Wikipedia.org is an extremely gay-friendly information source. True, their listing of gay icons comes up with a STOP sign warning you that “the inclusion of certain people in this category is disputed.” But that might be more because gays dispute among themselves whether they want to see, for instance, Liberace on the list then because Liberace himself would object to being on it.
Tammy Faye, Petula Clark, Patty Duke; they’re all there. Going a little higher on the brow, there’s Josephine Baker, Betty Buckley, Christina of Sweden and Martha Graham. Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas made the cut, as did their latter-day equivalents Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly. Some of these icons may be more familiar to you than others; to learn more about Theda Bara, go here.
The Wikipedia.org gay icons page makes homo research a breeze; one little mouse click on the icon of your choice and you’re taken to a page just brimming with information about what put the LGBT in the icon. Who knew that Jamie Denton played basketball at a junior college, or that when Hildegard Knef appeared in the first nude scene in German cinema, the Catholic Church Nazis spit swastikas? This icon page is so user friendly that if you click on RuPaul and then see the word “Genderfucking” but don’t know what it means, you can click on it to have the definition spelled out, as if by a university professor addressing a total moron.
