August 28th

08-28-1921 – 03-03-1991 Nancy Kulp – Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. She was an American character actress best known as Miss Jane Hathaway on the CBS television series The Beverly Hillbillies. She appeared in many television shows and in films, including The Bob Cummings Show, I Love Lucy, The Real McCoys, Perry Mason, Forever Darling, The Three Faces of Eve, and The Parent Trap. In an interview with Boze Hadleigh in 1989, she revealed that she was a lesbian. She stated, “As long as you reproduce my reply word for word, and the question, you may use it…I’d appreciate it if you’d let me phrase the question. There is more than one way. Here’s how I would ask it: ‘Do you think opposites attract?’ My own reply would be that I’m the other sort — I find that birds of a feather flock together. That answers your question.”

08-28-1965 Keith Boykin – Born in St. Louis, Missouri. He is an American broadcaster, author and commentator. He was editor of the Daily Voice, a CNBC contributor, and a co-host of the BET TV talk show My Two Cents. Boykin became a Special Assistant to the President and Director of Specialty Media for President Clinton. Once the highest-ranking gay person in the Clinton White House, Boykin helped organize and participated in the nation’s first meeting between gay and lesbian leaders and a U.S. President. Published in February 2005, his book, Beyond the Down Low: Sex, Lies and Denial in Black America focused on the down-low phenomenon. His second book, For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Still Not Enough, was published in 2012.

08-28-1825 – 07-14-1895 Karl Heinrich Ulrichs – Born in Aurich, Kingdom of Hanover (in present-day north-western Germany). He was a German writer who is recognized as the pioneer of the modern gay rights movement. His first homosexual experience was in 1839 at the age of fourteen, having had a brief affair with his riding instructor. He graduated in law and theology in 1846. From 1849 to 1857 Ulrichs worked as an official legal adviser for the district court of Hildesheim in the Kingdom of Hanover. He was dismissed when his homosexuality became open knowledge. In 1862, he came out to his family and friends and began to write essays that explained homosexual love as natural and biological. Ulrichs coined various terms to describe different sexual orientations and gender identities, including lesbians, bisexuals, and intersexual persons. On August 29, 1867, he became the first homosexual to speak out publicly in defense of homosexuality when he pleaded at the Congress of German Jurists in Munich for a resolution urging the repeal of anti-homosexual laws. In 1879 he left Germany and went to Italy. He continued to write and published his works at his own expense. He died in L’Aquila, Italy where he lived as the guest of a local landowner, Marquis Niccolò Persichetti, who gave the eulogy at his funeral. At the end of his eulogy, he said: “ But with your loss, oh Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, the fame of your works and your virtue will not likewise disappear…but rather, as long as intelligence, virtue, learning, insight, poetry, and science are cultivated on this earth and survive the weakness of our bodies, as long as noble prominence of genius and knowledge are rewarded, we and those who come after us will shed tears and scatter flowers on your venerated grave.”

08-28-1957 – Margot Cathleen James – Born in Coventry, UK. She is a British politician and entrepreneur. She is the Member of Parliament for Stourbridge. She is the first openly lesbian MP in the Conservative Party. She was also the second lesbian to serve in the House of Commons. She lives with her partner, Jay Hunt, previously a producer and presenter with the BBC. She ranked in the top 50 on The Independent’s Pink List: of the 101 most influential British gay men and women in 2009.

08-28-1991 Andreja Pejić – Born in Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina. She is a transgender supermodel. She came out on July 25, 2014. Until 2014 she was billed as an “androgynous” male model. She modeled both men’s and women’s fashions. Now she will only model women’s wear. In early 2104, Pejić underwent sex reassignment surgery. In July, she spoke about her transgender identity with an interviewer from People magazine. Pejić became the first openly transgender model profiled by Vogue, in its May 2015 issue.