GO! Presents 100 Women We Love: Class of 2024

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Class of 2015

100 Women We Love: Class of 2015

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We are thrilled to present this year’s 100 Women We Love—an incredibly diverse group of out entertainers, athletes, artists, activists, business leaders and elected officials.

Ruby Rose

You know Piper, Alex and Big Boo. Soon, avid Orange Is the New Black fans will get to know Stella Carlin, a charismatic new face on Netflix´s hit show, played by Ruby Rose. This emerging actress considers herself a “multi-hyphenate creative spirit,” with forays into fashion design, music and modeling. She is one of the faces of Maybelline in Australia, but her face is about to be all over TV here. In addition to the OITNB gig, Rose will appear as a “dangerously beautiful android” named Wendy in David Hewlett´s Syfy show Dark Matter, an adaptation of the graphic novel premiering this month. She´s played opposite Christina Ricci in an indie film, and her self-made short film Break Free-a “tribute to gender fluidity”-has garnered more than 18 million online views. Having been beaten up and bullied at school, Rose says she often felt alone and depressed. But in her career, staying in the closet was never an option, she says. “I didn´t grow up with any out role models, and it affected my life dramatically,” Rose says. “It was important for me that I be out so I could be myself and inspire others to do the same.” -SJ

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Patricia Ione Lloyd

In a perfect world, Patricia Ione Lloyd would be the village storyteller, gathering folks around the bonfire to tell dramatic parables. “But the job market isn´t too good for that,” she laughs. Instead, Lloyd is the next best thing: an accomplished playwright and educator who explores the experiences of women and people of color with humanity and humor. Her work has been developed by the Public Theater, Red Bull Theatre, Dixon Place, Classical Theatre of Harlem, Luna Stage, Downtown Urban Theatre Festival, New York LGBTQ Center, Fire This Time Festival, Bleecker Street Theatre and Rising Circle Theatre. Lloyd´s play Black Tale earned her the New Professional Theatre´s Emerging Playwright Award, while her drama This Train is Bound for Glory won Best Play honors from the Downtown Urban Theater Festival. Currently, she is a 2015 fellow of the prestigious Emerging Writers Group at the Public Theater and a 2016 fellow of the New York Theater Workshop. “Being a playwright is a calling,” Lloyd says. “I try my best to fill in the gaps of histories so that we can look at our past and present with a true reflection to help us have a better future. A strong community acknowledges and celebrates its diversity, laughs hard and loves even harder.” -KL

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Maura Healey

On January 21, 2015, Maura Healey was sworn in as Massachusetts´ attorney general and America´s first openly gay state AG. The Harvard-trained litigator is used to setting precedents-she was once a starting point guard for a professional women´s basketball team in Europe, despite being five feet four inches tall. Prior to her landmark election-culminating her first-ever run for public office-Healey was head of the Civil Rights Division and chief of the Public Protection and Business & Labor Bureaus in the attorney general´s office, where she led the state´s challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act. Healey has also shut down predatory lenders and worked with banks to restructure homeowners´ mortgages, preventing foreclosures. She also supports women´s unfettered access to reproductive healthcare, clean energy development, fighting the growing problem of opiate addiction in the state, and improving mental health care in the criminal justice system. “It´s a sign of progress here in the state that [being gay] wasn´t the first thing every time,” Healey told The Boston Globe, referring to her campaign and the attention it earned from the media. -KL

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Beth Malone

Unless you´ve been living under a rock these past few months, you know Beth Malone is performing her heart out right now in the Tony-winning Broadway musical Fun Home as the adult version of cartoonist Alison Bechdel (also one of our Women We Love). Another thing Malone has in common with Bechdel is having survived a traumatic coming out experience. “I had shame, so my family´s shame seemed justified,” she says. “I wasn´t even mad when my father stopped speaking to me for seven years. … Now, retroactively, I feel disappointed in the way it all went down, but not at all surprised. There are still large religious enclaves keeping people in the dark ages where gayness is concerned, and I just happened to be raised in one of those. I love my parents very much, but I was saddened that their love for me seemed to have limitations, and me being gay was one of them.” Thankfully, her relationship with her family is much different these days. Malone believes one way we can conquer homophobia, whether in our own families or outside, is to be visible. “The more we are integrated into everyone´s daily reality, the harder it will be to discriminate. … Don´t hide. Live large and free and let young people see you doing that.” -GH

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Abby Wambach

Abby Wambach is one of the most successful athletes the US has ever seen, with more international goals (182!) than any soccer star ever. (She also has two Olympic gold medals and has been named a FIFA World Player of the Year.) Another soccer player might sit back and admire those accomplishments, but Wambach is driven. She wants the ultimate prize, which has hovered, ever so tantalizingly, just out of her reach. “I want to finish my career off on a high note, play in this World Cup and bring home the World Cup to the United States,” she told the LA Times recently. “That would be absolutely a dream come true and a perfect way to end a career.” If she wins, it would not only be a life-changing personal victory but a significant national one, giving America its first Women´s World Cup title since 1999. The 35-year-old plays on our team as well, married since October 2013 to Sarah Huffman. “No matter who you are, how successful you are, you have to have a positive environment around you that keeps you balanced,” Wambach continued. “It´s nice having somebody in your corner [who] doesn´t look at you as a famous soccer star.” -GH

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Aryka Randall

Aryka Randall wanted to see more diversity in media coverage of LGBT folks, so in 2010 she created her own site, TheFabFemme.com, to help fill that niche. The site includes news, interviews and life tips for all kinds of femmes-for example, you can find a blog post on Sharon and Rhonda, the couple from ABC´s Black-ish; advice on how to glow with inner beauty; and a Q&A with Henrietta Hudson co-owner Lisa Cannistraci. In addition to TheFabFemme.com, Randall also made a web series, Girl Play, about the lives of four femmes in New Orleans. Right now, she´s working on a three-part docuseries called (what else?) Femme, a real-life look at the experiences of feminine-identified lesbians. With all that she´s accomplished, Randall certainly deserves to take a breather, but she´s doing just the opposite, with plans to write a book, make documentaries and create a t-shirt line within the next two years. All this and she has yet to turn 30! “The most rewarding aspect of my work is having the ability to share women´s stories in a positive light,” she says, “while playing a part in unifying ladies across the world through love, hope and inspiration.” Sounds pretty damn fab to us! -GH

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Alison Bechdel

Broadway audiences are just now discovering what lesbians have known for years: Alison Bechdel is freaking awesome! Fun Home, the Tony-winning musical based on her 2006 graphic novel, is, following its transfer from the Public Theater, the hottest ticket in town. It´s also the first Broadway show to feature a lead lesbian character (hopefully, the first of many). Bechdel probably could not have imagined this reality when her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For began over 30 years ago. Bechdel syndicated the strip, which commented on lesbian love and politics through a cast of regular characters, from 1983 to 2008. In 2006, she released her first graphic memoir Fun Home, about her complicated relationship with her closeted dad, and that move shot her into the publishing stratosphere: The book won the Publishing Triangle´s Judy Grahn Nonfiction Award, a Lambda, an Eisner and an American Library Association award, and was named a best book by many publications. Her second graphic memoir, Are You My Mother?, focuses on Bechdel´s artistic mom and was also well-received. In 2014, Bechdel won the coveted MacArthur Genius Grant. Of her recent success, she told The New York Times Magazine, “I´m so glad it didn´t happen when I was younger, because then it would have been all downhill.” -GH

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Kate McKinnon

In her three years as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, Kate McKinnon has become one of its biggest draws, gifting us with slam-dunk impressions of Ellen DeGeneres, Jane Lynch, Hillary Clinton and Justin Bieber. She´s also created some great original characters, like Olya Povlatsky, a Russian woman living in deplorable conditions; slutty barfly Sheila Sauvage; Les “Dyke” Dykawitz of TV cop team Dyke & Fats and Barbara DeDrew, the plain-dressing lesbian co-owner of cat rescue place Whiskers ´R´ We. McKinnon´s hire made history for SNL, as she is the show´s only out lesbian cast member ever and its first openly queer cast member in more than 25 years. Before SNL, she was part of Logo´s The Big Gay Sketch Show, which showcased one of her funniest characters, Fitzwilliam, a sweet British boy who wants a vagina. When not in front of SNL´s cameras, McKinnon has been quietly building a film career with parts in the lesbian-themed comedy Life Partners and Intramural. Next summer, she´ll join fellow SNL cast members Leslie Jones and Cecily Strong (along with SNL alum Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy) in an all-female revamp of Ghostbusters. And that´s only one of many projects in the pipeline. “I have a lot of plans,” she recently told Entertainment Weekly. “Lots of things up my sleeve.”

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Nevin Caple

If Nevin Caple has her way, inequality in sports will be a thing of the past. The Brooklyn resident is: a founding member of the Nike LGBT Sports Coalition; on the Wade Trophy Committee for women´s college basketball; and a co-founder and the executive director of Br{ache the Silence, a campaign aiming to stop discrimination against queer and female athletes and coaches. The campaign provides a number of valuable resources, including diversity consulting. Among its projects is the Tour of Champions, which encourages Division I, II and III national champion student-athletes and coaches to make a video about queer acceptance in women´s sports. As part of the Tour, Caple co-produced a 13-minute online public service announcement called All In, starring Paralympian Stephanie Wheeler, Hall of Fame coach Lin Dunn and Olympian Jennifer Molina. “When [Colleen McCaffrey and I] founded BTS in 2011 we didn´t set out to speak for the sports community,” says Caple, “but rather give coaches, athletic administrators and student-athletes a platform to speak for themselves. The community is responding in such a positive and powerful way, changing the narrative about what it means to be strong and athletic and a woman.” -GH

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Wegan

First there was TomKat, then Brangelina, and now there´s Wegan. The portmanteau of couple Whitney and Megan, Wegan has gone from cute combo name to an entire brand based on the pair´s long-distance relationship. With one living in Hawaii and the other in the UK, Whitney and Megan set up a blog and YouTube channel to document their experience living apart. At the same time, the two feminine women sought to “fill a gap that we felt was missing-the face of femme lesbians.” Years later, Wegan is in one place, both living in the UK. But the adventures continue. They blog their home decorating, their travels and their day-to-day lives as “wife and wife.” Their popularity has soared; in 2014, a meet and greet event drew 600 fans. But with all their visibility, they say coming out “is an endless process. Especially as we´re a femme lesbian couple, we constantly get asked if we´re sisters! We often find ourselves justifying that we are truly gay.” For any young girls out there who worry they can´t be both feminine and gay, the couple says, “You don´t have to pick! You can still be you, whether that´s cutting your hair short or long, wearing Chapstick or lipstick, heels or flats. There´s a wide spectrum out there.” -SJ

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Patricia Velasquez

Patricia Velasquez describes herself as “constantly in motion,” and she must be, to sustain a whopping six careers. A Venezuela native, Velasquez rose from poverty to the heights of the fashion industry as one of the first Latina supermodels, appearing in Sports Illustrated´s swimsuit issue and Covergirl´s ads. Her acting career has spanned everything from foreign films to blockbusters (The Mummy), Arrested Development to Celebrity Apprentice. She also produces films; wrote a memoir, Straight Walk; founded a cosmetics line, Taya Beauty; and is an activist both for UNESCO and her own nonprofit, Wayúu Taya Foundation, which helps improve the living conditions of indigenous groups in Latin America. Despite her accomplishments, being out as an actress and having it affect her career “is still a fear,” Velasquez says. “As an actress, you like to remain a canvas, and once you are labeled gay, it´s harder for the audience to see you playing a straight woman.” But Velasquez, whose work is seen in many countries where homosexuality is still very much not accepted, hopes for change. “My message is about being gay and it´s also about being a minority, whatever shape that takes, and the importance of fighting for what you believe and not hiding who you are,” she says. “Feel proud of it. That is the only thing that can generate change.” -SJ

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Be Steadwell

Be Steadwell, a singer-songwriter and filmmaker based in Washington, D.C., says her fans inspire her queer-positive work. “´Your song got me through a breakup.´ ´This was the first song I heard about a woman loving another woman.´ ´I appreciated seeing so many different kinds of women of color in a film.´ Tiny comments like these make me feel so grateful to have the space and time to create,” she says. Steadwell´s music takes elements of jazz, a capella and folk and blends them with layered vocals, beat box rhythms and lyrics about love between women-a genre she calls “queerpop.” Steadwell has performed at clubs across the country and is gearing up for a string of gigs in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland this summer. At the same time, Steadwell-who holds an MFA in film from Howard University-is screening her short film Vow of Silence, about a musician who takes the titular vow to win back the woman she loves, at LGBT film festivals here and abroad (most recently in Toronto). She also shoots and edits her own music videos, giving her the freedom to hone her message of love and resistance between women. Her advice for fellow artists? “Trust your community. Be yourself. There is someone out there who needs to hear your story.” -KL

