October 15

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70 BC – Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro ) (d.19 BC) - also spelled Vergil – was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works—the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the Aeneid—although a number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, have also sometimes been attributed to him.

Virgil came to be regarded as one of Rome's greatest poets. His Aeneid can be considered a national epic of Rome and has been extremely popular from its publication to the present day. His work has influenced Western literature. His epic, the Aeneid, followed the literary model of Homer's epic poems Iliad and Odyssey. The story is about Aeneas's search for a new homeland and his war to found a new city.

Virgil was tall, olive-skinned, of sturdy build and of rustic appearance. He had a weak constitution: he suffered from stomach pains, sore throat, and headache, and it was not uncommon to see him spit out blood. Moderate in drinking and eating, he had inclinations toward boys, among whom he loved in particular Cebetes and Alexander, two learned Greek slaves. This inclination for boys is both mentioned in the Eclogues (II) and in an epigram of the Catalepton (VII) addressed to Varus where the poet says:

He also tells of the love of Nisus and Euryalus, a pair of friends serving under Aeneas in the Aeneid, his epic poem. They appear in Book 5, during the funeral games of Anchises, where Virgil takes note of their amor pius, a love that exhibits the pietas that is Aeneas's own distinguishing virtue.Their foray among the enemy, narrated in Book 9, demonstrates their stealth and prowess as warriors, but ends as a tragedy: the loot Euryalus acquires attracts attention, and the two die together. Vergil presents their deaths as a loss of admirable loyalty and valor.

Nisus and Euryalus (Click for larger)

In describing the bonds of devotion between the two men, Virgil draws on conventions of erotic poetry that have suggested a romantic relationship to some. In portraying the amor of Nisus and Euryalus, Virgil draws on a Greek model of love between men. In the Roman military, homosexual behavior among fellow soldiers was harshly prohibited, in keeping with Roman values that defined a citizen's political liberty in part by freedom from physical compulsion, including sexual compulsion. Among the Greeks, however, there was a long tradition of idealized homosexuality in a military setting. Although the relationship between Nisus and Euryalus initially conforms to the Greek model of the erastes (older lover) and eromenos (young beloved) , their shared military exploits transform them into solidly Roman viri, "men." By describing their love as pius, Virgil endorses it as "honorable, dignified and connected to central Roman values." The elevated decorum of the Aeneid excludes explicit sexuality in general.

1696 – On this date John Hervey, the Baron Hervey of Ickworth, was born. (d.1743)

Hervey was bisexual. He was married to Mary Lepell, but he had an affair with Anne Vane, and possibly ones with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Princess Caroline. He lived with Stephen Fox often during the decade after he followed him to Italy in 1728. He wrote passionate love letters to Francesco Algarotti, whom he first met in 1736. He may have had a sexual affair with Prince Frederick before their friendship dissolved. He was in fact denounced as a sexually ambiguous figure in his time most notably by William Pulteney, then leader of the Opposition and by Alexander Pope in his "Sporus" portrait. The affair with Count Algarotti is certain not conjecture. He was also attracted to Henry Fox before his affair with Stephen Fox

In the 1730s, one of the most famous and venomous literary feuds in history broke out between Hervey and Alexander Pope. Pope, supposedly jealous that his friend, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had taken up with Hervey, began satirizing Hervey's effeminacy in his poetry, most notably as "Lord Fanny" in Imitations of Horace as "Sporus" in the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.

If Pope's picture of the mincing Lord Fanny had not set London laughing, the reference to Sporus had literate London holding its sides, since Sporus was the boy "bride" of Nero who would bare his rear for the emperor to "have at it" in public. (At the time, Nero's "husband" was Doryphorus, who would return the favor in kind - also in public.)

Hervey, understandably upset by these jibes, responded with verses of his own that ridiculed the crippled poet's hideous hump and his less than noble birth. London found this hilarious too.

