today in lgbt+ history...

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Today in LGBT History – July 20

356 BCE – Alexander the Great (July 20, 356 BC – June 10, 323 BC) is born. Alexander died in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II, in Babylon, at age 32. Alexander may have been bisexual which in his time was not controversial.

1845, France – In Paris, a mob attacks a group of about 50 men arrested by police in a sweep of the Tuileries Gardens, a popular cruising area.

1950 – Roberta Achtenberg (July 20, 1950) is born. She is an American politician who recently served as a Commissioner on the United States Commission on Civil Rights. She also served as Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, becoming the first openly lesbian or gay public official in the United States, appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, whose appointment to a federal position was confirmed by the United States Senate.

1951 – The mission and purpose of the Mattachine Society in Los Angeles are ratified. The Mattachine Society is one of the earliest homophile organizations in the US.

1981 – Martina Navratilova ( born October 18, 1956) is granted U.S. citizenship, six years after she defected from Czechoslovakia. She is a retired tennis player and coach. In 2005, Tennis magazine selected her as the greatest female tennis player for the years 1965 through 2005 and is considered one of the best female players of all time. Navratilova was World No. 1 for a total of 332 weeks in singles, and a record 237 weeks in doubles, making her the only player in history to have held the top spot in both singles and doubles for over 200 weeks. In 1981, shortly after becoming a United States citizen, Navratilova gave an interview to New York Daily News sports reporter Steve Goldstein, coming out as bisexual and revealing that she had a sexual relationship with Rita Mae Brown, but asked him not to publish the article until she was ready to come out publicly. However, the New York Daily News published the article on July 30, 1981. Navratilova and Nancy Lieberman, her girlfriend at the time, gave an interview to Dallas Morning News columnist Skip Bayless, where Navratilova reiterated that she was bisexual and Lieberman identified herself as straight. Navratilova has since identified herself as a lesbian. On September 6, 2014, Navratilova proposed to her longtime girlfriend Julia Lemigova at the US Open. They married in New York on December 15, 2014.

1988 – A gay man, John Doe, in Chicago regains visitation rights with his four children after his ex-wife, Jane Doe, dropped her demand that he be tested for HIV. Patrick McGann, the mother`s attorney, said overnight visits with the father would endanger the children because, as a homosexual, John Doe is in a high-risk group for contracting the fatal disease. The case, which has been pending in the Domestic Relations Division of the court since last September, has been regarded as one with far-reaching consequences for homosexuals, who fear discrimination because of public concern over how acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is transmitted.

LGBT Fact: The identification of The Castro in San Francisco as a gay neighborhood began in the 1960s and 1970s as LGBT people began moving to the community. The first gay bar to have clear windows was Twin Peaks Tavern which removed its blacked-out windows in 1972. The term “Castro clone” originated in this neighborhood when some gay men began to adopt a masculine clothing style which included denim jeans and a plaid shirt. Lesbian bars and women’s organizations began to proliferate in the 1970s, including bars like Maud’s, Peg’s Place, Amelia’s, Wild Side West, and A Little More, as well as women’s coffeehouses, a bookstore and a bathhouse. Many women’s businesses and organizations were concentrated in the Valencia Street area of the Mission District. The Castro is where Harvey Milk had his camera shop and did much of his organizing in the 1970s. The neighborhood now features permanent rainbow Pride flags, an LGBT History Museum, and a Walk of Fame with the names of notable LGBT people inscribed on the sidewalk. While The Castro retains its identity, in 2014 Spencer Michels of PBS Newshour stated that The Castro has become “a little more heterosexual, a slightly upscale shopping street.” The Mission district has long been a neighborhood with a strong queer Latino/a presence, and was home to the first Latino gay bar in San Francisco, Esta Noche, along with other gay Latino bars like La India Bonita, and El Rio. The Mission also was the home to Proyecto ContraSIDA por Vida, a Latino/a HIV Prevention organization. Lesbians, Latina and non-Latina, were particularly drawn to this neighborhood in the 1980s; it has hosted several lesbian bars, a Women’s Center, coffeehouses, a bookstore, and a woman-only bathhouse.

