In memoriam

Jan. 25: Philip Johnson, 98, a highly regarded, openly gay architect who set design trends for much of the 20th century, dies at his famous Glass House in New Canaan, Conn.

March 16: Wanda Alston, 45, a prominent gay rights activist and high-ranking member of Washington, D.C., mayor Anthony A. Williams's cabinet, is stabbed to death in her apartment by a neighbor looking for money to buy crack cocaine.

April 9: Andrea Dworkin, 58, a lesbian and radical feminist known for her campaigns against pornography, dies of unspecified causes at her home in Washington, D.C.

May 25: Ismail Merchant, 68, an out film producer known for the highly acclaimed period dramas he made with his partner, James Ivory, dies of complications from stomach surgery at a London hospital.

June 4: Jean O'Leary, 57, a prominent gay rights activist who helped launch National Coming Out Day and in 1977 organized the first White House meeting of gay rights leaders, succumbs to lung cancer at her partner's home in San Clemente, Calif.

July 1: Luther Vandross, 54, a Grammy Award-winning R&B singer whose homosexuality was a known secret in the recording industry, dies of a heart attack at a New Jersey hospital.

Oct. 9: LeRoy Whitfield, 36, a prominent AIDS activist and columnist, dies of AIDS-related complications at a New York City hospital.

Nov. 26: Pierre Seel, 82, the last known surviving French gay victim of the Nazi concentration camps--who recounted his arrest and torture for being gay, in the 1994 autobiography Moi, Pierre Seel, Deporte Homosexual and in the 2000 documentary Paragraph 175--dies of cancer in Paris.