Portrait

Christopher Marlowe

Born: 1564Canterbury, England
Died: 30 May 1593Deptford, England

Playwright and poetUnited Kingdom

Christopher Marlowe

His plays gave male desire a place on the Elizabethan stage, though the evidence about his own sexuality remains uncertain.

Christopher Marlowe was born in Canterbury in 1564. The son of a shoemaker, he was baptised there in February and later studied at Cambridge on a scholarship. Evidence of government intervention in his university career has encouraged speculation about work for the Elizabethan intelligence service.

In a short theatrical career, Marlowe helped establish the power of blank verse in plays including “Tamburlaine”, “Doctor Faustus” and “The Jew of Malta”. His ambitious, defiant protagonists challenged both political and religious authority.

“Edward II” made the king’s attachment to Piers Gaveston central to a struggle over power, loyalty and royal conduct. “Hero and Leander” also dwells on male beauty. These works have made Marlowe important to histories of same-sex desire in English literature.

Claims about his private beliefs and sexual life are less secure. Accusations of atheism and sexual misconduct came through hostile testimony whose reliability remains disputed. On 30 May 1593 he was killed in Deptford, aged 29. The official account of the encounter and the circumstances around it continue to attract debate, but speculation should not be mistaken for a settled biography.

More in May

01MayBorn 1874152nd birthday

Romaine Brooks

Her grey-toned portraits of women in top hats and tailored coats are icons of 1920s lesbian Paris – where she loved Natalie Barney for fifty years.

01MayDied 197848th anniversary of death

Sylvia Townsend Warner

The author of “Lolly Willowes” lived for almost forty years with the poet Valentine Ackland – and is buried with her.

02MayBorn 193096th birthday

Marco Pannella

Italy’s great civil rights campaigner fought for divorce, abortion and gay rights with hunger strikes – and spoke openly about loving men and women.

02MayDied 199828th anniversary of death

Justin Fashanu

The first professional footballer to come out as gay – a step that cost him dearly in the game he loved.

02MayDied 1519507th anniversary of death

Leonardo da Vinci

The universal genius of the Renaissance was accused of sodomy at 24, never married and lived with young male companions.

03MayDied 198937th anniversary of death

Christine Jorgensen

Front-page coverage of her transition in 1952 made her a public figure who used celebrity to discuss trans lives.

04MayBorn 195868th birthday

Keith Haring

His chalk drawings in the New York subway became a worldwide visual language – and a weapon in the fight against AIDS.

05MayBorn 1921105th birthday

Del Martin

She and Phyllis Lyon helped build a national lesbian movement before becoming an emblematic couple in the struggle for marriage equality.

05MayDied 201115th anniversary of death

Arthur Laurents

The writer of “West Side Story” and “Gypsy” also helped bring a gay couple’s story to Broadway as a director.

06MayDied 199234th anniversary of death

Marlene Dietrich

In a top hat and tuxedo she kissed a woman on screen in 1930 – and loved men and women all her life.

07MayBorn 199729th birthday

Daria Kasatkina

In 2022 Russia’s top tennis player came out – just as her country was tightening its laws against queer people.

07MayBorn 1840186th birthday

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

The composer of “Swan Lake” and “The Nutcracker” loved men – and wrote about his struggles in letters to his brother.

08MayBorn 1920106th birthday

Tom of Finland

His drawings of muscular men in leather and uniform helped create a new, self-confident gay masculinity.

08MayDied 201214th anniversary of death

Maurice Sendak

The creator of “Where the Wild Things Are” lived with his partner for fifty years – and only spoke about it publicly at 80.

09MayDied 196858th anniversary of death

Mercedes de Acosta

A poet and screenwriter whose love affairs with Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and other stars made her a legend of lesbian history.

09MayDied 200422nd anniversary of death

Brenda Fassie

Her township pop, outspoken personality and songs of resistance made her a defining voice in South African music.

09MayDied 20206th anniversary of death

Little Richard

The “Architect of Rock and Roll” wore make-up and pompadours in the 1950s – and spent his life torn between his queerness and his faith.

10MayBorn 197749th birthday

Denise Ho

Her support for LGBTQ+ rights and Hong Kong’s democracy movement brought political pressure into a successful Cantopop career.

10MayBorn 197947th birthday

Marieke Vervoort

A Paralympic champion who raced through constant pain – and spoke openly about her right to decide when to die.

11MayBorn 193393rd birthday

Mychal Judge

The chaplain of the New York Fire Department was the first recorded victim of 11 September 2001 – a gay priest who cared for people with AIDS.

11MayDied 20233rd anniversary of death

Kenneth Anger

An avant-garde filmmaker who made openly homoerotic films in the 1940s – and wrote the scandalous “Hollywood Babylon”.

11MayDied 200323rd anniversary of death

Sakia Gunn

At 15 she told a man at a bus stop that she was a lesbian – and was stabbed to death. Her murder changed Newark.

