Today’s post includes non-LGBTQ2 specific data to make a pointed intersectionality point without specifically pointing to the problem.
BCE to The Suffragettes
1818
“Silent Night” was performed for the first time, at the Church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorff, Austria.
12-25-1843 – 10-10-1915 Albert D. J. Cashier – Born in Clogherhead, County Louth, Ireland as Jennie Irene Hodgers. He was an Irish-born immigrant who served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Cashier was a transman. On Sept. 4, 1862, at the
age of 19, he enlisted into the 95th Illinois Infantry using the name Albert Cashier. The regiment was part of the Army of the Tennessee under Ulysses S. Grant and fought in approximately forty battles. He was once captured but escaped back to Union lines. A transcript from a letter written by Thomas Hannah, Jr., on November 17, 1862 reads:
“…we have just discovered one of our solders belonging to this regiment is a woman and [s]he is found out and sent home…”
After the war, Cashier returned to Belvedere, Illinois. In
1869 he settled in Saunemin, Illinois, where he worked as a farmhand. His employer, Joshua Chesebro, built a one-room house for him. For over forty years, he lived in Saunemin and worked as a church janitor, cemetery worker, and street lamplighter. Because he lived as a man, he was able to vote and later claimed a veteran’s pension under his pseudonym, Albert Cashier. In November 1910, Cashier was hit by a car that broke his leg. A physician discovered his secret in the hospital, but did not disclose the information. On May 5, 1911, Cashier was moved to the Soldier and Sailors home in Quincy, Illinois. He lived there until his mind deteriorated and was moved to the Watertown State Hospital for the Insane in March 1913. Attendants at the Watertown State Hospital discovered that he was female-bodied when giving him a bath, at which point he was forced to wear a dress.
When Albert Cashier died, he was buried in the uniform he had kept intact all those years and his tombstone was inscribed ‘Albert D. J. Cashier, Co. G, 95 Ill. Inf.’. It took nine years for Cashier’s executor, W. J. Singleton, to track Cashier’s identity back to his birth name of Jennie Hodgers. In the 1970’s, a second tombstone, inscribed with both of his names, was placed beside the first.
1886 – Sarah Bigelow, 18, and Lizzie Hart, 19, commit suicide in Massachusetts. Lizzie was apparently so bereft due to her mother’s death that she wanted to die. On her deathbed, Sarah said she loved Lizzie so much that she “would not let her die without me.”
1908, UK – Quentin Crisp (25 December 1908 – 21 November 1999) is born. Named Denis Charles Pratt, Crisp becomes a gay icon in the 1970s after publication of his memoir, The Naked Civil Servant, detailing his life in homophobic British Society. When the book was adapted for television, Crisp began a new career as a performer and lecturer. From a conventional suburban background, Crisp enjoyed wearing make-up and painting his nails, and worked as a rent-boy in his teens. He then spent thirty years as a professional model for life-classes in art colleges. The interviews he gave about his unusual life attracted increasing public curiosity and he was soon sought after for his highly individual views on social manners and the cultivating of style. His one-man stage show was a long-running hit both in Britain and America and he also appeared in films and on TV. In 1995 he was among the many people interviewed for The Celluloid Closet, an historical documentary addressing how Hollywood films have depicted homosexuality. In his third volume of memoirs Resident Alien published in the same year, Crisp stated that he was close to the end of his life, though he continued to make public appearances and in June of that year he was one of the guest entertainers at the second Pride Scotland festival in Glasgow.
12-25-1911 – 05-31-2010 Louise Bourgeois – She was a French-American artist and a straight ally of the LGBT community. Best
known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art (three dimensional), Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and printmaker. Themes of her work included the family, sexuality, the body, as well as death, and the subconscious. She was not affiliated with an art movement but her work fits in with Surrealism and Feminist art. She was married to Robert Goldwater, an American art historian, and had two children. The couple also adopted a child from France. In 2010, Bourgeois used her art to speak up for
LGBT equality. She created the piece “I Do,” depicting two flowers growing from one stem, to benefit the nonprofit organization Freedom to Marry. Bourgeois said, “Everyone should have the right to marry. To make a commitment to love someone forever is a beautiful thing.” In 1993 she had created artwork for the AIDS activist group ACT UP.
The Friends of Dorothy Era and The Hayes Code
1948
The Ravens’ incredible version of “White Christmas” entered the R&B hit registry, reaching #9. It was the standard by which all future R&B versions would be judged, even the legendary Drifters’ version, which was almost a note-for-note copy. The 78’s B-side, a haunting version of “Silent Night,” reached #8.
1950s The Decade the public learned heterosexual women wanted sex
1950 – Time magazine runs its first article on homosexuality, saying that homosexuals should not work in government jobs because they are a security risk.
