GBLT Contributions To Society?

[Sunstone]

When GBLT folks aren't busy tearing down traditional marriage and thus bringing about the utter collapse of society, they have been busy making contributions to society. Oscar Wilde immediately comes to mind as someone who was gay and contributed immeasurably to the arts and theatre. Who are some others?

 

[Tigress]

Peter Allen and Elton John also come to mind. Uhm, here's a list. lol

 

[Booko]

AlanTuring!!!!

Would any of us be here without him???

 

[Sunstone]

Peter Allen and Elton John also come to mind. Uhm, here's a list. lol

No cheating by digging up a list! LOL! I'm interested in finding out how up on their GBLT history people are!

Alan Turing, the British mathematician who was instrumental in the invention of the computer, is another example of a gay who made a major contribution to society.

EDIT: I can't believe I've just been beaten to it by a chicken.

 

[lizskid]

Ok, well, let's go with the theater...
Michael Bennett: A Chorus Line, Dreamgirls, etc.
Oscar Wilde
Sir Ian McKellen
Cole Porter

 

[Sunstone]

Michelangelo
Leonardo
Aristotle (probably)

 

[lizskid]

Now I'll take The Arts for $400, Sunny!

Donatelo (sculptor)
da Vinci (varied artist/designer)
maybe Shakespeare (writer)
Lord Byron (poet)
Christopher Isherwood (writer)
WH Auden (writer)
Tennessee Williams (writer)

ummmm.....I know more, I'm sure I do.....

oh, crap! Walt Whitman!!
I was a Lit. minor in college.

 

[standing_alone]

Some have thought that Henry David Thoreau may have been gay.
William Shakespeare was likely bisexual (if not gay, Norrie Epstein wrote an essy called Was Shakespeare Gay? which makes a case)
Alexander the Great was gay or bisexual.

 

[Sunstone]

Standing Alone, Feathers, Circle One (famous after 2016 for their having together created first GBLT yard gnomes)

 

[Sunstone]

Amy Lowell (Poet)

 

[standing_alone]

From Epistemology of the Closet by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick:



"Has there ever been a gay Socrates?
Has there ever been a gay Shakespeare?
Has there ever been a gay Proust?

Does the Pope wear a dress? If these questions startle, it is not least as tautologies. A short answer, though a very incomplete one, might be that not only have there been a gay Socrates, Shakespeare, and Proust but that their names are Socrates, Shakespeare, Proust..."


I quote this as it's one of my favorite readings from Literary Analysis and I recommend anyone interested in "queer theory" who hasn't read this (which I'd be shocked if anyone intersted in that hasn't read this) to read it.

 

[Sunstone]

The question I had in my mind when creating this thread is why have GBLT people been so beneficial to society? GBLT folk might make up 2% of the population, yet they probably account for 10% or 15% of the creative contributors to society. Why that disproportionate result?

 

[Booko]

Alan Turing, the British mathematician who was instrumental in the invention of the computer, is another example of a gay who made a major contribution to society.

EDIT: I can't believe I've just been beaten to it by a chicken.

And you *forgot* Turing's contributions to the Allied victory in WW2 through his work breaking the Enigma code, so neener neener!

 

[Booko]

The question I had in my mind when creating this thread is why have GBLT people been so beneficial to society? GBLT folk might make up 2% of the population, yet they probably account for 10% or 15% of the creative contributors to society. Why that disproportionate result?

And that despite the fact that some of them have died young due to persecution for being gay (Wilde, Turing).

Thanks for this thread, Uncle Phil. My daughter was looking for a research paper topic, and she just now settled on Turing.

Oh and photographers:

Mapplethorpe!

However controversial some of his work supposedly is, I can tell you in gardening circles his botanical work is just...adored.

I know a few fellow Master Gardeners whose houses are like Mapplethorpe galleries.

 

[standing_alone]

The question I had in my mind when creating this thread is why have GBLT people been so beneficial to society? GBLT folk might make up 2% of the population, yet they probably account for 10% or 15% of the creative contributors to society. Why that disproportionate result?

I don't know about the disproportionate result, but what I find most interesting is that a good number of the contributions are in the arts, especially literature (or maybe I just see this result, being an English major ). I wonder if gays are drawn to fields of self-expression, since throughout much of history, homosexuality was suppressed by society. But probably not since I'm really just pulling this out of my...

 

[Mike182]

Graham Norton
Julien Clarey
Sir Ian McKellen (i think he's been mentioned - i love his voice!)
Elton John
George Michael
the blonde one from westlife
me
every other LGBTQ member of RF
Pete Burns


no doubt that over the next few days, i'm gonna have random gay celebs jump into my brain - i'll post more as they come to be

 

[Sunstone]

I don't know about the disproportionate result...

It would be an interesting exercise to mentally substract from society all the contributions of gays and see what the result would be.

 

[Buttercup]

The music world comes to mind first for me...

Freddie Mercury of Queen
Boy George
George Michel
Michel Stipe of R.E.M
K.D. Lang
Melissa Etheridge
The Indigo Girls

 

[lizskid]

Well, Rhonda, if you're going to go there....then....

Johnny Mathis
Lance Bass
Tevin Campbell
The Nylons
The Village People
Suede
Billy Strayhorn
Leonard Bernstein
Danny Kaye


several other rumored...or hoped....lol!

 

[Buttercup]

I could name quite a few gay interior designers....but you guys wouldn't know any of them. There are tons though.