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Laura Cheadle

Singer-songwriter Laura Cheadle´s tough breakup at age 16 inspired her to connect with people through her addictive, bluesy-funk music. Now a little older and wiser, Cheadle is the vocalist and rhythm guitarist in her family band with her dad Jim, a veteran soul and jazz producer, and her twin brothers. The Laura Cheadle Band has grown its fan base by playing shows and festivals around Philly and New York, for which they´ve won a slew of awards by fan vote; competed on the NBC/Cozi reality series The Next Great Family Band; and opened for national acts like The Jonas Brothers, Sister Hazel, Spin Doctors, Ryan Cabrera, Kasim Sulton, Terrence Simien, Garland Jeffreys, John Oates of Hall and Oates and the Average White Band. Her fans seem to connect with the groove as well as her honest lyrics. “I have learned that the more I am completely myself, the more successful I become,” Cheadle says. “My song about equality, ´It´s Not Okay,´ has received fantastic praise from my fellow LGBT community, and I love that I am able to perform it with my amazing, open and accepting family band.” What´s next for the Cheadles? Catch them June 27 at the Sidewalk Café in NYC. -KL

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Dannielle Owens-Reid

A performer and social media guru, Dannielle Owens-Reid is forging a career on the Internet. “I would like to be auditioning a lot more, performing more often,” she says. “There aren´t very many people who look like me on TV; we still live in a world where someone who looks like me is thought of as ´outside the box.´” So she has discovered her own corner of the web, where she has found some fame as a comedic speaker and one half of the Everyone Is Gay team. She also created one of the best memes of all time, the “Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber” Tumblr. But mostly, Owens-Reid is using the format to give advice to gay kids via video. “Working with LGBTQ youth is so important to me, especially in a fun and ridiculous way,” she says. “If TV, movies and magazines STILL haven´t caught up, I´m so happy to be on the Internet and to at least provide one small representation of this type of human.” -SJ

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Danielle Egnew

During a lull in Danielle Egnew´s music career, the award-winning folk artist received a gift. It wasn´t tangible. Instead, it was the gift of channeling messages from beyond. “My current field chose me,” Egnew says. Though she says she was born a psychic and medium, it was during that lull that she felt called into spiritual work, which entails communicating with angels and departed loved ones. Now, she pursues both careers simultaneously while owning a gallery with her wife, photographer Rebecca Douglas, in her home state of Montana. A woman of many talents, Egnew is also an oil painter and an actor, having appeared alongside Jennifer Beals and Ally Sheedy in The Vagina Monologues. Her work as a medium has been featured on television and radio; she has worked as a content consultant on shows such as Supernatural, and she´s written a memoir and directed a documentary about her paranormal experiences. Working with people is the most rewarding, she says. “I love to watch people´s spirits light up as they realize that their life paths are indeed full of hope and wonder. It´s an amazing experience to be part of someone´s healing journey. It´s very humbling to be entrusted with such a responsibility.” -SJ

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Angelique Moore

“Any time I can help a young adult make better decisions in life is rewarding to me,” says Angelique Moore, director of Lutheran Social Service of New York, a foster care program for mothers and children in Brooklyn. In 2009, after being laid off from a job in a different field, Moore joined the organization as a case planner, providing services and support for youth in foster care. Four years later, she was promoted to director of the residential center, where mothers and children can find counseling and other social services. Currently, Moore facilitates workshops and regular support groups for young people who are coping with family crises, drug addiction and other issues. “I am able to work with not only young adults in foster care, but also LGBTQ youths in foster care, where I provide one-on-one guidance. My office is also a LGBTQ safe space for the young adults residing in the mother/child program as well as those in regular foster boarding homes,” Moore says, and adds that part of her responsibility is to prepare parents for nurturing LGBTQ foster children. “It is the best job in the world to me,” she says. A Bronx resident, Moore has three children of her own, ages 28, 23 and 19. -KL

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Mariah Hanson

The founder and producer of Club Skirts Dinah Shore Weekend, Mariah Hanson has been bringing women together to revel in the Palm Springs sunshine for 25 years. What started as a one-night event for 1,500 participants has grown into a massive, world-renowned party drawing some 15,000 attendees to the most lavish and deluxe locations in the desert, becoming one of the largest tourism boosters to the Coachella Valley. Hanson´s brainchild “is designed to celebrate our culture, our lives, our womanhood, our community and our legacy in the most joyful way possible,” she says. The five-day extravaganza features entertainment, pool parties and a platform for humanitarian activism. The event also has proven to be a crystal ball into the future of the music industry; some of the “unknown” talent Hanson has chosen to headline in past years, like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, the Pussycat Dolls and Iggy Azalea, all broke out into superstardom. Besides the top-notch entertainment, the main attraction has been the freedom for women from all over the world to come together and be themselves, Hanson says. “We change lives,” she says. “I see it every year. We offer a space where lesbian women and their friends can live out loud in the most celebratory way possible, and it changes people.” -SJ

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Sarinya Srisakul

Sarinya Srisakul not only fights fires, but shatters boundaries as the FDNY´s first Asian female firefighter. “A friend of mine took me to an orientation that the FDNY had to recruit new firefighters and I was hooked,” she remembers. “When I watched the videos of firefighters rushing into fires and emergencies, it felt like a true calling.” Still, Srisakul has had to face challenges, including her own family “discouraging me and thinking that I would fail just because I am a woman.” Training from United Women Firefighters helped her make the transition, and now she´s giving back by serving as their president. Because of their work, the FDNY has the most women firefighters ever, though that number is still too low. “It is sad that in this day and age, it´s rare to see women firefighters in New York City, and through our efforts, we are changing the dynamics, not only in the FDNY, but also in the social fabric of our city. It is a great feeling to boost a little girl up into the fire engine and be a role model who teaches her that not only can she be a firefighter, but she can be whoever she wants to be. It is not every woman who seeks to enter such a heavily male-dominated field, but I know a lot of queer women are up for the challenge!” -GH

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Hina Chow

Up-and-coming entertainment mogul Hina Chow could never be considered a shrinking violet. For her big coming out moment, she stood on top of a crowded bar “and announced my gayness to my friends,” she laughs. They looked at her, like, duh. “I really wanted a bit more shock and awe-I guess I had been the last to find out!” The Denver resident spends half of her time in New York as the tour manager/driver/merch vendor for Lez Zeppelin, the all-female Led Zeppelin cover band. When not wrangling groupies for the popular act, Chow is the executive producer of Neal Cassady: The Denver Years, a critically acclaimed doc about the openly bisexual muse to Beat legends like Jack Kerouac (Cassady inspired the character Dean Moriarty in On the Road) and Allen Ginsberg (Cassady´s one-time lover). Directed by Heather Dalton, the film debuted last year at Denver´s Sie FilmCenter, and was named Best Colorado History Documentary by Westword, Denver´s influential arts and entertainment magazine. Chow is looking forward to screening the doc at the Beat Museum in San Francisco this June. -KL

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KJ Denhert

KJ Denhert´s bio describes her music as “difficult to classify but very easy to enjoy.” Sounds good to us. The artist, who crafts her own unique mix of urban folk and jazz, started playing guitar and writing music at 10. “I loved Sergio Mendes´ songs,” she remembers, “liked John Hartford on Glen Campbell´s show and really got into James Taylor and Joni Mitchell, who I still consider my two main influences. … I didn´t really do much but play guitar through my teenage years.” Coming out “was difficult and isolating” and she was even thrown out of her house, but the experience just made her stronger. In her twenties, Denhert joined an all-woman band called Fire; more recently, she´s finished an 18-month world tour, celebrated a 19-year residency at NYC´s 55 Bar with her band and released a tenth album, Destiny, that has garnered her three Independent Music Award nominations. (She also has won numerous awards for songwriting.) “I love playing, singing, writing, arranging and performing. It´s a reason to get up some days (OK, most days)! … Sometimes people tell me wonderful things, stories about celebrating in their own lives with songs I´ve written. That can feel pretty great.” -GH

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Emma Willmann

Emma Willmann´s coming out moment was made for comedy. She and her mom were at a yoga retreat, where “everyone ate in silence to honor the food. I whispered that I had to tell her something important. Of course she said, ´Shhh, it´s a silent lunch!´ I kept whispering, and finally said, ´I´m gay.´ My mom yelled, ´What!´ and I followed up with, ´Shhh, silent lunch.´” Clearly, a star was born. Willmann started performing in comedy clubs and at open mics in Boston in 2010, and quickly rose through the ranks to win first place in the Boston Comedy Riots two years later. After moving to NYC in 2012, she appeared on the cover of Time Out NY as one of the “10 Funniest Females in NYC,” headlined a sold-out show at the 2014 New York Comedy Festival and killed it in other festivals from here to Europe. The multitalented performer also dove into acting: in one year, Willmann has appeared in two series on ID Discovery (playing a cop on True Crime, she uttered the immortal line, “Is that…a dog…in your freezer?”), starred as a rugby coach on Oxygen, and shot commercials. This year, Willmann has shot four potential pilots and is headlining colleges around the country. -KL

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Phaidra Knight

Rugby 7s will debut in its first ever Olympics next summer in Rio de Janeiro, and hoping to be right there with it is professional rugby player Phaidra Knight. Hailing from small-town Georgia, the athlete has competed in CrossFit Games, Strongman and bobsled-but it´s rugby in which she´s made a name for herself as one of the top players in the world, appearing three times at the Rugby World Cup. “The initial draw to rugby was the freedom for me to not only express my deeply seated aggressions as a woman, as a woman of color, as a woman coming to terms with my sexuality in an accepting environment, but to also express my power dynamically by moving myself and others within a physical context,” she says. In addition to her career as a sports agent/lawyer who represents and manages other athletes and talent, Knight is coaching younger athletes, which she says “brings joy to my heart and happiness to my soul.” As a Nike brand ambassador, she has channeled her recognition into the issues of women´s fitness and childhood obesity. She also does motivational speaking on topics such as bullying, diversity and leadership, drawing from her own experience being out. “It takes massive courage to be ´you´ and live comfortably in your own skin,” she says. “For me, it has been a process and continues to be each day.” -SJ

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Urvashi Vaid

Urvashi Vaid has been a social justice warrior for more than 30 years. Highlights of her career include being a staff attorney for ACLU´s National Prison Project, Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force´s Policy Institute and Senior Fellow at the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School. In between, she´s somehow managed to find the time to write two books (Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay & Lesbian Liberation and Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics); co-edit another one (Creating Change: Public Policy, Sexuality and Civil Rights); start LPAC, a political action committee for lesbians; and fall in love with one of our favorite comedians, Kate Clinton. (And they´ve been going strong for over a quarter of a century!) Currently, Vaid is the CEO of The Vaid Group, a company that helps social justice leaders, movements and organizations. “To reconstitute the world [and] to end violence of all kinds-physical, economic, racial, gender-based, anti-queer, police, military, cultural, nationalist, environmental and more-we need a new, energetic, progressive movement that is feminist, queer and anti-racist, and that is about taking power once and for all to defeat the boring, decaying, decadent, destructive patriarchy,” she says. “It won´t be easy. But it can be done.” -GH

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Michelle Chamuel

Michelle Chamuel had enjoyed success as a singer in the rock group Ella Riot, and as the artist known as The Reverb Junkie, but she shot to a whole different level of fame on season four of The Voice, with impressive covers of Katy Perry´s “I Kissed a Girl” and Pink´s “Raise Your Glass.” And though she didn´t win the top spot, she did come in second, was praised by Taylor Swift and found a fantastic mentor in Usher. “I went to the show looking for a teacher and it turned out Usher was looking for a student,” she says. “I was craving the challenges and rewards of being part of a top musical community and I found that on The Voice.” In February, she released the album Face the Fire, featuring themes of “universal love-love lost and love found” and “authenticity, coming to terms with being yourself, facing reality and being as true to yourself as possible,” as she explained to Billboard. Chamuel says she loves music because it is “one of the great unifiers. You can have old people, gay people, old gay people, differently abled people, people of all colors and sizes and backgrounds, and they can all be connected through music. … I´ve been drawn to it (like a panda to bamboo) since before I could speak.”

