American writer and activist Rita Mae Brown was BOTD in 1944. Born in Hanover, Pennsylvania, she won a scholarship to the University of Florida where she became involved in Black civil rights, feminist and gay liberation movements. After being expelled for protesting the college’s racial segregation policies, she hitchhiked to New York City, where she studied at New York University and wrote for the women’s liberation magazine Rat. She joined the Gay Liberation Front and the National Organisation for Women, clashing with leadership in both organisations for their exclusion of lesbians. She became a leading figure in the Lavender Menace, a group of lesbian feminists protesting their exclusion from the women’s movement, writing a manifesto for what later became the Radicalesbians. She is best known for her 1973 autobiographical novel Rubyfruit Jungle, describing a young lesbian’s coming-of-age. An international bestseller, it prompted controversy for its explicit sexual scenes, though some commentators objected to Brown’s ridiculing of butch lesbian culture. (It later featured in Willy Russell’s play Educating Rita, in which a working-class hairdresser renames herself Rita in tribute to Brown). Brown received the Pioneer Award for lifetime achievement at the 2015 Lambda Literary Awards. In her 1997 memoir, she discussed her relationships with author Fannie Flagg and tennis player Martina Navratilova. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she breeds horses.