 

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1873 – Is gay Brazilian, Alberto Santos-Dumont (d.1932) – rather than the American brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright – actually most responsible for modern aviation? Such a question leads to what we know of the Brazilian dandy who is regarded by many as the father of modern aviation and the inventor of the airplane. While his sexuality is a matter of controversy, suspicions of his homosexuality may have contributed to a neglect of his achievement.

Born in Brazil, Santos was the son of a coffee tycoon father and an upper-class mother. His father's interest in high-tech machinery for use in the coffee trade led to Santos's early fascination with trains and steam-powered locomotives, which he learned to drive before the age of 10. The novels of French science-fiction writer Jules Verne were among the boy's favorite childhood reading.

As a teenager in 1888 Santos made his first aerial ascent in a tethered balloon at the São Paolo state fair. Two years later he accompanied his father on a trip to Paris, where he saw for the first time the newly-invented gasoline engine. In 1892 Santos's father, disabled by an industrial accident, gave Alberto his own fortune, which the young inventor used to finance his research.

He embarked for Paris to study mechanical arts and engineering. His father allegedly hoped that the experience of Paris would "make a man out of him." Since the price of a flight-capable balloon was prohibitive, Santos-Dumont bought himself an automobile (he is credited with bringing the first gasoline-powered automobile to Brazil on one of his trips home). When he learned that the Parisian balloon-maker Lachambre had reduced the cost of his balloons, Santos purchased one and made his own first ascent, accompanied by Lachambre in1898.

His twin interests in balloon flight and gasoline-powered engines led Santos-Dumont to construct his first two dirigibles. His first flight, in the craft he called No. 1, ended with his barely escaping injury when the vehicle struck tree branches. For his No. 2 and No. 3 balloons, Santos—despite the obvious risk of fire from flammable gas—suspended a rigid frame from the gas bag, into which he put a gasoline engine. Utilizing this design in his dirigible No. 6, Santos achieved the first powered air flight known to history—at least in Europe.

Santos's success made him an overnight sensation in Paris, leading petroleum baron Henry Deutsch de la Muerthe to offer a 100,000-franc prize to whoever could leave Parc Saint Cloud under his power, circumnavigate the Eiffel Tower, and return in less than 30 minutes. After several tries, Santos-Dumont made the prescribed trip on October 19, 1901 in his dirigible No. 6 and received the Deutsch Prize. Photographs show the cigar-shaped craft above the 100-story tower, with Parisian throngs below waving their hats in admiration of le petit Santos (who stood only 5'1" and weighed only 100 pounds).

Of the two aircraft with the number 14, it was the 14B (or 14-bis, as it is known by its French name) that became Santos's first heavier-than-aircraft to actually fly. On October 23, 1906, he won the Ernest Archdeacon Cup for a flight of at least 25 meters by flying about 50 meters under his own power. Several weeks later, on November 12, he flew a distance of 220 meters, winning the Aero Club's 1500-franc prize for a self-propelled flight over 220 meters.

Santos's airplanes took off and landed under their own power, while the Wright brothers' December 17, 1903 flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, revealed to the public two years later, had to be launched into the air by a catapult. Thus, many aviation historians credit Santos as the inventor of the airplane.

Santos again commanded public acclaim with his Demoiselle ("Little Lady") model monoplanes, Nos. 19, 20, 21, and 22, in which he flew to visit friends' distant chateaux and set records for speed and distance. Unlike other aviation pioneers, including the Wright brothers, who conducted their research in secrecy and who patented each step, Santos distributed the blueprints and plans of his aircrafts to the public and allowed them to be published in Popular Mechanics.

Regarding them as a contribution to the cause of peace, Santos never patented his inventions. He hoped that air travel would help unite mankind and usher in a period of unprecedented prosperity. The open-source technology that Santos pioneered formed the template for over 200 similar aircraft subsequently patented with minor alterations, including that of German aviation pioneer Anthony Fokker. On September 18, 1909, Santos made his last flight in his small, simple, and light Demoiselle, which had become the first aircraft in history to be copied and serially produced.

