August 24th

08-24-1944 – 07-06-1992 Marsha P. Johnson – Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey. She was an African-American drag queen and gay liberation activist. Named Malcolm Michaels, Jr. at birth, she became a transgender rights activist and popular figure in New York City’s gay and art scene from the 1960s to the 1990s. One of the best-known drag queens of the times, Johnson was a leader in clashes with the police amid the Stonewall Riots. Later in life, she became an AIDS activist with ACT UP. Once, appearing in a court the judge asked Marsha, “What does the ‘P’ stand for?” Johnson gave her customary response, “Pay it No Mind.” Marsha was a member of Andy Warhol’s drag queen performance troupe, Hot Peaches. She was also photographed by Warhol in his series of polaroids featuring drag queens.

8-24-1929 – 10-31-2020 Betty Dodson – Born in Wichita, Kansas. She is an American sex educator. Dodson was trained as an artist and exhibited her erotic art in New York. Her first one-woman show was in 1968. Dodson considers too much is made of sexual labels and embraces them all by calling herself a heterosexual, bisexual lesbian. For her research on sexuality, she earned a degree from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. In 2010, Dodson published a memoir, Sex by Design. Dodson maintains a private practice in New York City and has a website. She has appeared on The View and in a Season 4 episode of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit! that dealt with abstinence

Dobson died in 2020 from cirrhosis in a Manhattan nursing home.

08-24-1957 Stephen Fry – Born in Hampstead, London, England. He is an English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist. Besides working in television, Fry has contributed columns and articles for newspapers and magazines and written four novels and three volumes of autobiography. He also appears frequently on BBC Radio 4. In 2013, Fry presented Stephen Fry: Out There, a two-part documentary in which he explores attitudes to homosexuality and the lives of gay people in different parts of the globe. Fry has been the reader for the British versions of all of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series of audiobooks. Fry was in a 15-year relationship with Daniel Cohen, which ended in 2010. In 2014, Fry was listed number 4 on the World Pride Power list. On January 6, 2015, The Sun reported that Fry would marry his partner, stand-up comedian Elliott Spencer. The couple married on January 17, 2015, in the Norfolk town of Dereham.

08-24-1958 – 05-02-2006   Lisa A. Barnett – Born in Dorchester, Boston, Massachusetts. She was an American Lambda Literary Award-winning science fiction writer. For more than two decades she lived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire with author Melissa Scott. Barnett died from breast and brain cancer in 2006.

08-24-1965 Gro Skartveit – Born in Finnøy, Norway. She is a Norwegian politician for the Liberal Party. She was originally a member of the Christian Democratic Party but left in 2001 after her announcement that she was a lesbian. The Christian Democratic Party of Norway opposes gay marriage and gay adoption rights. She served as a deputy representative to the Norwegian Parliament from Rogaland during the term 2005-2009. On the local level, she has been a member of Stavanger city council and is a member of Rogaland county council. She is also a member of the board of the Western Norway Regional Health Authority.

08-24-1993   Austin P. McKenzie – Born in Mesa, Arizona. He is an American actor most known for his role as Melchior Gabor in the 2015 revival of Spring Awakening. McKenzie has also appeared on television and film. He is out as gay and is currently dating actor Kevin McHale.