Jason Collins

An NBA player whose decision to come out made a private truth a public milestone in men’s sport.

12MayDied 1925101st anniversary of death

Amy Lowell

A forceful advocate of modern poetry, she wrote intimate love poems inspired by her life with Ada Dwyer Russell.

12MayDied 200818th anniversary of death

Robert Rauschenberg

He put a stuffed goat in a car tyre and called it art – and his relationships with Cy Twombly and Jasper Johns shaped American art.

13MayBorn 196660th birthday

Cheryl Dunye

With “The Watermelon Woman” she became the first openly Black lesbian to direct a feature film – and invented a film history that should have existed.

14MayBorn 1917109th birthday

Lou Harrison

A composer who built his own gamelan orchestras with his partner Bill Colvig – and wrote one of the first operas with an openly gay theme.

14MayBorn 1868158th birthday

Magnus Hirschfeld

He founded the world’s first gay rights organisation and the first institute for sexual science – which the Nazis destroyed in 1933.

14MayDied 193591st anniversary of death

Magnus Hirschfeld

He founded the world’s first gay rights organisation and the first institute for sexual science – which the Nazis destroyed in 1933.

15MayBorn 193987th birthday

Barbara Hammer

Across more than 80 moving-image works, she explored lesbian desire, the body and the gaps in queer history.

15MayBorn 193096th birthday

Jasper Johns

An artist whose flags, targets and numbers changed the relationship between familiar signs and painting.

15MayBorn 193591st birthday

Akihiro Miwa

A survivor of the Nagasaki bombing, the singer and actor became a distinctive queer presence on Japan’s stages, on television and in Studio Ghibli films.

15MayDied 200422nd anniversary of death

Gloria Anzaldúa

A Chicana writer whose work made the border a way of thinking about language, identity and power.

15MayDied 1886140th anniversary of death

Emily Dickinson

A poet whose private world opened into an extraordinary range of language, feeling and thought.

16MayBorn 1919107th birthday

Liberace

The glittering showman at the piano was the highest-paid entertainer in the world – and denied being gay until his death from AIDS.

16MayBorn 192997th birthday

Adrienne Rich

Her poetry and essays connected private experience with public power, making motherhood, lesbian life and the limits of freedom central subjects of her work.

16MayDied 195274th anniversary of death

Frances Benjamin Johnston

A photographer who recorded public figures, education and the changing architecture of the American South.

17MayBorn 195076th birthday

Howard Ashman

A lyricist and dramatist who helped restore the musical to the heart of Disney animation.

18MayDied 20233rd anniversary of death

Helmut Berger

Luchino Visconti’s partner and muse played King Ludwig II – and became the androgynous “it boy” of European cinema in the 1970s.

19MayBorn 193096th birthday

Lorraine Hansberry

The first Black woman to have a play on Broadway wrote anonymous letters to a lesbian magazine about homophobia and feminism.

19MayBorn 199234th birthday

Sam Smith

The soul singer with the falsetto voice came out as gay at the start of their career and as non-binary in 2019.

19MayDied 201610th anniversary of death

Marco Pannella

Italy’s great civil rights campaigner fought for divorce, abortion and gay rights with hunger strikes – and spoke openly about loving men and women.

19MayDied 198739th anniversary of death

James Tiptree Jr.

A science-fiction writer whose male pen name unsettled assumptions about gender and authorship.

20MayBorn 1803223rd birthday

Ann Walker

In 1834 she and Anne Lister took communion together in a York church and considered themselves married – Britain’s first known lesbian wedding.

21MayBorn 199432nd birthday

Tom Daley

A diving prodigy who came out at 19 with a YouTube video – and won Olympic gold while knitting between dives.

21MayBorn 1925101st birthday

Frank Kameny

An astronomer whose dismissal helped turn the fight against anti-gay discrimination into a civil rights campaign.

21MayDied 193591st anniversary of death

Jane Addams

A social reformer whose work for immigrant communities grew into an international campaign for peace.

21MayDied 200026th anniversary of death

John Gielgud

The greatest Shakespearean voice of his generation was arrested in 1953 – and the audience gave him a standing ovation.

21MayDied 194977th anniversary of death

Klaus Mann

Thomas Mann’s son lived openly as a gay man in the 1920s, fought Nazism from exile and wrote “Mephisto”.

21MayDied 20197th anniversary of death

Binyavanga Wainaina

His writing challenged clichés about Africa and made room for new literary voices and openly queer lives.

22MayBorn 1870156th birthday

Eva Gore-Booth

An Irish aristocrat who fought for working women’s votes and wages – and lived for thirty years with her companion Esther Roper.

22MayBorn 193096th birthday

Harvey Milk

A San Francisco politician whose election and speeches made openly gay public life a source of hope.

