22 Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Women Athletes Who Changed the Game

It’s a common misconception that the women’s sports world is a hotbed of lesbian activity. Like the sports world as a whole, women’s athletics have been dominated by the patriarchy and homophobia for basically ever. In recent years, dozens of women athletes have come out as gay and of course one very famous athlete came out as a trans woman, but this development is relatively new. Women who came out before the last few years risked everything to do so: their endorsements, their fans, their spots on their teams, their livelihoods, and sometimes even their own lives. Below are 22 lesbian, bisexual and trans women athletes who changed their games and changed the game for LGBTQ people by choosing to live openly.

Note: I’m not endorsing or making qualitative assessments of their overall personalities or actions — inclusion on this list does not mean all these women are heroes or angels or activists. The criteria is solely that they are LGBTQ and that they made a significant impact in both sports and queer culture. 

---

Freda du Faur

Mountaineer

Freda Du Faur was the first female mountaineer in New Zealand, and in 1910, she became the first woman to climb Aoraki / Mount Cook. After her success, she refused to wear dresses or climb with chaperones. She wrote in her journal, “I was the first unmarried woman to climb in New Zealand, and in consequence I received all the hard knocks until one day when I awoke more or less famous in the mountaineering world, after which I could and did do exactly as seemed to me best.” Freda fell in love with her first climbing instructor, Muriel “Minnie” Cadogan, and the two lived together for 19 years until Muriel passed away.

Marion Barbara “Betty” “Joe” Carstairs

Speedboat racer

When reviewing her 1998 biography, The Queen Of Whale Cay, The New York Time called Carstairs “a cross-dressing lesbian who had tattoos on her arms, smoked expensive cigars, called herself Joe and was a world champion speedboat racer.” All true! But it gets better. Carstairs moved to Paris when she was 17 and had her first lesbian experience with Dolly Wilde, Oscar Wilde’s niece, about which she wrote: “My God, what a marvelous thing. I found it a great pity I’d waited so long.” Carstairs won the Duke of York’s Trophy, the Royal Motor Yacht Club’s international race, and the Lucina Cup. Then she bought her own island where she kept photographs of the 120 girlfriends who visited her there.

Lily Parr

Soccer

In 1921, the FA banned women from playing soccer on affiliated grounds in England because women were starting to draw bigger crowds than men, largely because of Lily Parr. Standing six feet tall, she started playing professional soccer when she was 14 after she took a munitions assembly job at Dick, Kerr & Co and joined their soccer team for ten schillings per game. She played against men and women and reportedly shot the ball harder than any man. When the women’s league was effectively banned in England, her team traveled to the United States to play exhibition games. Here, newspapers labeled her “the most brilliant female player in the world.” She lived openly as a lesbian with her partner, Mary, until she died of breast cancer in 1978.

Helen Stephens

Track and Field

Helen Stephens reportedly never lost a sprint race in her entire life, including the two gold medal races she won in the 1936 Olympics. During her life, she held world records in the 50 meters, 100 meters, 220 meters, shot-put, and standing long jump. She also played professional basketball on a team she owned and managed. Stephens was good friends with Jesse Owens, running in exhibition races with him before the Olympics in Berlin. Sharon Kinney Hanson’s biography, The Life of Helen Stephens: The Fulton Flash, explores her complicated relationship with her own lesbianism. She never came out of the closet. She was, however, instrumental in protesting the IOC’s gender testing methods, which she was subjected to after setting a world record in 1936.

Roberta Cowell

Autoracing

Roberta Cowell is the first known British person to undergo gender confirmation surgery, which she did in 1948 after she came out as a trans woman and met her life partner, Lisa. Roberta had been a celebrated auto-racer before leaving the sport to become a fighter pilot during World War II. She returned to it after the war and after coming out, racing into the early ’60s, and owning fast cars with big personalities for the rest of her life.

Jackie Silva

Volleyball

In the 1996 summer Olympics, Jackie Silvia won the gold medal for Brazil in the inaugural women’s beach volleyball tournament. But that wasn’t her first Olympics. Playing for the national indoor team, she helped take Brazil to their first Olympics in 1980 at the age of 14, and then again in 1984. In 2014, Silva married her partner of ten years, dancer Amália Lima.

Babe Didrikson

Literally Every Sport on Earth

Lots of sports historians consider Babe Didrikson to be the greatest athlete of all time. She played golf, basketball, baseball, tennis, billiards, and ran track and field. She won two gold and one silver medal in the 1932 Olympics, breaking the world record in the 80-meter hurdles and the javelin. Then she started her own professional women’s basketball league, which she called Babe Didrikson’s All-Americans basketball. After traveling around the country doing that for a while, she decided to learn to play golf. She did. And she won 10 major LPGA championships. It was on the golf circuit that she met Betty Dodd, who, despite Didrikson’s marriage, became her lover and lifelong partner. Dodd was with her until the day she died.

