March 24th

03-24-1942 Margarethe “Grethe” Cammermeyer – Born in Oslo, Norway. She is a former Colonel in the Washington National Guard and a gay rights activist. She was married to a man for 15 years and had four sons. In 1988, when she was 46, she met her partner, Diane Divelbess. In 1989, responding to a question during a routine security interview, she disclosed that she was a lesbian. The National Guard began military discharge proceedings against her. On June 11, 1992, she was honorably discharged. Cammermeyer filed a lawsuit against the decision in civil court. In June 1994, Judge Thomas Zilly of the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington ruled that her discharge was unconstitutional. She returned to the National Guard and served as one of the few openly gay or lesbian people in the U.S. military while the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was in effect, until her retirement in 1997. In 2012, after same-sex marriage was legalized in Washington state, Cammermeyer and her partner Diane Divelbess became the first same-sex couple to get a marriage license in Island County.

03-24-1950 Andrea Goldsmith – Born in Melbourne, Australia. She is an Australian writer and novelist. With six novels published, she also writes literary essays on topics as diverse as Oliver Sacks (Oliver Sacks: Anthropologist Mind), nuclear physics, and life-threatening illness (Chain Reaction) and, Jewish-Australian identity (Talmudic Excursions). Goldsmith lived with her lesbian partner, the poet Dorothy Porter, in Melbourne until Porter’s death in 2008.

03-24-1954 Bonnie Cullison – Born in Baltimore, Maryland, she was raised in a military family. Cullison lived in four states and two European countries until she was 18. She is an American teacher, labor official, and politician from Montgomery County, Maryland. Elected into the Maryland House of Delegates in 2010, she represents the state’s 19th district. She took office on January 12, 2011. Cullison was re-elected in the 2014 election. Openly gay, on June 23, 2013 she married her domestic partner of 30 years, Marcia Massey. Cullison is one of eight openly LGBT members of the Maryland General Assembly.

03-24-1961 Joy Ladin – Born in Rochester, New York (birth name Jay Ladin). She is the first openly transgender professor at an Orthodox Jewish institution. She holds a Chair in English at Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University. In 2007, Ladin transitioned and divorced the mother of his three children, whom she had been with for more than twenty years. In 2011, Ladin spoke about her life at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, which had a day of learning about LGBTQ issues and their intersection with Judaism.

03-24-1971 – Mathilde “Tig” Notaro – Born in Jackson, Mississippi. She is an LGBT comedian, writer, and radio contributor. She was nominated for a Grammy Award. Notaro has been featured on Comedy Central Presents and on The Sarah Silverman Program as a lesbian police officer. On growing up in the South and realizing she was gay: “I never ran into a single problem with any friend or family member.”

03-24-1973 Jim Parsons – Born in Houston, Texas. He is an American television and film actor. He is best known for playing Sheldon Cooper in the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory. He has received four Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series Musical or Comedy. He portrayed Tommy Boatwright in the play and the film The Normal Heart. On May 23, 2012, an article in The New York Times stated that Parsons is gay and had been in a relationship for the last ten years. His partner is art director Todd Spiewak.

03-24-1991 Isadora Cerullo – Born in New Jersey, she was raised in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her parents had immigrated to the U.S. from Brazil. She is a triplet, with two brothers and one older brother. Cerullo has duel citizenship. She moved to São Paulo to play rugby professionally. In 2015, she won a bronze medal at the 2015 Pan American Games. In 2016, she played for Brazil in the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Following the final game that Brazil played at the 2016 Summer Olympic, Cerullo’s girlfriend of two years, Marjorie Yuri Enya, walked onto the field at Deodoro Stadium and publicly asked Cerullo to marry her. The proposal was widely reported in the news, with Cerullo being the first athlete to accept a marriage proposal at the Olympics. The couple currently lives in São Paulo. Isadora was one of 49 out LGBT athletes at the Rio Olympic Games.