Eventually the feud died down and was forgotten. Unfortunately for Hervey, however, he has remained Lord Fanny and Sporus for the past two centuries and probably forever. The trouble is that in school everywhere, everyone reads Pope, and no one reads Hervey. (Incidentally, it has long been rumored that Alexander Pope himself had more to hide than his hump.)

1844 – Friedrich Nietzsche (d.1900) is both one of the most influential and one of the most misunderstood of modern philosophers. Born into a sexually repressed family in the earlier nineteenth century, and plagued with ill health, much of Nietzche's work expresses a search for a primal joie de vivre that he felt had been squashed and distorted by the hypocritical religiosity and overbearing morality of his time.

Nietzsche himself fell victim to the same repressive forces. Although he had intimate and intense relationships with other men, he was never able to have an openly sexual relationship with either gender, and some historians believe he died in the mental torment of late-stage syphilis acquired from male prostitutes.

After his death, parts of his work were used by Nazis and other anti-Semites to reinforce their mythology of an Aryan super race. His writings unquestionably contain misogyny, racism, and anti-Jewish statements.

Friedrich Nietzsche was born in Roecken, Saxony. His father was a Lutheran minister who died from a painful brain disease when young Friedrich was only four. Nietzsche was raised in a household of five women: his mother, sister, grandmother, and two aunts. However, it was not a warm home. His female relatives had a Prussian severity that caused them to be reserved with the young boy in their care.

When he was fourteen, Nietzsche received a scholarship to a boarding school near the town of Naumburg, where the family had moved after Karl Ludwig's death. It was here that Nietzsche experienced his first romantic relationship with a boy. He wrote poems about his love, and also discovered the poetry of such gay or bisexual literary figures as August von Platen and George Gordon, Lord Byron.

Nietzsche was a brilliant and creative student, and in 1864, he entered the university in Bonn to study theology and philology. At Bonn, he became a member of the Franconia fraternity, and may have had homoerotic relationships with other students.

A year later, Nietzsche attended the university in Leipzig, where he continued his studies. There he met and became intimate with another student, Erwin Rohde. He and Rohde shared a fascination with ancient Greek culture.

In 1869, he accepted a position teaching Greek and Latin at the university in Basel. There he began to write. His first published book was The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music, released in 1872. One of the most original books in the history of philosophy, The Birth of Tragedy emphasized (and celebrated) the irrational, instinctual, and emotional aspects of Greek culture rather than the rational and the logical. Nietzsche brought to the fore Dionysos as a leading figure in Greek culture, lamenting that the wild, amoral, deeply creative Dionysian life force had been weakened by the Apollonian forces of logic and order. The book created a scandal in philological and philosophical circles.

During the late 1860s, while teaching and writing in Basel, Nietzsche became involved with composer Richard Wagner. What started as a passionate infatuation for the composer's music and personality deteriorated into jealousy, intellectual argument, and bitterness. Nietzsche had become very close to fellow philosopher Paul Ree. Ree was Jewish, and the notorious anti-Semite Wagner snubbed him, further alienating Nietzsche. He withdrew his friendship with hostility, and Wagner spread rumors that hinted of Nietzsche's homosexuality.

The philosopher continued to teach, write, and travel, publishing Untimely Meditations (1873-76) and Human, All Too Human (1878-79), while making several visits to an area of Sicily that was home to a colony of expatriate homosexuals.

In 1879, Nietzsche's health forced him to retire from teaching, but he continued his social and intellectual life and his travels to Italy. He also continued to publish, producing such famous works as Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-85), The Gay Science (1882-86), and Beyond Good and Evil (1886).

In his work, Nietzsche takes the perspective that life is "beyond good and evil," and challenges the traditionally moral idea that exploitation and domination of others are universally objectionable. Rather, he argues that living things naturally aim to express a "will to power." Rejecting the idea that there is a universal morality to which all human beings are subject, he finds different moralities appropriate for different kinds of people, depending on whether they are strong and overflowing with life or whether they are weak and on the decline.

