (d.1982). A pioneer in the field of child psychoanalysis, Freud neither conformed to conventional heterosexual expectations nor identified herself explicitly as a Lesbian. Even though it is impossible to know whether Freud was homosexual, it is relatively easy to conclude that she was decidedly not heterosexual in any typical sense.

Anna Freud's primary relationships were with her father, with whom she lived and cared for until his death in 1939, and two close female friends, Lou Andreas- Salome and Dorothy Burlingham. Burlingham became Freud's life partner and companion, although the sexual nature of their intimacy remains unclear. Burlingham moved to Vienna in 1925 to begin her work in psychoanalysis. She lived with the Freud family in their apartment at Berggasse 19, which at that time included Sigmund Freud, his wife Martha, her sister Minna Bernays, and Anna Freud. She and Anna Freud became close friends and began their life-long collaboration on developing children's therapies and psychoanalysis. They worked and lived together for the rest of their lives. Freud helped raise Burlingham's children from a previous marriage.

1946 - On this date the American historian, activist, scholar and self-described "community based" researcher ALLAN BERUBE was born (d. 2007).  The award-winning author was best known for his research and writing about homosexual members of the American Armed Forces during World War II. He also wrote essays about the intersection of class and race in gay culture, and about growing up in a poor, working class family, his French- Canadian roots, and about his experience of anti-AIDS activism.

Among Bérubé's published works was the 1990 book Coming Out Under Fire, which examined the stories of Gay men and women in the US military between 1941 and 1945.

1957 – Today is the birthday of the American director, producer, playwright and actor DEL SHORES. Born in Winters, Texas Shores' first made a splash with his play Daddy's Dyin' (Who's Got the Will?) which saw a 1987 debut in Los Angeles. The comedic play was made into a film in 1990. Perhaps Shores' best known play is the 1996 comedy Sordid Lives, which centered around the Texan Ingram family and touched on LGBT themes. In 1999 Shores wrote and direct the screen version of Sordid Lives. Eight years later Shores produced 12 prequel episodes of "Sordid Lives: The Series" which aired on US Gay cable channel Logo.

Shores has two daughters Caroline and Rebecca from a previous marriage. He is reportedly married to his partner and co-producer, Jason Dottley, since 2003, and they remarried in a state where same-sex weddings are recognized in 2008.

1977 - On this date CBS broadcast "The Gay Bar" an episode of Norman Lear's series Maude. Bea Arthur portrayed Maude and in this episode she fought with her neighbor, Dr. Harmon, over the opening of a gay bar in town. Dr. Harmon is portrayed as bigoted and ignorant in his hatred of Gay people and his opposition of the opening of the bar. Meanwhile Maude's husband Arthur forms the group "Fathers Against Gay Society" (F.A.G.S.). Craig Richard Nelson starred as a patron of "The Gay Caballero." In the end the bar is opened outside of the city limits where it can't be legally stopped.

1994 – ELIZABETH GLAZER, AIDS activist died (b. 1947); major American HIV-AIDS activist and child advocate married to actor and director Paul Michael Glaser. She contracted HIV very early in the modern AIDS epidemic after receiving an HIV-contaminated blood transfusion in 1981 while giving birth. Like other HIV-infected mothers, Glaser unknowingly passed the virus to her infant daughter, Ariel, through breastfeeding. The Glasers' son, Jake, born in 1984, contracted HIV from his mother in utero.

The virus went undetected in all three infected family members until they underwent HIV testing in 1985, after the Glasers' daughter, Ariel, began suffering from a series of unexplained illnesses. Ariel had developed full-blown AIDS at a time when the medical community knew very little about the disease and there were no available treatment options. Early in 1987, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration finally approved AZT as an effective drug to extend the lives of AIDS patients, but the approval only extended to adults. With their daughter's condition rapidly deteriorating, the Glasers fought to have her treated with AZT intravenously. However, the treatment came too late, and the child eventually succumbed to the disease late in the summer of 1988.

Mourning the loss of her daughter and determined to save her surviving child, Jake, along with other HIV-positive children, Glaser co-founded the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation in 1988. Glaser's work raised public awareness about HIV infection in children and spurred funding for the development of pediatric AIDS drugs as well as research into mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV. (Significantly, Glaser's children received the virus through two of the most common means of mother-to-child transmission.) Before her death in 1994, Glaser entered the national spotlight as a speaker at the 1992 Democratic National Convention. She criticized the federal government's under-funding of HIV-AIDS research and its lack of initiative in tackling the HIV-AIDS crisis.