Who are the most fluential gay men and women? To mark this weekend's Pri, we prent our annual list of the top 101 out-and-proud Brons, om actors to thors - and there's even a Navy officer
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8 MALE FOOTBALL PLAYERS WHO DARED TO COME OUT AS GAY
From Wonr Woman to Northstar, here are some of the most groundbreakg LGBTQ characters and gay superhero Marvel and DC Comics non. * top 500 lesbian and gay heroes *
Print and CEOLand O'LakBeth is the first openly gay woman to lead a Fortune 500 pany, and leads the Executive D&I Council at Land O’Lak, drivg cln across the bs llaboratn wh 11 ERGs, a Supplier Diversy Program, and the Diversy Impacts Bs Board. As the only openly gay C-sue executive the regn, Mori advot actively for marriage equaly, non-discrimatn regulatn and childre benefs for LGBT+ people.
This year, he champned the tablishment of Pri Diversy, the group’s ternal LGBT+ work, and the 2020 program has also supported LGBT+ muny anizatns through COVID, cludg val fancial support to Gay Communy News magaze and a strategic three-year sponsorship of Dubl’s LGBT+ football team. He gave evince for the crimalizatn of homosexualy to the High Courts of Kenya and Sgapore, and has been ved to give numero lectur on LGBT+ mental health at the Royal Society of Medice, Amerin Psychiatric Associatn, the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
CEOPorti MediaAs CEO of Porti Media and an openly gay person, Jay has dited the last few years to implementg LGBT+ activism wh the pany's bs plan. After Taiwan legalized same-sex marriage, he shared his story as an openly gay profsnal on the pany’s ternal reers blog an article tled ‘Beg Te to Yourself is Good for Bs’, which spired people wh the firm to reach out for advice. Founr, Chairman and Chief Executive OfficerBlueCyBaoli leads BlueCy (Nasdaq:BLCT), a social work and wellbeg pany providg servic for the LGBT+ muny, and as CEO, he has iated many programs wh the admistratn and human rourc partments to build a tly clive culture ternally, cludg troducg genr ntral toilets, applyg the marriage leave policy to same-sex upl, as although gay marriage is not yet regnized by law on the Che maland, overseas marriag and self-iated marriag are regnized by the pany, and troducg three-month parental leave for same-sex upl.
GAY POWER: THE PK LIST
In 1990, Jt Fashanu beme the first football player to publicly e out as gay. Sce then, only seventeen players have done the same. * top 500 lesbian and gay heroes *
In July 2020, he was asked to -host a panel discsn on D&I for Essence's 2, 000+ global employe, where he ndidly shared his personal story as a gay man and a reverg alholic an dtry filled wh cktails. We’ve put together this list to troduce some of the most fluential gay superhero, rangg om groundbreakg figur like Marvel’s Northstar to characters like Harley Qun who only me out the past few 12 most inic gay superhero1) Wonr WomanDiana of Themyscira has a long and storied history as a queer in.
(CC-BY-SA)2) MidnighterPossibly the bt-known gay superhero ic book circl, Midnighter was created as a parody of Batman, startg off the adult-rated Wildstorm ic Stormwatch. Thanks to the X-Men ics’ love of time travel hijks, there are actually two versns of this character at the moment: A teenage Iceman who realized he was gay after Jean Grey read his md, and an adult versn who stayed the closet and dated women for years, but me out after beg nonted by his younger self. The recent Iceman solo seri foced on his life after this revelatn, earng a mixed rponse bee while ’s great to see a gay character gettg their own ic, his emotnal arc is a rather old-fashned g-out story.
She first appeared as Batman’s love tert the 1950s, shortly after the publitn of Sctn of the Innocent, a book that acced Batman of homosexual propaganda. In recent years she was rewrten to be gay herself, a ntroversial cisn that led to some problems of s her ic’s creators wanted her to marry her girliend, DC nixed the cisn by sayg hero “shouldn’t have happy personal liv, ” a dub statement that sounds pretty ridiculo the ntext of, say, Superman.
This Pri Month, celebrate the famo people who have played a major role the Gay Rights Movement over the years. * top 500 lesbian and gay heroes *
One of the origal X-Men, Bobby Drake is probably one of the most high-profile hero to e out recent is easier for publishers to make queer characters si-characters or one-offs, makg Iceman gay was a huge shift for ics. Not only did the character have a history on the screen, but when to the X-Men, Iceman is one of the stars who will no doubt appear Marvel tl until the day when Marvel shuts he hasn't been onscreen sce he me out officially, if the character do appear the future, makg him anythg but gay would fely e an uproar.
When to queer ic book characters, one of the first and most important was Northstar, who was the first character a Marvel ic to e out as gay "Alpha Flight" #106 (1992) then, the mutant superhero has had a sttered rerd of appearg the ics, but 2012 ma history once aga by beg part of the first gay weddg Marvel ics history.
But tak guts to e out and reveal one’s genr as gay, which is ually an act of urage a world that is not ndned to accept every genr. So, many profsnal leagu, teams, and players are raisg their voic to fight back agast homophobia so that gay footballers don’t face backlash while g out.