Nietzsche had just finished writing his intellectual autobiography Ecce Homo (published 1908) in late 1888, when he suffered a complete mental and physical breakdown, collapsing in a street in Turin, Italy. He was brought back to Germany for treatment and lived with his sister for the rest of his life. Though he lived for ten more years, neither his mind nor his body ever recovered.

His sister gained control over his work and used it selectively to support her own anti-Jewish, Aryan supremacist views. There is still dissent among students of philosophy about whether Nietzsche's ideas of the Übermensch, or "superior man," who rises above society's restrictive morality, were actually founded on prejudice and racism or were misrepresented and misunderstood by his sister and, later, by Adolph Hitler himself. This controversy gives special poignancy to the last line of his biographical work, Ecce Homo: "Have I been understood?"

1918 – The Oregon Supreme Court upholds a sodomy conviction after the prosecutor made reference in the trial to the "past glories of Greece."

1924 – José Quintero (d.1999) was a Panamanian-born theatre director, producer and pedagogue best known for his interpretations of the works of Eugene O'Neill.

Quintero co-founded the Circle in the Square Theatre in Greenwich Village with Theodore Mann in 1951; this is regarded as the birth of Off-Broadway theatre. He became one of the most celebrated Broadway and Off Broadway directors and producers and worked with some of the greatest names in American theatre.

His own name is inextricably linked to that of the American playwright Eugene O'Neill. Quintero's interest contributed to the rediscovery of O'Neill. Quintero staged several of his works, including The Iceman Cometh in 1956, which launched the career of Jason Robards. Later that year, Quintero's production of the New York premiere of Long Day's Journey into Night established his reputation as the quintessential director of O'Neill's dramas and won Tony Awards for Best Play and Best Actor (Fredric March).

In 1963, he directed Strange Interlude, with a cast which included Geraldine Page, Jane Fonda, Franchot Tone, Ben Gazzara, Pat Hingle and Betty Field. In 1967, he directed Ingrid Bergman in More Stately Mansions in Los Angeles and New York. In 1968, Quintero travel to México to direct the Mexican star Dolores del Río in The Lady of the Camellias but was dismissed by the actress because of his alcoholism.

His production of A Moon for the Misbegotten won the Tony award for Best Direction in 1974. In 1988, he directed the revival of Long Day's Journey Into Night with Jason Robards Jr and Colleen Dewhurst. In the course of his career Quintero directed O'Neill plays nineteen times.

Quintero battled alcoholism and with the help of his life partner, Nicholas Tsacrios, was able to defeat his addiction in the 1970s. He was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1987 that necessitated the removal of his larynx which ultimately led to his death in New York City in 1999. He remained active until nearly the end of his life.

The Jose Quintero Theatre on West 42nd Street in Manhattan was named in his honor.

1926 – The French philosopher Michel Foucault, was born on this date (d.1984). A philosopher, historian and sociologist, Foucault held a chair at the Collège de France, giving it the title "History of Systems of Thought," and also taught at the University of California, Berkeley.

Michel Foucault is best known for his critical studies of various social institutions, most notably psychiatry, medicine, the human sciences, and the prison system, as well as for his work on the history of human sexuality.

Three volumes of The History of Sexuality were published before Foucault's death in 1984. The first and most referenced volume, The Will to Knowledge was published in France in 1976, and translated in 1977, focusing primarily on the last two centuries. In this volume he attacks the "repressive hypothesis," the widespread belief that we have, particularly since the nineteenth century, "repressed" our natural sexual drives. He shows that what we think of as "repression" of sexuality actually constituted sexuality as a core feature of our identities.

The second two volumes, The Use of Pleasure and The Care of the Self dealt with the role of sex in Greek and Roman antiquity. Both were published in 1984, the year of Foucault's death. This same theme in early Christian literature seemed to dominate Foucault's work, alongside his study of Greek and Roman literature, until the end of his life.