Megan Rapinoe

Soccer

Megan Rapinoe was one of the first popular athletes of the modern sports age to come right out of the closet without apologies. She did so right before the 2012 Olympics in an interview with Out, and then helped lead the USWNT to a gold medal. She also starred on the 2015 team that won the FIFA Women’s World Cup. She’s been nominated for dozens of soccer awards, inducted into the National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame, and recognized for her philanthropy and volunteer work, especially with LGBTQ organizations. Rapinoe made evem more headlines in 2016 when she knelt for the national anthem in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick before a NWSL game.

Billie Jean King

Tennis

Billie Jean King is regarded by many historians and sports writers as the greatest women’s tennis player of all time, although she’s hinted in the last few years that she thinks Serena Williams actually owns that title. She won 39 Grand Slams; founded the Women’s Tennis Association as a pushback against the gender pay gap in the sport; and, perhaps most famously, defeated Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes in 1973. She’s been Sports Illustrated‘s Sportsman of the Year, Time magazine’s Person of the Year, and won a Presidential Medal of Freedom. The WTA trophy is called The Billie Jean King Trophy. The USTA tennis center in New York City where the U.S. Open is played is called the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. King was outed in 1981 by her girlfriend, Marilyn Barnett; after losing all her endorsements in a single day, she called the relationship a mistake and went back into the closet. She began a relationship with her doubles (and now life) partner, Ilana Kloss, in 1987 and ultimately came out and became as relentless an advocate for LGBT rights as she always has been for gender equality.

Brittney Griner

Basketball

At Baylor University, Brittney Griner became the first basketball player in NCAA history to score 2,000 points and block 500 shots, stats that propelled her to three All-American titles, an ESPY, and AP’s Player of the Year award. They also led to her being the first pick in the 2013 WNBA draft. Griner came out right after the draft in Sports Illustrated, saying, “It’s hard. Just being picked on for being different. Just being bigger, my sexuality, everything.” She’s been to the WNBA all-star game four times, won a WNBA championship, and this year she led the league in scoring.

Martina Navratilova

Tennis

Another lesbian, another contender for greatest women’s tennis player of all time. Martina Navratilova played professional tennis for four decades and holds records for being ranked the world’s number one player in singles and doubles at the same time (over 200 weeks each). She won 18 singles Grand Slams and 31 doubles Grand Slams. Navratilova came out in the New York Daily News in 1981, after becoming a U.S. citizen. In 2014 she married her longtime girlfriend, Julia Lemigova, after proposing to her at the U.S. Open.

Renee Richards

Tennis

Dr. Renée Richards was a professional tennis player in the ’70s. After coming out as trans and undergoing gender confirmation surgery, Richards was denied entry into the 1976 US Open. She took the case to the New York Supreme Court and won. Judge Alfred M. Ascione ruled: “This person is now a female.” Ascione called the Barr body test, which the USTA wanted Richards to pass to play, “grossly unfair, discriminatory and inequitable, and a violation of her rights.” Richards is one of the first openly trans athletes and was an outspoken advocate for trans equality in sports for decades, even after she left the tennis circuit to become an ophthalmologist.

Sarah Vaillancourt

Hockey

Sarah Vaillancourt, who spent ten years on the Canadian women’s national hokey team roster, won two Olympic gold medals, a gold medal in the World Championships, and four silver World Championship medals. A nice addition to the Patty Kazmaier Award and the Ivy League Hockey Player of the Year Award she won at Harvard. Vaillancourt came out during her time there, telling a reporter later: “There were other gay girls on the team, but no one ever talked about it or went on about it. I came in and was like, ‘I’m into girls,’ ‘I think this girl’s hot,’ and that’s just how it is. Some of the girls were traumatized, but now when we have reunions, we laugh about it.”

Abby Wambach

Soccer

Abby Wambach is one of the most celebrated soccer players in history. With 184 goals to her name, she’s the highest all-time goal scorer in international soccer (for both men and women). She played on the USWNT for 13 years and took home FIFA World Player of the Year honors in 2012. She has two Olympic gold medals and a FIFA Women’s World Cup. She was the first soccer player to receive the Associated Press’ Athlete of the Year award. Wabach married teammate and longtime girlfriend Sarah Huffman in 2013, telling reporters at the time that she’d never felt the need to come out of the closet because she was never in the closet. After their marriage ended, Wambach married “Christian mommy blogger” Glennon Doyle Melton.

Diana Nyad

Swimming

In 1975 Diana Nyad swam around Manhattan. In 1979 she swam from The Bahamas to Florida. When she was 64 years old, in 2013, she became the first person in history to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage. Not long after, she won the ESPN Sports Science Newton Award for Outstanding New Limit and was named by Marie Claire as participating in one of the 8 Greatest Moments for Women in Sports. (Billie Jean King also made that list.) Nyad has spoken repeatedly about how her journey into competitive swimming started because she was trying to overcome the anger she felt from being sexually assaulted, beginning when she was 14 years old by her swimming coach.