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Anita Dolce Vita

In her spare time from running clinical trials with the aim of improving outcomes and the quality of life for people with cancer, Anita Dolce Vita is pushing the fashion envelope as the owner and editor-in-chief of dapperQ.com, a website for masculine-presenting women, genderqueers and trans-identified individuals. The site features style tips, wedding galleries and interviews with activists, stylists and models who challenge the gender binary. Dolce Vita calls the site a “queer fashion revolution, one of the most stylish forms of protest of our generation,” for its work serving the people who have long been underserved by mainstream menswear designers. Through her work on the site and in her writings across the Internet, Dolce Vita says she is “using fashion as a springboard to facilitate conversations and change around gender identity, gender expression, intersectionality and equality.” She even brought the conversation to the Brooklyn Museum for a celebration called (un)Heeled. But that´s only part of her accomplishments. By day, Dolce Vita is an oncology clinical research nurse, working with healthcare teams to study the effectiveness of cancer treatments. The most rewarding aspect of her work? “That I get to do what I love and in the process create positive change,” she says. -SJ

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Sarah Kate Ellis

From the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi to the New York City St. Patrick´s Day Parade, Sarah Kate Ellis has advocated for acceptance of the LGBT community worldwide. As the president and CEO of GLAAD, Ellis has taken on ESPN, Univision and FIFA over anti-gay slurs at the 2014 World Cup; she has worked closely with Facebook to be more inclusive to transgender users; and her powerful words are regularly featured in major news outlets in order to advance better coverage of the LGBT community. After a successful media career, including a trailblazing stint transforming Real Simple into a hit magazine, Ellis joined GLAAD in January 2014. She and her wife, Kristen Ellis-Henderson, who co-authored a memoir that chronicled their simultaneous pregnancies, were featured on Time magazine´s “Gay Marriage Already Won” cover. Ellis takes a post-marriage view of her work at GLAAD. “As much as we have achieved on marriage, there is a lot of hard work still left to do to accelerate acceptance of LGBT people in this country,” she says. “…The wider culture…needs to keep hearing our stories to understand that LGBT people are their brothers and sisters, neighbors and co-workers, and that we want the same thing they do-to live as fully equal citizens in peace and security.”

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Casie Goshow

“I always loved dance,” says Casie Goshow, “but I had amazing parents who told me I could literally be anything I wanted to be and that they would support me. … After I booked a few jobs in New York City, I knew I had what it took to be successful, but I had to be smart about it. I needed to brand myself and create something memorable besides just dancing and choreography. That is when I met [Ann] Elyse [Urquidi] and we created GoShow Yourself.” The clothing line encourages customers to be authentic and feel good about themselves: two things that haven´t always been easy for Goshow. “As a dancer in the industry, it is really hard to have confidence in yourself 100 percent of the time when people are constantly telling you no. … It was also difficult being from a small town [Harleysville, Pennsylvania]. I was scared to truly be myself as well as love who I wanted to love.” She now enjoys helping kids going through similar challenges. “There will always be people who don´t approve of things, from something as small as your clothing to as big as your lifestyle, but at the end of the day this is the only life we get and I plan on living it fully and for myself.” -GH

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Kate Kuykendall

“I love blowing up people´s stereotypes about Los Angeles,” says Kate Kuykendall, the public information officer for Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, a National Park Service site that lies within L.A.´s boundary. “Yes, we have traffic and smog and lots of freeways. But we´re also surrounded by mountains and thousands of miles of trails. And there´s at least one mountain lion living within the city limits-how´s that for the ultimate display of nature in the midst of the second-largest metropolitan area in the country?” Kuykendall worked in outreach and communications for Peace Corps recruitment for a decade before joining the park service in 2012. Born and raised in Southern California, Kuykendall´s enthusiasm for the urban park is infectious. She´s elevated the park´s profile among new audiences by encouraging people to connect with and celebrate our national parks and public lands-a big goal of the National Park Service as it celebrates its centennial next year with the #FindYourPark campaign. The Santa Monica Mountains NRA is just one of over 400 national parks and is participating in the campaign by showing that our parks and historical sites offer something for everyone, including the LGBT community. “Being a part of the #FindYourPark campaign gives us the chance to re-introduce the National Park Service to all Americans, and encourage them to get out there and find their parks!” Kuykendall says. -KL

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Julie Bolcer

Julie Bolcer went from chronicling the news to helping reporters cover it. A graduate of Seton Hall University with a master´s degree in diplomacy and international relations, Bolcer was a journalist for years with publications like The Advocate, The Village Voice and LOGO before becoming, in early 2013, a spokesperson for U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in the Southern District of New York. That experience helped lead her to her current role as director of public affairs for the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner. Her job requires her to speak to the press, giving them vital information about suspicious and untimely deaths, missing persons, and the city´s DNA crime laboratory, often concerning high-profile investigations. It´s a job that may sound challenging to some, but it´s fulfilling work for Bolcer, who reminds us that “loss and grief are universal aspects of the human experience and can touch anyone without warning. I am grateful to work for an agency that brings independent and scientific answers to people from all walks of life affected by tragedy, in an administration committed to the equitable delivery of services to all New Yorkers.” When not working, Bolcer enjoys hanging out with her partner, Sivan, their cat, Margot, and their dog, Polly Jean, in Brooklyn. -GH

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Stacy Kovacs

If you´ve ever joined the NYC Dyke March in the past few years, you´ve grooved down Fifth Avenue to the pulsing rhythms of BatalaNYC, the only all-female Afro-Brazilian samba reggae drum orchestra in the northeast U.S.-they´re the women in matching t-shirts pounding dobras, surdos and other instruments. Artistic director Stacy Kovacs, a veteran of the Lesbian and Gay Big Apple Corps and the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, founded the New York chapter of Batala after seeing a performance of Batala Mundo, a global musical project. She flew to Brazil and came back with 35 large drums for her nascent marching ensemble. In the ensuing three years, BatalaNYC has performed in more than 100 festivals, parades, events, shows and parties, including as the opening drummers for the Rolling Stones´ 50th anniversary tour in 2012. Kovacs welcomes all female-identified people, regardless of musical skill level, for an empowering education in Brazilian music. “The dancing and the drumming and the fact that it´s all women adds a feminine element to something that is so traditionally male,” Kovacs told a Brazilian music blog in 2012. She formed deep friendships with many of the players-“friendships I know will last a lifetime. It´s an honor to stand in front of them. The looks and smiles on their faces say everything-it´s incredible!” -KL

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Sekiya Dorsett

Living in her hometown of Nassau, Bahamas, filmmaker Sekiya Dorsett found it hard to tell authentic stories about the queer experience. She successfully sought asylum in the U.S. and has made queer women of color her artistic inspiration. “As women, we are the life givers. As black people, we have already proved our strength and our power. As lesbians, we bring a unique voice that adds color to the world,” Dorsett says. “Even though I am fighting against all odds and have to prove myself every time, I know that every step I take is a step in the right direction.” In 2008, her first short, Wisdom and Understanding, made its debut at NewFest Film Festival, and her short Sisters screened at the Austin LGBT Film Festival the following year. More recently, Dorsett was a launch producer for Oxygen´s The Prancing Elites Project, a reality series about a black gay and gender-nonconforming dance team in Mobile, Alabama. Dorsett is also putting the finishing touches on her feature doc, The Revival Movie: Woman and the Word, which was fully funded on Kickstarter and makes its debut later this year. “People underestimate how powerful it is to see yourself reflected” in films and the media, Dorsett says. “I love making work for the LGBT community and having the audience see themselves.” -KL

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Aliya Hallim-Byne

A defector from “corporate America,” Aliya Hallim-Byne switched career paths in 2010 and founded a nonprofit organization that aims to empower women to become leaders. As the CEO of Wonder Women, she asks women to add their voices online to the mantra: “I AM a Wonder Woman because I AM…” She made the decision to change to a for-profit business model, since she found the energy of the word “nonprofit” disempowering to Wonder Women´s ideology, mission and vision. The idea for Wonder Women surfaced, says Hallim-Byne, “from the very fiber of my being, culled from my life and work experiences, both positive and negative. I am self-assured in my deep-seated knowingness of the immense potential women have when fully expressed and fully realized.” Why did this corporate exec make the leap to start her own business? “I am a rebel with a cause,” she explains. “I knew it was time to pave my own path in spite of the challenges and risks involved.” Her hope is that her own example can be a guide to others who are looking to make a change in the world. “When we connect with others on a similar path,” she says, “anything is possible.” -SJ

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Michelle C. Bonilla

Michelle C. Bonilla is a familiar face to TV viewers. The out Latina actress played Teresa Morales on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and Christine Harms on ER. If you weren´t an avid watcher of those shows, then you might recognize her from guest shots on Castle, The Bold and the Beautiful, Jane the Virgin, or the award-winning lesbian short that she wrote, Slip Away. And, if you have ever played video games, you´ve probably heard her vocal talents on projects such as Call of Duty, Dead Rising 3, and Star Wars: The Old Republic. In addition to acting, voice-overs, writing and producing, she also helps other thespians as a private acting coach. “It´s one thing to be on the set, already have the job, and just blissfully go about the work,” she tells GO, “however, for many actors, including myself, being able to ´book the room´ and feel great about what you do in an audition setting is a completely different beast! So being able to be of service to other actors by providing them a forum to work out the kinks, get past nerves and make strong choices makes me feel great! … Inspiring others, whether it´s through my own work or helping other actors find the inspiration in theirs, is why I chose to do what I do.” -GH

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Frances Loffredo-Ryan

“Growing up with a pedophile for the first 26 years of my life, with no help in sight, I realized that if I was to survive/thrive, I needed to help myself,” says Frances Loffredo-Ryan. “Education was my way out. My career as a teacher, administrator, coach, referee and mentor for 31 years with the New York City Board of Education made me realize that empowering others was the greatest gift that I could give anyone. It gave me a sense of purpose and commitment that has guided my life.” Currently, she raises public awareness of the effects of incest through her art and presentations as well as being chairperson of LPSS, Inc., an all-volunteer, not for profit, 501 (c)(3) organization that runs workshops, support groups and other programs for the LGBTQ community of Westchester County and surrounding areas. “Its mission is to foster a sense of community, erase stereotypes about homosexuality and to address the effects of homophobia, discrimination and prejudice,” she says. “As a survivor, educator, activist and artist, I have found my voice, I am empowered, and I continue to reach out to others through Lambda Peer Support Services.” -GH

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Pamela Means

Pamela Means is a Jill of many trades: singer, songwriter, composer and producer. And though not a household name yet, this Boston-based folk and jazz artist has shared the stage with some major musical heavyweights, such as Ani DiFranco, the Indigo Girls and Janis Ian. Her albums have sold thousands, and she is currently getting ready to release an eighth; her most recent, Precedent, tackles everything from the romantic to the political. “This is a good time to be a political artist,” she says. “As an independent artist who has dedicated my life to the fight against injustice-through and with music-I am moved daily by and re-awakened to the struggles of our times. These movements are fueled by [and] dependent upon our collective energy; I am constantly reminded that activism is a joint means of moving the world, reshaping it, or at the least reshaping the way we want to live within it.” To the queer community, Means offers the following: “I want to say hello; I love you; I am inspired by you. I hope we connect as I launch my new album project this June/July followed by a tour (in 2016) where I can see you in person and be uplifted by your gorgeous smiling faces on every coast and in between.” -GH

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Kristin Russo

What started as an advice website has turned into a far-reaching career helping parents and kids communicate about sexuality and gender identity. Kristin Russo is the co-creator with Dannielle Owens-Reid of Everyone Is Gay, which is part YouTube channel answering kids´ questions and part outreach organization that tours schools, workplaces and community centers to educate others on important queer and trans issues. No, Russo doesn´t think that everyone is gay. It´s just an exercise she asks people to consider to figure out what´s really going on in their relationships. “Let´s say that everyone is gay or that everyone is trans, let´s take that out of the equation and think about what you´re saying,” Russo says in a school presentation. “What you´re saying is that you want your parents to support you. You want them to believe in you. What you´re saying is that you want your friends to understand you. And at its core, that is something that we can all understand.” Russo also hosts and co-produces First Person, a video series on gender and sexuality from PBS Digital and WNET. She co-authored the book This is a Book for Parents of Gay Kids and is the co-founder of The Parents Project, a digital resource for parents of LGBTQ kids. -SJ

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Anja Paerson

Anja Paerson´s confidence and outspokenness match her phenomenal skiing career. The decorated Swedish Alpine athlete has a roster of wins that any pro would envy. Paerson made her professional debut in 1998, when she was just 17 years old, at the World Cup in Switzerland. Between that year and 2012, Paerson went on to compete in 42 World Cup races and took home 19 championship medals, including 7 golds. She also competed in three Winter Olympics-2002 in Salt Lake City, 2006 in Turin, and 2010 in Vancouver-and won one gold, one silver, and four bronze medals. After retiring in 2012, Paerson opened up about her private life; she told Swedish media that not only had she been in a relationship with a woman for five years, but that she was expecting her first child. She had her son Elvis on July 4, 2012, and married her girlfriend Filippa in August 2014. That year, Paerson spoke out against Russia´s anti-gay laws and the International Olympic Committee´s reluctance to address homophobia at the Sochi Olympics. “The Olympic Committee had a huge responsibility in Sochi and they didn´t stand up for human rights,” she later told CNN. “They were hiding from the difficult questions.” She´s still urging the international sports community to get with the times. “Hopefully they have learned from Sochi Olympics and will get better in the future,” she said. -KL