However, Foucault's death from AIDS-related causes left the work incomplete, and the planned fourth volume of his History of Sexuality during Christianity was never published. The fourth volume was to be entitled Confessions of the Flesh. The volume was almost complete before Foucault's death and a copy of it is privately held in the Foucault archive. It cannot be published under the restrictions of Foucault's estate.

During his life he suffered suicidal tendencies because of his homosexuality, which at the time was legal but socially taboo in France. At the time, Foucault engaged in homosexual activity with men whom he encountered in the underground Parisian gay scene, also indulging in drug use; according to biographer James Miller, he particularly enjoyed the thrill and sense of danger that these activities offered him.

In 1958, popular in Poland, he decided to adopt the position of de facto cultural attaché to the country. Like France and Sweden, homosexual activity was legal but socially frowned upon in Poland, and he undertook relationships with a number of men in Warsaw. One of these turned out to be a Polish government agent who hoped to trap Foucault in an embarrassing situation, which would therefore reflect badly on the French embassy. Wracked in diplomatic scandal, he was soon ordered to leave Poland for a new destination. Various positions were available in West Germany, and so Foucault decided to relocate to the city of Hamburg, where he continued to teach the same courses that he had given in Warsaw. Spending much of his time in the Reeperbahn red light district, he entered into a relationship with a transvestite.

In the 70s Foucault began to spend more time in the United States, at the University at Buffalo (where he had lectured on his first ever visit to the United States in 1970) and especially at UC Berkeley. In 1975 he took LSD at Zabriskie Point in Death Valley National Park, later calling it the best experience of his life.

During these trips to California, Foucault spent many evenings in the gay scene of the San Francisco Bay Area. He frequented a number of sado-masochistic bathhouses, engaging in sexual intercourse with other patrons. He would praise sado-masochistic activity in interviews with the gay press, describing it as "the real creation of new possibilities of pleasure, which people had no idea about previously."

At some point, Foucault contracted the HIV virus, which would eventually develop into AIDS. Little was known of the disease at the time; the first cases had only been identified in 1980, and it had only been named in 1982. In the summer of 1983, he noticed that he had a persistent dry cough; friends in Paris became concerned that he may have contracted the HIV/AIDS virus then sweeping the San Francisco gay population, but Foucault insisted that he had nothing more than a pulmonary infection that would clear up when he spent the autumn of 1983 in California. It was only when hospitalised that Foucault was diagnosed with AIDS; placed on antibiotics, he was able to deliver a final set of lectures at the Collège de France. Foucault entered Paris' Hôpital de la Salpêtrière - the same institution that he had studied in Madness and Civilisation - on 9 June 1984, with neurological symptoms complicated by septicemia. He died in the hospital at 1:15pm on 25 June.

1937 – Clark Polak (d.1980) was an American businessman, publisher, journalist, and LGBT activist.

Polak was from a Jewish middle-class family in Philadelphia and an active and outspoken member of the gay community there, with a leading role in the Philadelphia-based homophile organization, the Janus Society.

 In 1964, he created and edited DRUM magazine, a low-budget early gay-interest periodical. Polak argued for the importance of gay sexual liberation which had been avoided in the struggle for gay rights. In 1967, after he was indicted by a federal grand jury on 18 counts of publishing and distributing obscene material, Polak ceased publication of DRUM and moved to Los Angeles, where he became a real estate investor and art collector. He also wrote a series of articles in the Los Angeles Free Press between January 1974 and January 1975.

Polak committed suicide in Los Angeles in 1980.

1947 – Walta Borawski (d.1994) was an American poet and for almost 20 years partner of Michael Bronski, academic and writer.

Walta Borawski was born in Patchogue, New York, where he attended high school. His poem "Cheers, Cheers forl Old Cha Cha Ass" recounts the pain of school homophobia.

