A recent passing that has gone unnoted by many is that of Shakuntala Devi, termed a "math-evangelist" as well as a major LGBT ally.
She was an international math phenom from childhood, going on to extract the twenty-third root of a 201-digit number with no paper or computational tools.
On the gay tip, Devi's 1977 book The World of Homosexuals contained interviews with gay Indian men (and one Canadian couple). Sample quote:
"Immorality does not consist in being different. It consists in not allowing others to be so. It is not the individual whose sexual relations depart from the social custom who is immoral—but those are immoral who would penalize him for being different. A law-abiding citizen who respects the rights and dignities of others, if he is made to suffer merely for deviating from the conventional norm, is not the offender—he is the victim."
She wrote that around the time Jimmy Carter was confessing to Playboy that he lusted in his heart. For women.
RIP, progressive lady.
