26 for '26 on the 26th

Belated Happy New Year, or early LGBT History Month UK, if you like. Here are 26 facts for 2026 on the 26th day of the year.

1) Gay actor Sir Alec Guinness (1914-2000) earned a small fortune by playing the role of Obi Wan Kenobi in the original “Star Wars” trilogy, which he called “fairy tale rubbish” and only appeared on screen for 20 minutes (excluding reused footage). As well as a relatively modest salary of $150,000 (for the international star that he was) he negotiated 2.25% of the profits worth around £95 million. His estate still receives millions of pounds every year.

2) “Moffie” is a slang term used in South Africa for an effeminate man. It derives from the word “hermaphrodite”. It is used as the tiltle of a 2019 South African film (based on a book of the same name) about a man conscripted into the army who fights to hide his homosexuality.

3) My previous fact lists have included celebrity memorabilia that went up for auction. Here’s a weird one. Gay author Truman Capote died in 1984 and was cremated. Half of his ashes went to his surviving partner, the other half to a friend, Joanne Carson. She buried half of her portion in Westwood Memorial Park, Los Angeles. After her death, what was claimed to be the remaining quarter of Capote’s ashes were put up for auction by her estate in 2016. They sold for $45,000 (£33,800).

4) Screenwriter Theo Toksvig-Stewart (b.1994), the son of Anglo-Danish lgbt icon Sandi Toksvig (b.1958), broke the Guinness World Record for the fastest time to get dressed in a traditional 6-piece Santa Claus costume. It was achieved during the 2019 Christmas Eve edition of the quiz show “QI” (recorded on 17 Aug 2019) of which his mother had been the chair since 2016. Theo’s time was 28.91 seconds. The record was broken just a few months later.

5) Although the Antarctica is a continent which, by international treaty, bans territorial claims by any nation, it sent a team to the Gay Games held in Sydney, Australia, in 2002, comprising of two members of the scientific research bases stationed there – powerlifters Mariah Crossland (1959-2014) and her straight colleague Erik Richards.

6) An old Greek legend tells that any man who drinks from the waters of the spring and fountain of Salmacis in modern-day Turkey, will become effeminate. The Greek poet Ovid went so far as to say it turned men intersex. I retell the legend here.

7) The majority of the original Creator Gods from mythology and contemporary faiths, were agender – they had no gender. The “creation” of gender was made by gods descended from these Creators. This mirrors science, which states that the first living organisms were non-gendered single cells, which is challenged by gender-identity activists.

8) Until 1977, Saturn was the only planet in our solar system known to have rings. Things changed when equipment recorded dips in the light from a star as the planet Uranus began to pass in front of it, and after it had passed. Transgender astrophysicist Dr. Jessica Mink (b.1951), the scientist monitoring the equipment, interpreted those dips to be caused by rings around Uranus. Subsequent space probes proved it.

9) Cherry Vann (b.1968) was the first female, and only openly lesbian, archbishop in the Church of England. On 26 July 2025 she was elected Archbishop of Wales (yes, Wales comes under the pastoral jurisdiction of the Church of England). She is also the serving Bishop of Monmouth, elected in 2019 as the first openly lesbian bishop.

10) According to a study published in June 2024 by the University of California’s Los Angeles School of Law, around 2.57 million lgbt people in the USA are parenting children under the age of 18. This includes adoption, fostering, and parenting step-children.

11) The world’s first gay periodical was “Der Eigene” (the nearest translation into English is “The Self-Possessed”). It was published in Berlin, Germany, by Adolf Brand (1874-1945) between 1896 and 1932.

12) “Riding the deck” is an old English slang phrase describing gay sex.

13) The original Rainbow Pride flag as designed by Gilbert Baker (1951-2017) had 8 stripes. From top to bottom these were coloured hot pink, red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, indigo and violet. This design was used for the 1978 San Francisco Day of Freedom Day parade. It changed to its now familiar 6 stripes (when not defaced by other elements) in 1979 because of the high cost of producing hot pink and turquoise, and turning by indigo to blue.

14) Figures released by the Ministry of Justice in the UK reveal that 1,169 gender recognition certificates were issued between March 2024 and March 2025.