Whereas the Wright brothers apparently lived conventional Midwestern lives (though like Santos they never married), the Brazilian pioneer lived the life of a fin-de-siècle Parisian aesthete, always dressed to the nines and impeccably mannered. Santos's flair made him the toast of Parisian society and a beloved hero of the people.

By 1910, however, Santos was already suffering from periodic depressions and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Although he was not yet 40, he retired from active aviation and design. Santos retreated to his native Brazil, where he built a small chalet on a hillside. The house featured such then-exotic novelties as a speaking tube and a heated shower with running water. Santos's return to Brazil was intended to be a triumphant occasion; a dozen members of the Brazilian scientific community boarded a seaplane in order to welcome his ship. Unfortunately, the plane crashed, killing all aboard. This tragedy, as well as the use of airplanes in World War I and in the Brazilian Constitutional Rebellion, deepened Santos-Dumont's depression. On July 23, 1932, Santos hanged himself in a hotel room in the city of Guarujá in São Paulo.

In Brazil and in France, Santos is celebrated as a national hero on a level with Thomas Edison or Benjamin Franklin in the United States. The tendency has been for Brazilians to deny Santos's homosexuality while celebrating his accomplishments and for English and American historians to admit his homosexuality while denying the singularity of his achievements.

Given international aftemath of the Oscar Wilde trial, it is not surprising that little documentation of Santos's romantic and sexual interests survive. After the Wilde persecution, the inventor burned all of his diaries, letters, and papers, except for volumes specifically intended for publication.



Natalie Wood with Tab Hunter

1938 – Natalie Wood, American actress born (d.1981) In addition to her numerous accomplishments as an actress, the teenaged Wood went on studio-arranged dates with actors. In 1956, one of these was Tab Hunter, seven years her senior, with whom she reportedly developed a genuine friendship. They would attend parties to promote the two films they co-starred in that year.

Wood biographer and Hollywood screenwriter, Gavin Lambert, also confirms that Wood had studio-arranged dates with Gay or bisexual actors, the first of which was Nick Adams. Hunter in his autobiography elaborates on how a Hollywood studio's publicizing of a sham romance between two actors each under contract to it was a strategy to stimulate public desire for seeing that studio's forthcoming films. According to Lambert, Wood supported Gay playwright Mart Crowley in a manner that made it possible for him to write his play, The Boys In The Band.



1939 – Judy Chicago, American artist. Chicago's brilliant "The Dinner Party" now on permanent display in the Elizabeth Sackler Center Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum traces the herstory of great women and comprises a massive ceremonial banquet, arranged on a triangular table with a total of thirty-nine place settings, each commemorating an important woman from history. The settings consist of embroidered runners, gold chalices and utensils, and china-painted porcelain plates with raised central motifs that are based on vulvar and butterfly forms and rendered in styles appropriate to the individual women being honored. The names of another 999 women are inscribed in gold on the white tile floor below the triangular table. This permanent installation is enhanced by rotating biographical gallery shows relating to the 1,038 women honored at the table, Pharaohs, Queens and Goddesses is the first such exhibition.



1945 – Larry Craig is a former Republican politician from the U.S. state of Idaho. He served 18 years in the U.S. Senate (1991-2009), preceded by 10 years in the U.S. House, representing Idaho's first district (1981-91). His 28 years in the Congress rank as the second-longest in Idaho history, trailing only William Borah, who served over 32 years in the Senate. In addition to serving in Congress, Craig has been a member of the Board of Directors of the National Rifle Association since 1983. Craig has also been selected for induction into the Idaho Hall of Fame.

On August 27, 2007, the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call revealed that Craig had been arrested for lewd conduct in the men's restroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on June 11, 2007, and entered a guilty plea to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct on August 8, 2007. Despite firmly stating that he was not gay and never has been gay, Craig announced his intention to resign from the Senate at a news conference on September 1, 2007, but later decided to finish the remainder of his term.