After her historic swim from Cuba, Nyad talked about coming out in her 20s: “The president of ABC News and Sports used to have a lunch every Wednesday and I’d take my girlfriend and people would pull me aside and tell me not to. But if you said to me today, ‘You would have been the next Diane Sawyer but you’d have to totally closet that whole gay life and be out about town with a nice-looking guy’, I’d say, ‘Not in a million years, never.'”

Seimone Augustus

Basketball

From the moment she walked onto the court at LSU, where she went to three Final Fours and won two Wooden Awards, Seimone Augustus has been a superstar. Actually, she was a superstar before that. In high school Sports Illustrated For Women called her the next Michael Jordan. Rightly so. After being drafted first in 2006, she’s won four WNBA titles with the Lynx, played in seven all-star games, and been named one of the league’s 20 best all-time players. Oh, right, and she has two Olympic gold medals. In 2012, when Minnesota’s election included a referendum to ban gay marriage in the state, she came out, saying: “Everyone thinks that the WNBA is one big lesbo party anyway.” When she married her longtime girlfriend, LaTaya Varner, she wrote a beautiful essay in the Players’ Tribune called “It Is So Ordered” and it is 100% guaranteed to make you cry.

Gigi Fernández

Tennis

Tennis superstar Gigi Fernández was the first Puerto Rican-born athlete to win an Olympic gold medal. In fact, she and her doubles partner, Mary Joe Fernández Godsick, won two. The first in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and the second in 1996 in Atlanta. She also won 17 Grand Slam doubles titles in her career. She is married to former LPGA superstar Jane Geddes and is, to this day, an outspoken advocate for LGBT and racial equality, recently going in on notoriously anti-gay tennis legend Margaret Court on Twitter and remaining a critic of the Trump administration, particularly in the face of Puerto Rico’s recent humanitarian crisis after Hurricane Maria.

Caitlyn Jenner

Decathlon

Caitlyn Jenner is likely the most famous trans person in history. Her coming out was covered by media outlets all over the world and witnessed by millions of people, many of whom watched her reality series I Am Cait which included crossovers with the Kardashians and even a guest visit by Kanye West. Jenner, of course, won the decathlon in the 1976 Olympics, breaking her own world record for a third time in the process. Jenner is the quintessential Wheaties box athlete and was the first American to take a victory lap with the flag after winning an Olympic event.

Ireen Wüst

Speedskating

Of the 110 medals the Netherlands have won at the Olympic Winter Games, 105 of them have come from speed skating. Ireen Wüst brought home eight of them. And she’s not done yet. She was the youngest Olympic medalist from the Netherlands at just 19 and she’s got her eyes set on PyeongChang in 2018. She’s won so many world championships and European championships that Reuters elected her Sportswoman of the World in 2014. Wüst has been one of only a handful of openly gay athletes competing in the last few Olympics, something that brought her even bigger attention than usual in Sochi in 2014 due to Russia’s anti-LGBT laws/state sponsored propaganda. She was the first gay athlete to medal at those games, and ultimately won five medals, making her one of the most decorated athletes of the Russian games.

Natasha Kai

Soccer

Natasha Kai was one of the first U.S. Olympians to come out, which she did casually in an interview with NBCOlympics.com in 2008 by mentioning that was going through a breakup with her girlfriend. As one of only three out athletes on the U.S. Olympic team in Beijing, she helped the USWNT bring home the gold medal that summer, scoring the winning goal in overtime to lead the U.S. past Canada in the quarterfinals. As with her sexuality, Kai never shied away from talking about the pressure of playing soccer at the highest level. Last year she wrote a powerful, candid essay for Vox called The dark side of being an Olympic athlete: it’s a roller-coaster ride.

Nicola Adams

Boxing

In 2012, British boxer Nicola Adams became the first woman to win an Olympic boxing title. In 2016, she won another gold. It had been her dream since she was a little girl, a decade before women’s boxing was even considered as an Olympic event and at a time when her asthma was so bad her doctor told her mom not to let her run. After winning her first professional match last year, she proposed to her girlfriend, Mexican-American boxer Marlen Esparza. You should do yourself a favor and read The Guardian’s profile of Adams, which includes this glorious paragraph:

Esparza is with her today, advising her on the photoshoot, telling her how hot she looks. The pair seem deliriously in love; and theirs must be one of the most romantic stories in the history of boxing. In her new autobiography, Believe, Adams says that when she was first introduced to Esparza, she was so taken by her she could not speak – nor the second time they met. The third time, she couldn’t stop talking. While Adams is having her photograph taken, Esparza tells me this is all true; that when they met she thought Adams was plain weird. But not for long.

