#the civility of Albert cashier

[genderkoolaid]

from Ghost Boy, the first song in The Civility of Albert Cashier; a trans-produced musical about Civil War soldier Albert Cashier who fought for the Union and lived most of his life as a man until he was outed in old age and forcibly detransitioned. Young Albert is played by actor Dani Shay (they/them) and the music was done in part by musician Joe Stevens (he/him). The entire show can be watched (without captions) here.

[colferpics]

Colony Theatre Burbank Instagram Story Sept 8, 2024

[trans-peterpan]

If I had a nickel for every time I was hyper fixated on a musical that I thought a good number of people knew about but turned out to be so niche that finding a bootleg is nigh impossible, I would have 2 nickels.

[doyouknowthismusical]

[waffle-bubbles]

Please go watch this musical now. It's about a trans civil war soilder.

[musicalrecs]

I commented about it in the previous post but I shall more officially promote The Civility of Albert Cashier! It's a musical about Albert Cashier, a real-life trans soldier from the American civil war (on the right side of that, don't worry) and it's got some great Americana music and a very sweet friendship/romance and there is transphobia but they cast the transphobic villain with a trans woman and it's a small part of the overall storyline so at least for me it didn't take away from my overall enjoyment. Most productions have made an effort to cast Albert with actors who aren't women but they have mostly been quite small productions so it's understandable they haven't always been able to find someone. The story has two storylines with the main one of Albert and his friends in the army and the second with middle-aged Albert in a mental institution. Iirc two of the three writers are trans. Overall it's really great and if any of you guys like biographical/historical musicals this is a really good one. I'm not sure if he'll respond but the creator made this post https://www.tumblr.com/albertcashiershow-blog/187213920107/hey-possum-buddies-sorry-for-being-lazy-on?source=share about how you can email him to get the proshot (or you might have to pay $10 for it? I can't remember exactly but I think they had some way to get it a while back if you paid). The tumblr account hasn't been active in a while but there's some good stuff there. There's also a cast recording but I would the proshot if you have the choice because there are enough non-musical scenes you'd be missing a lot just listening to the album. A few of the songs are filmed and on youtube too, if anyone wants to check those out first!

(Adding paragraph breaks :D)

I commented about it in the previous post but I shall more officially promote The Civility of Albert Cashier!

It's a musical about Albert Cashier, a real-life trans soldier from the American civil war (on the right side of that, don't worry) and it's got some great Americana music and a very sweet friendship/romance and there is transphobia but they cast the transphobic villain with a trans woman and it's a small part of the overall storyline so at least for me it didn't take away from my overall enjoyment.

Most productions have made an effort to cast Albert with actors who aren't women but they have mostly been quite small productions so it's understandable they haven't always been able to find someone.

The story has two storylines with the main one of Albert and his friends in the army and the second with middle-aged Albert in a mental institution. Iirc two of the three writers are trans. Overall it's really great and if any of you guys like biographical/historical musicals this is a really good one.

I'm not sure if he'll respond but the creator made this post https://www.tumblr.com/albertcashiershow-blog/187213920107/hey-possum-buddies-sorry-for-being-lazy-on about how you can email him to get the proshot (or you might have to pay $10 for it? I can't remember exactly but I think they had some way to get it a while back if you paid). The tumblr account hasn't been active in a while but there's some good stuff there.

There's also a cast recording but I would the proshot if you have the choice because there are enough non-musical scenes you'd be missing a lot just listening to the album. A few of the songs are filmed and on youtube too, if anyone wants to check those out first!

[petewentzcoded]

Today is the day where all my friends learn I stole my middle name from some dude in the civil war I learned about in 9th grade, this is terrifying.

[nickysfacts]

Albert was dunking on Confederates and challenging Gender norms before it was cool!

🇺🇸🏳️‍⚧️🇺🇸

[tommy-288]

American Civil War + Glory (1989) Memes

[theridgebeyond]

texted my family the dates for the Civil Wat encampment at the museum I volunteer at, bc I’m joining their infantry to rep the ladies who fought in the Union Army, and for long enough to hit “send” I had the balls to mention the trans adjacent/equivalent men who also fought…

I’m not not going to mention whenever I can that trans people do exist and have always existed, but it still makes my insides buzz when it has to do with my family.

[colferpics]

Burbank, CA USA - September 7, 2024: Harry Shum Jr & Chris Colfer attends the opening night of The Civility of Albert Cashier at the Colony Theater. 📷: shutterstock

[unproduciblesmackdown]

i do keep laughing at the particular in-characterness manifestation of their starting every answer with "i am illiterate,"

[queerism1969]

Notable transgender people from history

Here's the list I put together for when people on non-trans subreddits claim we didn't exist until recently:

Ashurbanipal (669-631BCE) - King of the Neo-Assryian empire, who according to Diodorus Siculus is reported to have dressed, behaved, and socialized as a woman.

Elagabalus (204-222) - Roman Emperor who preferred to be called a lady and not a lord, presented as a woman, called herself her lover's queen and wife, and offered vast sums of money to any doctor able to make her anatomically female.

Kalonymus ben Kalonymus (1286-1328) - French Jewish philosopher who wrote poetry about longing to be a woman.

Eleanor Rykener (14th century) - trans woman in London who was questioned under charges of sex work

[Thomas(ine) Hall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas(ine)_Hall) - (1603-unknown) - English servant in colonial Virginia who alternated between presenting as a woman and presenting as a man, before a court ruled that they were both a man and a woman simultaneously, and were required to wear both men's and women's clothing simultaneously.

