Before the Second World War,
Rose Robertson did secretarial work. During the war, as part of her work for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in the UK, Robertson parachuted into occupied France to spy on German troop deployments and act as a courier.
Her acquaintance there with a gay couple in the French Resistance, and, after the war, friendship with gay lodgers, led her to found Parents Enquiry, Britain's first helpline to support parents and their lesbian, gay and bisexual children, an organization which she operated for many years.
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posted by Morrigan
on Nov 7, 2011 -
37 comments
Pioneer and tireless activist for the LGBT civil rights movement, Frank Kameny was fired from his job as an astronomer for the US government in the late 1950s because he was gay. He
co-organized the Mattachine Society of Washington,
campaigned for equal treatment of gay employees in the Federal government, was the
first openly gay candidate for Congress and worked to remove the classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder from the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
The Library of Congress holds his papers, the
Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History includes in its collections Kameny's picket signs carried in front of the White House in 1965, his home has been made a DC Historic Landmark, and a street near Dupont Circle was declared Frank Kameny Way in 2010. In 2009, John Berry, Director of the Office of Personnel Management, formally apologized to Kameny on behalf of the United States government.
Frank Kameny died on
National Coming Out Day this October 11, 2011.
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posted by Morrigan
on Oct 12, 2011 -
56 comments
