September 27th

09-27-1965 Rhona Cameron – Born in Dundee, Scotland. She is a Scottish comedian. Her memoir, Nineteen Seventy-Nine: A Big Year in a Small Town, she tells about growing up as a lesbian in the small fishing town of Musselburgh, East Lothian, Scotland, detailing her teenage years and father’s illness. Cameron had a relationship with comedian Sue Perkins and writer Linda Gibson. She is a supporter of LGBT Youth Scotland and Pride London.

09-27-1882 – 06-04-1983   Adele Goodman Clark – Born in Montgomery, Alabama. The family moved to Richmond, Virginia in 1894. At the Art School of Richmond, she met fellow artist Nora Houston who became her life partner until her death in 1942. Clark’s activist career began in 1909, when she and 18 other women, including Houston, founded the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia. When the Art Club of Richmond dissolved in 1917, Clark and Houston opened a studio together which offered art history, painting, and drawing classes. In the months before the 1920 elections, when there were threats and rumors of sham challenges against black women voters, Clark and Houston invited black leaders to their studio to plan ways to confront the issue. They decided that the white suffragists would patrol polling locations in cars. Clark and Houston continued to be involved in the interracial movement after the 1920 election. Both women also participated in art-related activism, campaigning for the resurrection of the Academy of Sciences and Fine Arts, which opened in 1930. It later became the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

 

09-27-1974 Carrie Brownstein – Born in Seattle, Washington. She is an American musician, writer, actress, and comedian. Brownstein wrote and appeared in a series of comedy sketches with Saturday Night Live actor and writer, Fred Armisen. They were then developed into an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning satirical comedy TV series, Portlandia. In 2006, she was the only woman to be recognized by Rolling Stone as one of the 25 “Most Underrated Guitarist of All-Time.” Brownstein’s memoir, Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl, was released on October 27, 2015. She was outed as bisexual to her family and the world by Spin when she was 21 years old. In 2006, The New York Times described Brownstein as “openly gay.” In a November 2010 interview for Willamette Week, she stated that she definitely identifies as bisexual. She said, “It’s weird because no one’s actually ever asked me. People just always assume, like, you’re this or that. It’s like, OK. I’m bisexual. Just ask.”

09-27-1982 Jason Wu – Born in Taipei, Taiwan. Wu moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada at age nine. He is a Manhattan-based Taiwanese-born Canadian fashion designer. He is most famous for designing dresses for Michelle Obama, including the ones she wore for the first and second inauguration of American President Barack Obama. Wu’s early clients included Ivana Trump, January Jones, and Amber Valletta. He also worked extensively with drag queen RuPaul, designing six RuPaul dolls. In June 2013, he was named as the Art Director of German fashion house Hugo Boss overseeing the entire womenswear collection. Wu is openly gay.

09-27-1945 – 04-19-1989   George Whitmore – Born in Denver, Colorado. He was an American playwright, novelist, and poet. He also wrote non-fiction accounts about being gay and AIDS. A conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, Whitmore worked at Planned Parenthood in New York City from 1968 to 1972. From 1974 to 1976, he was the “contributing editor and literary critic” at The Advocate. Whitmore lived with his longtime partner Michael Canter in Manhattan until his death from AIDS in 1989.