Chevalier d'Eon (1728-1810) - French diplomat, spy, freemason, and soldier who fought in the Seven Years' War, who transitioned at the age of 49 and lived the remaining 33 years of her life as a woman.

Public Universal Friend (1752-1819) - Quaker religious leader in revolutionary era America who identified and lived as androgynous and genderless.

Surgeon James Barry (1789-1865) - Trans man and military surgeon in the British army.

Berel - a Jewish trans man who transitioned in a shtetel in Ukraine in the 1800's, and whose story was shared with the Jewish Daily Forward in a 1930 letter to the editor by Yeshaye Kotofsky, a Jewish immigrant in Brooklyn who knew Berel

Mary Jones (1803-unknown) - trans woman in New York whose 1836 trial for stealing a man's wallet received much public attention

Albert Cashier (1843-1915) - Trans man who served in the US Civil War.

Harry Allen (1882-1922) - Trans man who was the subject of sensationalistic newspaper coverage for his string of petty crimes.

Lucy Hicks Anderson (1886–1954) - socialite, chef and hostess in Oxnard California, whose family and doctors supported her transition at a young age.

Lili Elbe (1882-1931) - Trans woman who underwent surgery in 1930 with Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, who ran one of the first dedicated medical facilities for trans patients.

Karl M. Baer (1885-1956) - Trans man who underwent reconstructive surgery (the details of which are not known) in 1906, and was legally recognized as male in Germany in 1907.

Dr. Alan Hart (1890-1962) - Groundbreaking radiologist who pioneered the use of x-ray photography in tuberculosis detection, and in 1917 he became one of the first trans men to undergo hysterectomy and gonadectomy in the US.

[Louise Lawrence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Lawrence_(activist)) (1912–1976) - trans activist, artist, writer and lecturer, who transitioned in the early 1940's. She struck up a correspondence with the groundbreaking sexologist Dr. Alfred Kinsey as he worked to understand sex and gender in a more expansive way. She wrote up life histories of her acquaintances for Kinsey, encouraged peers to do interviews with him, and sent him a collection of newspaper clippings, photographs, personal correspondences, etc.

Dr. Michael Dillon (1915-1962) - British physician who updated his birth certificate to Male in the early 1940's, and in 1946 became the first trans man to undergo phalloplasty.

Reed Erickson (1917-1992) - trans man whose philanthropic work contributed millions of dollars to the early LGBTQ rights movement

Willmer "Little Ax" Broadnax (1916-1992) - early 20th century gospel quartet singer.

Peter Alexander (unknown, interview 1937) - trans man from New Zealand, discusses his transition in this interview from 1937

Christine Jorgensen (1926-1989) - The first widely known trans woman in the US in 1952, after her surgery attracted media attention.

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy (1940-present) - Feminist, trans rights and gay rights activist who came out and started transition in the late 1950's. She was at Stonewall, was injured and taken into custody, and had her jaw broken by police while in custody. She was the first Executive Director of the Transgender Gender Variant Intersex Justice Project, which works to end human rights abuses against trans/intersex/GNC people in the prison system.

Sylvia Rivera (1951-2002) - Gay liberation and trans rights pioneer and community worker in NYC; co-founded STAR, a group dedicated to helping homeless young drag queens, gay youth, and trans women

Marsha P. Johnson (1945-1992) - Gay liberation and trans rights pioneer; co-founded STAR with Sylvia Rivera

[caramelcoffeeaddict]

the fact that people are genuinely angry at Chris for attending the opening night of The Civility of Albert Cashier musical because Blake Jenner is a cast member is actually crazy. they are equating watching a musical with condoning domestic violence, as if the only possible reason Chris would attend the show is to support Blake. just because Blake is a part of the production, and a former Glee cast member, doesn't mean that Chris went there to see him. 🙄

[genderkoolaid]

i havent talked about the civility of albert cashier on here in a while. i cant believe we dont talk about the civility of albert cashier more. that musical was a formative piece of transmasc media for me

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"A WOMAN SOLDIER," Kingston Daily Standard. November 7, 1913. Page 10. --- Of Irish birth She Fought In Many Battles - Dressed as Man ---- Albert D. J. Cashier, an inmate of the Soldiers' Home at Quincy, Illinois, was discovered upon being admitted to the hospital of that institution, to be a woman, and the remarkable fact was established that for over fifty years she had worn man's clothing and concealed her sex. More than that she fought through three of the hardest battles of the American Civil War and innumerable lesser fights.

Now she draws a pension, and with feeble mind and body is waiting for the last roll call.

Her life is a mystery. She was born in Ireland on Christmas day, 1844. She is said to have crossed the Atlantic in boy's clothes as a stowaway. Soon afterward she entered the United States army. Even her name is unknown. She called herself "Albert Cashler," but all attempts to trace her identity have failed. She enlisted Aug. 6, 1862 at Belvidere, Ill., in the 95th Infantry, and was discharged Aug. 17, 1865. She did farm for two or three years at Belvidere, then disappeared. The next 40 years are her own secret. She is thought to have worked in a factory some where. Finally she became an automobile chauffeur and worked in that capacity until a couple of years ago, when her declining health made it necessary that she be cared for in a public institution. Only then was her secret discovered.