Stuart Timmons

Stuart Timmons (January 14, 1957 – January 28, 2017) was an American journalist, activist, historian, and award-winning author specializing in LGBT history based in Los Angeles, California. He was the author of The Trouble With Harry Hay: Founder of the Modern Gay Movement and the co-author of Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians with Lillian Faderman.

Early life Timmons was born on January 14, 1957, in Cottagewood Hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has two sisters, Gay and Emily Timmons, both in the SF Bay Area. While he was still a toddler, his family moved to Santa Barbara due to his father getting a new job.

Career Through his career Timmons wrote and edited for magazines, documentary films and non-fiction literature. While at UCLA, where he majored in film, his work as an activist impressed Mark Thompson, who was then the senior editor of The Advocate, a national gay and lesbian news magazine. Thompson hired Timmons as a journalist for the magazine. and Justin Sayer (a writer for 2 Broke Girls and stand-up comedian). He was a co-organizer of the dedication of the Mattachine Steps in Silver Lake named for the Mattachine Society on April 7, 2012, alongside Mark Thompson, Wes Joe, Mitch O'Farrell, and Eric Garcetti (then a councilor and later mayor of Los Angeles). For his book with Faderman, he received the Monette-Horwitz Award for LGBT Scholarship, the Lambda Literary Award, LGBT Non-Fiction and the Lambda Literary Award, LGBT Arts and Culture in 2007. He suffered a stroke in 2008 which greatly diminished his cognitive function. Timmons died on January 28, 2017, at the Serrano North Convalescent Hospital in Hollywood, California, from cardiac arrest, at the age of 60. An intimate memorial was held at ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives.