[rating=4]
Released on July 11th, 1969

A strong re-release package accompanies the 40th anniversary of the Bowie classic.

Classic pop alienation and otherness from Pop’s greatest ever alien other.

On the world of gay television after Queer as Folk

QaF changed how television dealt with homosexuality, and it also led to the Dr Who revival.

Queer as Folk first aired on 23 February 1999. There were reactions from the tabloids, from Conservative MPs and most surprisingly from Becks Beer, who withdrew their sponsorship.

The 1980s backlash: the 25th anniversary of the raid on Gay’s the Word bookshop

On April 10, 1984, ‘Operation Tiger’ went into effect. Customs and Excise officers walked into Gay’s the Word bookshop in London, told its customers to leave, and seized all imported titles.

At that time, Gay’s the Word was the only bookshop in the UK in which one could buy Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series. Maupin’s books were amongst those seized, as were titles by Gore Vidal and Tennessee Williams.

The significance of the pan-sexual conqueror.

2335 years ago Alexander the Great, King Alexander III of Macedon, died having forged an empire that extended from Greece to Asia Minor, Egypt, Persia and northwestern India.

“The subject of Alexander’s sexuality is unavoidable. In the Classical and Hellenistic Ages, sexuality was far more fluid than it is in Judaeo-Christian culture, to riot in understatement.”

25/40: An interview with Greta Schiller, the director of Before Stonewall

Greta Schiller talks about the 25th anniversary of her influential documentary film Before Stonewall and the nasty world of today’s Creationists.

The important thing is that when a documentary such as Before Stonewall is screened in the context of today people get a longer view of history.

Timeline of 2009 LGBT Anniversaries, Part 1 of 4

In the forty years since the Stonewall riots, and the emergence of the gay liberation movement, a process of historical archaeology has been underway. Its aim has been to make the hidden past visible. This timeline of anniversaries is a look into what we now know of this hidden past, and also the revealed present.

529 AD, Justinian decreed that persons who engaged in homosexual sex were to be executed. He believed that homosexual activity was the chief cause of earthquakes.

Timeline of 2009 LGBT Anniversaries, Part 2 of 4

In the forty years since the Stonewall riots, and the emergence of the gay liberation movement, a process of historical archaeology has been underway. Its aim has been to make the hidden past visible. This timeline of anniversaries is a look into what we now know of this hidden past, and also the revealed present.

1924, The Society for Human Rights, the first homosexual rights organization in America, founded in Chicago by Henry Gerber.

Timeline of 2009 LGBT Anniversaries, Part 3 of 4

In the forty years since the Stonewall riots, and the emergence of the gay liberation movement, a process of historical archaeology has been underway. Its aim has been to make the hidden past visible. This timeline of anniversaries is a look into what we now know of this hidden past, and also the revealed present..

1969, The Stonewall Riots. In the early hours of June 28, police raided the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street. The patrons of the bar fought back.

Polari Facts looks at some 2009 anniversaries.

Milestone gay anniversaries in 2009. Including the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots to Thomas Jefferson’s proposal that “sodomites” be punished with castration. Yikes!

Alan Turing, the who man decoded many of the Nazi ciphers in World War II, including the Enigma code, was repaid by his country with criminal prosecution and enforced “treatment” for his homosexuality. He committed suicide 55 years ago.

The renowned activist Peter Tatchell on the 40th anniversary of the GLF.

Peter Tatchell looks back on 40 years of gay liberation, and in particular the GLF and its significance.

All that prejudiced nonsense was turned upside down with the advent of GLF in London in 1970. While politicians, doctors, priests and journalists saw homosexuality as a social problem, GLF said the real problem was society’s homophobia.