• in his 1999 book The Trouble With Normal, gay author Michael Warner argued that same-sex marriage is an undesirable goal for the gay rights movement?
• fruit as a slang term developed in London with the costermongers and later in Cockney rhyming slang and Polari, with most variations becoming pejorative against gay men who have since reclaimed usages?
• Randy Shilts was the first openly gay man in the mainstream U.S. media?
• the 2009 book Unfriendly Fire argues that bans on gays in the military were based on prejudices and fears, not empirical data?
• the Veterans Benevolent Association, an early organization for gay American veterans, worked with the NAACP to end the issuance of the less-than-honorable blue discharge?
• the killing of a gay Marvel superhero by Wolverine led to the creation of the novel Hero, whose protagonist is a gay teenager?
• the author of Hollywood Undercover posed as an aspiring gay actor while investigating claims of a Church of Scientology "cure" for homosexuality?
• Randi Weingarten, the openly gay president of the United Federation of Teachers, has been called one of the 25 most powerful women in New York City business?
• R Family Vacations offered the first all-gay and lesbian family vacation packages where LGBT parents can bring their children?
• drag entertainer José Sarria was the first openly gay candidate for public office in the United States, garnering some 6,000 votes in his 1961 campaign for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors?
• African-American gay and transgender Ali Forney, once homeless himself, had a homeless LGBT youth center in New York City named after him for his work helping other youths?
• gay screenwriter Marco Pennette was outed in front of his parents on the People's Choice Awards red carpet by a colleague who asked him about his boyfriend?
• Kevin Killian's My Vocabulary Did This to Me won the American Book Award for poetry in 2008 and his Impossible Princess won the Lambda Literary Award as best gay erotic fiction in 2009?
• Pullen Memorial Baptist Church is the first Baptist church in the Southern United States to have chosen an openly gay lead cleric?
• LPI Media is the largest publisher of gay and lesbian material in the United States with its magazines alone having more than 8.2 million copies distributed each year?
• Oscar-winning executive producer Randy Stone co-founded The Trevor Project, which provided the first 24-hour, toll-free suicide prevention hotline aimed at gay and questioning youth in the United States?

Facts on topics related to Gay

Homosexuality

• "The Snowman" was likely the product of Hans Christian Andersen's homoerotic ardor for Harald Scharff, a ballet dancer at the Royal Danish Theatre?
• 97% of the letters from viewers of The Rejected, the first documentary about homosexuality to air on American television, were positive?
• homosexuality has been labeled by some communists as a product of bourgeois decadence?
• Mohamed Camara's 1997 film Dakan was the first West African film to explore homosexuality?
• Norwegian researchers published Gay Kids in November 2008 to educate children about homosexual love?
• Tanaz Eshaghian's film Be Like Others explores the experiences of transsexuals in Iran, a country that outlaws homosexuality but sanctions sex-reassignment surgery?
• Leo Abse (born 1917) was a Labour Member of Parliament largely responsible for legalising male homosexual relations in the United Kingdom?
• Marc-André Raffalovich, a French poet, writer on homosexuality, and patron of the arts, had a life-long relationship with John Gray, the purported model for Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray?
• Tearoom Trade, a study by sociologist Laud Humphreys of homosexual acts taking place in public toilets, caused a major debate on ethics in observation?
• The Love of Siam director Chukiat Sakweerakul (pictured) intentionally sought to downplay the 2007 Thai film's gay love story in marketing materials, in hopes of the film reaching a broader audience?

Bisexuality

• after Bernard Natan directed and acted in hardcore heterosexual and bisexual pornographic films from 1920 to 1927, by 1929 he owned the giant French movie studio Pathé and later helped develop the anamorphic film lens?
• the 1920 French film Le Menage Moderne Du Madame Butterfly is the earliest known hardcore pornographic film to depict bisexual and homosexual intercourse?

Sexual orientation

• the European Court of Human Rights in Smith and Grady v UK found that the discharge of personnel from the British Army on the basis of sexual orientation was a breach of their right to a private life?
• the Homomonument in Amsterdam commemorates all gay men and lesbians who have been subjected to persecution because of their sexual orientation?

Non-heterosexual

• non-heterosexual is an umbrella term, describing people who do not or no longer identify as heterosexual?