Who Was the First Gay Superhero?

It seems like every time a new LGBT comic book character debuts there's always some uninformed sensationalist ready to proclaim him the first gay superhero. Which, as any real comic book fan will tell you, is ridiculously false. But how do you, as the informed voice of reason the you indubitably are, rebut those claims? Who was the first gay superhero?

Well, the kids over at Bleeding Cool have done their research and they have an answer. Rich Johnston has compiled a list of the first firsts in comics for the gay, if not the LGBT, community. Is he the first to have done so? Probably not. But he's definitely the first whose article I've linked to in a Scarlet Betch blog post on Thursday, the 19th of November, 2009. And, as we say on tweeter, #precision.