12-25-1951 Christine Kaufmann – Born in Princeton, Illinois. She is
a member of the Montana State Senate since January 2007. She previously served three terms in the Montana House of Representatives. She represents the 41st senate district, based in Helena. A lesbian, she is the first ever out gay Montana State senator.
12-25-1953 Joanna Werners – Born in Paramaribo, Suriname. At the age of 18, she moved to the Netherlands. She is a Dutch writer of Surinamese orgin. Her
autobiographical novel Droomhuid was published in 1987. The novel tells about a black woman that’s “tossed about between her love for a black woman and for a white woman.” Her novel Dream Skin is the first lesbian-feminist novel in Surinamese literature. Her writing focuses on black women, their psychological and social emancipation, and lesbian love. (Photo by Michiel van Kempen c.1990)
December 25, 1954
Bing Crosby’s ‘White Christmas’ entered the Billboard Pop chart for the eleventh time. Bing’s rendition has sold over 100 million copies around the world, with at least 50 million sales as singles. It was the largest selling single in music history until it was surpassed by Elton John’s ‘Candle in the Wind 1997’.
12-25-1954 
Annie Lennox – Born in Aberdeen, Scotland. She is a Scottish singer-songwriter, political activist, LGBT rights supporter, philanthropist, and gay icon. Lennox and Dave Stewart achieved international fame in the 1980s as the Eurythmics. In 1992, she began her solo career. In addition to her career as a musician, Lennox raised money and awareness for HIV/AIDS as it affects women and children in Africa. In 2011, Lennox was appointed an OBE by Queen Elizabeth II for her “tireless charity campaigns and championing of humanitarian causes.” Lennox has been married three times. She married her third husband, Mitch Besser, on September 15, 2012. In 2017, she was appointed Glasgow Caledonian University’s first female chancellor.
Alan Freeds Christmas rock n’ roll spectacular in New York took place with Johnnie Ray, the Everly Brothers, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Jackie Wilson, Frankie Avalon, Bo Diddley, Ritchie Valens, Eddie Cochran, Jimmy Clanton, the Crests, Dion & the Belmonts, theMoonglows, the Royal Teens, and Baby Washington.
12-25-1958 Jeff Rohrer – Born in Inglewood, California. He is a former American
football linebacker in the NFL for the Dallas Cowboys. He played college football at Yale University and was drafted in the second round of the 1982 NFL Draft. In 2018, Rohrer came out as gay, announcing his engagement to Joshua Ross, his partner of two years. On November 18, 2018, the couple married. His marriage made him the first former or current NFL player to become part of a same-sex marriage. Rohrer had previously been married to a woman and has two children.
The Civil Rights 60s: When the Boomers were under 30
In New York, “Murray The K’s Big Holiday Show” went on as scheduled, with the Zombies, the Nashville Teens, and the Hullabaloos, after the U.S. Labor Department lifted a ban on granting British artists work visas. Britain’s Musicians Union had retaliated by canceling Fats Domino’s upcoming tour, before the whole matter was dropped.
On the USA LP Charts: People by Barbra Streisand was #4 while the Supremes moved up with Where Did Our Love Go and the “Mary Poppins” Soundtrack was #6. the Soundtrack to “My Fair Lady” dropped to #10.
12-25-1968 Christine Johnson – Born in Charleston, South Carolina. She was a member of the Utah House of Representatives from 2007 to 2010. She is a native of South Carolina and moved to
Utah as a teenager. In 2010 Johnson became executive director of the LGBT civil rights group of South Carolina Equality. She served 29 months as executive director. During her tenure SC Equality acquired the second pro-equality license plate in the Nation, created a PAC, and defeated an anti-transgender health care bill. She also facilitated a working relationship between the SC NAACP and SC Equality to bring about introduction of statewide hate crime legislation. In May, 2013, Johnson became the Vice President of Development and Community Outreach for Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho. In early 2014, she was promoted to Vice President of External Affairs. She resigned on March 28, 2014 in order to travel internationally and consult with other NGOs (non-government organizations) abroad.
Feminist, Gay Liberation and Lesbian Separatists: Civil Rights
12-25-1972 Staceyann Chin – Born in Jamaica, she now lives in Brooklyn, New York City, New York. She is a spoken-word poet,
performing artist, and LGBT rights political activist. Her work has been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Pittsburgh Daily, and she has been featured on 60 Minutes. She was also on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where she shared her struggles growing up as a gay person in Jamaica. She is of Chinese and African descent. In 2009, Chin published her autobiographical novel, The Other Side of Paradise: A Memoir.
