August 15th

08-15-1926 – 02-25-2021   Ivy Bottini – Born in New York City, New York. She was an American women’s rights and LGBT rights activist and artist. Bottini realized she had same-sex attractions at an early age but because of what was acceptable at the time, she didn’t pursue lesbian relationships and did marry a man. She helped found the New York chapter of NOW in 1966 and became its president in 1968 and also came out as a lesbian. During this time, Bottini left her husband and moved in with a woman in New York City. In 1970 Betty Friedan engineered the expulsion of lesbians from the National Organization for Women’s New York chapter, including Bottini. In 1971, Bottini moved to Los Angeles. There she founded AIDS Network LA, the first AIDS organization in Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles Lesbian/Gay Police Advisory Board. In 1977, she created and hosted the first Lesbian/Gay radio show on KHJ, a mainstream network in LA. The 2009 film On These Shoulders We Stand profiled her as well as ten other LGBT early activists in Los Angeles.

Her memoir, The Liberation of Ivy Bottini: A Memoir of Love and Activism, as told to Judith V. Branzburg. was published in November, 2018. Bottini died in Florida at the age of 94

 

08-15-1876 – 1951 Margaret Jourdain – Born in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, United Kingdom. She was a prominent writer on English furniture and decoration. Her Regency Furniture (1931) covered new ground in extending the classic period of English furniture design to 1830. She lived with novelist Ivy Compton-Burnett from 1918 until Jourdain’s death in 1951.

08-15-1880 – 05-08-1953 Anna Rüling (born Theodora “Theo” Anna Sprügli) – Born in Hamburg, German Empire. She was a German journalist whose speech in 1904 was the first political speech to address the problems faced by lesbians. One of the first modern women to come out as a lesbian and is the first known lesbian activist. As early as 1904, she was in a relationship with another woman. In 1906, Rüling published a collection of short stories with lesbian themes. From 1914 until the mid-1920s, she was published by Neue Deutsche Frauenzeitung, a right-wing paper with moderate views on women’s rights. She stayed in Germany during the 1930s but did not ever join the Nazi Party. In the 1930s, she quit journalism and worked as a secretary, director, and script-editor at the municipal theatre in Ulm. In 1949, she resumed her journalism career. At the time of her death in 1953, she was one of the oldest female journalists in the Federal Republic of Germany.

1739-1829 Lady Eleanor Butler & 1755-1831 Sarah Ponsonby – The Ladies of Llangollen were two upper-class women from Ireland. Their families lived 2 miles apart. They met in 1768 and quickly became friends. Rather than being forced into unwanted marriages, they left County Kilkenny together in April 1778. They ended up in Wales and set up home at Plas Newydd near the town of Llangollen in 1780. Their life attracted the interest of the outside world and their house became a haven for visitors, mostly writers such as Robert Southey, William Wordsworth, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and Sir Walter Scott. They were also visited by the Duke of Wellington, Josiah Wedgwood, and Caroline Lamb. Queen Charlotte wanted to see their cottage and persuaded the King to grant them a pension. The ladies lived together for the rest of their lives, over 50 years. Their books and glassware had both sets of initials and their letters were jointly signed. They are both buried at St. Collen’s Church in Llangollen.

Carl Siciliano – (DOB Unknown) He founded the Ali Forney Center (AFC) in New York in 2002. He is a nationally recognized advocate and provider for homeless LGBT youth who has been dedicated to this population since 1994. He lives in New York with his partner Raymond. The Ali Forney Drop-in Center is the entry point to the homeless youth program, offering street outreach, case management, primary care, HIV testing, mental health assessment and treatment, food and showers, an employment assistance program, and referral to the Ali Forney housing programs. AFC provides a total of 89 beds. The center was named for an African-American gay and transgender youth who also used the name Luscious. Forney (Luscious) was a peer counselor of and advocate for homeless LGBT youth. He was killed in the streets of Harlem in December 1997. At the time, he was the third young transgender prostitute murdered in Harlem in 14 months. He was 22 years old. The killing has never been solved. Bea Arthur, star of The Golden Girls and Maude, left $300,00 to AFC in her will to help gay homeless youths.