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Monica Palacios

For more than 30 years, Monica Palacios has been engaging audiences on the intersections of Latina and lesbian identity through her pioneering theatrical performances. She stormed the world of comedy in 1982 when she became the first out Chicana lesbian comic to play San Francisco. Since then, she has toured her original theatrical works widely, and is currently performing “Queer Latina Love & Revolution,” a solo show. A playwright, screenwriter, solo performer, poet, essayist and educator, Palacios is widely respected by her peers as a “maverick” and a “visionary.” Palacios was even recognized in 2012 by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa with a day named after her. Community organizing and activism are definitive elements to her work, and Palacios says connecting with her audiences is what´s important. “People appreciate and respect artists who are real-like them,” she says. “I love when audience members come up to me after a show and tell me they could relate to my experiences.” The specificity of her life is not limiting to audiences; comedy, she has found, ties it all together. “Even though a large part of my work is about my Chicana/Latina lesbian life, the impact of my humor,” she says, “is definitely universal.” -SJ

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Angel Haze

If you only know Angel Haze as Ireland Baldwin´s ex, then you don´t know Angel Haze. An artist on the rise, this rapper has accomplished more in a few years than many will in a lifetime-and Haze is still only 23! Identifying as pansexual and agender (and preferring the pronoun “they”), Haze is one of the few visibly queer artists on the hip-hop scene. Their career began in their late teens, when they released the mixtape New Moon. In 2013, they received major-label attention with the full-length studio album Dirty Gold. Online, their fan base is impressive, with almost 214,000 followers on Twitter and more than 1,000,000 YouTube views. Haze has also attracted notice from major music blogs and sites like TheSource.com, Pitchfork and XXL.com, and from artists like Sia, who collaborated on their single “Battle Cry,” which would eventually be nominated for an MTV Video Music Award for Best Video with a Social Message. That song, like others in Haze´s catalogue, was inspired by an abusive childhood. In a 2014 interview with The Guardian, Haze said, “Two years ago it was very difficult to be in the same room as me. You could feel everything, all the trauma, weighing me down. Through music I´ve let go. Projectile-vomited my demons all over the place.”-GH

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Kaci and Holly Clark-Porter

Kaci and Holly Clark-Porter are redefining what it means to be a power couple. Married for three years, the two were recently jointly ordained as ministers at Delaware´s First and Central Presbyterian Church. According to USA Today, they may be the first same-sex couple to ever be ordained together. What made the moment even more unique was that it happened a few days after the Presbyterian Church began permitting same-sex marriages. Kaci and Holly are also making change via The Big Gay Church (biggaychurch.org), which operates at First and Central. It gives queer folks-so frequently alienated by religious communities-a place to feel welcome. “So many people are forced to settle for careers they can hardly abide,” says Kaci. “Yet I go to work every day knowing that there is nowhere else I´d rather be, no others I´d rather work with, nothing else I´d rather be doing and no one else I´d rather serve. It is deeply gratifying, especially as a queer clergyperson. So often we watch the jobs we want go to straight folk, who we know, for many churches, were the ´safer choice´ as a pastor. I didn´t have to settle and neither did my congregation-our relationship is genuine and mutual, and no pastor anywhere could ask for more than that!” -GH

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Cristy C. Road

The world has Green Day to thank for the artistry of Cristy C. Road. The Cuban-American illustrator and novelist (and member of the queercore/pop-punk band, The Homewreckers) was so obsessed with the punk rock group that rose to prominence in the 1990s, that she adopted her pen name from the song, “Christie Road” and started a fanzine devoted to the group. She launched “GREEN´ZINE” in 1997 and illustrated and published it for 10 years, during which time it evolved to touch on issues of race, gender and eliminating oppression in punk rock and activist communities. Her travails during those years are detailed in Spit and Passion, Road´s latest graphic novel, which also explores coming out and maintaining Cuban roots. She hopes her story can lend power to youth and others in their coming out process. Road came out to her family at 26, and she says it took her that long to “find peace” between her queer and Cuban identities. “Youth are still self-harming, and as culture-makers, it´s our role to carve out space for their anger,” Road says. “Tons of people, young and old, need the strength to make it past the point of systematic self-hate, and [we] queers who are publishing and have found power in our identity can do a lot for the world.” -SJ

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Jenny McClary

Does this sound familiar? You´ve searched for an elevated and minimalist androgynous aesthetic in women´s clothing-well-designed with quality material, which actually fits. Yet, too often, the cuts hit at the wrong spot or the t-shirts fall apart after the first wash. Jenny McClary hears you. She and her fiancée Allie Leepson (another Woman We Love this year) founded the fashion brand VEER NYC in 2013 to “blur the lines of modern masculine and feminine style.” “We weren´t looking for the tomboy trend, nor were we looking for womenswear that was ´menswear-inspired.´ So it was out of a personal need that we decided to build exactly what we, and many other women, needed,” she says. Unlike most apparel collections, VEER NYC´s monochromatic designs are designed to be seasonless and utilitarian so they easily become part of your daily uniform. McClary aims to give the wearer a boost of confidence with her pieces. “Clothing has the ability to help make people feel like the strongest and most beautiful version of themselves, and it´s an honor to have a part in that,” she says. In addition to co-founding and co-running VEER NYC, McClary is the lead creative strategist for iconic photo and video studios in New York and Los Angeles. -KL

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C.C. Carter

C.C. Carter is a writer and poet whose work has been published in numerous anthologies-including two separate editions of Best Lesbian Erotica-and her own Lambda-nominated book, Body Language. She´s performed at poetry slams, on Olivia vacations, at women´s music festivals-and even opened for Maya Angelou. She also created the spoken word venue POW-WOW, Inc., a weekly women´s performance space that ran for ten years. And then there´s her day job: Carter has worked for more than a quarter of a century as a teacher and administrator. She began her performing career when she had the time, on nights and weekends. “Back then [1990s] many people hadn´t seen a black, full-figured, vixen femme on stage,” she says. Carter soon became a favorite of the audience, and still loves the fact that she can inspire people just by doing what she loves: “So when I come off stage and women say ´thank you´ or a woman is crying because she watched her partner strutting so confidently on stage with me (as part of the Curve-a-licious Crew), then I am rewarded, and affirmed that this is my calling that just happens to be my passion and my art.” -GH

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Sapna Kumar

The Chicago Tribune once hailed Indian-American comedian and actress Sapna Kumar (who now lives in Los Angeles) as “Chicago´s answer to Margaret Cho.” Like Cho, Kumar pokes fun at immigrant assimilation-joking, for example, about her father asking for a “crappuccino” at Starbucks. “Performing for younger people who are just at the beginning of their coming out process is the most rewarding aspect of my work,” she says. “The students see an example in someone who came from a place like the state of Confusion (Indiana) and is now just being herself, as an out lesbian, as a performer and as a South Asian performer-which in this country, until a few years ago, was an oxymoron.” Kumar studied theater and creative writing at Purdue, where she met the woman she calls “my first heartache.” After that relationship ended, Kumar wrote a letter (which her mother found) “that said something along the lines of, ´Now that I´ve been dumped, can´t wait to meet all those hot women in Chi-Town!´” Mom, of course, didn´t take that well, though she eventually accepted her daughter´s orientation. “And my dad yelled at the TV screen one day, at the Republicans for being anti-gay, then looked over at me like, ´See. I get it!´ And they did, both of them, finally.” -GH

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Katie Liederman

“For many years I worked with queer youth, and it is now such an honor to be able to work with LGBT older adults at SAGE,” says Katie Liederman, who designs and implements programming at the SAGE Center in midtown Manhattan. “Even though there is so much conflict in the LGBT community, I am constantly moved by our commonalities.” Working at SAGE has allowed Katie to learn about queer life way before Stonewall. (“I know things that you can´t find in any history book or read about on any website.”) Liederman has what may be the queerest resume in the world, including gigs as a case manager and youth services coordinator at the Bronx Community Pride Center, a volunteer for queer youth shelter Sylvia´s Place and a writer for publications like Velvetpark, Prettyqueer.com, and GO, in addition to Penthouse Forum, Nerve, The Huffington Post, BlackBook, and others. Right now, she has a monthly queer travel reading series, TRIPS, at Metropolitan, and she´s directing and producing her latest play, Romancing Daniel. (Way to make us feel like slackers, Katie!) Catch it July 30 through August 1 at Under St. Marks. -GH

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Barbara Smith

A legendary scholar/activist, Barbara Smith was among the first to identify a black women´s literary tradition in the 1970s and virtually invented the discipline of black women´s studies and feminism in the U.S. Her life´s work focuses on the intersections of race, class, sexuality and gender, and her dozens of honors and awards-including a Nobel Peace Prize nomination in 2005-attest to the impact her writing, research and activism have had on the national dialogue around these issues. “There were real gaps in what was considered to be meaningful culture and serious politics, and that´s what I decided to address,” she says. Smith has published several groundbreaking collections exploring women´s activism against racial, sexual and political oppression, most recently Ain´t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: Forty Years of Movement Building with Barbara Smith, edited by Smith, Alethia Jones and Virginia Eubanks last November. Despite the LGBT community´s many gains over the last decade, though, Smith says we shouldn´t rest. “We still have a lot of work to do, particularly when we look at how race, class, and gender expression undermine access and opportunity for many members of the LGBT community. We need to have an intersectional perspective and to work for justice on all fronts if we want to achieve real liberation.” Spoken like a true revolutionary. -KL

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Jincey Lumpkin

With Jincey Lumpkin (see her Woman We Love profile in this issue), Natalia Ramirez is one half of the writing duo Jincey + Natalia and hard at work creating the Dreamspinners series of magic-themed novels. For Ramirez, who has a background in fashion and advertising, the partnership concept just clicked. “We got the opportunity to work on an advertising gig together, and through that experience, we realized that we are creative soulmates. We felt the special connection that we imagine is what musicians feel when they jam together,” she says. Ramirez is also the U.S. editor of Lash magazine, a Paris-based digital fashion publication. Before accepting that editorial position, she created the Enter Pronoun collection of gender-neutral cosmetics, which were featured in German Vogue, Women´s Wear Daily and xoJane. “Writing for fashion wasn´t enough,” Ramirez confides. “I realized that my true desire is to write fiction. What I love about working with Jincey is that in our partnership, we challenge each other. Seeing the world through her lens opens my perspective. We are constantly learning from each other, and knowledge is a big source of inspiration for me.” The pair is currently pitching the series-so stay tuned! -KL

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Ashley Lucas

Self-described “professional party crasher” Ashley Lucas is the national business development lead for The Welcoming Committee, a group that organizes LGBTQ “takeovers” of ostensibly straight places and events-think baseball games, cruises, buzz-worthy restaurants and Caribbean resorts. With more than 20,000 members and networks in 10 cities, The Welcoming Committee aims to build a community across the country so that any LGBTQ person will feel right at home, no matter where they are. Based in Boston, Lucas joined The Welcoming Committee after serving with its founder on the Young Leaders Council of the LGBT-focused Fenway Community Health Center. That was three years ago, and since then, Lucas has helped the organization branch out to New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta and other hubs, and curates more than 100 takeovers a year. Lucas says the fun of bringing people together never gets old. “There was one particular evening where I introduced a few people to one another after learning that they had just moved to Boston, and an hour later I saw all of them exchanging phone numbers. Those kinds of moments are incredibly powerful, because I know how lonely new spaces and new cities can be.”-KL

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Natalie Ceva

This folk acoustic singer-songwriter has come a long way since belting the Pocahontas soundtrack in the back of her mom´s van. Since then, Natalie Ceva has sung on the Today show and is releasing her first independent EP, Atlas, this summer. The Los Angeleno knows she followed the right path when she locks eyes with an audience member who is engaged in her music. “I´m not just talking about the head bobbing or swaying, but the apparent shift in their eyes. They seem to soften and look at you as if you´ve known them for years. As if every word you are singing to them was their own, picked out of their mind and given back to them in song.” On an even more personal note, Ceva confides that her coming out process was a long one, although she wasn´t aware of it at the time: “I went through the classic signs of kissing girls when I was drunk to actually dating a girl my sophomore year in college but just thinking it was a phase. I finally admitted to myself that I was gay a year later and came out to my parents…By no means was this an easy time…but, over the years, we are becoming stronger than we ever were before.”-SJ