Craig was not a candidate for re-election in 2008



1948 – Manuel Ramos Otero (d.1990) was a Puerto Rican writer. He is widely considered to be the most important openly gay twentieth-century Puerto Rican writer who wrote in Spanish, and his work was often controversial due to its sexual and political content. Ramos Otero died in San Juan, Puerto Rico, due to complications from AIDS.

Many but not all of Ramos Otero's works focus on autobiographical characters of gay Puerto Rican men who are writers and live in New York City. In his work, Ramos Otero openly defends gay viewpoints and feminist positions. For him, homosexuality represented an outsider status; he did not advocate for full integration, but rather explored the situation of marginal subjects. He also discussed his HIV status and the prejudice and discrimination faced by people affected by AIDS.



1950 – American activist and politician Roberta Achtenberg has been a strong advocate for civil rights, especially those of gays and lesbians. In 1993 she became the first openly gay person to be confirmed by the United States Senate for a major political post, Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Achtenberg's parents both immigrated to the United States, her father from the Soviet Union and her mother from Quebec. The Achtenbergs owned and ran a neighborhood grocery store in Los Angeles, where Roberta Achtenberg was born on July 20, 1950.

While studying at Berkeley, she met and married David Chavkin, a law student. When her husband received a prestigious fellowship that took him to Salt Lake City, Utah, Achtenberg accompanied him and continued her studies at the law school of the University of Utah.

During a separation from her husband, Achtenberg found herself attracted to a woman. She began reading about homosexuality but did not discuss her feelings with anyone. Achtenberg reunited with her husband after her graduation, but within two years the couple agreed to an amicable divorce. Thereafter, Achtenberg came out to her family but did not immediately reveal her sexual orientation publicly, fearing that it might be harmful to her career as a lawyer and educator.

At the same time, she was becoming increasingly aware of the disadvantage at which gays and lesbians were often placed under the law on a wide variety of issues, including housing, employment, adoption, and privacy rights. Achtenberg joined the National Lawyers Guild in 1978 and began working on its Anti-Sexism Committee, which was creating a manual to help attorneys represent their gay and lesbian clients. The project eventually resulted in a wide-ranging treatise, Sexual Orientation and the Law (1985), which Achtenberg edited.

In 1979 Achtenberg met Mary Morgan, a prominent lesbian attorney known in particular for her expertise in representing lesbian mothers in custody cases. In 1981, Morgan was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown to a judgeship in the San Francisco Municipal Court. The two lawyers became committed life partners in 1982. Four years later Morgan gave birth to their son, Benjamin Alexander Morgan Achtenberg, whom Achtenberg legally adopted.

Achtenberg made her first foray into electoral politics with a run for the California State Assembly in 1988. She lost to an experienced and better-known opponent, but the election was closer than expected. The following year Achtenberg entered the race for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Although five at-large seats were open, the press tried to portray Achtenberg and Carole Migden, another lesbian candidate, as opponents for the same slot, on the assumption that voters would not elect two lesbians to the Board. As it turned out, however, they did.

Her role as a lesbian elected official brought her national attention. She received letters from gays and lesbians around the country and also from parents of gay children who found hope in her success. "The ability to be in public life has been enormously positive to our movement, to our people," said Achtenberg, "and being able to contribute has been very gratifying."

Achtenberg launched herself enthusiastically into Bill Clinton's campaign, helping to organize fund-raisers and other events. In introducing herself to the delegates, she proudly identified herself as a lesbian, a mother, and a Jew.

As President-elect Clinton assembled his cabinet, he invited Achtenberg to be Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. Achtenberg would be the first openly gay person to receive Senate confirmation for an administration post. The process was long and grueling. Conservative Christian groups lobbied against her, and a number of conservative Senators attempted to block her appointment. Senator Jesse Helms spearheaded the opposition, making numerous public comments against Achtenberg, whom he described as a "damn lesbian," an "intolerant radical," and a "mean person" who "tried to bully the Boy Scouts."

