May 20th

05-20-1946   Cher (born Cherilyn Sarkisian) – Born in El Centro, California. She is an American singer and actress whose career has spanned six decades. Cher has won a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, an Academy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, a Cannes Film Festival Award, and a special CFDA Fashion Award, among other honors. Outside of music and acting, she is known for her philanthropic and social activism, including LGBT rights and HIV/AIDS prevention. Cher has sold 100 million records worldwide and is the only artist to have a number-one single on a Billboard chart in each decade from the 1960s to the 2010s. In September 2013, Cher declined an invitation to perform at the 2014 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Russia because of its anti-gay legislation. She has long been a gay icon and is the mother of Chaz Bono.

05-20-1906 – 11-09-1969 Valentine Ackland – Born in London, England. She was an English poet and an important figure in the emergence of modernism in twentieth-century British poetry. Aware of male privilege and female submission, Ackland challenged the female gender identifications expected of her. She wore men’s clothing and cut her hair in what was called an Eton crop. Her poetry appeared in British and American literary journals during the 1920s to the 1940s. She received little attention from critics until a revival of interest in her work in the 1970s. In 1930, she met writer Sylvia Townsend Warner. The two women fell in love and lived together until the death of Ackland in 1969.

05-20-1962 Mary L. Washington – American politician born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A Democrat, she is a member of the Maryland House of Delegates from the 43rd district. She took office on January 12, 2011. Washington is an out lesbian and is one of eight openly LGBT members of the Maryland General Assembly. A Presbyterian, she was an elder at First and Franklin Presbyterian Church in Baltimore from 2002 to 2005.

05-20-1965 Ted Allen (Edward R. “Ted” Allen) – Born in Columbus, Ohio. He is an American writer, cookbook author, and television personality. He was the food and wine connoisseur on Bravo’s  Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and host of the TV cooking competition series, Chopped. Allen is a longtime contributing writer to Esquire magazine, the author of two cookbooks, and regularly appears on the Food Network show, The Best Thing I Ever Ate. Allen is openly gay and lives in New York City with his partner of 20+ years, Barry Rice. On July 30, 2013, the two were married in New York City.

05-20-1966 Sheryl Bailey – Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as part of a musical family. She is an American jazz guitarist and educator based in New York City. She has released six albums. In the August 10 edition of Downbeat, reviewer Phillip Booth named Sheryl as “one of the new greats of her chosen instrument”. She was featured in the August 2014 edition of Guitar Player Magazine for her album, A Meeting Of Mind’s. She’s a Professor at Berklee College of Music, Boston, and also teaches at Stanford University’s summer workshops. She is an out lesbian.