One of my mother’s older brothers, Paul Monroe Gamble, died in an automobile accident eleven days before Christmas 1959. He was 24. Twenty years later, in January 1979, my mother’s youngest brother, Clifford Lee (Ricky) Gamble, also died in an automobile accident. He was 29, the youngest of eighteen children. Uncle Paul died before I…
“Y’all Need October, Too?”
It happens every October. A school board somewhere passes a largely perfunctory LGBTQ+ History Month resolution – without demands, requirements, or enforcement mechanisms – and a dust storm erupts. In September, for example, in a district serving nearly 12,000 youngsters in Fairbanks, Alaska, after listening to eight community members testify in favor of a History…
October 2026: “You’re Living Through LGBTQ+ History Right Now”
Thirty-two years ago today – Monday, October 3, 1994 – the first-ever public event (as far as I know) for the nascent and then-named Lesbian and Gay History Month took place at Lucas Hall 100 at the University of Missouri at St. Louis (UMSL), where I was a nighttime graduate student in history while serving…
New Biography: An LGBTQ Pioneer Who Lived Most of His Life in the Closet
In October 1965, the Rev. Robert Watson Wood, along with three other protestors, appeared on the cover of The Ladder, the monthly publication of the Daughters of Bilitis, the first national organization for lesbian women in the United States. The cover photo was taken the previous June, when Rev. Wood and two dozen others —…
A Dozen Ways to Make America (More) Wonderful Again
I started paying attention to national politics fifty years ago, in Mrs. Griggs’ sixth-grade social studies class at Potosi (Missouri) Middle School during the bicentennial year when Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter battled it out for the presidency. International events came into focus with the capture of American hostages in Iran in 1979. A decade…
America 250: Queer Revolutionaries
Much has been written this year about the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and much has been written during the past few decades, including full biographies, about the queer (at least, queer-adjacent) lives of three who served in George Washington’s Continental Army: Deborah Sampson, Casimir Pulaski, and Baron von Steuben. This piece provides…
A Heartfelt Farewell to Margaret Katherine Flowing Johnson
Margaret Katherine Flowing Johnson November 14, 1940 – January 20, 2026 On her birth certificate, she was Margaret Katherine. To her origin family, she was Midge. To her partner Marcia’s family, she was Margaret. For a brief moment, she was almost Honey. To most who knew her in the St. Louis region for the last…
Whitney Wisker-Brooks, Out Progressive Lesbian, Running For House Seat in Rural Missouri
Whitney Wisker-Brooks, 38, an out progressive lesbian, is running for the House District 116 (HD 116) seat in the Missouri General Assembly. She is a Democrat. District 116 covers approximately the southern half of St. Francois County and the northern half of Madison County. (The St. Francois County Courthouse in Farmington, where 400 gathered at…
New Doc Short Explores the Videotaped History of the Queer Midwest in the 1980s-90s
A Newsweek cover forty years ago declared a “video generation,” with young and old and black and white Americans eager to record birthdays, weddings, and other significant events in their lives. There is no identifiable LGBTQ person included on that cover, but queer people in the 1980s were as eager as everyone else to document…
Precious Names and Places: The Central West End and LGBTQ+ St. Louis
For as long as I can remember, grounding myself in history has provided steady footing. Even an evening at a new restaurant requires a quick Google search to learn the who, what, when, where, and why of the establishment’s history. In the period between 1990 and 1997 when I lived in St. Louis (South County,…
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