Ever since Gutzon Borglum, his son Lincoln and their associates carved the heads of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln into the granite face of Mount Rushmore (Six Grandfathers in Lakota), the term “Mount Rushmore” has been used to list the top four figures in almost any category.
We have the Mount Rushmore of Athletes (Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali, Pelé, and Tiger Woods), the Mount Rushmore of Rock and Roll (Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, the Beatles, and Jimi Hendrix), the Mount Rushmore of Superheroes (Superman, Batman, Captain America, and Spider-Man – what about Wonder Woman?) and so on.
Since this is a column that appears in LGBTQ papers, it behooves us to list great individuals who would appear in a queer Mount Rushmore. A previous attempt to come up with such a list has centered around entertainment figures like Judy Garland, Elton John and RuPaul (Harvey Milk was number 4). In The Gay 100, one of a series of books published in the wake of Michael H. Hart’s best-selling The 100, author Paul Russel listed, as his top four, Socrates, Sappho, Oscar Wilde, and Magnus Hirschfeld, “the Einstein of Sex.” There was no mention of bisexuals or trans people, though Wilde would be considered bisexual by today’s standards. Russell’s list is not bad, though a bit outdated, and I would have placed Walt Whitman (# 6 in Russell’s list) in the top four.
Who should we place in an LGBTQ Mount Rushmore? Though I love Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin, a top four list that centers around celebrities is unfair to those people, past or present, who have done the most to improve the lives of queer people everywhere. Nor would I want a list of mostly white, cisgender individuals, which is what Russell did in his Gay 100. Josē Sarria and Marsha P. Johnson are just as important in my book as Magnus Hirschfeld or Harvey Milk. Perhaps we should have one of each: a gay man, a lesbian, a bisexual, and a trans person. But that would not make sense.
Instead of trying to decide on individuals who changed the course of LGBTQ history, I propose that we honor groups of people who, under difficult circumstances, stood up for their lives and their communities and faced truth to power. Our Mount Rushmore will have symbolic figures, of every race and gender, who represent (1) those who came out when it was dangerous to do so; (2) those who faced the police and other authorities at the Stonewall inn, Compton’s Cafeteria, or elsewhere; (3) those who faced the ravages of AIDS, in themselves and others, with courage and love, and who challenged the authorities who did nothing to challenge this pandemic; and (4) those trans and nonbinary people who accept and proclaim their truth during the most transphobic political climate in decades.
This, my friends, is my personal LGBTQ Mount Rushmore.