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Allie Leepson

Allie Leepson co-founded the fashion brand VEER NYC with her fiancée, Jenny McClary (see her Women We Love profile, too!). “We both couldn´t find the clothing that matched our style needs,” Leepson says. “What was out there in the fashion industry were highly feminized takes on menswear, or just totally masculine-of-center pieces. We still needed something that was in the center of it all, but was still elevated and innovative in its aesthetic.” Even before co-launching her company, Leepson was deeply embedded in the fashion world. She´s a professional fashion photographer for major brands and retailers such as BCBG / Herve Leger, Saks Fifth Avenue and more, shooting and concepting new lighting for ecommerce and editorial sets. Leepson says that running VEER NYC with McClary is fulfilling in the sense that the wearers feel comfortable and strong. What makes the hard work worth it? “Being able to fill a void in the fashion world that for so long has been left untouched,” Leepson says. -KL

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Sam Kirk

Growing up on the south side of Chicago, in a mixed-race family, Sam Kirk says it was unusual to think she´d grow up to be a successful artist. But she uses her lived experience and travel through similar communities as inspiration for her multidisciplinary work, which explores culture, identity and urban politics. Drawing cues from contemporary artists like Wangechi Mutu, Kara Walker and Kehinde Wiley in her vibrantly colored paintings and illustrations, Kirk has exhibited in Chicago, New York, Miami, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and Minneapolis, and maintains studios in Chicago and Brooklyn. She designed the Chicago Made space for SXSW this year, and won the Curator´s Choice award in the 2014 Red Bull Curates Chicago competition. Global brands like Guinness, Don Julio, Smirnoff, Ciroc, Rolling Stone and Proctor & Gamble have commissioned her work, but she says the best thing about her career is being able to donate 25 percent of her profits from direct art sales to organizations that help the LGBT community and women in need. “My work has become a tool to communicate about social issues that impact our community,” Kirk says. “It has opened doors for me to connect with youth who have had a similar upbringing, and help them realize their potential.” -KL

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Rayya Elias

Rayya Elias is a real Renaissance woman-in the fact that she excels in an array of artistic pursuits, and because she has risen from the depths of drugs and homelessness to be reborn as an acclaimed memoirist. Born in Syria, Elias and her family moved to Detroit when she was a child, and she fell into the city´s roaring post-punk scene. After moving to New York in 1983, Elias played in experimental bands, worked as a hair stylist and art director, and developed a serious drug habit that landed her in institutions and jail. She made her way back, wrote and directed two short films (and wrote the scores for both), and was named “one of 25 new faces to watch” by Filmmaker magazine. Elias also published and recorded a six-song soundtrack for her memoir, Harley Loco: A Memoir of Hard Living, Hair, and Post Punk, from the Middle East to the Lower East Side, which has been compared to work by Augusten Burroughs and Patti Smith. “It´s not easy to write a memoir and be completely upfront about all the damage that I caused myself, and all the pain I´d inflicted on loved ones,” admits Elias, who´s now working on a television adaptation of the book. “But once I´d experienced that freedom, then sharing it was the next best thing.” -K

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Kate Walter

Dating is rarely simple, but it can be particularly tough after a bad breakup. Kate Walter, whose writing has appeared everywhere from Ms. to The New York Times, delves into the emotionally and financially challenging end of a 26-year romance in Looking for a Kiss: A Chronicle of Downtown Heartbreak and Healing. Called “the queer, low-budget Eat Pray Love” by author Susan Lander, it follows the NYC-based Walter as she does yoga, attends a gay affirming church and dates at 60. “Writing about my life and reflecting upon it helps me understand what has happened,” she says. “Penning the memoir was cathartic and part of my healing process.” What it wasn´t was easy. “It took three drafts to find the right container for my story, and then it took a while to find a publisher. But I persisted. I needed therapy (my lesbian shrink is a character in my book) to push through my fears about publishing intimate details. If you believe in your project, keep going.” Something else that was important was her weekly writing workshop, which provided “invaluable feedback and moral support.” Walter suggests other artists find a similarly encouraging community. And to those facing heartbreak after a long-term relationship, she offers the following message of hope: “You can heal your life and land in a better place.” -GH

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Lydia Sabosto

Lydia Sabosto was already playing piano by the age of four, had learned Beethoven´s “Moonlight Sonata” at nine and started performing professionally at 12-an impressive list of accomplishments even by child prodigy standards. As an adult, she studied at the Berklee College of Music and the Cornish College of the Arts, and eventually took her act to NYC restaurants and cabarets. She´s performed for top celebrities, including Tom Selleck, Wanda Sykes, Perez Hilton and Marni Nixon, and a recent show-at the Clare Rose Playhouse in Patchogue-was sold out. (Currently, she´s enjoying a regular gig at Hotel Indigo´s Bistro 72 in Riverhead.) In 2012, Sabosto released A Suitcase of Memories, an album that includes her interpretations of songs like “Time After Time,” “The Way You Look Tonight,” “House at Pooh Corner,” and “Pleasant Valley Sunday.” Suitcase recently garnered a rave review from QonStage´s Bruce-Michael Gelbert, who said the album was “filled with melodies, both familiar and rare, to which she lends her warm alto and…inventive and unusual twists in mood and tempo.” Sabosto is especially devoted to the LGBT community, winning the Vic Skolnick Community Service Award in 2014 from the Long Island Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. Her message? “Never give up your dream and always be who you are.” -GH

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Summer Brighton

Born and raised in the Mormon faith, Summer Brighton tried hard to be “the perfect Mormon wife and mother.” She went through reparative therapy and tried to suppress her feelings toward women, doing whatever she could possibly do to “overcome” them. But inside, she knew it wasn´t working. In her mid-20s, she left her religion, ended her marriage, lost some important relationships, and followed her heart. “It was one of the best, most difficult, most amazing decisions I ever made in my life,” she says. Now, having “broken free,” she says, “I am absolutely on fire.” She certainly is! Brighton owns a creative agency and production company in Los Angeles working with innovative companies and creating original content. She also started a creative collective and is stepping into the film industry. Her motivation, she says, “is to help other people´s dreams come true as I accomplish my own.” -SJ

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Lauren Aadland

Working in studio production in Los Angeles, Lauren Aadland realized she wanted to be a field videographer. So she quit her job, and took off for Europe with her best friend Christina Bly. Little did she know she´d be spearheading a whole genre. Before their travels, the pair browsed YouTube for inspiration. “We couldn´t find any LGBT travel shows, and definitely nothing made for and by women,” she says. What they did find online either lacked imagination or was over-sexualized, she says. “We couldn´t believe that no one in the community was putting out travel-driven video content, so we decided to fill that niche.” The friends backpacked through European cities, and their efforts resulted in 14 episodes of their very own series. Now in plans to film a fourth and fifth season, “Button and Bly´s Travel Show” gets thousands of hits every episode. Aadland attributes its success to being so specific. Primetime sitcoms, for example, need to be as broad as possible, but on the Internet, “if you abide by that same mentality, you become lost in cyberspace, unsearchable, and it´s unlikely that you will ever be found by your audience.” By focusing on LGBT travel, the show found its audience. “In other words, the show is seeing success because we are out lesbians,” she says. “That´s huge.” -SJ

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Tara Lombardo

“I chose to become a psychotherapist because I wanted to provide support and guidance to my community in navigating all the challenges that walking through the world as an LGBTQ individual entails,” says Tara Lombardo, LMHC. “I feel that so much emphasis is based on coming out and how important it is psychologically to do so, but I also am deeply interested in helping people with all that comes after this critical phase of life.” Lombardo is the associate director, staff therapist, and clinical supervisor at the Institute for Human Identity Therapy Center, which has provided counseling to the queer community for over 40 years. (Its founder was also part of a team that helped get homosexuality taken out of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-a major gay rights victory in the 1970s.) Lombardo, who has a private practice in Manhattan, received her M.A. in mental health counseling from Brooklyn College, an M.A. in psychology from New York University and a B.S. in psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her therapy focuses on tackling topics “from a psychodynamic and existential perspective. … Therapy proves to be a great place to not only uncover the parts of ourselves which have gone unseen, but to also construct how we´d like to show up in this world.” -GH

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Anne Steele

Cabaret fans know Anne Steele as a gifted interpreter of other people´s songs-but now the award-winning singer/songwriter is telling her own story. In February, Steele released What´s Mine, her first EP of original songs inspired by Kelly Clarkson, Pink and Sara Bareilles-with a twist. “On my album, there is one song that I wrote about my coming out process in my small town in Indiana called ´What´s Mine,´” the NYC-based artist says. “There is also a gay anthem that I think should play every Pridefest in the country called ´Don´t Tell Us How to Love.´ It´s truly a song about standing up for what is right in this world, and being true to who you are.” She debuted the collection with a sold-out performance at Joe´s Pub, one of the dozens of stages that Steele has graced in her career, and has another NYC concert at The Cutting Room on Oct 23. In 2010, Steele released her debut album, Strings Attached, based on her critically acclaimed one-woman show of the same name. Steele is a multiple MAC Award and Bistro and Nightlife Award winner, and a regular performer on cruises-including those from R Family Vacations, the company co-founded by her wife, Kelli Carpenter. “I am incredibly fortunate to be married to the love of my life, have four incredible kids to watch grow up, and to get to do what I love more than anything,” Steele says. -KL

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Suede

“A great voice, even better enthusiasm and an almost giddy delight at entertaining audiences that, if bottled, would make every anti-depressant on the market obsolete.” That´s how the publication Steppin´ Out summed up Suede, who, like Cher and Madonna, needs only one name. The out pop, jazz and blues singer (and piano, guitar and trumpet player) began professionally performing in bars all the way back in high school and graduated from college with a bachelor´s degree in music. She then-as so many singers do-went on the road, working in clubs seven nights a week. Rejected by record labels, Suede founded her own, Easily Suede Music, in 1988. She also faced rejection from mainstream audiences, producers and venues since she “didn´t fit their preferred image for a female jazz singer. They were uncomfortable with me. … Femme. Glam. Singing about the man who got away. That was never me. I´ve always been honest about who I am and what I sing about. Thankfully, the world-and our culture-have grown up significantly. It´s shifted now. I have a great, loyal, incredibly loving, ever-growing mainstream pop/jazz audience, but the LGBT community has given me my career, my childhood dream, and I am forever grateful.” -GH

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Mary Bonauto

“In the 10-plus years since same-sex couples started marrying in Massachusetts, thousands more have been able to marry across the United States, bringing them happiness and security-and harming no one,” Mary Bonauto remarked in a recent press release for National Marriage Challenge. “It is time to end the legal bans that single out same-sex couples for disrespect and instead allow them to make this unique promise to one another and provide greater protection and security for their families.” A powerful statement, to be sure, and Bonauto isn´t just paying lip service: At press time, the lawyer had finished arguing a Supreme Court case (Obergefell v. Hodges) that will decide whether banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. The case is the culmination of a career spent fighting for gay couples, garnering marriage in Massachusetts and civil unions in Vermont, and helping to end the Defense of Marriage Act. Certainly, Bonauto, who has 13-year-old twins with wife Jennifer Wriggins, couldn´t have imagined such a journey when she was struggling to come to terms with her church´s view on homosexuality as a college student. She told the Boston Globe that a career in law gave her hope for a better future. “I could either just suffer from the system or change the system. I decided to opt on the change-the-system side.” -GH

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Lexii Fish

We admit we´re more than a bit biased when it comes to Lexii Fish, our amazing volunteer coordinator and Instagram picture maker. But we swear she does great work even when not assisting us here at GO. Her day job is photo producer for the media production company Splashlight, which means she´s responsible for helping to create images for high-profile retail clients like Bloomingdale´s, Ann Taylor and David Yurman. She also has her own photography and production company, Lexii Fish NYC, which has attracted companies such as Joonbug.com, Complex Media and Lacoste. In the past, she´s worked in the photography and bookings department at Harper´s Bazaar and as an interim New York regional director for American Photo-graphic Artists, a non-profit organization that fights for the rights of commercial photographers. She says she loves “making something out of nothing. My job requires me to think fast and innovatively, and be assertive. It´s really exciting to see something go from an idea on paper to someone´s home. Photography has such a strong influence on the consumer; I´m glad I can help drive both commerce and shoppers´ satisfaction.” When not working, this coffee lover can be found “roaming the East Village” or pitching in at one of GO´s event booths. -GH

