LGBTQ+ World History Museum

There is a wonderful book about Rose Valland, The Art Spy, it tells the story of her life, and love for Joyce Heer.

Valland had a relationship with Joyce Helen Heer a Liverpool born secretary-interpreter at the Embassy of the United States. The two women shared an apartment in the 5th arrondissement of Paris. The relationship ended upon Heer's death of whereupon she was interred in Valland's family vault.

She secretly recorded details of the Nazi plundering of National French and private Jewish-owned art from France; and, working with the French Resistance saved thousands of works of art.

Rose Antonia Maria Valland (1 November 1898 – 18 September 1980) was a French art curator, member of the French Resistance, captain in the French military, and one of the most decorated women in French history.

“We had a wonderful relationship from the time we were kids until we became lovers,” O'Shaughnessy says. “I think it's something to be proud of.”

O'Shaughnessy, whose childhood friendship with Ride became romantic in 1985, says she hopes the film will help people understand their relationship and ultimately portray an American hero “as who she really was.”

The documentary covers Ride’s rise at NASA to become the first American woman in space in 1983 as well as her lesser-told love story, which started in the ‘80s.

Tam O’Shaughnessy opens up about their 27-year romance in Sally, which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and will debut on Nat Geo June 16 and stream on Disney+ beginning June 17.

She was in a private long-term relationship with former Women's Tennis Association player Tam O'Shaughnessy she is the first astronaut known to have been LGBTQ a fact she hid until her death, when her obituary identified O'Shaughnessy as her partner of 27 years. She died of pancreatic cancer in 2012

Sally Ride. Sally Kristen Ride (May 26, 1951 – July 23, 2012) was an American astronaut and physicist. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983 became the first American woman and the third woman to fly in space in 1982.

An anonymous researcher at the historical society became aware of the letters in 1978 and sent a tip to the Gay Task Force of the American Library Association The Gay Task Force had the historian of sexuality Jonathan Ned Katz negotiate the release of the letters and they were unsealed the same year

As the letters were sexual in nature and documented a same-sex relationship, the Minnesota Historical Society chose to remove them from the collection and seal them away until 1980.

Cleveland's romantic letters to Whipple were acquired by the Minnesota Historical Society as part of their collection on Henry Benjamin Whipple. The set included correspondences from 1890 to 1910, though only a few letters exist from the final five years.

Her coffin was draped with the 13-star flag of the United States, and the mayor ordered all businesses closed for the day. Whipple was buried beside Cleveland upon her own death from pneumonia and kidney failure twelve years later.

Cleveland contracted the flu while caring for Erichsen and died on November 22, 1918. Cleveland's funeral was attended by many of the refugees whom she had helped during World War I and the Spanish flu, as well as the American consul and the mayor of Bagni di Lucca.

In 1918, Cleveland and Whipple founded a girls school in Bagni di Lucca. The Spanish flu occurred that year, and the women worked with the mayor to organize the town's response. Erichsen contracted the disease and died days later on November 15, 1918.

Cleveland felt less of an inclination to express her beliefs about society through writing while living in Italy, as social norms were more relaxed in a way that allowed expats to have same-sex relationships. By 1914, they were joined in Bagni di Lucca by the English artist Nelly Erichsen.

When Whipple's brother fell ill in Italy in 1910, Cleveland accompanied her there to care for him.[35] They boarded the SS Saxonia on July 20, and they stayed in Florence until the brother died in 1912. They chose to remain in Italy afterward, settling in Bagni di Lucca in Tuscany.

The bishop died on September 16, 1901, and Cleveland again hoped for a romance between her and Whipple. They began visiting one another and traveling the United States together in 1902. Their correspondence became frequent again, and a romantic element returned to their relationship by 1905.

She traveled to Europe for a year to escape the situation before returning to the United States to work as a teacher. Cleveland began spending more time with their friend Evelyn Ames in 1895, and the two may have had a romantic relationship.

The more explicitly romantic aspect of Cleveland and Simpson's relationship ended in 1892, when Simpson was engaged to the bishop Henry Benjamin Whipple. Their contact with one another decreased in 1893. Cleveland felt betrayed by Simpson's decision to marry.

and Amelia Candler Gardiner, the daughter of Congressman John W. Candler of Massachusetts. They were also sometimes accompanied by two other friends, Adelaide Hamlin Thierry and Katherine Willard Baldwin.

The couple took trips together in the United States and Europe, between 1891 and 1893 They built a group of friends ten to twenty years their junior that accompanied them, including Evelyn Ames Hall the daughter of Governor Oliver Ames of Massachusetts and wife of artist Frederick Garrison Hall

Cleveland was in constant anticipation of these letters and always demanded further contact from Simpson. The relationship was known by their families, but there is no indication that the public knew of its romantic nature.

Their relationship had a sexual element beyond what was typical of the era's romantic friendship where same-sex couples had intimate but non-sexual relationships
The first known letter between Cleveland and Simpson was sent April 13, 1890 Their correspondences became more explicitly sexual over time

The two had similar interests and educational backgrounds. Both were wealthy; Simpson was widowed after marrying into wealth while Cleveland enriched herself through her writing career.

Florida was a favorite destination for Cleveland, and she traveled there each year starting in 1888. She kept an orange grove in Dunnellon that became profitable shortly after these trips began. While staying in Florida in 1889, Cleveland met Evangeline Marrs Simpson and began a romance with her.

After leaving the White House, Cleveland wrote several fiction and nonfiction works, many relating to women's rights. She was editor of a literary magazine for several months, and she continued teaching and lecturing.

She used the role of first lady to galvanize support for women's suffrage, expressing little interest in more typical household management tasks.

Receiving an advanced education in her youth, Cleveland defied gender norms and pursued a career in a variety of literary and academic positions. When her unmarried brother was elected president, she acted in the role of first lady until his marriage to Frances Folsom.