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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more …

March 13

1884 – Hugh Walpole, English novelist, born in Aukland, New Zealand (d.1941); As a young man, the future dean of English letters who could make or break literary careers and reputations hero-worshiped Henry James, more than forty years his senior. Walpole called him "my very dear Master," and James responded with "darling Hugh" and "my belovedest little Hugh." Little Hugh, the story goes, once attempted to seduce the virginal James, who promptly broke into tears and cried, "I can't...I can't"

A discreet homosexual, Walpole spent much time and energy looking for "the ideal friend". Of the many he considered, Walpole's greatest loves were the Danish tenor Lauritz Melchior and a married Cornish constable named Harold Cheevers who had once been revolver champ of the British Isles. Like E.M. Forster's London bobby, Cheevers, often described as his 'chauffeur and companion', was brawny and masculine and stayed with Walpole until the day the writer died.

Walpole's first novel was The Wooden Horse (1909) and Fortitude (1913) his first great novelistic success. He worked for the Red Cross in Russia during World War I, an experience that fed his The Dark Forest (1916) and The Secret City (1919).

Walpole's commercial success enabled him to maintain an expensive lifestyle, with a flat in Piccadilly, London, and a large house, Brackenburn, on the slopes of Catbells overlooking Derwentwater in the Lake District.

Walpole was a prominent member of 1930s London gay literary society along with Noel Coward, Ivor Novello, W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood.

He died from a heart attack in 1941 while doing volunteer war work in Keswick in Cumbria where he lived and based many of his most enduring stories.

1950 – David Bergman is an American writer and English professor at Towson University, in Towson, Maryland part of the University System of Maryland. He was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, grew up in Laurelton, New York, and graduated from Kenyon College (1972) and earned a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University (1978). He is openly gay and Jewish.

Bergman is the author of Gaiety Transfigured: Gay Representation in American Literature and the editor of Camp Grounds: Style and Homosexuality.

He received the George Elliston Poetry Prize for his work Cracking the Code. With Karl Woelz, he won a Lambda Book Award for editing Men on Men 2000. The Men on Men series showcases the remarkable talent of gay literary writers. These venerable collections of short stories have become a gay literary institution, launching the careers of several writers.

1960 – John Greyson, born in Nelson, British Columbia, is a Canadian filmmaker, whose work frequently deals with gay themes. Greyson is also a video artist, writer and activist; he is currently a professor at York University, where he teaches film and video theory and film production and editing.

He directed several short films, including The Perils of Pedagogy, Kipling Meets the Cowboy and Moscow Does Not Believe in Queers, before releasing his first feature film, Pissoir, in 1988. Pissoir is a response to the homophobic climate of the period and, particularly, to police entrapment of men in public washrooms (toilets) and parks and police raids on gay bathhouses.

Greyson's next film was The Making of "Monsters", a short musical film produced during Greyson's residency at the Canadian Film Centre in 1991. The film deals with the 1985 murder by five adolescent males of Kenneth Zeller, a gay high school teacher and librarian, in Toronto's High Park. The film is a fictional documentary about the making of a movie-of-the-week, entitled "Monsters," in which the young murderers are depicted as psychopathic monsters, rather than 'normal' teenage boys. The film features Marxist literary critic Georg Lukács as the producer of "Monsters," with Bertolt Brecht (played by a catfish) as director. Greyson's film was pulled from distribution when the estate of Kurt Weill objected to its use of the tune of Mack the Knife. Greyson had originally received copyright permission to use the tune, but it was withdrawn, apparently because Weill's estate objected to the film's gay theme. Although copyright is no longer an issue, having lapsed in 2000, fifty years after Weill's death, the film has not yet been re-released by the Canadian Film Development Corporation.

Greyson directed the feature length films Zero Patience and Lillies.

Greyson's other films include Un©ut (1997), The Law of Enclosures (1999) and Proteus (2003). He has also directed for television, including episodes of Queer as Folk, Made in Canada and Paradise Falls.

Greyson is popular with film critics but controversial with some audiences because of the flamboyant theatricality and thematic complexity of his filmmaking style, and the frank depiction of gay themes in his work. His feature works have all been commercially unsuccessful.

