February 7th
02-07-1962 Garth Brooks – Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is an American singer and songwriter. As of 2019, Brooks is the only artist in music history to have released seven albums that achieved diamond status in the United States. Brooks is a straight supporter for gay rights. In a 1999 interview, Brooks said, “[…]But if you’re in love, you’ve got to follow your hear and trust that God will explain to us why we sometimes fall in love with people of the same sex.” Lyrics to his song, We Shall Be Free, features the line, “When we’re free to love anyone we choose,” has been interpreted as a reference to gay relationships. Brooks won a 1993 GLAAD Media Award for the song. In 2000, Brooks appeared at the Equality Rocks benefit concert for gay rights and sang a duet with openly gay singer George Michael. Musician Betsy Smittle, who died in 2013, was Brooks’ half-sister and a lesbian. He credits her with some of the inspiration for his support for same-sex marriage.
02-07-1977 Diandrea “Dee” Rees – Born in Nashville, Tennessee. She is an American screenwriter and director. Her feature films include Pariah (2011), Bessie (2015), and Mudbound (2017). She has also written and directed for different television series, including Empire, When We Rise, and Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams. Rees and Virgil Williams wrote the screenplay for Mudbound and they have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Also nominated from the film is Mary J. Blige for Best Supporting Actress. Rees is the first black woman to direct a film for which an actor or actress was nominated for an Academy Award. She is also the first black lesbian woman to be nominated for an Oscar in the Best Adapted Screenplay category. Rees describes Pariah as semi-autobiographical. Since 2017, Rees has been in a relationship with poet and writer Sarah M. Broom.
02-07-1947 Margie Adam – Born in Lompoc, California. She is an American musician and composer. She is one of the pioneers of the Women’s Music movement. Her song We Shall Go Forth became an anthem for the lesbian-feminist movement and is now part of the Political History archives in the Smithsonian Museum. Upon the posthumous release of Dusty Springfield’s recording of one of Adam’s songs (Beautiful Soul), Adam was quoted in Universal Records press materials, which were included in Pleiades Records publicity material: “When Dusty Springfield decided to record my song Beautiful Soul in 1974, her brave act of self-expression inspired a young lesbian songwriter to keep on writing and eventually to risk performing and recording music about women loving women…” Adam also had one of her songs recorded by Peter, Paul, and Mary. Selections from her albums Naked Keys and Soon and Again were often used as interludes on National Public Radio.
02-07-1874 – 02-12-1944 Olive Eleanor Custance – Born in London, England. She was a British poet, part of the aesthetic movement of the 1890s, and a contributor to The Yellow Book, a British literary periodical. Custance joined the London library circle around such figures as Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, Ernest Dowson, and John Gray in 1890 when she was only sixteen. She was bisexual and married to Lord Alfred Douglas (lover of Oscar Wilde). She had lesbian relationships with Natalie Clifford Barney and Renée Vivien in Paris.