Boston's LGBTQ+ History: Notable Boston Creatives

Michael Bronski (1949 – )
Bronski has lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts since 1971. He is currently a professor at Harvard University and is best known for his 2011 book A Queer History of the United States. He has won numerous awards for LGBTQ activism and scholarship, including the prestigious Publishing Triangle's Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Steve Buckley (1956 – )
Buckley is a journalist and sports writer. He previously wrote for the Boston Herald, the Westfield Evening News, and Boston Magazine as well as other publications outside the Greater Boston area. Born in Cambridge, he currently resides in Somerville and writes for The Athletic. His other achievements include: organizing the annual Cambridge event The Old Time Baseball Game, hosting the podcast Two Outs which discussed LGBTQ+ issues in sports, and authoring The Best Boston Sports Arguments and Wicked Good Year.

Katharine Lee Bates (1859 – 1929)
Bates was an American author, poet, and social activist. She is assumed to have been in a relationship with Katharine Coman. Both were professors at Wellesley College. Bates is most famous for writing the song "America the Beautiful". She also wrote America the Dream, and From Gretna Green to Land's End, amongst other publications. 

Edith Guerrier (1870 – 1958)
One of BPL's own, Edith Guerrier was a librarian, author, and educator. She ran the "Saturday Evening Girls" reading and writing clubs for young immigrant women out of the North End Branch Library and later became the supervisor for all BPL branches in the 1920s. She lived together with her longtime companion Edith Brown in a house in Brighton. She wrote An Independent Woman: the Autobiography of Edith Guerrier, and Wanderfolk in Wonderland a Book of Animal Fable Stories, and more.

F.O. Matthiessen (1902 – 1950)
Harvard literary critic F.O. Matthiessen and New England painter Russell Cheney embarked upon a two decade long relationship in the mid 1920s.While they never publicly disclosed their relationship, they were open about it with their close friends and wrote about it in their letters, a collection of which are available at the BPL. Matthiessen's critical works were supplemented by left wing political activism. Potentially still devastated by Cheney's death due to illness in 1945 and afraid of being victimized by the growing Red Scare in American politics, Matthiessen committed suicide in 1950. (Left: F. O. Matthiessen with Pansy Littlefield, painted by Russell Cheney, 1926)

Brian McNaught (1948 – )
McNaught served as Boston's Mayor's Liaison to the Gay and Lesbian Community from 1982 to 1984, the first such full time position in the country. While working for Bosotn, McNaught created the first city task force on AIDS. He wrote several books on the subject of LGBTQ+ life and civil rights. McNaught is considered one of the world’s leading corporate diversity consultants dealing with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer issues in the workplace. BPL holds his books and government documents.

Porsha Olayiwola (1988 – )
Olayiwola earned her MFA in poetry from Emerson College and is the City of Boston's current Poet Laureate. She is the founder of the Roxbury Poetry Festival and was the 2021 Artist-in-Residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Her book I Shimmer Sometimes Too is available at BPL. Her work examines historical and current issues in the Black, woman, and queer diasporas.

Angelina Weld Grimké (1880 – 1958)
Grimké was a poet, playwright, and journalist born in Boston to a biracial family. She is noted for being one of the first Black American women to have a play publicly performed. Though to modern knowledge Grimké never came "out" in today's sense of the word, there is strong evidence in her writing and letters that she was lesbian or bisexual.

Elizabeth Bishop (1911 – 1979)
Bishop was a pulitzer prize winning poet and short-story writer. She was born in Worcester, Massachusetts and died in Boston. According to the State Library of Massachusetts, "She avoided personal and confessional themes in her poetry and labels such as 'female poet' or 'lesbian poet' as she wanted to be considered based on the quality of her writing, not on her gender or sexual orientation. Her published works are available at BPL and our Special Collections.

Michelle Tea (1971 – )
Tea was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts and moved to Boston as a teenager to live with her girlfriend. She has earned awards from LAMBD and PEN/America and is also the recipient of the Rona Jaffe Awards, and a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow. Her many publications are available at BPL as books, ebooks, and audiobooks.

Paul Monette (1945 – 1995)
Monette was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He moved to Boston as a young adult where he taught at Milton Academy. He later moved to Los Angeles with his longtime partner, Roger Horwitz, in 1977, where he became active in the city’s gay rights movement. "Frequently elegiac, Monette’s poems narrate the trauma and pain of the AIDS crisis" (Poetry Foundation). He died of complications from HIV/AIDS. Monette's influential publications can be found at BPL.

Stephin Merritt (1965 - )
Merritt is best known for being one of the principal singers in The Magnetic Fields, a band formed in Boston. He attended high school in Massachusetts and returned to Boston after attending NYU. Merritt is lauded for his lyrics and praised for the references he makes to gay love in his music. In addition to The Magnetic Fields, Merritt is also a solo artist and published a book of poetry, 101 Two-letter Words.

Boston Gay Men's Chorus
Founded in 1982, BGMC sings a wide spectrum of classical and popular music and creates social change by providing a positive, affirming image of the LGBTQ+ community. BPL hosts many of BGMC's videos, recordings, posters, and more via Digital Commonwealth.

Ayo Edebiri
Edebiri was born in Boston, grew up in Dorchester, and attended Boston Latin School. She is most famous for her role in the TV series The Bear, for which she has won a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. She identifies as queer.