UPON THIS QUEER DAY – OCTOBER 2022
Written by Adriaan van den Berg
The LGBTQIA+ Calendar for October 2022 (With National and International Awareness Days)
October 1st – October is Transport month, Marine Month and Social Development Month and Crime Prevention Month. Today is International Day of Older Persons. In 2005, on this day, the first transgender demonstration took place in Paris – France would become the first country to declassify transsexuality as an illness. George Cecil Ives was also born today (d. 4 June, 1950). He was a German-English poet, writer, penal reformer and early homosexual law reformer campaigner who proposed that love and sex between men was a true form of democracy and an away of undermining the class system. He also founded the famous Order of Chaeronea which was an underground, and a secret society for sexual minorities facilitating communication and cooperation and unity. Ives together with also famous Magnus Hirschfeld, Laurence Housman and others also formed the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology.
October 2nd – International Day of Non-Violence.
October 3rd – Today is World Habitat Day. The author of the book Homosexuals in History, A. L.. Rowse died on this day in 1997 in the UK. In 1992 on this day, at the fourth annual Asian Lesbian and Gay Regional Conference in Manila in the Philippines, delegates voted to create the Global Alliance Lesbian and Gay Asia to promote solidarity amongst Asian sexual minorities.
October 4th – On this day in 2012 in Puerto Rico, boxer Orlando Cruz came out as gay. It is also the birthday of E.M. Foster (d. July 1, 1962) who wrote the novel Maurice about a young man coming to terms with his homosexuality. The novel was only published after his death upon the author’s request.
October 5th – It is World Teacher’s Day. On this day in 1999, African scholar Ali Mazrui criticized Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni for targeting gays and lesbians for harassment and arrest.
October 6th – The young American gay martyr Matthew Shepard’s name (b. Dec. 1st 1976) and tragic death is well known to LGBTIQ people worldwide. His murder occurred on this day in 1998 after Matthew had joined some boys and had ended up being beaten, pistol whipped and tied to a fence near Laramie, Wyoming. He would die of his injuries in hospital in Ft. Collins, Colorado on the 12th of October. Two young men were arrested and charged for his murder, and sent them both to two consecutive life sentences.
October 7th – The first explicitly LGBTQ internet newsgroup, soc.motts, was founded on this day in 1983 by Steve Dyer. Amy Goodloe, a lecturer at the University of Colorado in Boulder and the founder of lesbian organisation called soc.motts not just the first explicitly LGBT newsgroup, but the first explicitly LGBTQ international space of any kind.
October 8th – The first ever gay demonstration in Sydney takes place outside the headquarters of the Liberal Party on this day in 1971. Amongst the 70 protestors in attendance was Dennis Altman (b. August 16, 1943), an academic, gay writer and an activist who will still become one of the single most visible and well-known of pioneering gay rights activists in Australia.
October 9th – Today is the day commemorating the Partnership against HIV/Aids Anniversary and it is also World Hospice and Palliative Care Day. And on this day in 2011, the first transgender member of the European Parliament was elected, Anna Grodzka (b. March 16 1954), a Polish politician was also the first Polish member of Parliament.
October 10th – Today is World Mental Health Day. Of the few countries where pride events and parades have been met by violent counter-protestors, is Serbia (the other is Israel). Its second pride march in Belgrade in 2010 drew as many as 6000 anti-gay protestors.
October 11th – Today is International Day of the Girl Child.
October 12th – Today is World Arthritis Day. And on this day in 2011, the Huffington Post became the first mainstream news organization to have a LGBTQ-focused platform or section when it launched Gay Voices which it changed to Queer Voices in 2016.
October 13th – On this day in 2002 a significant shift occurred in one denomination in the USA when the Myers Park Baptist Church left the notoriously homophobic Southern Baptist Convention to become the first queer affirming Baptist congregation in the world.
October 14th – Today is World Sight Day. In Uganda on this day in 2009, the Anti-Homosexuality Act Bill was submitted to parliament – it called for nothing less that the death penalty for those convicted of homosexuality. After the sentence was commuted to life in prison the bill was adopted. It was made invalid in 2014 but Uganda had become a notoriously unfriendly place for LGBTQIA+ people.
October 15th – It is International Day of Rural Women today.
October 16th – It is World Food Day today. Our entry for the 6th of October noted and commemorated the murder of LGBTQ martyr Mathew Sheppard in the USA in 1998. Today’s entry remembers his funeral in Casper, Wyoming.
October 17th – Today is World Trauma Day as well as International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. On this day in 1995, the United Nations considered violations and abuses of gay and lesbian rights for the first time in its history at its Tribunal on Human Rights Violations Against Sexual Minorities.