Sheryl Swoopes

Basketball

These days you can’t turn around without seeing a WNBA player come out, but when Sheryl Swoopes did it in 2005 it was a bombshell that absolutely rocked the sports world. Swoopes was the first player to sign with the WNBA, after leading the 1996 Olympic team to a gold medal in Atlanta. She was the most known and most recognizable women’s basketball player in the entire world for decades. She even had Nikes named after her. Sheryl Swoopes wasn’t a basketball player; she was the basketball player, the one on whom women’s professional basketball put its hopes and dreams when it toured around the country in 1995 trying to get people excited enough to support the women who would ultimately make up the WNBA. In total she won three Olympic gold medals, the Naismith Award, four WNBA championships (and dozens of individual WNBA awards), and has already been inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.

When she came out, she told ESPN: “It doesn’t change who I am. I can’t help who I fall in love with. No one can … Discovering I’m gay just sort of happened much later in life. Being intimate with [Alisa Scott] or any other woman never entered my mind. At the same time, I’m a firm believer that when you fall in love with somebody, you can’t control that.”

Swoopes’ relationship with Scott ended in 2011 and in 2017 she married her male partner, Chris Unclesho. Much has been written about Swoopes’ decision to call herself a lesbian and not bisexual during her relationship with Scott, but as is always the case with these discussions, queer language is constantly evolving and never precise and everyone’s decisions are informed in real-time by their own experiences. The fact that remains is that Swoopes risked as much coming out in the sports world in 2005 as Ellen did coming out in the TV world in 1996. She changed everything.

---

A Reminder Note: I’m not endorsing or making qualitative assessments of their overall personalities or actions — inclusion on this list does not mean all these women are heroes or angels or activists. The criteria is solely that they are LGBTQ and that they made a significant impact in both sports and queer culture.

Is Tennis Full of Lesbians?

It’s that time of year when we all tune in to ESPN and watch our favorite live gaming event of the year, The French Open! And just in time, retired Australian tennis player Margaret Court has filled the entire world in on tennis’ greatest secret: tennis is full of lesbians!

I for one, was shocked—shocked—by this breaking news. Tennis? Full of lesbians? Absolutely not. Dana Fairbanks was the first tennis lesbian I’d ever heard of! Despite my love for field hockey in high school, though, I’m not the sportiest of queers, so I knew it was possible I was just ignorant about tennis lesbianism. As a Gemini, I felt it my duty to correct this lack of knowledge, and so I went digging.

In an interview with 20Twenty Vision Christian Radio, Court is quoted saying, “I mean, tennis is full of lesbians[!]” As a younger tennis player, she remembers there being “only a couple there” but that they had tons of parties, and always brought the newer, younger tennis lesbians with them to parties so that they could be around their heroes. How thoughtful. Thanks older lesbian tennis players!

Court also stated that more children are LBGTQ+ because of “communism”, saying that “there’s a whole plot in our nation, and in the nations of the world, to get the minds of the children.” I don’t disagree. Communism is a great way to reach children. Resource sharing? Into it. (Unfortunately, it’s actually not Communists or queers attempting to penetrate children’s minds, it’s folks with far more devious motives.)

As a serious investigative journalist, I knew I needed to do further research. After all, there’s only so much you can learn from a Buzzfeed news article and a 45 minute interview. Is tennis full of lesbians? The internet, and by “the internet” I mean my co-workers on Slack, had a lot more to say about this than I expected. Riese Bernard, Autostraddle’s CEO had this to say, “Tennis has been a longstanding situation for lesbians. Dana Fairbanks was based on a true story. Power lesbian tennis players cavorted secretly in Palm Springs in the 80s and 90s. These are all true facts I cannot provide sources for, but I’m confident about them. Also, Some of the first out lesbians ever, Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova, were tennis players.” Kayla K, a Staff Writer, said that “Tennis is def full of lesbians!!” citing that, “There was sooooo much lesbian drama on my HS tennis team. My doubles partner was in a secret relationship with another girl on the team it was a whole thing.” Fascinating.

Can’t argue with sound logic and personal anecdotes, right? Some naysayers disagree. Molly Priddy, Autostraddle’s own Feelings Rookie said, “Sometimes I think the mandatory skirts deterred a good many of our more masc[uline] of center athletes,” while Erin Sullivan believes, “Tennis is not full of lesbians but I welcome an upswing!!” Perhaps tennis is full of lesbians who haven’t come out yet? Only time will tell.

I also conducted a very official poll on Twitter, seeking the public’s opinion on this vital matter, and just like the staff of Autostraddle, they’re split! As of the writing of this, 46% of poll takers believe that yes, tennis is full of lesbians, while 54% answered either “no” or “just Dana Fairbanks”. Still no straight (pun intended) answer.

https://twitter.com/firecrackerroot/status/869977137809379340

According to one specific forum thread from the tennis side of the internet, which has apparently sat dormant since around 2002, while tennis may not be full of lesbians, there are definitely some out there. And according to Wikipedia’s dynamic list of LGBT Sportspeople there are or have been at least twelve non-fictional tennis lesbians in all of time. I’ve organized them all in a list for you.