Immediately before the vote on confirmation Helms warned Achtenberg's supporters that "if any member of this Senate thinks this vote will go unnoticed by their constituents back home, they may find out otherwise" when they ran for reelection. The Senate debate included many allusions to what opponents called Achtenberg's "vendetta" against the Boy Scouts, prompting San Francisco Chronicle reporter April Lynch to write, "The Boy Scouts issue was brought up so often that some tourists sitting in the Senate visitors gallery became confused as to whether they were hearing debate on the Scouts or a HUD nomination."

Achtenberg had been one of over fifty members of the board of directors of the United Way in San Francisco who voted unanimously not to give funds to the Boy Scouts because of their discriminatory policy against gay and bisexual boys. The Christian Action Network sent all Senators a tape of Achtenberg and Morgan riding in the 1992 Gay Pride Parade in San Francisco. The clip included a brief embrace by the couple. Helms referred to this as evidence of Achtenberg's "insane assault on family values" and castigated her for "demanding that society accept as normal a lifestyle that most of the world's major religions consider immoral and which the average American voter instinctively finds repulsive."

The much-admired Senator Claiborne Pell was among those to speak in support of Achtenberg's confirmation, urging colleagues to use "simple standards of fairness and equal treatment" when considering the nominee. In the course of his remarks he also mentioned that his daughter, Julia Pell, was a lesbian and that he would not want her "barred from a government job because of her orientation."

After Achtenberg's testimony before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee and the vigorous efforts of her proponents, especially Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer of California and Donald Riegle of Michigan, the full Senate confirmed her nomination by a vote of 58 to 31.

To keep the family together, Morgan resigned her judgeship in California and moved to Washington, D.C. with Achtenberg and their son.

Achtenberg left the post in 1995 to run for mayor of San Francisco. She served as Senior Vice President for Public Policy at the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce until January 2005. In 2000, she was appointed to the Board of Trustees of California State University by Governor Gray Davis, becoming chair of the Board in May 2006.

On January 26, 2011, President Barack Obama named Achtenberg to the United States Commission on Civil Rights.



1954 – Larry Levan, born Lawrence Philpot, (d.1992) was an American DJ best known for his decade-long residency at the New York City night club Paradise Garage, which has been described as the prototype of the modern dance club. He developed a cult following who referred to his sets as "Saturday Mass". Influential post-disco DJ François Kevorkian credits Levan with introducing the dub aesthetic into dance music. Along with Kevorkian, Levan experimented with drum machines and synthesizers in his productions and live sets, ushering in an electronic, post-disco sound that presaged the ascendence of house music. He DJ'd at Club Zanzibar in the 1980s as well, home to the Jersey Sound brand of deep house or garage house.

Levan was born at Brooklyn Jewish Hospital, New York, to Minnie (née Levan) and Lawrence Philpot. He was born with a congenital heart condition and suffered from asthma from a very young age which would make him prone to fainting in class. Although a fragile young boy, he excelled in math and physics, leaving an impression on his teachers that he would become an inventor one day. He inherited his love for music from his mother who loved blues, jazz, and gospel music, and he was able to use a record player from the age of three. As his mother reflects, "I’d make him put records on so that we could dance together." While attending Erasmus Hall High School in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as the neighborhood of Flatbush transitioned to a predominantly African-American population due to white flight, the flamboyantly vanguard Levan (who dyed his hair orange nearly a decade before the ascendance of punk rock), was frequently bullied by his classmates. Eventually, he dropped out of high school and found assuagement in Harlem's longstanding ball culture as a dressmaker, where he first became acquainted with fellow designer and lifelong best friend Frankie Knuckles.

He became infatuated with an idea of making the "music that would never stop" during a brief affair with hippie DJ David Mancuso, who introduced Levan to Manhattan's burgeoning underground downtown dance culture. Mancuso was the proprietor of The Loft, a minimally decorated, members-only dance club (uniquely situated in his home) where "punch, fruit and candy" were served in lieu of alcohol and music was processed by a state-of-the-art sound system.

