(Editor’s note: This article was originally published at thenation.com and is re-posted here with permission. The U.S. Supreme Court will conduct oral hearings on California's Proposition 8 on March 26 and on the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, on March 28.)

There is a nice little pool outside my office door. I recall thinking late one night that the thing would kill me before it ever became a reality. My excavated yard had metamorphosed into a mud pit, transformed by a malevolent deluge, and I was down, sinking into the sucking miasma, my flashlight lifted to the heavens, that my corpse might be found in the morning’s muck.

Turns out, all I had to do was sit up: The mud was barely a foot deep.

Editor's note: October is LGBT History Month. Each day this month, Equality Forum has featured one LGBT icon who has made notable contributions to society. SDGLN has published these stories in the Causes section and the icons featured today are the final two in the 2011 series.

Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf was an accomplished 20th century English novelist and one of the founders of the modernist movement. She published nearly 500 essays and nine novels.