Happy LGBTQ+ Pride Day 19 and Juneteenth: Marsha P. Johnson (August 24, 1945 – July 3, 1992) was an American LGBTQ activist, sex worker, and performer. Sometimes known as the “Saint of Christopher Street”, she[a] is considered an important figure in the LGBTQ and transgender rights movements[b] due to her involvement in the Stonewall riots, her work with Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), and her advocacy for people with AIDS. Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Johnson wore women’s clothing for the first time when she was five years old. After graduating from high school, she moved to Manhattan, where she regularly spent time on 42nd Street in Times Square, working at the local Childs Restaurants and supplementing her income through begging and sex work. Often going out in partial drag, she became well known for her vibrant accessories. She participated in the Stonewall riots in 1969, though her exact role is debated, and afterward, she was active in the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) and Gay Liberation Front (GLF). In 1970, she participated in the Weinstein Hall occupation and helped found STAR, which provided food and shelter for transgender youth through STAR House, a four-bedroom rental home in the East Village.

Happy LGBTQ+ Pride Day 18: Caroline Cossey (born 31 August 1954[2]), also known as Tula, is a British model, actress, activist, and author. She appeared in the 1981 James Bond film For Your Eyes Only as an extra. Following her appearance in the film, she was outed as transgender by British tabloid News of the World. In 1991, she became the first trans woman to pose for Playboy. Cossey has since then fought for her right to legally marry and be legally recognized as a woman.

Happy LGBTQ+ Pride Day 17: Sylvia Rivera (July 2, 1951 – February 19, 2002) was an American gay liberation and transgender rights activist who was also a noted community worker in New York. Rivera, who identified as a drag queen for most of her life and later as a transgender person, participated in demonstrations with the Gay Liberation Front. With close friend Marsha P. Johnson, Rivera co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), a group dedicated to helping homeless young drag queens, gay youth, and trans women.

Happy LGBTQ+ Pride Day 16: Laurence Michael Dillon (1 May 1915 – 15 May 1962) was a British doctor, author, poet, Buddhist monk and the first known transgender man to undergo a phalloplasty. Born in Ladbroke Gardens, Kensington, he and his elder brother moved to Folkestone as children following the death of their mother from sepsis. They were subsequently looked after by their two aunts. Their father, heir to the Dillon baronetcy of Lismullen in Ireland, died in 1925. Although he had been assigned female at birth, Michael Dillon never thought of himself as a girl, and later wrote about his despair at being perceived as such. In 1934, he began studying at the Society of Oxford Home Students at the University of Oxford. He joined the women’s rowing team in the position rowing stroke, later being elected club president. He graduated in 1938 and started working in a laboratory near Bristol. Around this time, Dillon became aware of a doctor who had been studying the effects of testosterone on female patients, and started taking the hormone for personal use, driven by a desire to become a man. Dillon left his job at the laboratory after he was outed to his colleagues. He subsequently found a job as a petrol pump attendant in a garage in Bristol and worked there during World War II. Whilst at the garage, he began writing what would become his 1946 book Self: A Study in Ethics and Endocrinology, considered to be a pioneering work in the field of transgender medicine. He also received a gender-affirming double mastectomy whilst in hospital for hypoglycemia and heard of the work of surgeon Sir Harold Gillies, who agreed to perform a phalloplasty on Dillon after the war.

Happy LGBTQ+ Pride Month Day 15: Lucy Hicks Anderson (née Lawson; 1886–1954) was an American socialite, chef, hostess, and philanthropist, best known for her time in Oxnard, California, from 1920 to 1946. Assigned male at birth, she was adamant from an early age that she was a girl. Her parents, based on advice from doctors, supported her decision to live as one. She later established a boarding house in Oxnard, where she became a popular hostess. In 1945, a year after she married her second husband, she was arrested, tried and convicted of perjury, as the government said she had lied about her sex on her marriage license. After her release from prison, she and her husband moved to Los Angeles.

Happy LGBTQ+ Pride Month Day 14: Albert D. J. Cashier (December 25, 1843 – October 10, 1915) was an Irish-born American soldier who served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Cashier became famous as one of at least 250 soldiers who were assigned female at birth and enlisted as men to fight in the Civil War. He adopted the identity of a man before enlisting, and maintained it until death. The consistent and nearly lifelong (at least 53 years) commitment to a male identity has prompted some historians to believe that Cashier was a trans man. (Wikipedia)

Happy LGBTQ+ Pride Day 13: The Public Universal Friend (born Jemima Wilkinson; November 29, 1752 – July 1, 1819) was an American preacher born in Cumberland, Rhode Island, to Quaker parents. After suffering a severe illness in 1776, the Friend claimed to have died and been reanimated as a genderless evangelist named the Public Universal Friend, and afterward shunned both birth name and all pronouns. In androgynous clothes, the Friend preached throughout the northeastern United States, attracting many followers who became the Society of Universal Friends. The Friend's theology was broadly similar to that of most Quakers. The Friend stressed free will, opposed slavery, and supported sexual abstinence. The most committed members of the Society of Universal Friends were a group of unmarried women who took leading roles in their households and community. In the 1790s, members of the Society acquired land in Western New York where they formed the town of Jerusalem near Penn Yan, New York. The Society of Universal Friends ceased to exist by the 1860s. Some writers have portrayed the Friend as a woman, and either a manipulative fraudster, or a pioneer for women's rights, while others, such as scholar Scott Larson, have viewed the Friend as transgender or non-binary and a figure in trans history. References to the Friend tend to avoid any pronouns altogether, instead using "the Friend". (Wikipedia)

LGBTQ+ Pride Month Day 12: Ten years ago, 49 people were killed in Orlando at the Pulse Night Club. They went to their safe space and were killed. Per HRC: Data from federal law enforcement, civil rights organizations, and international monitors consistently show an upward trend in both physical violence and targeted harassment against the community. Despite an overall decline in general violent crime across the United States, anti-LGBTQ+ bias incidents remain a stark and growing exception.

Happy LGBTQ+ Pride Month Day 11: Christine Jorgensen (May 30, 1926 - May 3, 1989) was an American actress, singer, and transgender activist. A trans woman, she was the first person to become widely known in the United States for having sex reassignment surgery. In 1944, Jorgensen was drafted into the U.S. Army during World War I. After she served as a military clerical worker, Jorgensen attended several schools, worked, and pursued a photography career.! During this time, she learned about sex reassignment surgery and traveled to Europe, where in Copenhagen, Denmark, she obtained special permission to undergo a series of operations beginning in 1951. Upon her return to the United States in the early 1950s, her transition was the subject of a New York Daily News front-page story. She became an instant celebrity, known for her directness and polished wit, and used the platform to advocate for transgender people. Her 1967 autobiography Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography sold almost 450,000 copies. Throughout her career, she gave lectures at colleges and universities on the topics of transsexuality. According to publicist Chris Costello, Jorgensen hated the term “transsexual,” preferring to refer to herself simply as someone who had gone through a “sex change!”