Roosevelt Stamp

As America prepares to ponder whether they will vote a former First Lady into the Commander-in-Chief’s chair in the oval office, a First Lady of years past serves as a sort of posthumous poster child for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) communities. In the modern world, a notorious movie director has always been so flamboyantly gay that no one ever expected him to “come out,” and he never officially did, despite being on the cover of LGBTQ magazines and making some of the most queer cinema of the past four decades.

Binary Sexuality Online

One woman muses on gender preference identity as expressed in the mostly binary world of social networking and dating websites. While “bisexual” exists as a category that women can choose, she finds that most truly bisexual women shun the label, and self-identify as queer or some other expression of radical non-heteronormative identity.

Most of the bisexual action that claims that name, the observer notes, is happening in a sub-culture of straight couples looking for a woman to join them. The majority of queer women she sees on the site do not want to be associated with that notion, to be thought of as a switch-hitter that can add a new twist to an existing lineup for the man and woman seeking a female partner online.

Evolving Labels

Some social sites are changing to allow a more diverse range of gender identity and preference distinctions in the labels that users self-attach when they are on the web. Some note that this aligns the digital world more closely with the real world, where “radical pansexuals and gender outlaws bump up against closeted conservatives and old-fashioned swingers, where the queer underworld intersects with the straight underworld—where everyone is bisexual and no one is bisexual. It’s a constant contradiction. It feels like home.”

Gay Cinema

Although he has made movies as gay as they come, from “Polyester to Pink Flamingos,” director John Waters never officially came out as gay. “They never had the nerve to ask me if I was gay,” he says of the media of past years, in a recent interview where he discusses his new book, “Carsick,” that is now out in paperback.

Waters also recalls a recent talk that he was invited to give at a commencement ceremony for the Rhode Island School of Design, in which the school awarded him the honorary degree Doctor of Fine Arts. “I got thrown out of every school I ever went to, so it was great,” the sharp-tongued movie industry legend noted. Now that holds a doctorate degree, he observed that “my fee just went up. I’m writing Oxycontin prescriptions. And I want tenure.”

First Lady of Equality

While some have raised the claim that Eleanor Roosevelt was a closeted lesbian, others simply see her for what she definitely was proud to be in her lifetime: an unwavering supporter and friend to many in the LGBTQ community. In the early years of the 20th century, homosexuality was still very much a crime, and carried a heavy negative social stigma in the United States and Britain.

Despite these undeniable facts, Eleanor joyfully spent much of her time in the company of gay and lesbian friends and associates. One of the most noted relationships in her life beyond her lifelong marriage to Franklin D. Roosevelt was with her dear friend and confidant, the journalist Lorena Hickok. Eleanor and “Hick” worked and traveled together, and historians have gone over hundreds of affectionate letters that the two women exchanged over the years.

Being Who They Are

A flamboyant movie director, who many see as the very essence and epitome of what it is to be gay, was never asked, and never told anyone that he was gay, it was just assumed to be so. He laughs about it now, and yet it raises questions about gay identity in popular culture. A first lady of a past century had best friends and travel companions who were openly gay in a time when that was a very dangerous place to be. People are learning to live with equality in society, with quality role models past and present.