Tennis Lesbians

• Dana Fairbanks (fictional, but real in my heart)
• Billie Jean King
• Martina Navitalova
• Casey Dellacqua
• Amelie Mauresmo
• Gaby Sabatini???
• Beatriz “Gigi” Fernandez
• Helen Jacobs
• Ilana Kloss
• Hana Mandlíková
• Lisa Raymond
• Renée Richards
• Rennae Stubbs

One of these lesbian tennis players, the legendary Martina Navratilova, has a very solid theory regarding Court’s statements: “It is now clear exactly who Court is: an amazing tennis player, and a racist and a homophobe.” Good point.

So, is tennis full of lesbians? The jury’s still out (another pun!).  If I’m being honest, I don’t actually know how many women tennis players there are right now, period. Can’t be more than like, what, 40? If my estimates are correct, then that means that at least 25% of women tennis players are lesbians right now at this minute. Maybe even more! And this is just the tip of the iceberg, and according to Margaret Court, “you know, what you get at the top is often what you’ll get right through that sport.” Seems clear enough to me.

Top 10 Lesbian, Queer or Bisexual Celebrities We Remember Being Out Back Then

In our recent Autostraddle Grown-Ups Survey for readers over 29, we asked “who was the first lesbian or bisexual celebrity or public figure you remember being aware of?” Although the question was intended to be about women, many named men regardless!

Below are the Top 10 most popular answers, in order of popularity. Some honorable mentions who almost made the cut: Danish-British writer / comedian / producer Sandi Toksvig, pop star Madonna, singer/songwriter Ani DiFranco, singer/songwriter Tracy Chapman, German entertainer Hella von Sinnen and comedian Lily Tomlin. There were also many mentions of Freddie Mercury, Boy George and David Bowie.

---

The Top Ten Most Popular Answers To “Who was the first Lesbian or Bisexual Celebrity / Public Figure you were aware of?”

10. Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie had her bisexual awakening in 1995 on the set of Foxfire, when she met Jenny Shimizu and “fell in love with her the first second I saw her.” Jolie said she would’ve married Jenny if she hadn’t married her first husband, Johnny Lee Miller. Shimizu says their relationship continued for quite some time, even while Jolie was with other people, but that it was definitely over by 2005. When asked in 2003 if she was bisexual, Jolie said, “Of course. If I fell in love with a woman tomorrow, would I feel that it’s okay to want to kiss and touch her? If I fell in love with her? Absolutely, yes!”

---

9. Sandra Bernhard

Sandra Bernhard has never been shy about who she is. This includes her legendary appearance on The David Letterman Show in 1988 with Madonna, during which the pair alluded to their sexual relationship, and Bernhard “joked” that Madonna is better than Sean Penn in bed. A 1993 Newsweek article refers to Bernhard as an “avowed bisexual.’ In a 2013 interview with Between The Lines, Bernhard said, “I’ve never really come out. That’s never been my thing. I never made a definite statement about my sexuality. Obviously, I’m the torchbearer for people just to be comfortable in their own skin, and that’s what my whole philosophy has always been. I never needed to come out, because I came out as a person with many different facets to her personality since the beginning of my career. And that’s what I stand for.”

---

8. The Indigo Girls

Nobody was surprised but everybody was appreciative when Amy Ray and Emily Saliers came out in an April 1994 issue of OUT Magazine, right before releasing their hit album Swamp Ophelia. “Here’s something you probably already know,” wrote The Advocate. “The Indigo Girls — Amy Ray and Emily Saliers — are lesbians…. the girls’ publicist tells us they feel ‘beautiful’ after finally unburdening themselves. Beautiful, yes, and a whole lot closer to fine, we bet.” Real talk: they remain my favorite musical situation of all time. SORRY I CAN’T HELP IT. OLD HABITS DIE HARD. For the record, The Indigo Girls were my first lesbians. Having a lesbian Mom in 1994 meant our CD rack was a flaming homosexual.

---

7. Billie Jean King

Billie Jean married attorney Larry King in 1965, realized she liked women in 1968, and had an abortion in 1971, believing that her marriage wasn’t solid enough to bring a child into it. Also in 1971, Billie Jean fell in love with her secretary, Marilyn Barnett. In 1981, Barnett filed a “palimony” lawsuit against Billie Jean, which resulted in Billie Jean being outed, becoming the first prominent professional lesbian athlete — and losing $2 million in endorsements and contracts. “I was outed and I think you have to do it in your own time,” King told The Sunday Times. “Fifty percent of gay people know who they are by the age of 13, I was in the other 50%. I would never have married Larry if I’d known. I would never have done that to him. I was totally in love with Larry when I was 21.” She also spoke about growing up in a homphobic family, suppressing her feelings through eating disorders, and struggling to be honest with her family. “I couldn’t get a closet deep enough. I’ve got a homophobic family, a tour that will die if I come out, the world is homophobic and, yeah, I was homophobic… At the age of 51, I was finally able to talk about it properly with my parents and no longer did I have to measure my words with them. That was a turning point for me as it meant I didn’t have regrets any more.” Now 71, Billie Jean lives with her life partner, 58-year-old tennis player Ilana Kloss.

