No, Princess Diana was not a closet lesbian - but that doesn't disqualify her from being a gay icon.LONDON, UK - At the National Portrait Gallery in London, 10 famous homosexuals were each asked to choose 6 ‘Gay Icons’ who were inspirational to them in their struggle for dignity, respect, and equal rights regardless of their sexual orientation.
The result?
Some of what you would expect. Homosexual icons: Ian Roberts, a professional Australian rugby player; W.H. Auden, the British poet; Harvey Milk, the assassinated San Francisco mayor; and Virginia Woolf, who is known to have had a lesbian lover despite being married.
One man, Peter Tatchell, is depicted with his mug shot from a police station, underneath which the police officers in charge have stuck on the label “QUEER TERRORIST,” in big white letters, as part of Tatchell's criminal description. He was arrested for holding up a banner that said, “Charles can marry twice! Gays can’t marry once,” at the wedding procession in Windsor, England for the newlyweds, Prince Charles and Camilla Parker.
Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer of the United States army, a Vietnam war-veteran and a Bronze Star recipient, is one of the less well-known yet highly respectable and indisputably heroic gay icons in the exhibition. After being discharged from the army for admitting she was a lesbian, she filed a lawsuit in a civil court, which ruled both her discharge and the ban on homosexuals unconstitutional. The colonel then returned to the National Guard until her retirement in 1997. She was one of the only accepted openly homosexual officials in the United States army, before the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
But other ‘Gay Icons’ include straight people: CNN reporter, Christiane Amanpour; South- African president, Nelson Mandela; English rose, Princess Diana; and renowned Pulitzer Prize winning author, Maya Angelou.
You don’t have to be gay to be a gay icon. In the fight for LGBT rights, two groups have lost the dignity that makes one human: the homosexuals because of their sexual orientation, and the heterosexuals who have allowed their fellow man to be judged so arbitrarily – not by the content of his character, but by the gender of his partner. The ‘Gay Icon’ exhibition highlights the “human” in human rights: the fight for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights (LGBT) does not only concern the LGBT community itself, but also those who are not judged by their sexuality and discriminated against accordingly – those with the most power to change the status quo.
Click here to visit the website for the exhibition 'Gay Icons.' The exhibition is on at the National Portrait Gallery in London until October 18, with reduced admission for students.