After college he became the first arts editor of the Poughkeepsie Journal. He moved to Boston in 1975. He published two collections of poems: Sexually Dangerous Poet and Lingering in a Silk Shirt. His poems Some of us wear pink triangles and Power of One are included in The Columbia anthology of gay literature : readings from Western antiquity to the present day and Invisible History, (No title), Things Are Still Sudden & Wonderful, Traveling in the Wrong Century, Trying to Write a Love Poem are included in Persistent voices : poetry by writers lost to AIDS edited by David Groff and Philip Clark.

Borawski was the partner of Michael Bronski. They met in 1975 and remained together until Borawski's death on February 9, 1994. Robert Giard photographed the two together in 1987 for his series Particular Voices. They are also featured in the anthology Two Hearts Desire: Gay Couples on their Love, originally published in 1997, and republished in digital format in 2017.

He died on February 9, 1994, of complications from AIDS, at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1955 – Chris Kempling is a Canadian educator and counsellor who was suspended by the British Columbia College of Teachers and disciplined by the Quesnel School District for anti-gay comments that created a discriminatory and harmful environment for his LGBT students. Kempling challenged the suspension in court, arguing that his right to freedom of expression had been violated. The British Columbia Court of Appeal ruled against him, ruling that limitations on his freedom of expression were justified by the school's duty to maintain a tolerant and discrimination-free environment. Kempling filed a complaint with the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal alleging that the disciplinary action taken against him by the school district infringed his freedom of religion; this complaint was dismissed on similar grounds.

Conservative commentators have described Kempling's case as an example of how gay rights in Canada have come into conflict with freedom of expression and religious freedom, while others have used it to highlight the importance of combating discrimination in public schools.

He has also run for elected office on two occasions with the Christian Heritage Party of Canada.

1961 – Paul Lucas (d.2020) was an American playwright and producer based in New York City. He was best known for his play, Trans Scripts, Part I: The Women, which won a Fringe First award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and a High Commendation from Amnesty International for Freedom of Expression, and was performed by the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University.

Lucas performed and worked in several theatrical offices in New York City before joining Paul Szilard Productions, where he booked for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. While still working with Szilard, he produced several plays off-Broadway, including Messages for Gar which featured John Epperson and Alex McCord; TimeSlips, written by Anne Basting; Nosferatu, which starred Nikolai Kinski; and Son of Drakula, written and performed by David Drake.

Lucas founded Paul Lucas Productions, a production, management, and touring organization that specializes in international work. His work has regularly been presented at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

In 2012, Lucas turned his attention to creating his own work. He spent several years conducting interviews with men and women of the transgender community. After workshop productions at Rutgers University, the Lyric Theater in Bridport (UK), and the Actors Center (London), he created Trans Scripts, Part I: The Women and produced the play at the Pleasance Theater during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2015. Trans Scripts received a Fringe First Award.

At the time od his death in 2020 he was working on Trans Scripts, Part II: The Men. He married his long-term partner Kendall Merrick not long before his death.

1963 – The Georgia Supreme Court overrules a 1917 precedent and holds that cunnilingus is not a violation of the sodomy law

1965 – Jeff Key is an American playwright, actor, philanthropist, peace activist, and queer civil rights activist. He is also a former Marine and Iraq veteran. His one-man performance piece, The Eyes of Babylon, is based on journal entries he wrote while on tour as a Marine in Iraq. Since the play's debut in Los Angeles, Key has performed it in theaters across the U.S. including in San Francisco, Denver, Birmingham, Boston, Salt Lake City, and various locations in Kentucky—as well as internationally, including Dublin.

A Showtime feature-length documentary, Semper Fi: One Marine's Journey detailing a U.S. Marine’s journey through his childhood in Alabama, military life, and the war in Iraq as a gay man as portrayed in "The Eyes of Babylon" aired first in 2007, and was the Audience Award Winner for Best Documentary at San Francisco's International Film Festival. In 2011, the play was selected to premiere with the NY theater company, 59E59 Theater in their festival, Americas Off-Broadway, featuring the best of American regional theater.