---

6. Elton John

Although the survey (perhaps not clearly enough) intended to ask about the first lesbian or bisexual female celebrity you were aware of, Elton John — a gay man — was such a popular answer that it seemed worth including.

After divorcing from his wife of four years in 1988, Elton John told Rolling Stone that he was “comfortable” being gay. In 1976,  he’d told the same magazine that he was bisexual. He and his partner, filmmaker David Furnish, were one of the first couples to form a civil partnership after England’s Civil Partnership Act went into effect in 2005.  They legally married in December 2014, and have two sons.

---

5. Rosie O’Donnell

Rosie O’Donnell thanked her then-partner Kelli with an “I love you, Kelli!” in her 2001 Daytime Emmys speech, but she came out officially at a Ovarian Cancer Research benefit in 2002, announcing, “I’m a dyke!” She was two months way from finishing her enormously popular afternoon talk show, The Rosie O’Donnell Show and wanted to be able to speak freely about her personal stake in gay adoption issues happening at the time. She went on Diane Sawyer to do just that six weeks after the comedy club. She cut her hair shortly thereafter and it was the alternative lifestyle haircut heard ’round the world.

---

4. Martina Navratilova

Although she later identified as a lesbian, tennis legend Martina Navratilova had just become a United States citizen when she told a New York Daily News reporter in 1981 that she was bisexual. She also told him she’d dated Rubyfruit Jungle author Rita Mae Brown, but asked him to hold the article ’til she was ready to come out. He published it without her go-ahead. Consequently, Navratilova and her girlfriend Nancy Lieberman gave an interview to The Dallas Morning News in which Navritilova affirmed that she was bisexual, that she and Nancy were in a relationship, and that Nancy still identified as straight. Navratilova’s next relationship, a six-year situation with Judy Nelson, ended in a very public legal battle. Navratilova married her current wife, Julia Lemigova, in 2014. She is considered by many to be the best tennis player ever.

---

3. k.d. Lang

k.d. Lang came out in The Advocate in June 1992. “As bold as k.d. lang is, the Grammy-winning singer was clearly nervous about coming out in the June 16, 1992 issue of The Advocate,” the magazine reflected in 2012, “you can’t blame her — the AIDS crisis was raging, there was a Bush in office, and LGBT celebrities were mostly nonexistent. With equal amounts of determination and trepidation, lang became one of the first celebrities to crack open the closet door, laying a blueprint for Melissa, Ellen, and Neil.” She expressed nervousness about not wanting to hurt her connection to gay culture but also not wanting to hurt her mother. In 1993, she appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair with Cindy Crawford. The iconic photograph by Herb Ritts featured Lang in a barber chair and Crawford, in a tiny black thing, appearing to shave Lang’s face. Lang told the magazine that coming out hadn’t negatively impacted her career.

---

2. Melissa Etheridge

Although Melissa Etheridge was openly gay in her personal life, she didn’t come out publicly until 1993, when she was 32, referring to herself as a “proud lesbian” at a gay inaugural bash for Bill Clinton. A year later she appeared in People magazine with her “live-in lover,” Julie Cypher. Cypher was married to Lou Diamond Phillips when they met (on the set of the “Bring Me Some Water” video, Cypher was the assistant director) but she found herself drawn to Etheridge, having never considered before that she might be a lesbian. They were together until 2000, during which time Cypher birthed two children. David Crosby was the sperm donor. Etheridge went on to date and eventually marry and have more children with actress Tammy Lynn Michaels — they started dating in 2002 and separated in 2010 — and is presently married to actress/producer Linda Wallem.

---

1. Ellen DeGeneres

A full 56% of you cited Ellen DeGeneres as the first lesbian celebrity you were aware of. Ellen DeGeneres came out publicly on The Oprah Winfrey Show in February 1997, in anticipation of her sitcom character, Ellen Morgan, coming out. She said shortly thereafter to Entertainment Weekly, “If I do it right, I’m gonna have a career that will grow, and I’ll look back on this as my infancy stage. I don’t believe you have one moment. You have many moments.” It ended up being more like her infamy stage, because America was clearly not ready for a lesbian celebrity like Ellen. But she was right about the moments. She came back, she had many moments, and now she is bigger than ever. Ellen married actress Portia De Rossi in 2008.

