Time Line 1920

Time Line 1920 (Time Line 1910) -- (Main Index) -- (Time Line 1930)

1920, May 8

The birth in Finland of Touko Laaksonen, the erotic artist who would become known to leather men of the world as Tom of Finland. (Died 1992).

1921

The Theatre des Eros, the first theater devoted exclusively to gay plays, is founded in Berlin. [AA]

1921

Publication in France, of Sodome et Gomorrhe by Marcel Proust. [AA]

1921, March 29

The birth in London of actor Dirk Bogarde whose autobiography reveals an adolescent seduction by a man who first mummy wrapped him in bandages.

1921, Sept. 16

The First Congress for Sexual Reform opens at Berlin's Institute for Sexology. [AA]

1922

The Soviet Union re-introduces the concept of "crimes against nature" and begins the process (finalized by Stalin in 1933) of recriminalizing homosexual acts. [AA]

1922

"Miss Furr and Miss Skeene" by Gertrude Stein is published in Vanity Fair. This is regarded as the first published fiction using the word "gay" to refer to homosexuality. [TOL]

1922

The God of Vengance, a play by Sholom Asch featuring a lesbian relationship, is produced in Provincetown, MA. It is the first play on an American stage to depict gay or lesbian characters, and created an outcry the next year when it reached Broadway. [AA]

1922

A petition to abolish Paragraph 175, Germany's sodomy law, is presented to the Reichstag, but without success. The petition was largely the work of Magnus Hirschfeld and his Scientific Humanitarian Committee, and was signed by such prominent intellectuals as Albert Einstein, Herman Hesse, Thomas Mann, and Leo Tolstoy. [AA]

1922, April 22

Bettie Page was born in Nashville, TN She was probably on of the most photographed model of the 20th century.

1922

Birth, in Hailey, Idaho, of Bob Mizer, creator of the Athletic Model Guild and Physique Pictorial. Died: May 19, 1992. [WES]

1923

The word fag is first used in print in reference to gays in Nels Anderson's The Hobo: "Fairies or Fags are men or boys who exploit sex for profit."

1924

The 17th edition of Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia sexualis is published. It will be translated into seven languages. [wd]

1924

In Virginia, "A bill to preserve the integrity of the white race" prohibits white marriage with any non-white. Richmond uses the law to segregate housing, prohibiting residence by any person who could not marry into a majority of families already on the block.

1924

Andre Gide, in If It Die, makes his homosexuality public. He is the first prominent individual in modern times to do so. [AA]

1924, March 4th

Birth of Quentin Rink

1924, Apr. 3

Birth in Omaha NB, of Marlon Brando, who's levis, tight t-shirt, and leather jacket created a look so many copied.

1924, Apr. 15

Birth of Dr. Howard Brown, American public health administrator.

1924, Oct. 24

The New York Times reviews Dr. Joseph Collins' book The Doctor Looks at Love and Life in which Collins concluded that "the majority of homosexuals... are not dengerates". The review is the first time the word "homosexual" has appeared in this newspaper. [AA]

1924, Dec. 10

The Society for Human Rights, founded in Chicago by Henry Gerber (1892-1972), probably the first "gay lib" organization in the US, is granted a charter by the Illinois legislature. It lasted only a few months but during that time Gerber brought out two issues of the country's first gay liberation magazine, Friendship and Freedom. {No copies of this magazine are known to still exist.} [AA] The movement existed for only a few months before being shut down by the police.

1925, Jan. 14

The birth of Yukio Mishima. His erotic drive was always advanced by his fantasies of SM-drawn blood. His suicide (Nov. 25, 1970) blended his erotic fantasies, his political theories and his flair for public drama. [JWB]

1925, May 21

The birth of Dr. Franklin Kameny, founder of the Mattachine Society and spiritual godfather of all contemporary activists for sexual freedoms.

1925, Aug. 2

Birth of Roy Dean, photographer of the American Male in the all together, and often in nature as well. He is also the power behind Colt Studios and, as an artist, is known as both Colt, and in the pre frontal nudity days, as Lugar.

1926

The German physician Albert Moll organizes the "International Conference on Sex Research" in Berlin. [wd]

1926, Feb. 15

Birth of British film director John Schlessinger, whose Midnight Cowboy (1969) was kicked to pieces by the critics for being too gay, and by militant gays for not being gay enough. [Greif 82]

1926

Mother Clap's "Molly House" (a bar or tavern where gay men and transvestites meet) is raided by London police, resulting in Clap's death and the execution at Tyburn of all the men arrested on May 9th, 1926

1926, May 30

Birth of George Jorgensen, who went to Denmark for surgery and became Christine Jorgensen, the world's best known transsexual.

1926, June 3

Birth of Beat poet Allen Gunsberg who horrified W. H. Auden by kneeling and kissing the older poet's trouser cuff. [Greif 82]

1926, Oct. 15

Birth, in Poitiers, France, of philosopher and gay sadomasochist Paul-Michael Foucault. (d. 1984) [wd]

1928

D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chattrley's Lover is published in France. Banned in Britain, it is only in 1960 that a British court declares the book to be art not porn.

1928

Publication of Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness. Calling for the "merciful toleration of inverts," it became the best known book in English with a lesbian theme. [AA]

1928, March 18

Birth of American playwright Edward Albee. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? may or may not really be about a male couple, but is it an SM scene?

1929

The French judge Rene Guyon starts work in Thailand on his Studies in Sexual Ethics, claiming that an individual has a right to free sexual expression as long as the rights of others are not harmed. [wd]

1929, Jan 12

The publishers of Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness are served with a summons in an effort to censor the lesbian novel.

1929, May 22

Katharine Lee Bates, author of America the Beautiful dies.

1929, Aug. 26

Birth in Chicago of Chuck Renslow, who with his partner Dom "Etienne" Orejudos, was to father Kris Studios, The Gold Coast, Man's Country, International Mr. Leather, and other enterprises. More recently, Chuck has been instrumental in founding The Leather Archives & Museum and the Chicago Eagle.

1929, Aug. 29

Birth of English born American poet Thom Gunn. [Greif 82]

1929 October 16

A Reichstag Committee votes to repeal Paragraph 175. The Nazis' rise to power prevents the implementation of that vote.

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