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I thought I do a bit of research on this interesting subject.
Since 'alternative' sexuality has been considered taboo during various eras of our existance ... I'm curious as to when the first movies were prouced on this subject.
Reference and quotes comes from this GLBTQ Site ... glad I know what the letters stand for now
First Transsexual depicted in Film
Whereas transvestites have been depicted in film since the silent era, transsexuals (people who have undergone sex-change surgery or who choose to live as the opposite gender) entered the movies only in the early 1950s. The earliest celluloid glimpses of transsexuality appeared shortly after news of George/Christine Jorgensen's 1952 sex-change surgery shocked and mesmerized the world with headlines such as "Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty," "Christine, by George!" and "Thousands in U.S. Don't Know Their True Sex."
The first movie attempting to capitalize on the story came from Ed Wood, a quirky filmmaker who was once named the "World's Worst Director." Wood's Glen or Glenda (I Changed My Sex) (1953) tells two stories, one about a transvestite, one about a transsexual.
Glen or Glenda (1953)
More Info
Think I'd like to watch this one ... Ed Wood is a hero and inspiration for my liking of schlock B-grade sci/fi horror films
First Transvestite depicted in Film
In the silent era, drag was typically a ridiculous farce that only reinforced the "comical" discrepancy between a performer's biology and his or her costume. We may think of a young Harold Lloyd disguised as a female pitcher in Spitball Sadie (1915), or Charlie Chaplin mischievously cross-dressed in A Busy Day (1914), The Masquerader (1914), and The Perfect Lady (1915).
A little more daringly, Al Christie's Rowdy Ann (1919) featured comedienne Fay Tincher as an ultra-butch cowgirl, the brawny equal of any man until she is "tamed" by the civilizing institution of marriage.
In the slapstick era, we may remember Cary Grant "suddenly going gay" in a frilly bathrobe in Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby (1939), or the transvestite disguise plots of Arthur Leonard's Boy! What a Girl (1945), Hawks' I Was a Male War Bride (1949), or, most famously, Billy Wilder's later, oft-imitated Some Like it Hot (1959).
As titilative comedy ... A Busy Day (1914)
More Info
Furthermore, because the standardized, apparently conservative transvestite plot is unlikely to come under much censorship, a few pre-queer drag films have managed to raise issues of queer desire even if their formulaic plots eventually demand a safe return to heterosexuality.
Here, we may think of Ernst Lubitsch's then-daring I Don't Want to be a Man! (1919), or the bisexual confusions generated by a cross-dressed Katharine Hepburn in George Cukor's Sylvia Scarlett (1935) and Renate Muller in Reinhold Schunzel's Viktor und Viktoria (1933), whose Berlin "decadence" the Nazis would soon extinguish.
More serious approach I don't want to be a Man (1918)
aka Ich möchte kein Mann sein
still 
More Info
Bisexual in Film
The first documented appearances of bisexual characters in motion pictures are A Florida Enchantment (1914), an American film by Sidney Drew, and Zapatas Bande, a German film from the same year. These early silent films were not burdened by overt censorship, and filmmakers were free to represent sexuality in their characters' lives within the constraints of the mores of the period.
Still, characters' sexuality was more often implied rather than definitively stated. Depictions of homosexuality and bisexuality were often cloaked in religious themes in order to evade local censors, who frequently edited films before they were screened.
A Florida Enchantment (1914)
still 
More Info
The Hays Code
Around 1915 Hollywood invented itself as the film capital of the world and along with this new industry came widespread notoriety for rampant debauchery--especially drug use and promiscuous sex--among its employees, especially performers.
Eventually deciding it needed to regulate itself before external censors did, a group of filmmakers and producers hired Will H. Hays, former Postmaster General, to draft a series of guidelines that by 1934 had become the Motion Picture Production Code, or Hays Code, which banned any explicit representation of homosexuality or bisexuality in American films. The words "gay," "homosexual," and "bisexual" could not even be uttered, and virtually no bisexual characters appeared in American films during the 1930s and 1940s. The lack of representation of bisexuals in film may have been abetted by the popular belief that bisexuality did not actually exist. Eventually, however, bold filmmakers began to release their films without adhering to the Code, which led to its complete abandonment in the 1960s.
Male Homosexual depicted in Film
A 1916 Swedish film, The Wings, seems to be one of the first overt gay screen romances; based on Herman Bang's novel, Mikael, it races through the melodrama of sculptor Claude Zoret and the elusive youth of the title. Anticipating the dominant theme of mainstream cinema over the next fifty years, their romance ends unhappily, with adopted son Mikael provoking his patron and lover to a feverish death. In The Wings at least Zoret dies of a broken heart, a genuinely romantic demise; more often, gay characters have died out of guilt or punishment.
The Wings (1916)
aka Vingarne
More Info
First Lesbian depicted in Film
This was harder to research for some reason ... had to surf around other sites for information and think that this German film was the first to depict the long between women.
Note ... if anyone can find an earlier film please post
Mädchen in Uniform (1931)
still 
More Info
It was the first all women cast movie and is a sympathetc depiction of a schoolgirl crush.
Also found this one ...
Queen Christina (1933)
still 
More Info
The story of Queen Christina (Greta Garbo) from her rise to the Swedish throne from the age of 5. This I mention because it may well be the first film where a bisexual actress plays a bisexual role.
Since 'alternative' sexuality has been considered taboo during various eras of our existance ... I'm curious as to when the first movies were prouced on this subject.