11 Lesbian Couples Who Don’t Mind The (Age) Gap

Enormous age gaps seem to be a lot more common amongst same-sex couples — I’ve personally got a ten-year age gap in my relationship. A 2013 survey found that LGBT people were more likely than straight people to be attracted to people ten years older than them. Our own Ultimate Lesbian Sex Survey (conducted last month, results still being tabulated!) revealed that 77% of 18-to-29-year-olds were open to being romantically and/or sexually involved with women 10+ years older than them, and 97% were interested in women 5-10 years older. Of respondents 30 years or older, 61% were open to women 10+ years younger, 91% in women 5+ years younger, 87% in women 10+ years older and 98% in women 5+ years older.

There are so many theories for why May-December hookups do seem to be far more common in the LGBT community than elsewhere: a smaller pool of potential partners overall, more age-diverse social groups, the fact that “lesbian years” (how long you’ve been out) can be the similar even when actual years (how old you are) are not, a general removal from traditional heterosexual life patterns altogether or just that queers as a group are more open-minded.

Whatever the reason, it’s definitely not uncommon! Here’s some of our favorite same-sex female couples with a 10+ year age gap!

---

1. Chely Wright (44) and Lauren Blitzer (34)

The country singer and star of the documentary Wish Me Away wed Blitzer, the co-author of Same Sex In The City: So Your Prince Charming Is Really a Cinderella, in 2011. They had twins in 2013!

---

2. Jill Bennett (39) and Lauren Neal (25)

Actress/musician Lauren Neal (who you may recognize from Words With Girls) and actress/producer Jill Bennett are both involved with LGBT Volunteer Vacations, “an exciting way for singles and couples to make new friends, learn about global cultures and make a difference in the community.”

---

3. Rachel Maddow (41) and Susan Mikula (56)

MSNBC Superstar Rachel Maddow and artist Susan Mikula met in 1999, when Maddow was hired to do yard work on Mikula’s Berkshires property. They now live together in a pre-Civil War farmhouse in Western Massachusetts.

---

4. Jenny Shimizu (47) and Michelle Harper (36)

Michelle Harper, a former club kid, is described by the New York Times as having “a genuinely original and fantastical style of dressing” that has made her a fashion it girl. She married renowned model (and legendary ex of Angelina Jolie) Jenny Shimizu in September 2014.

---

5. Stephanie Allynne (29) and Tig Notaro (42)

Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne are both comedians so they probably make each other laugh a whole lot. They got engaged last month, after meeting a few years ago on the set of In A World.

---

6. Robin Roberts (53) and Amber Laign (39)

Laign, a massage therapist who specializes in helping people with serious injuries, and Good Morning America host Robin Roberts met over ten years ago and have been together ever since.

---

7. Jeanette Winterson (55) and Susie Orbach (68)

The renowned author and memoirist has been with Susie Orbach for over five years. Orbach is a psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, writer and social critic and the author of Fat is a Feminist Issue.

---

8. Martina Navratilova (58) and Julia Lemigova (42)

Julia Lemigova, a former Miss Universe Contestant and 1991’s Miss USSR, is an entrepreneur with a tragic past. She has been dating the superstar tennis player for at least six years and the two were married in 2014.

---

9. Audrey Smaltz (78) & Gail Marquis (60)

Marquis and Smaltz’s 2011 nuptials made the front page of The New York Times’ Wedding/Celebrations — unsurprisingly, as the two have a very intriguing story that you should read! Marquis, a former Olympic basketball player, and Smaltz, a former model and founder of The Ground Crew, also showed up on OUT Magazine’s OUT100 list in 2013.

---

10. Portia De Rossi (42) and Ellen DeGeneres (57)

THE GOLDEN COUPLE!

---

11. Sarah Paulson (40) and Holland Taylor (72)

Paulson met her first girlfriend, Cherry Jones, when she was 30 and Cherry was 48. In 2015, she began dating the legendary Holland Taylor and we all lost our collective minds.

Michael Sam Is Gay: SEC Defensive Player of the Year and NFL Prospect Comes Out

After a tumultuous two years for football’s relationship with the queer community, Michael Sam, a defensive lineman for the University of Missouri came out as gay today. Not only is Sam a trailblazer for queer athletes who want to be able to be themselves while pursuing their passion for sports, but by all accounts he is an excellent football player and a leader on the field. If he is selected in this summer’s NFL draft (which all signs are pointing toward), he will become the first male athlete to play one of the four major professional sports after coming out. The fact that he did so willingly and before his professional career has even started shows that he has a lot of hope for the future of gay male athletes in America.

This is especially big news because of both where Sam played football and where he might play it this fall. Missouri is one of the schools in the Southeastern Conference, widely considered to be the best and toughest college football conference in the entire country. The team went 12-2 last year, won the Cotton Bowl and regularly had their games featured on TV. Sam was one of the standout players on the team, being named team MVP, First Team All-American and the SEC Defensive Player of the Year. Now that his college days are over, he’s focusing on preparing for a future career in the NFL and wants to make sure that he does it on his own terms. Sam told ESPN, “I just want to make sure I could tell my story the way I want to tell it. I just want to own my truth.”