In summer 2013, Greyson traveled to Egypt, where he and fellow Canadian, Dr. Tarek Loubani, were detained without charges, in a cell with 38 other people. Reports indicate the two were on their way to Gaza to carry out medical relief work, but were forced to remain in Cairo as the crossing was closed. They remained in detention from August 16 to October 5, 2013.

Greyson's union, the York University Faculty Association, ran a campaign via LabourStart in an effort to force the Egyptian government to release him. Greyson and Loubani began a hunger strike on September 16 to protest their treatment.

The Canadian government announced on October 5 that Greyson and Loubani had been released, however they were unable to board a flight to Frankfurt due to remaining on a no-fly list issued by government prosecutors. On October 10, Greyson and Loubani were cleared for departure and left Egypt for home the next day.

1984 – Noel Fisher is a Canadian actor. He is known for his portrayal of Mickey Milkovich on the Showtime series Shameless, as well as his portrayal of Cael Malloy on the FX series The Riches. He played Ellison "Cotton Top" Mounts in the Emmy Award–winning miniseries Hatfields & McCoys as well as Vladimir, a 1500-year-old vampire in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, and Michelangelo in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its sequel Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. He also has had a substantial number of roles in shows such as Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, Lie to Me, Bones, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Fisher was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. He began his acting career at the age of 14 in the television movie, The Sheldon Kennedy Story. During his time as a young actor in Vancouver, he was encouraged to "take many different classes" and "fell in love" with piano, which he studied for eight years.

He debuted in 1999 with The Sheldon Kennedy Story, a sport drama movie on the ice hockey player Sheldon Kennedy. His performance landed Fisher his first Gemini Awards nomination. He gained a second nomination with the TV series Godiva's in 2005. He played Brian Gibbons in Final Destination 2 in 2003, one of his first roles in an American movie. From 2007, Fisher became more known by public due to the critically acclaimed FX series The Riches, portraying Cael, the conniving and clever son of Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver.

Fisher has received many accolades for playing Mickey Milkovich, a gay thug character on Shameless. Though Fisher is straight, his sexuality is often questioned in interviews. He has responded to the controversy as such,

"I don't look at Mickey as a gay character. I look at him as a person, who happens to be gay. I think it's weird how we, as a society, try to put the LGBT community in a box, when in fact, they are just people. They have the same complexities as you and me. That's how I look at Mickey, as a complex person."

1991 – "Paris is Burning" premieres in the U.S. It is a documentary that shows New York’s drag scene in the 1980s, directed by Jennie Livingston. It chronicles the ball culture of New York City and the African-American, Latino, gay, and transgender communities involved in it. Some critics consider the film to be an invaluable documentary of the end of the "Golden Age" of New York City drag balls, and a thoughtful exploration of race, class, gender, and sexuality in America. In 2016, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

2009 – Shawn Woodward is charged with aggravated assault after physically attacking 62-year-old Ritchie Dowrey in Vancouver's Fountainhead Pub, allegedly because "He's a faggot. He deserved it." Although Dowrey survived the assault, he suffered brain damage serious enough that he will likely remain in intensive care for the rest of his life.

In November 2010, Woodward was sentenced to six years in jail for what the judge described as an "unprovoked attack, driven by virulent homophobia." Vancouver Provincial Court Judge Jocelyn Palmer rejected Woodward's evidence that Dowrey had touched his crotch before the assault. She said the evidence showed that Dowrey — who was celebrating his retirement that night — had twice approached Woodward and asked if he could buy him a beer and had merely touched his shoulder. However, Woodward responded: "'I'm not like that,' meaning 'I'm not gay,'" said the judge.

As he was leaving the pub, Woodward sucker-punched Dowrey and then stepped over him to get to the door, Palmer said. "Mr. Dowrey had no opportunity to defend himself," the judge said.

The judge said sentencing should reflect circumstances that showed the crime was fuelled by bias, prejudice or hatred based on such things as race, religion or sexual orientation. Palmer found there were aggravating homophobic factors in the assault and noted Woodward had shown no remorse for his actions.

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