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Mona Elyafi

“I know it sounds cliché, but I didn´t choose to go into PR; PR chose me,” says Mona Elyafi. “It seemed like the perfect fit for my academic background and the natural match for my personality, meaning the best way to organically combine the business side of things with the creative.” An NYU grad with a master´s degree in journalism, Elyafi worked at PR companies like Norman Winter & Associates, Harper PR and the famed Lee Solters Company before going out on her own in 2004 as founder and CEO of ILDK Media specializing in the LGBT market. Celebs whose careers have received the Elyafi treatment include Chaka Khan, the late Rick James, Lisa Rinna, Billie Myers, Marina Rice Bader and Rolla Selbak. Elyafi has also been repping an event close to our hearts here at GO, Club Skirts Dinah Shore Weekend. Elyafi, who still keeps her hand in journalism by blogging for HuffPost, appreciates how things have changed for the LGBT population over the years. “I love the fact that all things LGBT are part of the new normal. What that translates into is the fact that more and more members of the LGBT community are getting the exposure and media accolades they deserve. And to know that, as a publicist, I am involved in that very process of helping to change minds and hearts is an extremely rewarding thing.” -GH

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Michal Weiner

Michal Weiner is a Jerusalem-born-and-raised composer, songwriter and vocalist. This recent grad (of the Berklee College of Music) has already built up quite the resume, including working with the CanvaSounds Collective and co-organizing the first Women Composers´ Concert at Berklee. (She´s also been a teacher and translator.) Currently, she´s working on an indie folk album with producer Daniel Alba. One thing she really enjoys about music is the creativity. “Working in the genre of contemporary concert music allows me to explore new scales, new tonal relationships and new colors. It allows me to constantly evolve the ways in which I express my ideas and to create a unique blueprint for each piece. I´m never bored, always looking for new entry points into the music.” She also loves working with others. “I´ve always found that the communication and cross-pollination of ideas, especially across artistic disciplines, brings me to more understanding and ideas than I would ever have otherwise.” One recent collaborative highlight occurred at an Asylum Arts Retreat, an educational and networking event for Jewish artists. “My head is still spinning from the enlightening and inspiring conversations I had with the artists in attendance-people from all disciplines with interesting ideas about the world and for new projects. I am already in touch with some people about project ideas moving forward, and I can´t wait to see where it all ends up.” -GH

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Dominique DeGuzman

There are programmers, and then there are “brogrammers.” Dominique DeGuzman, a self-taught software engineer, is using her career success to battle a male-centric culture in her industry and to put a feminist and queer spin on science and technology. Dom started out in desktop hardware support, and used building and provisioning Linux machines as a jumping point into software and tools development. Now, she focuses on development pipeline, infrastructure monitoring and internal communications tools as a cloud services engineer at Twilio, where she also co-heads the firm´s Diversity & Inclusion program. As San Francisco city director of the professional organization Lesbians Who Tech, Dom wants to be the role model she herself once longed for. “I didn´t have any positive lesbian influences when I started as an engineer,” she says. But now that she has become connected with other lesbians in her industry, “I am happy to be on the front lines to bring not only more women but queer and lesbian women into the technical fields.” Just being visible as a lesbian in her industry has already made a huge impact. A story about her in Fortune spurred a lesbian engineer in Ohio to write her to say that her words made her feel less alone. “The short version: You´re not alone, and don´t give up.” -SJ

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Samantha Abby

When we say Samantha Abby lives, breathes and eats digital video, we really mean it. As the founder and producer of Penny Lane Pictures, a New York-based production company, Abby is the creator of The Curious Cook, an award-winning, web-based LGBT cooking show hosted by chefs Athena Reich and Jase Grimm. The series has earned accolades from the Huffington Post, NewNowNext, Broadway World and the L.A. Web Fest, to name a few outlets. Penny Lane Pictures produces reality and scripted television and digital content including another web series, Love, Abby, a comedy/advice show and a show for Sony´s digital company Astronauts Wanted; Abby also runs a subsidiary that provides video production services for professionals and students. Did we mention she´s also a cast member, with her wife Laura Leigh Abby, on Bravo´s hit reality series, Newlyweds: The First Year? Abby says her success comes from her strong connection to the LGBT community, not in spite of it. “We live in a society that celebrates diversity and should maintain an environment that protects our rights. We don´t need to strive to be perfect, or to fit a stereotype,” she says. “We simply need to support our LGBT community and promote equality for all people, everywhere, as we each follow our own unique path.” -KL

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Nancy B

Most of us are lucky enough if we find one thing we love to do in life, but Nancy B found two-and both, coincidentally, around the same time. In the late 1970s, she began working as a licensed veterinary technician (something she still does today) and around 1980, DJ´d at her first lesbian bar, the now-defunct Ariel. “I had no idea at the time that it would evolve into a lifelong career! I spent many years as the DJ for countless venues in the city, getting to know so many customers, promoters and venues along the way,” she says. Those venues include legendary NYC nightclubs like the Roxy, Limelight, Palladium, Private Eyes, Julie´s, China Club, Copacabana and the Duchess. She´s also DJ´d events for SAGE, Shescape, the Center, the Butch/Femme Society and her own event productions group, Pure Silk, as well as weddings. She finds it “extremely rewarding to be a part of a couple´s commitment to each other, celebrated with family and friends” and considers herself “blessed to have spent all this time working at two careers that I love.” When not working, she enjoys spending time with her partner (now wife) of 26 years, Colleen, and their Labrador Retrievers, Chippewa and Choctaw. -GH

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Lianne Sanderson

Pro soccer player Lianne Sanderson is poised to be “one of the breakout stars” of the Women´s World Cup this summer, according to the British newspaper The Independent. With her dynamic playing style and vertical shock of bleached hair, Sanderson is one of the most recognizable players on England´s national team, which is competing in Canada for the title. Sanderson has been a lightning rod for attention since her professional debut in the 2003-2004 season, playing for the British football club Arsenal. Her high point with the club came in the 2007-2008 season, when she scored the fifth and final goal against Leeds United to win the national championship. She left the team after that season to play for Chelsea in the U.K., Philadelphia Independence, Espanyol in Spain, D.C. United Women and Boston Breakers before returning to Arsenal in 2014. While playing for the Boston Breakers, Sanderson and her then-partner were profiled in The Boston Globe for being the only same-sex couple to play on the same team in any American sport. “It is not about waving a gay flag,” Sanderson told The Independent earlier this year. “It is about being a role model. I get messages and letters from kids and parents on a daily basis saying, ´Thank you for being who you are.´” -KL

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Jincey Lumpkin

“Writing is like playing in the ultimate dollhouse,” says Jincey Lumpkin. The attorney-turned-entrepreneur sold her luxury lesbian porn company, Juicy Pink Box, to pursue writing full-time in partnership with Natalia Ramirez, another Woman We Love this year. Lumpkin, co-writing a series of novels rooted in magic under the Dreamspinners banner with Ramirez, loves inventing characters and backdrops to keep readers guessing about the story´s next twist. A self-described Southern belle who grew up in Carrollton, Georgia, Lumpkin has long pursued her interest in the vicissitudes of human nature with her Huffington Post column. She´s also lectured on sex and robots for the TEDx series and at Harvard University, and has been featured in Vice, Out, the Village Voice and other publications. “Writing tends to be a lonely profession, but we lucked out,” Lumpkin says of Ramirez. “We love being in control of our own destiny. Having the support of a best friend tied in with a super savvy business partner makes us stronger together than apart.” -KL

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Nicole Dennis-Benn

“I wanted to be heard,” says writer Nicole Dennis-Benn. “As a dark-skinned girl from a working-class family, growing up in Vineyard Town, Kingston, I was muted. … I was often flogged into submission by teachers and elders who were too afraid of rebellious spirits and had to constantly remind me of my place. Perhaps it was then that I learned to write fiction, as a means to escape.” Today, Dennis-Benn is a writing professor for the City University of New York and Founder of the Stuyvesant Writing Workshop. She has been awarded prestigious fellowships and recognition from the Lambda Foundation, MacDowell Colony, Sewanee Writers´ Conference, Barbara Deming Memorial Fund for Women Writers, Hedgebrook Residency, and the Hurston/Wright Foundation. Two of her stories, published in Kweli Journal and Red Rock Review, have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in Fiction. Dennis-Benn´s debut novel, Here Comes the Sun, was recently sold to Norton/Liveright. She believes writing fiction has allowed her to “give people a voice, especially women and girls of the working-class Jamaican society and LGBT individuals, who are most affected by silences. I never knew my words could have such an impact on the lives of others.” -GH

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Lisa Vecoli

Lisa Vecoli curates The Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies at the University of Minnesota Libraries, an archive of organizational records, personal papers, print material, films and other items that tell the story of our existence. Vecoli began as a Community Advisory Board member, and has been with it for the past 15 years, the last three as the archive´s only staff member. In her time as curator, Vecoli has won grants that make the archive more accessible and diverse, allowing her to digitize important collections and include information about POC, transgender and bisexual communities in the archive´s history exhibit. Vecoli says she loves “seeing young researchers find themselves in the archive. Connecting young researchers to the past is empowering for them and exhilarating for me. Sometimes they get angry about how people have been treated, but they also begin to see how individuals have fought to bring about the acceptance and rights we have today-sometimes with big gestures, sometimes by just living their lives with integrity. It gives them a deeper understanding, not only about where we have been, but also about where we are going and what role they can play in moving us all forward. They realize it hasn´t always been like this-and that how it will be in the future is up to them.” -GH

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Doria Roberts

If you´re talented, fame can find you anywhere. Doria Roberts´ career began while she was playing guitar as a form of meditation at the University of Pennsylvania. Another student heard her, and that led to her first gig-for 500 people! Invites to a radio station and local venue followed. “It was a classic ´beginner´s luck´ scenario,” she says. “So I said, ´Okay, I got it. I hear you,´ and figured out how to make a living from it. It wound up literally saving my life. That´s why I´ve been so fiercely protective of it.” Roberts has also put together events that have benefitted various causes and started #ThisIsWhatALesbianLooksLike, which took off like wildfire. Still, Roberts admits that being out has sometimes gotten in the way of her career. “I had to navigate waters and negotiate choices that straight artists would never have to consider. Couple that with the fact that I wasn´t afraid to address topical issues like gun control, AIDS and domestic violence in my music, and you´ve got a recipe for the slowest rising star ever! But going back into the closet was never an option for me and I don´t regret it because I´ve been able to be exactly who I am, doing exactly what I love to do for the last 22 years. That´s real success to me.” We couldn´t agree more. -GH

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Jen Christensen

Jen Christensen has a lot of favorite stories from her twenty-plus years in journalism, but they all have a common thread: They´ve helped those who have been shortchanged by society see justice-whether the stories focused on families during Hurricane Katrina, women in Gaza or Afghanistan, or a young woman kicked out of her house after she came out. “A complete stranger who saw our report offered her a safe and permanent home,” Christensen says. That´s the impact her stories have. Christensen is the managing editor of CNN´s Health, Medical and Wellness Unit, and she has also worked as an investigative producer/documentarian in CNN´s Special Investigations Unit, where she won Peabody and DuPont awards as a producer for Christiane Amanpour´s God´s (Jewish) Warriors. She´s a longtime leader and the current president of the National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association, which demonstrates her dedication to nurturing equality and integrity in America´s newsrooms. “Having a chance to really travel and see a different part of the world nearly every week, and getting the chance to meet and interview so many interesting people-from U.S. presidents to failed suicide bombers-it has been the chance of a lifetime,” Christensen says. But at the end of the day, she adds, “my hope [is] to be a real voice for the voiceless, to create community, and to ultimately help tell the stories of underserved communities.” -KL

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Jade Foster

“I am a poet first and a poet last,” Jade Foster said in an online interview with GLAAD. But in between those poles, Foster is also a literary entrepreneur: she founded and then produced the traveling poetry salon The Revival for five years. The grassroots series brought new and established queer women of color poets to people´s living rooms, basement apartments and other intimate spaces from Toronto to Atlanta. Speakers like t´ai freedom ford, Natasha T. Miller and Nikky Finney performed searingly honest works that explored the experiences of queer women of color, a community that Foster says is often ignored by the mainstream. “It´s important for me to create spaces where black women are loving up on each other,” Foster says. The tour´s DIY ethos was both a challenge and a thrill. “The 9-5 life was not for us, and if we plan and promote and have the right intention, it never has to be.” Foster has appeared in the web series The Peculiar Kind and Terence Nance´s short film How to Recall What I Already Knew in addition to the upcoming documentary The Revival Movie: Woman and the Word (directed by another Woman We Love this year, Sekiya Dorsett). Foster is looking forward to breaking ground with her next project, Chloe, in 2016. -KL