15) Antonio Moreno (b.1984) is the first (and so far, the only) openly gay, former gay porn actor to be elected mayor. His former gay porn career was under the name of Hector da Silva was widely reported during his election campaign to become Mayor of Carcelén, one of the smallest electoral districts in Spain with less than 500 voting citizens. His election in 2023 saw his receive 51% of the vote.

16) There are only 2 pan-continental Prides on the 7 recognised continents. The oldest is EuroPride, founded in 1992. The newest is Polar Pride, founded in 2020, which covers all of the research bases on Antarctica as well as those above the Arctic Circle.

17) The first King of England to whom homosexuality is claimed was King William II Rufus (c.1057-1100). No contemporary sources make such a claim, and subsequent rumours of the opulent fashions he and his court favoured are given as the only “proof”. Reputable modern historians dismiss the claim.

18) Two insects have been named after Tinkerbell, the fairy created by the queer writer Sir J. M. Barrie (1860-1937) in “Peter Pan”. The first is a species of fairy wasp native to Costa Rica given the name Tinkerbella nana in 2013, and the second is a species of fly native to Canada given the name Meonuera tinkerbellae in 2018.

19) The last person in the UK to be fired from the armed forces for being gay was Richard Young (b.1974), a Royal Navy Reservist and chef on HMS Drake, in 1999. After a highly publicised campaign, he also became the first lgbt+ person in the UK to be reinstated in 2000 as a barracks guard at the Royal Navy base HMS Devonport.

20) “Nancy boy” is a derogatory term applied to gay men, particularly common in the UK in the 1960s and 1970s. Its precise origin is not known, but theories range from the name of a burlesque character in 1930s USA, the stage name of an English actress in the 1730s, and nickname given to US President James Buchanan (1791-1868).

21) The Traditionalist Mexican-American Catholic Church was a “denomination” founded in 2005. However, in 2006 the Mexican government revoked the “church’s” status because of its involvement in drug-trafficking and cult veneration of Santa Muerte, the neo-pagan deity of death. The “church” survived as an underground organisation until its founder and leader was imprisoned in 2011 for kidnapping and embezzlement. There are still a few followers of this cult in the southern USA.

22) Mrs. Content Stuyvesant, née Chesebrough, (1801-1876) is the 4-times great-grandmother of gay singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright (b.1973), and was the aunt of Robert Chesebrough (1837-1933), the inventor of Vaseline.

23) A non-profit charity in the UK called “Classics For All” promotes interest in classical music and arts in schools. It also organises mock trials involving some of the top-ranking judges in the country in which historical characters are accused of various crimes. Several of these trials have involved famous lgbt+ people. In 2022 Alexander the Great was put on trial for war crimes. He was found not guilty. In 2024 the Roman Emperor Nero was put on trial for neglection of care during the Great Fire of Rome. He, too, was found not guilty.

24) In March every year, the Kottankulangara Devi temple in Kerala, India, holds a festival in which thousands of male devotees dress as women. They do this to seek the blessings of the temple’s goddess, Bhaghavathy.

25) On 14 November 2021, Remembrance Sunday, the UK’s lgbt veteran’s organisation, Fighting With Pride, marched in the annual national commemoration and parade for the first time. The commemoration is attended by the monarch, senior Royals, all living Prime Ministers, the nation’s senior military officers, leaders of all faiths and no-faiths, representatives from every Commonwealth nation and territory, and thousands of serving forces, veterans, police, emergency services, civilian defence services, youth brigades, and other groups representing the millions of British and Commonwealth victims and survivors of all wars. Among those marching with Fighting With Pride was Carl Austen-Behan (no. 18 in the “20 Queer Facts” list).

26) The ubiquitous Christmas nutcracker in the shape of a human first became popular in the 1800s, even before gay composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) wrote his famous ballet. They were created in Germany, and after producing general soldier-type nutcrackers, the various makers began producing ones parodying local dignitaries and clergy. The first nutcracker made to honour a real person was in the 1870s, when a nutcracker representing the popular gay King Ludwig II of Bavaria (1845-1992) was made and became an instant success.