Dennis Patkin Altman (born 16 August 1943) is an Australian academic and gay rights activist.
[1] Altman was born in Sydney, New South Wales to Jewish immigrant parents, and spent most of his childhood in Hobart, Tasmania.
[2] In 1964 he won a Fulbright scholarship to Cornell University, where he began working with American gay activists.
One of his most notable speeches was delivered during the first Gay Liberation Group meeting at the University of Sydney on 19 January 1972.
[18] In his preface to The City and the Pillar,[19] Gore Vidal writes that Altman brought the book back with him but it was seized at Sydney Airport and subsequently declared obscene by a judge who observed that the Australian obscenity law was "absurd", thus leading to it being repealed sometime later.
[20] In March 2013 Altman wrote about the death of his partner of 22 years, Anthony Smith, who died from lung cancer in November 2012.