Pride Leaders
Happy Pride Month! In Celebration for our LGBTQ+ community, we can look towards some of the famous pride leaders who have taken initiative in current media and history.
Laverne Cox
Laverne Cox is a transgender female actress who is also an advocate for transgender recognition. Cox was the first openly transgender woman to be openly nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in acting and the first transgender person to win a Daytime Emmy for producing. Cox has portrayed various transgender and female roles in her acting career but also produces her own documentaries on transgender life. Cox has defied her own worries by showing herself and the world that a transgender female can also be a successful actress. Recently, Cox has inspired her own barbie doll.
The Lyons
Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon were the first ever same-sex couple married in 2004. When their marriage was voided by the supreme court later that year, they re-married when same-sex marriage was legalised in 2008. They were also the founder of the Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian civil and political rights organization.
Franklin Kameny
Kameny was a leading figure in the fight for American gay rights. Dismissed from job service in the cold war years, Kameny fought for military and political employment for gay men. Kameny was involved in the drafting to overturn the sodomy laws, which targeted relationships between lesbian and gay couples. Kameny, working with Barabar Gittings, was also successful in removing “homosexuality” as a disorder from the American Psychiatric Association’s list of mental disorders in 1973. His extended list of accomplishments make him a leading symbol for LGBTQ+ rights.
Anne Hathaway
The Oscar winning actress also involves herself outside of acting to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and support. Hathaway partakes in organisations like the It Gets Better project and the Trevor Project. At the Human Rights Campaign dinner, she spoke about lgbtq+ issues in the modern world. In 2008, she received the Human Rights Campaign Ally Award and in 2012, donated portions of her revenue to support same sex marriages. As Hathaway believes, “...love is a human experience, not a political statement.”