1979
Actress Joan Blondell died of leukemia at 73. (Here Come the Brides, Grease, Topper Returns, The Public Enemy, Gold Diggers of 1933, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, Desk Set, The Champ, Support Your Local Gunfighter, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, This Could Be the Night, Stay Away Joe, Three on a Match)
The Genderfuck Apathetics vs Yuppies : Aids the new STD on the list
1982
In one of the most successful duets in Christmas music history, and surely the strangest, 30-year-old David Bowie and 73-year-old Bing Crosby achieved the number one song in the UK with “Peace On Earth / Little Drummer Boy”. The song had been recorded in September, 1977 when Crosby was in Great Britain to tape a TV special called Merrie Olde Christmas. Having him share a number with Bowie was the brainchild of producers Gary Smith and Dwight Hemion. After the recording circulated as a bootleg for several years, RCA decided to issue it as a single. It has since become a holiday standard, but it is entirely possible that neither Crosby or Bowie were familiar with each other’s work.
1987
George Michael made it three weeks at #1 with “Faith”. Whitney Houston moved to challenge with her new one “So Emotional”
1989,
Germany – Leonard Bernstein (August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) conducts Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in East Berlin’s Schauspielhaus as part of the country’s celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall. He had conducted the same piece in West Berlin the previous day. Bernstein was an American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist who was bisexual. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the US to receive worldwide acclaim. According to music critic Donal Henahan, he was “one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history.
1989
Absent from the charts after an Oscar winning movie career phase, Cher’s “Just Like Jesse James” hit number 8. She chart again in Top Ten again with “Believe” in 1998.
90s: Listserves and Email distribution replaces telephone trees for activism
1992
Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” was the top R&B song for the fourth straight week.
The “Bodyguard” Soundtrack was #1 on the Album chart for the third week.
Canada – Joshua Birch commits suicide after suing the Canada military for the right to serve and winning.
CanCon Pridelets: Joshua Birch
timeline on canada’s queer rights – CUPE Ontariohttps://cupe.on.ca › LGBT-TIMELINE-CANADA1PDFImportant milestones in lesbian/gay/bisexual rights in Canada: … homosexuals, as a result of a lawsuit initiated by Captain Joshua Birch and others.9 pages
Queer History: Rights & Freedomshttps://www.queerevents.ca › queer-history › rights-free…On May 14, 1969 Canada decriminalized homosexual acts with the passage of the … Captain Joshua Birch launched a human rights complaint after being …
Queer History Timelinehttps://www.queerevents.ca › queer-history › canadian-…Captain Joshua Birch launched a human rights complaint after being discharged from the Canadian Forces for disclosing he was gay. He successfully argued that …
Post 9/11 – The Shock Decade From “gay and lesbian” to “lesbigay” to “Lgbt/Lgbtq/Lgbtq2”
2010
Elton John and his partner David Furnish become the proud parents of a son, born to a surrogate. Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John was the first for the pair who have been together since the early 1990s. A second son, Elijah Joseph Daniel Furnish-John, was born to the couple by the same surrogate mother on January 11th, 2013.
2016
Singer/songwriter George Michael who launched his career with Andrew Ridgeley in the duo Wham! before going solo, “died of natural causes as the result of heart disease and a fatty liver” at 53. In the mid-1980s with Andrew Ridgeley as Wham! (and for a while Wham UK as there was also an American Wham group) to score eight Billboard Top 10 hits, including “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”” (#1), “Careless Whisper” (#1), “Everything She Wants” (#1), “Freedom” (#3) and “I’m Your Man” (#3). As a solo artist, he reached the US Top 40 fifteen more times, including six number one records, “Faith”, “Father Figure”, “One More Try”, “Monkey”, “Praying For Time” and “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me”.
Human Rights in global conflict: Trans/Pans vs LGB/ vs Heterosexual women
2021
Russian Justice Ministry includes two LGBT organizations in foreign agents list – Society & Culture – TASSAccording to information on the Justice Ministry’s website, both organizations receive funding from the Sphere social and legal charitable foundation which has also been included in the list of foreign agentstass.comYear Ender 2021: Historic Strides That Made LGBT Community Feel More Inclusive
https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/year-ender-2021-historic-strides-that-made-lgbt-community-feel-more-inclusive-4589201.htmlYear Ender 2021: Historic Strides That Made LGBT Community Feel More InclusiveMany countries scrapped laws that were regressive for the LGBTQ community while some laws were introduced to make life a little more easier for them.www.news18.com
cited sources
Today in LGBT History by Ronni Sanlo
Today in LGBT History – December 25 | Ronni Sanlohttps://ronnisanlo.com › today-in-lgbt-history-decembe…Dec 25, 2017 — Today in LGBT History – December 25. 1886 – Sarah Bigelow, 18, and Lizzie Hart, 19, commit suicide in Massachusetts.
THIS DAY IN LGBT HISTORY – DECEMBER 25 | Ronni Sanlohttps://ronnisanlo.com › this-day-in-lgbt-history-decembe…Dec 25, 2019 — THIS DAY IN LGBT HISTORY – DECEMBER 25 · MERRY CHRISTMAS · Musings of an Aging Lesbian · It’s Christmas morning. · Sarah Hurwitz shared eight Jewish …
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Nineties Dyke 