22MayDied 196759th anniversary of death

Langston Hughes

The poet of the Harlem Renaissance gave Black America a voice – his own private life remains a subject of debate.

22MayDied 194878th anniversary of death

Claude McKay

His poetry of resistance and fiction about Black life made him a central voice of the Harlem Renaissance.

23MayBorn 1890136th birthday

Lotte Hahm

In Weimar Berlin she ran the city’s biggest lesbian clubs and co-founded the world’s first organisation for trans people.

23MayBorn 1908118th birthday

Annemarie Schwarzenbach

Her writing and photographs followed journeys from Switzerland to Afghanistan and a life at odds with her family’s expectations.

23MayDied 197551st anniversary of death

Moms Mabley

The first woman comic at the Apollo Theater wore men’s suits off stage – and as “Moms” said things no other comedian dared to say.

24MayDied 201412th anniversary of death

Stormé DeLarverie

According to many witnesses, her fight with police at the Stonewall Inn sparked the uprising of 1969 – she was called “the Rosa Parks of the gay community”.

25MayBorn 197254th birthday

Karan Johar

One of Bollywood’s most powerful filmmakers wrote that “everybody knows” his sexual orientation – but would not say it in a country where he could be jailed for it.

25MayBorn 193987th birthday

Ian McKellen

An actor whose public coming out joined a distinguished stage career to the campaign for gay equality.

25MayDied 1899127th anniversary of death

Rosa Bonheur

The most famous woman painter of the 19th century needed a police permit to wear trousers – and lived for over forty years with Nathalie Micas.

25MayDied 20188th anniversary of death

Roxsana Hernández

She fled Honduras because she was trans and asked for asylum in the US – three weeks later she died in immigration custody.

26MayBorn 194482nd birthday

Carl Bean

His Motown disco hit “I Was Born This Way” became an anthem – then he founded a church for Black queer people and fought AIDS in Los Angeles.

26MayBorn 198739th birthday

Sakia Gunn

At 15 she told a man at a bus stop that she was a lesbian – and was stabbed to death. Her murder changed Newark.

26MayBorn 195769th birthday

Ulrike Lunacek

Austria’s first openly lesbian member of parliament became Vice-President of the European Parliament and a leading voice for LGBTI rights in Europe.

26MayBorn 195175th birthday

Sally Ride

The first American woman in space kept her 27-year relationship with a woman private – it was revealed only in her obituary.

27MayBorn 193096th birthday

Röbi Rapp

A star of the drag shows at the balls of “Der Kreis”, he lived for 61 years with Ernst Ostertag – the couple whose story became the film “Der Kreis”.

27MayDied 20206th anniversary of death

Larry Kramer

The angriest voice of the AIDS crisis co-founded GMHC and ACT UP – and shouted until the world listened.

28MayBorn 196066th birthday

Corine Mauch

Zurich’s first woman mayor served from 2009 to 2026, bringing an openly lesbian presence to the city’s highest office.

28MayDied 197254th anniversary of death

Violette Leduc

Her frank account of love between two schoolgirls was censored in the 1950s – and her memoir “La Bâtarde” became a bestseller.

29MayBorn 194482nd birthday

Helmut Berger

Luchino Visconti’s partner and muse played King Ludwig II – and became the androgynous “it boy” of European cinema in the 1970s.

29MayBorn 197254th birthday

Laverne Cox

In 2014 she was on the cover of Time under the headline “The Transgender Tipping Point” – the first openly trans person to get there.

29MayBorn 194779th birthday

Gene Robinson

The first openly gay bishop in a major Christian church with a historic episcopate wore a bulletproof vest at his consecration.

29MayDied 195769th anniversary of death

James Whale

A film director whose horror classics found wit, vulnerability and sympathy in the figure of the outsider.

30MayBorn 1903123rd birthday

Countee Cullen

His formally crafted poetry explored race, belief and beauty, while his private correspondence opens further questions about desire.

30MayBorn 1926100th birthday

Christine Jorgensen

Front-page coverage of her transition in 1952 made her a public figure who used celebrity to discuss trans lives.

30MayBorn 195373rd birthday

Eduard Stapel

The Stasi set hundreds of informers on him – he built up the gay movement in East Germany under the roof of the Protestant church.

30MayDied 201313th anniversary of death

Rituparno Ghosh

One of India’s great filmmakers openly challenged gender norms on screen and in his own life.

31MayBorn 194581st birthday

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

In just 13 years he made more than 40 films – about love, exploitation and outsiders, including gay men like himself.

31MayBorn 1819207th birthday

Walt Whitman

The poet of “Leaves of Grass” celebrated the body and “the love of comrades” – and became an icon for gay men around the world.

31MayDied 197848th anniversary of death

Hannah Höch

A Dada artist whose photomontages cut through the conventions of gender, politics and mass culture.