Fuck Yeah Famous Queers

Permalink American television producer Allison Adler.She has worked on series like Family Guy, Chuck, Still Standing and No Ordinary Family. Adler was formerly in a relationship with actress Sara Gilbert, with whom she has two children. Born May 30, 1967.
Permalink English transgender activist and law professor Stephen Whittle.During his childhood, he discovered he was sexually attracted to both men and women, and had a strong desire to be a man, grow a beard and have a hairy chest. When he was 16, he read an article about a person who had transitioned from female to male.In 1974, he came out as transgender after attending a women’s liberation conference in Edinburgh, Scotland as a member of the Manchester Lesbian Collective. Whittle co-founded the Manchester TV/TS group, the first support group for transgender people in the United Kingdom in 1975.He also founded and co-ordinated the U.K.’s FTM Network, which he led until 2007. Whittle is also the founder of Press for Change, one of the U.K.’s most successful trans rights lobby groups. He has actively worked to change the U.K.’s laws and social attitudes about transgender individuals, and allowed a television special to be made about his phalloplasty surgery in 2002. After the U.K.’s Gender Recognition Act came into effect in 2005, he got a new birth certificate and legally married his partner, Sarah Rutherford. They have four children. That same year, Whittle was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his services to transgender issues. Born May 29, 1955.
Permalink French philosopher, writer and journalist Jean-Paul Aron. He wrote two novels and three plays during his lifetime, and many essays on the mid-20th century middle-class in France.Aron was one of the first Frenchmen to die of AIDS, and challenged many perceptions of the disease in the country.May 27, 1925 - Aug. 20, 1988.
Permalink American politician Kim Coco Iwamoto.She is a second term member of the Hawaii Board of Education, and in 2006 when she was elected, became the first transgender person to win statewide office. Iwamoto holds a A.A. in Merchandising from the Fashion Institute of Technology, a B.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, and a J.D. from the University of New Mexico School of Law.She publicly opposed Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot proposition and constitutional amendment removing equal marriage in California, because she said it reminded her of her Japanese mother’s internment in World War II. Born May 26, 1968.
Permalink American television writer and producer Greg Berlanti.He was a writer and producer on Dawson’s Creek, its Young Americans spin-off, and co-created Everwood and Jack & Bobby.Berlanti also wrote and directed the 2000 film Broken Hearts Club, and co-wrote Green Lantern. He’s currently the executive producer of Brothers & Sisters.Born May 24, 1972.
Permalink Roberta Cowell, the first known person in the United Kingdom to have gender reassignment surgery.She was a Spitfire pilot in World War II and a racing driver after the war. She had a vaginoplasty in 1951. She had a long friendship with Michael Dillon, whose transition was overseen by a mutual doctor in the ’50s.Born May 21, 1921.
Permalink American actor Paul Winfield.His first major film role was alongside Sidney Poitier in The Lost Man, and he appeared on the sitcom Julia in the ’60s and ’70s. He portrayed Martin Luther King, Jr. in a 1978 miniseries. His best actor Academy Award nomination for 1972’s Sounder was a major achievement, because only three other black Americans (Dorothy Dandrige, Poitier and James Earl Jones) had received nominations at that point. He also starred in Huckleberry Finn, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, The Terminator, Mars Attacks! and Of Mice and Men. He was also known for his voice talents, having done voiceovers for cartoons like Spider-Man, The Magic School Bus, Batman Beyond, Gargoyles and The Simpsons. Winfield won an Emmy Award in 1995 for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series, for Picket Fences. May, 22, 1939 - March 7, 2004.
Permalink British-Canadian journalist, novelist, playwright and activist Peter Wildeblood. He began his career writing for the Daily Mail in Leeds, England, and then in London, where he had an affair with a Royal Air Force corporal named Edward McNally. A series of letters he wrote McNally were later presented at a trial where he was convicted of ‘conspiracy to incite acts of gross indecency.’ He, along with Lord Montagu of Beaulieu and the Lord’s cousin Michael Pitt-Rivers, were sentenced to prison time. Pitt-Rivers and Wildeblood got 18 months in jail, while the Lord only got a year. In 1955, a year after his conviction, he published a book called Against the Law, about his experiences with the horrible Wormwood Scrubs prison. He then began actively campaigning for gay rights.He later became a television producer, moved to Canada, and later worked for the CBC. He also wrote a book of lyrics for Peter Greenwell’s music for The Crooked Mile. He is considered to have had a huge role in the decriminalization of homosexuality in the U.K. in 1967. May 19, 1923 - Nov. 14, 1999.
Permalink American musician Jane Wiedlin.A member of The Go-Go’s, Wiedlin worked in fashion design and created lyrics on clothing patterns in her early twenties. She and Belinda Carlisle founded The Go-Go’s in 1978. They were originally a punk band, but turned into a pop band in the early ’80s. Wiedlin left the band in 1984 to pursue a solo career, but the band reformed several times in the ’90s and in 2000 with a new studio album.Wiedlin has also appeared in several films, such as Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Clue. Born May 20, 1958.
Permalink Above at the far left, American drag queen and actor Lori Shannon(real name Don Seymour McLean). Shannon performed drag shows at the Finocchio club in San Francisco, and also wrote a column in theBay Area Reporter. He also played female impersonator Beverly LaSalle on three episodes of U.S. sitcomAll in the Family. May 18, 1938 - Feb. 13, 1984.