8history

8-6-1913 - Dr Magnus Hirschfeld, who crusaded for the repeal of sodomy laws in Germany and founded two organizations for homosexuals, spoke at the International Medical Conference in London and met with British gays to discuss forming a London branch of the Scientific Humanitarian Committee. Hirschfeld coined the term “transvestite” and was reportedly a crossdresser. It would be the first of several pre-Nazi gay liberation organizations in Berlin.

8-7-1885 - The Labouchere Amendment was passed in England. It provided for a term of imprisonment not exceeding two years, with or without hard labor, for any male person guilty of an act of gross indecency with another male person in public or in private. The effect of this was that any and every form of male homosexual expression that offended the feelings of a jury became criminal. This law was dubbed the "blackmailer's charter" and cast a shadow of criminality over British homosexual life until its repeal 82 years later.

8-7-1995 - In the Washington D.C. transsexual Tyra Hunter died from injuries sustained in a hit and run accident after an emergency medical services tech chose to ridicule her rather than treat her.

8-9-1999 - The Daily Camera, a Boulder, CA newspaper ran a transphobic editorial that waned people about "bathroom issues" and those who "change gender from day to day."

8-11-1994 -The government of Columbia issued a protest against the display of a painting by Chilean artist Juan Davila in London. The painting presented nineteenth-century South American independence hero Simon Bolivar as a transsexual.

8-12-1986 - Supermarket tabloid The Weekly World News ran an article about gay opposition to the US Supreme Court decision in Bowers v Hardwick, which upheld Georgia's sodomy laws. The Headline
read- "Gays threaten civil war…Onward sissy soldiers! Peeved pansies predict revolt!"

8-14-1777 - The French diplomat and captain of the Dragoons, La Chevaliere D'Eon began her journey home to France after the English King Louis XVI acknowledged that "he" was actually a she. Only after her death in 1810, was it discovered that D'Eon was a MTF transsexual.

8-14-1997 - Members of the American Psychological Association voted to limit attempts to cure homosexuality and agreed to require the reading of a statement to gay patients affirming that being gay is normal and healthy. Charles Socarides, president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, said it was an attempt to brainwash people, and called homosexuality a purple menace which threatens proper gender distinction. (His openly gay son, Richard Socarides, was openly gay and the White House liaison to the gay community.)

8-19-1934 - Renee Richards was born. She was named Richard Henry Raskind after King Richard the Lion Hearted.

8-20-1791 - Hannah Snell was admitted to Bethlem Hospital (asylum) at aged 68. Snell was one of Britain's best know FTM soldiers. Why Snell was actually hospitalized is not known.

8-20-1881 - Dr. E.C. Spitzka of New York presented the case of Lord Cornbury, the colonial governor of New York and New Jersey in the early 1700's, in a Chicago medical journal. Cornbury frequently appeared in public wearing female clothing. Spitzka described Cornbury as a sexual pervert, "a degraded, hypocritical and utterly immoral being."

8-21-1865 - An article titled "A Strange Story" was published in The Guardian about the British Surgeon General, Dr. James Barry. It reported the fact that Mr. Barry was discovered to have a female anatomy after his death, "...thus it stands as an indisputable fact, that a woman was for 40 years an officer in the British service, and fought one duel and had sought many more, had pursued a legitimate medical education, and received a regular diploma, and had acquired almost a celebrity for skill as a surgical operator."

8-21-1983 - The Broadway musical version of "La Cage Aux Folles" opened.

8-22-1972 - John Wojtowicz and Sal Naturale attempted to rob the Chase Manhattan Bank in Brooklyn to get money for Wojtowicz's lover's sex change operation. Naturale was shot to death, and the incident became the subject of the movie "Dog Day Afternoon." Wojtowicz was sentenced to 20 years.

8-27-1976 - Renee Richards, a transsexual tennis player, was barred from playing tennis in the women's division because she was still "biologically a man."

8-30-1994 - A panel of magistrates in London dismissed a paternity suit against singer Boy George for lack of evidence.