Born in Walker County, Alabama, Jeff Key attended public school in the first generation of desegregated classes there. Profoundly affected by racism, anti-semitism, and homophobia still evident in everyday life, Key's writing, activism, and philanthropic activity takes a stand against all forms of prejudice. As a queer boy, adolescent, and man, he struggled with society's homophobia and definition of masculinity. He was raised by deeply religious parents, and his mother, a social science teacher, helped him understand the negative effects of racism. During college, Key struggled with addictions, primarily drinking, as he tried to reconcile his queerness and creative impulse with his wish for social acceptance and material success. He tried majoring in advertising, hoping this would solve the issue of his need for a creative outlet connected to a financially stable career. His addictions, however, eventually forced him out of college. He stopped drinking, and enrolled as a theater student at the University of Alabama and got his bachelor's degree in 1997.

With high hopes, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his acting career. Auditioning and landing small roles in commercials and community theater, he faced ongoing financial difficulty. This led him to respond to an ad pitched to enlist in the Marines. In 2000, at the age of thirty-four, he joined the Marines and went to boot camp. Though the rules were bent slightly to accommodate his age, Key was forced to keep his homosexuality a secret because of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. After the terrorist attacks of 2001, his unit made preparations for activation and in March, 2003, deployed to Eastern Iraq. Two months later, Key was flown back to the United States for surgery, and because of his concerns about the things he had observed and his growing convictions that the war's motives and the coalition's tactics were ineffective in thwarting terrorism he decided to leave the military.

On March 31, 2004, he went on CNN as Paula Zahn's guest to announce that not only was he publicly owning his homosexuality and therefore being duly discharged because of the ban on gays in the military, he was also speaking out about his opposition to the occupation of Iraq. His straight buddies in the Marines had always known that he was gay but said nothing because his commitment to them and to the country was never in question. He became active in the anti-war movement, and was Cindy Sheehan's bodyguard during her vigil outside Bush's ranch in Texas.

Jeff often speaks at high schools, businesses, colleges and universities, peace groups, and churches about effective non-violent conflict resolution and continues to perform The Eyes of Babylon, a play he wrote about his war experiences in Iraq, on national and international stages. He has more stories to tell about his journey, and is developing another one-man performance piece and a play with several characters, and journals daily. He married Adam Nelson on August 4, 2007, and they live in Salt Lake City, Utah with their two Labradors, Sydney and Willie.

Key serves on the Board of Directors for Iraq Veterans Against the War, and is the founder of The Mehadi Foundation, a non-profit organization designed to help gay Iraq veterans and Iraq veterans who attempt to self-medicate PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) with drugs and alcohol. This foundation, named for a young Iraqi boy Key met while in Iraq, provides support not only for returning veterans, but also for philanthropic projects that help civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan with concrete supplies such as water. The foundation helps returning veterans to heal through various means, including retreats.

 (Click for Full Monty)

1970 – Zeb Atlas, born in Portland, Oregon, is an American male softcore performer and hardcore porn actor.

Raised in Portland, Oregon, Atlas received a university degree in Health Science and Sport in June 1993 from Oregon State University. He began modeling for fitness magazines after being noticed at a bodybuilding show. From there, Atlas met erotic photographer Ron Lloyd and posed for some photos; this led to the "Body Solo" video series produced by Lloyd's Body Image Productions.[

He filmed his first gay oral sex scene for JakeCruise.com. His role in Falcon Entertainment's film Best Men garnered Atlas GayVN awards nominations for "Best Supporting Actor" and "Best Oral Scene." He won the Grabby Award for "Best Duo" with Adam Killian. In addition, the film Best Men Parts 1 & 2 was nominated for "Best Picture" but lost to Raging Stallion Studios's To The Last Man.

Zeb continues to make films [both gay and straight] with such stars as Adam Killian and Skye Woods including The Boyfriend, Built Tough and Zeb Unzipped Part 3, Zeb in Ft. Lauderdale.

Zeb is also a personal trainer, singer (he did a cover of Love Hangover for example) and dancer and stands about 6ft 3ins tall.