October 18th – From the USA, on this date in October 1990, dates another case illustrative of the extent to which homophobes and people with serious anti-LGBTQ attitudes and persuasions will go in taking action against us – and very often they proved to also have been dedicated racists: Three LGBTQ-hating white supremacists were prevented from executing their plan and were convicted of conspiring to blow up a gay disco and bar called Neighbors in Boise, Idaho.
October 19th – In 2009, on this day in October, the Lutheran Church of Sweden voted in favor of allowing same sex marriages by 176 of 249 votes cast.
October 20th – Today is World Osteoporosis Day and today’s entry is a joyous one: It is namely on this day in 1997 that Portugal’s first Gay and Lesbian Community Centre opened in the city of Lisbon.
October 21st – The US Surgeon General’s Report released on this day and date of October 1998 which recognised that gay and lesbian youth were as high-risk group, for which it recommended target prevention efforts. Rather, such reports should be motivation and the basis for follow-up studies attempting to obtain an even clearer picture of the problem.
October 22nd – Today is the occasion for the Diplomatic Fun Fair at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.
October 23rd – Rev. Jerry Falwell and other evangelical Christians met with a Rev. Mel White and a number of gay Christians for an anti-violence forum on 23 October 1999.
October 24th – Today is United Nations Day. On this day in 1981, the first National Conference in Lesbian and Gay Ageing was namely held in California and (was) sponsored by the National Association for Gay and Lesbian Gerontology. The conference sought to “dispel myths about older lesbians and gay men, advance research, establish programs and services for lesbian and gay elders, and encourage and provide support for lesbian and gay gerontologists.”
October 25th – Let’s salute The Front Page which was the first LGBTQIA+ newspaper in Raleigh, North Carolina and which was first published on this day in October, 1979.
October 26th – The European Court of Human Rights was petitioned by an Irish MP in 1992, and subsequently ruled on this day of October that year that Irish laws criminalizing sex between men were in violation of the Charter of Human Rights.
October 27th – World Day for Audiovisual Heritage: In the spirit of this international dedication of this day, I want to introduce youthful readers to a learning-oriented app that also presents events from LGBTQIA+ history day by day called Quist.
October 28th – Today until the 3rd of November is World Stroke Awareness Week. In 1997 gospel singers Angie and Debbie Winans had a hate-monger’s tune titled It’s Not Natural which was homophobia set to a musical accompaniment. Luckily some people didn’t let it slide: The National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum severely criticized and condemned the Winans and their song on this day of October in that same year.
October 29th – In 1980 in this day of October, homophobic graffiti was seen painted on the Memorial Steps at Tufts University in Boston in the USA which read “FAGS MUST DIE.” Despite an uproar about it on campus and in the local community, the graffiti remained which further agitated people. It was finally removed days later only after a pointed angry demand was conveyed by a number of parties to authorities.
October 30th – Police raided a lesbian bar in Lima, Peru on this day in October 1986. Television crews filmed the women and after their arrest, they were being notified beforehand of the impending raid and arrests. The women were then shown on local television news broadcasts which resulted in many losing their jobs, some being beaten by their families and two were raped on their way home after leaving the police station. Peru has a quite visible LGBTQIA+ community today, and there has been legislative reforms and an end has largely been put to such outrages as the 1986 raid.
October 31st – Today is World Cities Day.
May this LGBTGQ History Calendar and its entries serve you as food for thought and inspiration to keep up the fight and to stay true to yourself and our people.
May this LGBTGQ History Calendar and its entries serve you as food for thought and inspiration to keep up the fight and to stay true to yourself and our people.
Interfaith Calendar for October 2022
October 4th – Yom Kippur: Judaism – Day of Atonement for reflection on sins.
October 5th – Dussehra: Hinduism – Final 10th day of festival honoring Asuj Navratas.
October 8th – Mawlid: Islamic – Birthday of the Prophet.
October 9th – 16th – Sukkot: Judaism: Remembering the Jews journeying through the desert on their way to the promised land.
October 24th – Diwali: Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism – Festival of Lights.
October 26th – Birthday of Bab: Bahai – Day honoring God’s messenger.
October 27th – Birthday of Baha”u”llah: Bahai – Day honoring the founder prophet of the faith.
October 28th – Death of Antinous in the Nile: Antinoan Faith of the Queer God Antinous.
October 29th – Descend of Antinous into the Underworld: Antinoan Faith
Founding Day: Antinoan Faith of the Queer God Antinous.
