February 14th

02-14-1847 – 07-02-1919   Anna Howard Shaw – Born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England. When she was four, she and her family emigrated to the United States and settled in Lawrence, Massachusetts. She was a leader of the women’s suffrage movement in the U.S. She was also a physician and one of the first ordained female Methodist ministers in the U.S. In 1887, Shaw met Susan B. Anthony. Shaw played a key role in the merging of Susan B. Anthony’s suffrage group with that of Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s. It became the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and beginning in 1904, Shaw was its president for the next eleven years. Shaw’s life-partner was Lucy Elmina Anthony, niece of Susan B. Anthony. Shaw and Anthony lived together for thirty years, and she was by her bedside when she died. Her 1915 speech “The Fundamental Principle of a Republic” was listed as #27 in American Rhetoric’s Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century.

02-14-1890 – 12-16-1956 Nina Hamnett – Born in Tenby, Pembrokeshire, Wales. She was a Welsh artist, writer, and an expert on sailors’ chanteys (maritime songs sung by the sailors as they worked). Called the Queen of Bohemia, Hamnett was unconventional and openly bisexual. Her friends included Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Serge Diaghilev, and Jean Cocteau. In 1932, she published Laughing Torso, a memoir about her bohemian life. It was a best seller in the UK and the US. In 1956, she fell out of her apartment window. It was never determined if she fell because she was drunk or if it was suicide.

02-14-1961 Shannon Price Minter – Place of birth unknown, he grew up in East Texas. He is a transgender man and legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Minter first gained national recognition in 2001 when he represented Sharon Smith, the domestic partner of Diane Whipple who was killed by dog mauling in San Francisco. He won the case. In 2009, Minter was the lead attorney arguing before the California Supreme Court to overturn California Proposition 8. He has taught law at Stanford University, Golden Gate University, and Santa Clara University.

02-14-1962 – 05-07-2002 Kevyn Aucoin – Born in Shreveport, Louisiana. He was an American make-up artist, photographer, and author. He realized he was gay at the age of six. Aucoin moved to New York City and was discovered by Vogue. His career took off after his cover shoot with Vogue’s supermodel Cindy Crawford. At his peak, he would  be booked months in advance and could command as much as $6,000 for a makeup session. Aucoin’s parents eventually came to accept his homosexuality and started a chapter of P-FLAG in Lafayette, Louisiana. Aucoin was diagnosed with a rare pituitary tumor. He died on May 7th, 2002 at the Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, New York.

02-14-1972   Angela Craig – Born in West Helena, Arkansas. She is an American politician from the state of Minnesota representing the 2nd district. In 2018, she defeated the Republican and became the first openly lesbian mother to be elected to Congress, the first woman to be elected in Minnesota’s 2nd district, and the first openly gay person elected to Congress from Minnesota. Crain and her wife, Cheryl Greene, have four children. 

02-14-1984 Wes Goodman – Born in Morrow County, Ohio. He is a former American politician who was the state representative for the 87th District of the Ohio House of Representatives. He is a Republican that voted anti-LGBT and described himself as a conservative Christian and supporter of “traditional marriage.” On November 14, 2017, Goodman resigned his seat after being caught having sex in his office with another man. Following his resignation, additional men came forward saying Goodman had sex with them. Goodman also sought men on Craig’s list. Another example of a Republican hypocrite.