1973 – The Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatry Federal Council declares homosexuality not an illness, the first such body in the world to do so.

1973 – The formation of the National Gay Task Force was announced in New York City. It was founded in 1973 by Dr. Howard Brown, Dr. Bruce Voeller, who was the organization's first director, Reverend Robert Carter and Dr. Frank Kameny, in New York.

1974 – The New York Gay Activists Alliance "Firehouse" is destroyed by arson. An early morning fire set by an arsonist destroyed the offices and social center of the Gay Activists Alliance in the former firehouse at 99 Wooster Street in the SoHo section. Morty Manford, the organization’s president, charged that the fire had been set as part of a wave of harassment against gays.

1977 – The Santa Barbara, California, board of education voted to ban discrimination against GLB students, making it the first US school board to do so.

1977 – A gay rights ordinance was passed in Alexandria, Virginia.

1977 – Federal district court Judge Kimba Wood ruled that shareholders of Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores Inc should be allowed to vote on retaining a company policy that would forbid employment of gays and lesbians.

1982 – On this day, a White House Press Secretary is questioned about HIV/AIDS. When asked about the President's reaction to the announcement that AIDS is now an epidemic, Larry Speakes asks, "What's AIDS?" When told it was known as the gay plague, Speakes laughed.

1988 – Jenna Talackova is a Canadian model and television personality, who gained media attention in 2012 when she successfully waged a legal battle to be allowed to compete in the Miss Universe Canada after being initially disqualified for being transgender.

Talackova was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her father is Czech, and her mother is a member of the Babine First Nation, from the Lake Babine Nation in British Columbia.

She experienced gender dysphoria beginning in early childhood, and began her gender transition at age 14, while attending Vancouver's Killarney Secondary School, before completing her sex reassignment surgery at 19. She initially took the name Paige when she began transitioning, before changing it again to Jenna.

After previously competing in the 2010 Miss International Queen pageant for transgender and transsexual women in Thailand, Talackova registered to compete in Miss Universe Canada 2012. Sources are in conflict as to whether she identified herself as transgender on her application; however, after she was selected as one of the Top 65 applicants who would proceed to the pageant, a person who recognized her from Miss International Queen contacted the Miss Universe Canada organizers, and the organization then disqualified Talackova because she was born male on the grounds that the pageant rules required its competitors to be "naturally born" women.

Talackova subsequently contacted lawyer Gloria Allred, who took on the case and challenged the pageant organizers, including Donald Trump in his capacity as owner of the international Miss Universe organization, to reverse the decision and allow Talackova to compete. The organization reversed its decision before the case reached the courts, with Trump's office issuing a statement that "[a]s long as she meets the standards of legal gender recognition requirements of Canada, which we understand that she does, Jenna Talackova is free to compete in the 2012 Miss Universe Canada pageant."

At the pageant on May 19, 2012, Talackova made it into the Top 12, but failed to reach the Top 5. She was, however, one of four contestants awarded the title of Miss Congeniality.

Talackova was named co-grand marshal of the 2012 Vancouver Pride Parade in recognition of her fight to be in the Miss Universe pageant.

1998 – A federal judge strikes down Maryland's "unnatural and perverted practices" law on broad privacy grounds and the state does not appeal.

1999 – Washington Times columnist Cal Thomas reported that George W. Bush told a small group of conservative Republicans he would not knowingly appoint a practicing homosexual as an ambassador or department head if elected president.

2012 – The Obama campaign released a stunning video featuring glbtq celebrities. In it Jane Lynch, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Billie Jean King, George Takei, Wanda Sykes, Zachary Quinto, and Chaz Bono explain why they support President Obama.

In very personal and moving terms, they explain how their lives have been affected by the progress achieved by the Obama administration in the area of glbtq rights. They also express their well-founded fear that this progress could be turned back by the election of Mitt Romney.

The video (below) rehearses the achievements of the previous four years and points out what was at stake in the November 6, 2012 election.