Did you know that the high five was invented by a gay man? As the story goes, on October 2, 1977, L.A. Dodger Glenn Burke, the first MLB player to come out, was on deck and Dusty Baker was about to cross the plate and score his 30th home run. Burke held up his hand and Baker slapped it.
Burke, a talented player, faced homophobia and was essentially booted out of professional baseball. He remained an athlete, playing softball in a gay league and competing in the 1982 and 1986 Gay Games. He died of AIDS-related causes in 1995.
Since I don’t have any photos of Glenn Burke and me, here’s a photo of Raymond and me at Pride Night a few years ago. It’s taken a few decades, but MLB has evolved from ostracizing gay players to hosting Pride events. That’s definitely worth a high five! 🙌
Jinkx Monsoon, Seattle’s premier Jewish narcoleptic drag queen, lit up the gay internet last month with her uproarious — yet somehow reverent — impersonation of Judy Garland. I insist you watch it right now:
Every gay man I know, except my brother-in-law1, is still talking about it. The Complimentary Spouse and I text each other lines from the performance several times a day.
Want proof?
Jinkx’s performance got me thinking: Why did Judy Garland become such a huge gay icon? And why is she still one today, 53 years after her death?
First, she starred in the Wizard of Oz, an allegory for running away from your drab life in the closet to a fabulous, colorful place filled with campy characters. For decades, calling someone a “Friend of Dorothy” was a clandestine way of saying they were gay.
Second, she showed amazing strength despite her struggles. The late Bob Smith, a gay comedian, compared the tragedies of Elvis and Judy in his book “Openly Bob”:
Elvis had a drinking problem. Judy could drink Elvis under the table. Elvis gained more weight. Judy lost more weight. Elvis was addicted to painkillers. No pill could stop Judy’s pain!
Bob Smith
Third, according to gay film scholar Richard Dyer, she had “a characteristically gay way of handling the values, images and products of the dominant culture through irony, exaggeration, trivialization, theatricalization and an ambivalent making fun of and out of the serious and respectable.”
Finally, she welcomed and was grateful for her gay fans. She stood up for them, once telling a reporter: “I’ve been treated brutally by the press, but I’ll be damned if I’ll have my audience mistreated.”
Is it any surprise that Judy’s legend lives on to this day?
___ 1 He doesn’t watch Drag Race. He is a bad gay.
It’s June, which can only mean one thing1 — it’s Pride month! And that calls for another 30 days of Gayskool, my LGBTQ history project here at the Daily Dave.
You can brush up on old Gayskool posts here. Come back tomorrow for my first post, which may or may not be about gay icons.2
___ 1 Actually, June is also the start of hurricane season. And today is my parents’ anniversary. So today really means three things. 2 It could be about something different. I haven’t written anything yet.