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Darcie Baumann

During Pride, we may not realize that there are many dedicated folks toiling hard behind the scenes to make it all happen. Darcie Baumann is one of those workers. Raised in a small German area near Minneapolis, as a person of color, she was a target of racism and faced further discrimination as she began to realize she was a lesbian. In 2008, after years of attending the Twin Cities Pride Festival (in Minnesota), she decided to volunteer. She has helped VIPs and sponsors, worked in social media and event planning, and was a silent auction coordinator. In 2013, she garnered a spot on the Board of Directors and has remained there ever since. And even though many may see Twin Cities Pride as just another excuse to party, Baumann can connect with the deeper meaning. “The fact that our celebration is free to the public is important to me because we are truly creating an all-inclusive event for our community, allies, and those who may stumble on the event, only to realize that our community is no different than theirs. In a time when our children are being bullied and taking their own lives, and our transgender community is being beaten and murdered, it is very rewarding knowing that I am part of an organization that helps people accept themselves for who they are and celebrates that diversity.” -GH

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Kelli Carpenter

Back in 2003, our world was a very different place. Only one state acknowledged civil unions, no state allowed same-sex marriage, and there was little indication that LGBT families would gain greater legal recognition. It was the same year that marketing executive Kelli Carpenter and her business partner Gregg Kaminsky created a bold company-R Family Vacations, the first cruise line catering to LGBT families. Carpenter brought Broadway performers and top-name entertainers to each voyage, and gave parents and kids a once-in-a-lifetime vacation (though many returned to do it again!) “We have seen these children grow up before our eyes over the years, and are proud to have been pioneers in this movement,” Carpenter says. “R Family Vacations was built on the premise that all are welcome on our trips. We wanted to create a vacation experience that was reflective of our own lives”-meaning that aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents and friends come, too. With her wife Anne Steele (another Woman We Love this year), who performs regularly on the cruises, Carpenter has four children, and she says their support “has allowed me to create trips to encourage an openness to all types of families who travel with us.” They´re looking forward to next July, when R Family Vacations teams up with Olivia Travel to offer their biggest resort vacation to date in Vallarta, Mexico. -KL

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Enbar Cohen

As City Commissioner and Vice-Mayor of Aventura, Florida, 26-year-old Enbar Cohen is the youngest elected official in Miami-Dade County and the youngest out lesbian elected official in America. Her passion for helping others began in childhood: One of her most important first jobs was working as a youth panelist for Safe Schools South Florida, a non-profit that aims to end LGBT bullying. In that position, she shared her coming-out story with teachers and parents. (She eventually was invited on to SSSF´s Board, which led to her being offered a job as their Assistant Director.) She´s been a guest presenter at AmeriCorps and Keiser University, and following the Haiti earthquake in 2010, Cohen headed to the nearby Dominican Republic with other relief workers to provide food and other items to those who needed them. Over the past four months, she has been teaching “Street Law” at the Miami-Dade County Juvenile Detention Center, speaking to kids about employment, credit, housing and their rights. And as if her schedule isn´t enough to keep her busy she is also studying at Florida International University College of Law to earn her J.D. The most fulfilling part of her work, she says, is being “able to successfully navigate and collaborate in political circles to get the best possible outcomes by serving as the vehicle carrying the voices of our community.” -GH

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Toni Atkins

Toni Atkins is an embodiment of the American dream. Raised in poverty, the Democrat is now the 69th Speaker of the California State Assembly-and the first open lesbian to hold that office. (She even kissed her wife, Jennifer, after being sworn in.) Atkins was also the first lesbian mayor of San Diego for a short time after Mayor Dick Murphy resigned in 2005, and was the first lesbian governor of California when she temporarily took over that position on July 30, 2014, after several other politicians had to travel for various reasons. In her current role, Atkins fights for the rights of women, queer folk, veterans and the homeless; before taking on the gig she held a variety of jobs such as San Diego City Councilmember, director of clinic services at Womancare Health Center and staff representative of City Councilmember Christine Kehoe. “I´m from southwestern Virginia-the mountains,” she told The Los Angeles Times last year, “and really proud of the Appalachian culture. My parents were working-class people. We carried water from a spring; we had a smokehouse; we had an outhouse. … I got to represent folks in parts of San Diego who needed the same support and structure that I needed growing up in rural Virginia. When I see constituents with their stories, I see my mom, [and] I see my dad.” -GH

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Natasha Pogrebinsky

Even before becoming an award-winning chef and owner of her own restaurant, Natasha Pogrebinsky had a multitude of careers. She did a stint in nursing school, worked as a social studies teacher and became a special ops interpreter. But “in between all that, I could never stop cooking in my free time,” she confides. After all, as a child growing up in bustling Kiev, Ukraine, she had been surrounded by culture and food. Finally, Pogrebinsky decided to follow her heart, enrolling at the French Culinary Institute in New York City. “On my first day,” she says, “I knew this is where I belong.” In 2011, Pogrebinsky opened Bear restaurant in Long Island City, just a mile from the refugee motel where her family stayed after fleeing from the former Soviet Union in 1991. Her Modern Russian cuisine has won critical acclaim, and Pogrebinsky has found her calling. “It´s also the only industry where I can eat and drink all day long and not need an excuse.” -SJ

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Arielle Scarcella

If you haven´t yet discovered Arielle Scarcella, well, you´re in for a very good time. Part comic, part sex educator and part fount of wisdom, Scarcella posts videos on things you´re dying to understand but too embarrassed to ask about: lesbian bed death, oral sex etiquette and what not to say in bed. She´s goofy yet down-to-earth with a cool, old-school Brooklyn vibe. And she´s not afraid to get personal, even talking about the first time she slept with a woman. The videos were born almost six years ago following a sad period in her personal life. “I soon realized the few people who [were] watching were laughing and asking me to make more, so I did,” she says. As time went on, she explains on her Tumblr, “I realized that this form of self-expression was helping me to feel better about myself and was also helping others,” Today, Scarcella is a YouTube phenomenon; videos on her two channels have more than 70 million views. She´s also a nonprofit founder and director (of Project Toasty), life coach and author. Her first book, Selfie vs. Self: The Internet´s Intro to Spirituality was just released. “I´ve gotten to a point in my career and life where I can say, ´I´m a professional lesbian´ and have it be the truth. I´m incredibly grateful.” -GH

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Cameron Esposito

Cameron Esposito is the future of comedy. Don´t take our word for it-Jay Leno was the first to herald Esposito as the next great stand-up comedian. Born in Chicago to a super-Catholic family, Esposito wanted initially to be a priest. But she found her true calling in performing her wry and very funny brand of confessional comedy with universal appeal. She´s appeared on Late Late with Craig Ferguson, @midnight, Conan, Last Call with Carson Daly, Maron and other shows, plus SXSW and the Just for Laughs festivals in Montreal, Toronto and Chicago. Her second album, Same Sex Symbol, released in 2014, debuted at number one on the iTunes comedy chart. Esposito also hosts two podcasts, Put Your Hands Together, an audio version of her stand-up show; and Wham Bam Pow, a sci-fi/action movie show, and writes a regular column on the stand-up life for the AV Club. “Like most comics, I draw material from my life. When I talk about my relationship, I speak as someone who is still fighting for equal rights. I´m blessed to work in my field at this time in history,” Esposito says, “when I can effect change just by being open about the person I am.” -KL

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Kaila Adia Story

“Audre Lorde has taught us all that difference within our community is not only OK, but should be celebrated and made visible. My research and activism, I hope, lets LGBTQ folks know that we are always at our best when we work on things that empower our community together,” says Kaila Adia Story, Ph.D. An associate professor in the Departments of Women´s & Gender Studies and Pan-African Studies, and the Audre Lorde Chair in Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Louisville, she does research that explores the intersections of black queer studies and pan-African studies, and their relationship with black feminist theory. Story is widely published in journals and released her first book, Patricia Hill Collins: Receiving Motherhood, last year. She also co-hosts a weekly radio show, “Strange Fruit: Musings on Politics, Pop Culture, and Black Gay Life” on WFPL, the Louisville affiliate of NPR, with Jaison Gardner. “My mama was a great example of empowered black womanhood to me. My father, who loves teaching and mentoring young students of color at the University of Michigan, showed me that intellectual work has the ability to not only enlighten thought, but transform it,” Story says. “I embrace teaching as an opportunity to inspire and transform. I often explain to my students that if they are ideologically comfortable in a classroom, transformative learning is not taking place.” -KL

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Natalie Alleyne

On her website, Natalie Alleyne has a quote from the poet Rumi: “Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” It describes exactly how Alleyne, an artist based out of New Jersey, has lived her life. As the owner of Alleyne Studios, she creates colorful paintings, bags, plates and t-shirts. She began painting the shirts for tuition money, and found that doing so also allowed her to travel, live in the Caribbean and “bring art to people in an affordable and fun style, while still producing art on canvas for the ´long term.´” Her subject matter has included nature-especially trees-and women. “As a matter of fact, my trees tend to look like women as well. Most of the women I paint are of color, primarily because they are inspired by my ancestors, and also because we are so underrepresented.” She appreciates the fact that her work can “promote change within others, be it simply a smile or a thought” and says that “being an artist, for me, isn´t about what I do so much as who I am. It is so indoctrinated into my being because it is a spiritual thing that reflects my growth and change as I navigate through life.” -GH

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Steff Mahan

It isn´t always easy being an openly gay singer-songwriter in the country/folk vein, especially in Nashville, but Steff Mahan wouldn´t have it any other way. Years ago, she left a high-paying job as an advertising executive to become a songwriter at $150 per week. Playing her honest and soulful brand of Americana in Nashville clubs eventually earned her attention from a record label, but there was a hitch. “I wanted to be successful so badly, I led them to believe I was someone I wasn´t. I realized if I had to play straight to be successful in the music business, I would be miserable,” Mahan says. She told the label as much, and they dropped the deal-but Mahan had proven something to herself. “I believe being myself and standing side-by-side through bad and good with that one person who will always love you is true success.” Mahan plays more than 200 live shows a year in support of her most recent album, Where I´m Coming From. It´s an exhausting but exhilarating way to earn a living. “There may always be times when I wonder why I chose this path, but I also know that I would not totally be happy unless I was playing and writing. It´s not just what I do, it´s who I am.” -KL

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Lisa Ross

Much like her sexuality, being an artist was not a choice for Lisa Ross. “I´d never try to change either one as each has given me a life beyond my wildest dreams,” says the acclaimed artist. Ross´s photographic and video works have explored manifestations of faith, and her 2013 exhibition and book, Living Shrines of Uyghur China, was the culmination of 10 years traveling to the turbulent Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous region to visit Sufi pilgrimage sites in and around the Taklamakan desert. Rather than focusing on politics, in this conflicted area, Ross chose to follow sacred routes and focus on the shrines she found in the desert marked by colorful clothes, wooden cribs and rafts. The exhibition opened at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York, and was reviewed in top publications, including Artforum, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. Of the accompanying book, The New York Review of Books wrote, “Looking at these bright, luminous images, we begin to sense something inexpressible but more profound than any of the region´s difficult politics-a glimpse at the intangible traditions and beliefs that have given shape to Xinjiang´s Muslims over many centuries.” Currently an adjunct professor at Parsons School of Design, Ross began teaching in 1989 in what she calls her “dream job,” a position she created instructing photography to LGBT youth at the Harvey Milk High School and Hetrick-Martin Institute. “The greatest job one could ever have!” she says. -SJ

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Nikki Carr

Nikki Carr started doing professional stand-up at 34 and has been on the rise ever since. Her appearances on BET´s Comic View and Starz´s Martin Lawrence Presents 1st Amendment Stand-Up have fueled her ascension, but her biggest exposure was on last year´s Last Comic Standing. Though she didn´t win, she made it to the final round-the last female comic standing-so it´s surprising she wasn´t even going to try out for it until a friend convinced her to send in a clip. “They saw it, liked it, and the rest is history,” she told Windy City Times. Like other successful comics, Carr is not afraid to be controversial, but, as she revealed to WCT, being out hasn´t been easy. “I always wanted to, however, there are a lot of homophobes out there. … Throughout my career I tried a little bit every now [and] then. Sometimes it would go over well, and sometimes the audience would shut down; then I [would] have to go get them back. Even now, it is still difficult because I don´t like to be disliked by anyone. At this point, it doesn´t really matter. My kids are fine with me; my mother was fine before she left; God is fine-he created me. I can´t hide anymore.” -GH

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Sarah Outen

“Why climb Mount Everest?” the New York Times asked the famous British mountaineer George Mallory in 1923. “Because it´s there,” he replied. If we were to ask Sarah Outen why she took on a 25,000-mile, round-the-world solo trip, the young British adventurer might answer in a similar way. On April 1, 2011, Outen launched London2London, an expedition that would take her in a loop around the Northern Hemisphere by bicycle and kayak. So far, Outen has biked across Europe, Russia and Japan before rowing her kayak-alone-across the open Pacific Ocean to Alaska´s Aleutian Islands, a voyage that took 150 days. Then it was back on the bike, nicknamed Hercules, for a ride starting in Homer, Alaska and finishing in Cape Cod (she pedaled straight though last winter´s horrendous snowstorms!). Right now, Outen is in her kayak named Happy Socks, on her final row across the North Atlantic before reaching England-a mere two years behind schedule, but who´s counting? Along the way, Outen became the first woman to row solo across the north Pacific, turned 30 years old, proposed to her longtime girlfriend Lucy, and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for four charities. Earlier this month, she tweeted, “Rowing might not give many miles at the moment but it makes me happy. Every stroke we take, takes us nearer…” We´re pulling for you! -KL

