"INVALID_CURSOR_ARGUMENTS" from Github graphql API

Question

I am using the following query:

 query myOrgRepos {
              organization(login: "COMPANY_NAME") {
                repositories(first: 100) {
                  edges {
                    node {
                      name
                      defaultBranchRef {
                        target {
                          ... on Commit {
                            history(after: "2021-01-01T23:59:00Z", before: "2023-02-06T23:59:00Z", author: { emails: "USER_EMAIL" }) {
                              edges {
                                node {
                                  oid
                                }
                              }
                            }
                          }
                        }
                      }
                    }
                  }
                }
              }
            }

But with accurate names for the orginization and emails, and am persistantly getting the following error for every repo.

 {
      "type": "INVALID_CURSOR_ARGUMENTS",
      "path": [
        "organization",
        "repositories",
        "edges",
        20,
        "node",
        "defaultBranchRef",
        "target",
        "history"
      ],
      "locations": [
        {
          "line": 10,
          "column": 29
        }
      ],
      "message": "`2021-01-01T23:59:00Z` does not appear to be a valid cursor."
    },

If I remove the after field, it works just fine. However, I kind of need it. Acording to all the docs that I have read both after and before take the same timestamp. Can't tell where I am going wrong here.

I have tried:

• to narrow the gap between before and after
• return only a single repository
• remove after (works fine without it)