Levan got his start alongside Knuckles at the Continental Baths, as a replacement for the DJ from The Gallery, Nicky Siano, who briefly employed both men as decorators at The Gallery and taught them his pioneering three turntable technique. Accordingly, Levan's DJing style was influenced by Siano's penchant for Philadelphia soul and upbeat rock and Mancuso's jazz-inflected eclecticism; as with Mancuso, he briefly dated Siano during the epoch. While Knuckles was still trying to make his way in the New York club scene, Levan soon became a popular attraction at venues such as SoHo Place due to his "diva persona," which he had previously developed in the city's notoriously competitive black drag "houses".

He was previously romantically involved with Nicky Siano (a fellow Brooklynite and Mancuso disciple) and Mel Cheren's ex-boyfriend. Frankie Knuckles and Levan were lifetime friends who were introduced to each other by a "drag queen called Gerald" when Levan was 15 years old. They both were active in the local drag scene.

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1960 – Pedro Zerolo (d.2015) was a Spanish Venezuelan lawyer, politician and a town councilman of the city of Madrid, and a member of the Federal Executive Committee of the PSOE where he held the position of Secretary for Social Movements and Relations with NGOs. He was also a trustee of the Fundacion IDEAS, Spain's Socialist Party's think tank.

Zerolo was also one of the most important LGBT activists in Spanish history and one of the biggest promoters of extending the right to marriage and adoption to homosexual couples in the country. Zerolo has become a gay icon among the Spanish LGBT community.

Zerolo was born in Caracas, Venezuela, to a family native of the Canary Islands, concretely of the island of Tenerife. His father, Pedro González, lived in exile from the Francoist government there. Pedro González was the first mayor of San Cristóbal de La Laguna (Tenerife) in times of democracy and also well-known painter.

Pedro Zerolo went on to study law at the University of La Laguna on Tenerife, where he spent his childhood and adolescence. After gaining his diploma, he moved to Madrid, where he continued his studies, focusing on comparative law. At the same time, he collaborated with Catholic priest Enrique de Castro in a project to help the people of the poor Madrid barrio of Entrevías.

Through his work with law and politics, he went on to become one of the most well-known activists for the LGBT movement in fighting for marriage equality in Spain.

On October 1, 2005, Zerolo married Jesús Santos, his partner of ten years, in a civil ceremony. In the same year he officiated in the marriage of politician Ángeles Álvarez and Teresa Heredero who became the first two lesbians to marry in Madrid.

At the age of 55, Zerolo died from pancreatic cancer on 9 June 2015 in Madrid.

On December 11, 2015 Radio Club Tenerife, Cadena Ser granted him the "Teide de Oro Award" posthumously.

In July 2015 the City Council of Madrid decided to change the name of the Plaza de Vázquez de Mella to the Plaza de Pedro Zerolo in honor of him. The plaza was inaugurated on May 14, 2016 in the Madrid neighborhood of Chueca. The mayor of Madrid, Manuela Carmena; General Secretary of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez; the General Secretary of the PSOE-Madrid, Sara Hernández; and members of the LGBTI collective were all present at the inauguration.



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1974 – Born in San Francisco, California, Simon Rex Cutright, better known as Simon Rex or Dirt Nasty, is an American actor, comedian, television host, recording artist, Record Producer and former VJ (media personality) . He is known for being an MTV VJ turned rapper/comedian with his alter ego, Dirt Nasty, which has received a cult following on social media websites. He also starred as Jeff Campbell in the first season of What I Like About You, as the clumsy George Logan in Scary Movie 3 and 4, and as Parker McClure in 5.

Rex began his career by masturbating in a series of adult films oriented towards gay men. In 1993, at age 19, he appeared solo in scenes for 2 masturbation porn films, Young, Hard & Solo II; and Young, Hard & Solo III; and, in 1998, at 24, for 1 movie, Hot Sessions III; and 2 movies in 2000, Hot Sessions XII and Hot Sessions XIII.

He was later hired as an MTV VJ but was subsequently let go when his adult past was revealed.

