By Diana Sanchez
1) Alan Turing
Turing was a brilliant mathematician who is credited with confirming the theoretical foundations of artificial intelligence and computer science, which helped create modern computational systems. Not only that, but Turing played a pivotal role in World War II by helping decipher German military codes. Despite the contributions he made to society, in the 1950’s he was arrested for having homosexual relations with a man; which many people during this time considered a “gross indecency.” As a result of his arrest he was chemically castrated, which led to his death in 1954 due to cyanide poisoning. He didn’t die in vain, because in 2013 he was given a posthumous royal pardon. Then, over the next three years the UK government announced that they would pardon other men who had been convicted of abolished sexual offenses. This legal action was named the “Turing Law.”
2) James Baldwin
He grew up in Harlem, New York, and was praised as “gifted” when he began writing in school as an adolescent. An outspoken and frustrated intellectual disillusioned by American racism, he went to Paris in the late 1940s to polish his talent as a writer. In 1953 he published his first book, “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” which was a semi-autobiographical novel. The next year he published a novel, “Giovanni’s Room,” whose main character was a gay man. Throughout his career he continued to write books and essays around social justice themes with LGBTQ and African American characters.
3) Christine Jorgensen
Christine Jorgensen, who was originally named George Jorgensen, was raised in the Bronx, New York. Jorgensen has said that she felt like she was a woman who was stuck in a man’s body, and when she heard that a doctor was doing gender therapy, she took a chance and went. She went through hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery in Europe and came back to the United States as Christine. She became a celebrity upon her arrival since the media, as well as the public, were fascinated by her transformation. This made her one of the first people to be transgender and fully in the public eye.
4) Bayard Rustin
Rustin was generally associated with the Civil Rights movement alongside Martin Luther King Jr., especially regarding the March on Washington. He was, in fact, the organizer of this massive event, and taught Dr. King about Gandhi’s belief in non-violence and civil disobedience. He was an openly gay man, and spoke often about the significance of fighting for LGBTQ+ rights. As a result, Rustin chose to change his focus from the Civil Rights Movement to activism for the LGBTQ+ community in the 1980s.
5) Barbara Gittings
Gittings was on the frontlines of events whose aims were to normalize homosexuality. She joined the Daughters of Bilitis, which was the first organization that focused on lesbian rights. She started to edit The Ladder, which was a magazine by and for lesbian women. She didn’t stop there. She was an activist whose goal was to revise the American Psychiatric Association’s common belief that homosexuality was a mental illness. Later, she joined the Stonewall riots making her a respected activist in the gay rights movement.
6) Marsha P. Johnson
She is a considered a huge avocate for transgender rights. She was a drag performer, sex-worker, and self-identified as a transvestite (cross dresser), who participated in the Stonewall riots in 1969. These riots against routine police harassment were an important factor in the gay rights movement. After the riots ended, Johnson become a leader in the LGBTQ+ community and used that power to start the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, whose aim was to help transgender youth. Even though Marsha P. Johnson herself never officially states that she identifies as transgender, she did do a lot for that community.
7) Sylvia Rivera
Rivera was a gay and transgender activist who is given credit for throwing the second Molotov cocktail in the Stonewall riots. After that she helped Marsha P. Johnson in creating the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. Throughout her life she has experienced many things such as, drug addiction, incarceration, sex work, and minority inequality, which caused her to fight for rights of these groups of people.
8) Billie Jean King
She is a professional tennis player who earned 39 Grand Slam titles from 1966 to 1975. However in 1981 she was outed as a lesbian, and despite her publicists telling her to deny the claim, she confirmed the rumors. This made her the first openly gay athlete.
9) Gilbert Baker
In 1978, one of Baker’s friends asked him to make a symbol for gay pride; using the United States flag as inspiration he hand-sewed a rainbow flag. He stated that every color on the flag represents something important within the community, for example the red was for life. The rainbow flag, which today is an indication of gay pride, was first used on June 25, 1978, in San Francisco for Gay Pride Day.
10) Edith Windsor
Her wife, Thea Spyer, died in 2009, which started a court battle which would change legal rights for the LGBTQ+ community forever. The government didn’t view Windsor and Spyer’s marriage as legally binding since they were two women, which left Windsor to pay $350,000 in taxes. She started to bash the Defense of Marriage Act in court, which ultimately sent this case all the way up to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ended up ruling that Section 3 of the DOMA (which allowed the federal government to not recognize same-sex marriages as legal for the purpose of federal laws) as unconstitutional. This court case helped pave the way for the legalization of same-sex marriage.
11) Elliot Page
Page is most famously known for his role on Netflix’s “The Umbrella Academy,” and came out as transgender in December of 2020. In his coming-out post on Twitter he wrote: “I love that I am trans. And I love that I am queer. And the more I hold myself close and fully embrace who I am, the more I dream, the more my heart grows and the more I thrive.” It’s been some time since that was posted, and Page has already gone through top surgery, and has been on Oprah to speak about his journey. He shared with Oprah, “With this platform I have, the privilege that I have, and knowing the pain and the difficulties and the struggles I’ve faced in my life—let alone what so many other people are facing—it absolutely felt crucial and important for me to share that.”