Reference and quotes comes from this GLBTQ Site ... glad I know what the letters stand for now
First Transsexual depicted in Film
Whereas transvestites have been depicted in film since the silent era, transsexuals (people who have undergone sex-change surgery or who choose to live as the opposite gender) entered the movies only in the early 1950s. The earliest celluloid glimpses of transsexuality appeared shortly after news of George/Christine Jorgensen's 1952 sex-change surgery shocked and mesmerized the world with headlines such as "Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty," "Christine, by George!" and "Thousands in U.S. Don't Know Their True Sex."
The first movie attempting to capitalize on the story came from Ed Wood, a quirky filmmaker who was once named the "World's Worst Director." Wood's Glen or Glenda (I Changed My Sex) (1953) tells two stories, one about a transvestite, one about a transsexual.
Glen or Glenda (1953)
More Info
Think I'd like to watch this one ... Ed Wood is a hero and inspiration for my liking of schlock B-grade sci/fi horror films
First Transvestite depicted in Film
In the silent era, drag was typically a ridiculous farce that only reinforced the "comical" discrepancy between a performer's biology and his or her costume. We may think of a young Harold Lloyd disguised as a female pitcher in Spitball Sadie (1915), or Charlie Chaplin mischievously cross-dressed in A Busy Day (1914), The Masquerader (1914), and The Perfect Lady (1915).
A little more daringly, Al Christie's Rowdy Ann (1919) featured comedienne Fay Tincher as an ultra-butch cowgirl, the brawny equal of any man until she is "tamed" by the civilizing institution of marriage.
In the slapstick era, we may remember Cary Grant "suddenly going gay" in a frilly bathrobe in Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby (1939), or the transvestite disguise plots of Arthur Leonard's Boy! What a Girl (1945), Hawks' I Was a Male War Bride (1949), or, most famously, Billy Wilder's later, oft-imitated Some Like it Hot (1959).
As titilative comedy ... A Busy Day (1914)
More Info
Furthermore, because the standardized, apparently conservative transvestite plot is unlikely to come under much censorship, a few pre-queer drag films have managed to raise issues of queer desire even if their formulaic plots eventually demand a safe return to heterosexuality.
Here, we may think of Ernst Lubitsch's then-daring I Don't Want to be a Man! (1919), or the bisexual confusions generated by a cross-dressed Katharine Hepburn in George Cukor's Sylvia Scarlett (1935) and Renate Muller in Reinhold Schunzel's Viktor und Viktoria (1933), whose Berlin "decadence" the Nazis would soon extinguish.
More serious approach I don't want to be a Man (1918)
aka Ich möchte kein Mann sein
still More Info
Bisexual in Film
The first documented appearances of bisexual characters in motion pictures are A Florida Enchantment (1914), an American film by Sidney Drew, and Zapatas Bande, a German film from the same year. These early silent films were not burdened by overt censorship, and filmmakers were free to represent sexuality in their characters' lives within the constraints of the mores of the period.
Still, characters' sexuality was more often implied rather than definitively stated. Depictions of homosexuality and bisexuality were often cloaked in religious themes in order to evade local censors, who frequently edited films before they were screened.
A Florida Enchantment (1914)
still More Info
The Hays Code
Around 1915 Hollywood invented itself as the film capital of the world and along with this new industry came widespread notoriety for rampant debauchery--especially drug use and promiscuous sex--among its employees, especially performers.
Eventually deciding it needed to regulate itself before external censors did, a group of filmmakers and producers hired Will H. Hays, former Postmaster General, to draft a series of guidelines that by 1934 had become the Motion Picture Production Code, or Hays Code, which banned any explicit representation of homosexuality or bisexuality in American films. The words "gay," "homosexual," and "bisexual" could not even be uttered, and virtually no bisexual characters appeared in American films during the 1930s and 1940s. The lack of representation of bisexuals in film may have been abetted by the popular belief that bisexuality did not actually exist. Eventually, however, bold filmmakers began to release their films without adhering to the Code, which led to its complete abandonment in the 1960s.
Male Homosexual depicted in Film
A 1916 Swedish film, The Wings, seems to be one of the first overt gay screen romances; based on Herman Bang's novel, Mikael, it races through the melodrama of sculptor Claude Zoret and the elusive youth of the title. Anticipating the dominant theme of mainstream cinema over the next fifty years, their romance ends unhappily, with adopted son Mikael provoking his patron and lover to a feverish death. In The Wings at least Zoret dies of a broken heart, a genuinely romantic demise; more often, gay characters have died out of guilt or punishment.
The Wings (1916)
aka Vingarne
More Info
First Lesbian depicted in Film
This was harder to research for some reason ... had to surf around other sites for information and think that this German film was the first to depict the long between women.
Note ... if anyone can find an earlier film please post
Mädchen in Uniform (1931)
still More Info
It was the first all women cast movie and is a sympathetc depiction of a schoolgirl crush.
Also found this one ...
Queen Christina (1933)
still More Info
The story of Queen Christina (Greta Garbo) from her rise to the Swedish throne from the age of 5. This I mention because it may well be the first film where a bisexual actress plays a bisexual role.
__________________
That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.
The Call of Cthulhu - H.P.Lovecraft
Last edited by FernTree; 04-24-08 at 08:07 AM.
I think that's as queer as it gets...thanks for the recommendation, I'll try to find it...