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Leanne Pittsford

Leanne Pittsford is the founder of Lesbians Who Tech, a global community of queer women in technology and their friends. “I started Lesbians Who Tech for two reasons,” she says. “I was tired of going to LGBTQ and tech events that had no queer women representation, and I believed that we had to rethink the way we provided value to queer women if we wanted them to engage in either community.” Lesbians Who Tech features regular happy hours, incredible summits and will be launching a mentoring program called Bring a Lesbian to Work Day. (Upcoming summits include Berlin on August 29 and in New York on October 2.) The summit positions itself as a fun, educational and inspiring event, with the focus on non-painful networking, “badass speakers” and parties.  “Lesbians Who Tech has made thousands of connections and increased the visibility of queer women in technology, and making those incredible stories and people in our community more visible is one of the most important and rewarding parts of what I do. Megan Smith, the chief technology officer of the United States, is just one example of visibility in our community, but there are hundreds more we´ve been able to put on a stage in front of thousands of people. And seeing the impact from those stories and those connections is definitely the [thing] that keeps me focused and moving forward.” -GH

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Brit Parry

Buffalo, N.Y. native Brit Parry worked her way up from bartender to freelance event planner to her current job as the New York City marketing manager for the Pabst Brewing Company-and she´s only 30! After moving to NYC one week after her 21st birthday, it just made sense to her to work in the nightlife scene. She tended bar at Snapshot at the Delancey and at the Dalloway, and co-founded the mixed-queer Wolf Party at Le Souk. A self-described “creative, outgoing people person,” Parry then worked for Crispin Hard Cider before landing at Pabst, where she´s responsible for all of the local events and sponsorships, handles the local social media outreach and manages 50 key accounts. Arranging partnerships with LGBT clients is her favorite part of the job. “I am out and open to everyone,” Parry says. “In one of the interviews I had for this position, I mentioned being a lesbian and wanting to support the lesbian community. The company was 100 percent on board for being more involved.” And, Parry is super-excited to be a sponsor of GO´s Pride float this year: “I really want people to see that PBR as a company is extremely diverse and caters to all lifestyles.” -KL

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Kelly Cogswell

Kelly Cogswell was a member of the Lesbian Avengers, a direct action group formed in 1992 in New York City. During their most active years, they demonstrated against a radio station, a women´s magazine and the Board of Ed, even eating fire to bring attention to their cause. Cogswell wrote about the group, and her romance with co-founder Ana Maria Simo, in her 2014 memoir Eating Fire: My Life as a Lesbian Avenger. She also began recording the group´s history in 2010 for The Lesbian Avenger Documentary Project (lesbianavengers.com). “I went online to check some facts about the group, and there was almost nothing there,” she says. “We´d pretty much been erased, which was ironic considering that the Lesbian Avengers were all about visibility. And the Avengers weren´t small. We had 60 chapters all over the world. … My memoir grew out of that project, thinking about the Lesbian Avengers, why we started, and how our history was intertwined with everybody else that has had to step out into the street to demand their rights. Or even celebrate.” In 1993, the Avengers founded the Dyke March, which survives, says Cogswell, because we continue to need the visibility it provides. “We´re still hungry for opportunities to claim public space and be seen as ourselves.” -GH

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Rabbi Denise Eger

The founding rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami, West Hollywood´s Reform synagogue, Rabbi Denise Eger made history this year when she became the first openly gay president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, North America´s oldest and largest rabbinical organization. It was the culmination of her life´s work standing up for our community in the context of spirituality. She officiated the first legal same-sex wedding in California for Robin Tyler and Diane Olson, the lesbian couple whose lawsuit launched the nationwide marriage equality campaign. She also led California religious leaders to challenge Proposition 8 in 2008. Raised in Memphis, Eger has served pulpits from coast to coast, as well as in Canada. Activism is an integral part of her rabbinate, and she is guided by her denomination. “Reform Judaism is a leader in uplifting LGBTQ rights and our dignity,” says Eger. “Any tradition that denies you for being a lesbian isn´t really showing the divine Power of the Universe. I stand proudly as a Reform Rabbi to challenge the injustices done to LGBTQ people.” -SJ

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Christina Bly

Burned out from long hours and back-breaking work as a reality TV sound mixer, Christina Bly realized she needed a vacation. So she and her close friend Lauren Aadland packed up and headed from Los Angeles to Europe “for the first time with no set plans or real direction,” as they put it. The pair filmed their adventures and posted them online, and it turned out, more than just their friends and family were watching. “I did not expect it to take off how it did,” Bly says. “We decided this needed to be what we put our efforts into.” Now with over 10,000 YouTube subscribers and 400,000 views, Bly and her co-creator travel the world for “Button and Bly´s Travel Show,” which sheds a light on global LGBTQ culture while inspiring other young people to hit the road. Bly says she has received “countless emails about how we have encouraged someone to travel or feel as though they can be out and themselves and not worry about it.” -SJ

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Nisha Ganatra

As a producer and director on the Golden Globe winning Amazon series Transparent, Nisha Ganatra is continuing her mission of telling stories that she says “represent communities that are largely ignored in film and television.” Transparent focuses on an older transgender woman who comes out to her family. In Ganatra´s directorial film debut, Chutney Popcorn, Ganatra starred as a young Indian-American lesbian looking at the overlap between her sexual identity and cultural identity. And her latest film Code Academy explores a teenage cross-cultural romance between avatars. “The privilege of centering a story that others might discard as too specific a point of view-be that feminist, LGBTQIA, or first-generation American-is one that I find the most important and the most satisfying,” Ganatra says. She credits her family for accepting her sexuality when she came out as a teenager. “My parents came from India, my mom from the smallest village you can imagine, and she makes sure that I know she loves me.” Ganatra says other parents can learn from that example. “If any parents are reading this,” she says, “make sure your child knows that you love them. No matter what. Because your unconditional love is something they will need in ways they don´t even understand yet.” -SJ

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Zanele Muholi

If you go to the Brooklyn Museum now through November 1, you´ll see an exhibit that will take your breath away. It features photographs of queer South Africans, along with testimonies about anti-gay violence and rape, and reminds us, so close to Pride, that there are still places in the world where queer folk must live under the most awful circumstances. The exhibit is called “Isibonelo/Evidence” and the photographer, South African native Zanele Muholi, is taking the art world by storm. Shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, Muholi considers herself a “visual activist.” (“Fine artists deal with finery,” she explained to the BBC, “but I deal with painful material. I´m an artist who uses visuals for activism to deal with the many political issues that affect human beings.”) Muholi has exhibited many times since her first solo show in 2004, and her work has been collected in numerous publications. Her goal is not only to reflect a light on the inhumane conditions the South African LGBT population faces, but also to use the money she receives to give back to young artists, as part of her mentoring program. “It´s not just me who is here at the museum; we are here,” she recently told The New Yorker. “My photographs portray people who are participating in making their own history.” -GH

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Barbara Kahn

Barbara Kahn can´t remember wanting to do anything other than work in the theater, except for a brief time as a child when she had a crush on Philadelphia television personality Sally Starr and wanted to be a cowgirl. Beginning as an actor, she later added directing and writing to her list of professional pursuits. Kahn´s plays have been produced in the U.S., France and Germany. She has directed productions in New York, Paris and London. Ellen Stewart at the legendary LaMaMa E.T.C. produced her first play, and Theater for the New City has been the primary New York City home for her work since 1994. Among her numerous awards, she was honored with the Torch of Hope Award for lifetime achievement in nonprofit theater and received the joint Robert Chesley LGBT Playwriting Award/Wurlitzer Foundation Residency in Taos, N.M. From lesbian and gay pirates in 1722 to two intriguing women who participated in filming Gone with the Wind (Ona Munson and Alla Nazimova), Kahn has devoted her craft to uncovering forgotten LGBT history. Her favorite audience response has been, “I come away from seeing your work feeling entertained. It´s only later that I realize I´ve been educated.” -SJ

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Marca Cassity

Born a singing, two-spirit tomboy of mixed heritage in the midst of the blue-collar Bible Belt, independent musician Marca Cassity says her life has been filled with challenging adventures-one of which was coming out in her small town on the Osage reservation in Oklahoma. But instead of being cowed by adversity, she used her experiences as inspiration. Cassity has written and produced music since her early 20s-her fourth independent album, Songs from the Well, is a collection of eleven folk-rock spirit songs funded with an artist grant from the Osage Nation. With nods to musical contemporaries Joan Armatrading, Mary Gauthier and Gillian Welch, Cassity´s songs use nuances of Osage singing and drumming to deliver a positive message about “overcoming hardship through connections with nature, humor, love, compassion, spirituality and heritage.” She was honored to sing her song “Bells” at the inauguration of the Osage Chief and Congress in the summer of 2014, and this summer, Cassity will be part of the video crew at the final Michigan Womyn´s Music Festival. When she isn´t recording and performing, Cassity is a therapist specializing in trauma counseling for Native American families and in LGBTQ issues in Durham, N.C. “It is important that we, the LGBTQ community, consistently, intelligently find our strength in our hearts and minds, and be allies to one another,” she says. -KL

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Laura Wise

By day, Laura Wise is an L.A.-based therapist helping LGBT clients find health and happiness. After hours, Wise puts on her event-organizing hat as the founder of HER/LA, a feminist pop-up festival that brings together bands, artists, DJs, food and drink, and magickal spell-casting priestesses (really!) The inaugural event in April sold out a week in advance-proving to Wise that there is a huge need for feminist spaces and discussion. One of the biggest barriers between women and equality, she says, is the misconception that feminism is outdated and exclusionary. Or worse, that it´s no longer needed. “I see women in the media being portrayed as sex objects and being valued only for their physical appearances,” Wise told the blog Dopes on the Road earlier this year. “Women who rebel against these stereotypes are still deemed ´radical´-it´s 2015! Women should feel empowered enough to look, dress and act however they please.” In addition to running HER/LA, Wise serves as co-chair of the Lesbian and Gay Advisory Board for the city of West Hollywood and has organized massive events for AIDS/LifeCycle and The Lesbian Center. Keep an eye out for the second pop-up on the West Coast. “Women are seeking empowering activities like HER/LA,” she says. “I can´t wait for our next event!” -KL

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Tia N. Williams

Listening to an inspirational speaker on campus is a highlight of any college experience, but as a student at the University of Georgia, Tia N. Williams didn´t see a lot of speakers who looked like her or shared her orientation. So she decided to start her own speaking agency called The Buddha In Me Management. That alone would be enough to land her on our list, but Williams also manages to make time for two other fabulous jobs: academic services coordinator at Emory University and staff writer for the African-American LBT magazine Elixher-plus, she was the production manager on the 2013 documentary Al Nisa: Black Muslim Women in Atlanta´s Gay Mecca. And while today Williams is out and proud, she struggled, like so many other young queer women do, with revealing her sexuality. “When I told her [my best friend from college] I was attracted to and interested in women, her response was, ´I hope you didn´t think this would make me love you any less.´ After that, I officially told a few other people, but it made me realize I was doing it more for them and not me because nothing in my life had really changed. I was just more accepting of myself and a lot happier. I no longer sought anyone else´s approval of who I was as a person.” -GH

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Casey Dellacqua

Once upon a time, an athlete´s coming out was a huge production, but these days, thankfully, it´s less of an issue. Australian tennis player Casey Dellacqua told the media in a matter-of-fact way two summers ago, explaining that baby Blake (who she´d had with partner Amanda Judd) was the reason she´d temporarily been away from the tennis scene. Though only 30, Dellacqua has been a big name in tennis for a while, first playing at the Australian Open in 2003 at 17. Injuries have slowed her down in recent years, but she made her time away from the court productive, enrolling in beauty school. She staged a comeback in 2011, winning a Grand Slam title, and at press time, was competing in the French Open. “I have a great life set up and great family around me,” Dellacqua told Fairfax Media shortly after her coming-out announcement. “People have babies every day, and people have different paths in life. … Someone had asked me why I hadn´t played and that was the reason. … At the end of the day, regardless of what happens with my tennis, I´m very lucky that I´ve got a beautiful family. That´s the main thing in life and I´m enjoying what I´m doing. It all comes together and things are going well.” -GH

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