Rex soon after hit fame and popularity delving into acting and in 1999 was cast in the television show Jack & Jill, which ran for two seasons. He appeared as "Eli" in the TV show Felicity and television guest appearances followed including Baywatch, Everwood, and Summerland. In 2002, the pilot for the show What I Like About You was picked up by The WB. Rex starred in the first season. He later appeared on the Lifetime show, Monarch Cove which ran for 11 episodes in 2006.

Rex entered the music industry as a rap artist after becoming friends with Mickey Avalon. Rex adopted his alter-ego "Dirt Nasty" and formed the rap group Dyslexic Speedreaders, along with Mickey Avalon, Andre Legacy, and Beardo.



1980 – (Anthony) Tony Woods is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, who was discharged from the United States Army in 2008 for violating the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. In 2009, Woods ran for U.S. Congress in California's 10th congressional district to fill a vacant seat, in a bid to become the first openly-gay African American in Congress. He placed 4th, receiving 8% of a special election vote on September 1, 2009. He was part of the 2011-2012 Class of White House Fellows.

Born on Travis Air Force Base, Woods was raised by a single mother who supported her family as a small business owner and housekeeper. As a child, Woods lived in both Fairfield and Vacaville in the East Bay region of California. Woods attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point after graduation, having received a nomination from Congressman Vic Fazio.

Woods was commissioned in the Army as a second lieutenant in the Armor branch and began the Armor Officer Basic Course at Fort Knox, Kentucky in July 2003. While there, he volunteered for his first deployment to Iraq to lead a platoon of National Guard soldiers. Woods deployed to the Diyala province of Iraq, where he served for eleven months.

Upon return from his second deployment, the Army selected Woods to teach at West Point, an unusual appointment for so junior an officer. That year, he matriculated to the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University where he studied for a master's degree in public policy.

During the summer of 2007, Woods co-led a group of thirty cyclists across the U.S. to raise money for Habitat for Humanity through a non-profit group known as Bike & Build. The trip took them from the Outer Banks of North Carolina to San Diego, California. The group raised over $130,000 and built homes in five different states during the course of the trip across the United States.

Shortly after graduation from Harvard, Woods reported to Fort Knox, Kentucky for the Armor Captain's Career Course. Shortly thereafter, Woods outed himself as gay, and was subsequently discharged under the government's now repealed "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. For this decision, Woods was ordered to reimburse the Army for the $35,000 tuition paid on his behalf to attend Harvard. In December 2008, the U.S. Army completed the discharge process for Woods.

On March 18, 2009, Woods declared his intention run for Congress in a special election to replace Rep. Ellen Tauscher, who was nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. His campaign made it a high profile affair receiving national attention. However, his bid to become the first openly gay African-American elected to Congress ended when he lost a special election held on September 1, 2009, receiving under 9 percent of the vote.

1983 – The U.S. House of Representatives votes to officially censure Rep. Gerry Studds after becoming the first member of Congress to come out.

1987 – President Ronald Reagan appoints Larry Kramer, co-founder of Gay Men's Health Crisis, to a federal panel on HIV-AIDS. Like everything else Reagan did about HIV-AIDS, it was only about seven years too late.

1989 – Photographer Robert Mapplethorpe's show opens at Washington D.C.'s Project for the Arts after the Smithsonian Institution's Corcoran Gallery cancels it.

2005 – Canada became the fourth country in the world and the first country in the Americas to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide with the enactment of the Civil Marriage Act which provided a gender-neutral marriage definition. Court decisions, starting in 2003, each already legalized same-sex marriage in eight out of ten provinces and one of three territories, whose residents comprised about 90% of Canada's population. Before passage of the Act, more than 3,000 same-sex couples had already married in those areas. Most legal benefits commonly associated with marriage had been extended to cohabiting same-sex couples since 1999.

The Civil Marriage Act was introduced by Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberal government in the Canadian House of Commons on February 1, 2005 as Bill C-38. It was passed by the House of Commons on June 28, 2005, by the Senate on July 19, 2005, and it received Royal Assent the following day. On December 7, 2006, the House of Commons effectively reaffirmed the legislation by a vote of 175 to 123, defeating a Conservative government motion to examine the matter again.