After players including Manti Te’o and Nick Kasa had their sexuality questioned by both pundits and team executives during pre-NFL draft vetting, the league didn’t exactly look like the most queer friendly place. Things got even worse when Jonathan Martin abruptly left the Miami Dolphins after bullying allegations that involved anti-gay slurs and claims that he wasn’t “man enough” to play in the NFL came to light. Former Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe then added to this view of football culture when he claimed that he lost his job in the NFL due to his strong vocal support of gay rights. However, Sam believes that things are getting better for gay players in football and says that he found support from his fellow players while at Missouri. He says that when he came out to them, a lot already suspected.

“I was kind of scared, even though they already knew. Just to see their reaction was awesome. They supported me from Day One. I couldn’t have better teammates. …I’m telling you what: I wouldn’t have the strength to do this today if I didn’t know how much support they’d given me this past semester.”

Missouri coach Gary Pinkel released a statement offering his support, saying:

“We’re really happy for Michael that he’s made the decision to announce this, and we’re proud of him and how he represents Mizzou. Michael is a great example of just how important it is to be respectful of others, he’s taught a lot of people here first-hand that it doesn’t matter what your background is, or your personal orientation, we’re all on the same team and we all support each other.”

Sam isn’t all alone when it comes to male professional athletes coming out in recent years. Last year former NBA player Jason Collins came out, and although he isn’t officially retired, he hasn’t played professional basketball since he made his announcement. Robbie Rogers, a professional soccer player also came out after he announced his retirement, but has since returned to playing professional soccer for Major League Soccer’s Los Angeles Galaxy. Of course, we have to acknowledge all of the incredible queer women who have been openly playing sports for decades from Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova to Megan Rapinoe and Brittney Griner to the seven out women competing in this year’s Winter Olympics.

GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis has commented that: “By rewriting the script for countless young athletes, Michael has demonstrated the leadership that, along with his impressive skills on the field, makes him a natural fit for the NFL… With acceptance of LGBT people rising across our coasts — in our schools, churches, and workplaces — it’s clear that America is ready for an openly gay football star.”

According to the New York Times, several NFL experts have been predicting that Sam will be drafted in the third round, which usually guarantees a player a roster spot and often leads to that player starting in the league. If he does make it to the NFL, this will become an even bigger story. Hopefully his courage and honesty will help to bring about a change in the culture of hyper-masculinity that often permeates football culture. It also might help to inspire other male athletes who won’t feel so alone when they are thinking about coming out. Sam’s story is one of optimism and a bright future, and in a time when we keep on seeing stories about LGBT oppression and sports going hand-in-hand, this is a welcome reprieve.

15 Lesbian Couples Time Forgot

Sure, everybody knows about Portia and Ellen. But there are likely many other fantastic pairings you never knew about or totally forgot about or vaguely remember but not really anymore! THIS IS IMPORTANT HERSTORY.

15 Lesbian Couples Time Forgot

*indicates that one member of the couple has refused to confirm the relationship

1. Tracy Chapman & Alice Walker

The brilliant shy musician Tracy Chapman, who drove a fast car into all of our souls forever, and the legendary Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, dated in the mid-1990s. Walker spoke to The Guardian about the relationship in 2006:

“Why was it kept so quiet at the time? “It was quiet to you maybe but that’s because you didn’t live in our area,” she answers with a throaty laugh. She has written about the relationship in her journals, which she plans to publish one day.

So why did they decide against using their relationship to make a big social impact like other celebrity lesbian couples, such as Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche, have in the past? The idea seems to amuse her. “I would never do that. My life is not to be somebody else’s impact – you know what I mean? And it was delicious and lovely and wonderful and I totally enjoyed it and I was completely in love with her but it was not anybody’s business but ours.”

In 1967, Alice Walker married Melvyn Roseman Leventhal, becoming the first legally married interracial couple in Mississippi, but the two divorced in 1976. Walker told The Globe and Mail in May that she is not heterosexual or gay, just “curious.”

2. Ellen Degeneres & Alexandra Hedison

Before she began engaging in knife-play with Helena Peabody, Alexandra Hedison engaged in loveplay with Ellen DeGeneres, who she met via mutual friends in 2000 after Ellen and Anne Heche broke up. Although she was a cast member of The L Word and played bit parts in Lois & Clark, Melrose Place, Nash Bridges and L.A. Firefighters; Hedison’s primary occupation is photography. She’s also directed an animated film, In the Dog House, and a documentary, The Making of Suit Yourself. They lived together in Ellen’s Hollywood Hills home until December 2004, when the two split up, Heddison moved out, and a “source close to the couple” told The New York Daily News that “it’s difficult for both of them and very sad. They were a private couple, and they hope they can separate privately.” Recently rumors began swirling that Hedison has hooked up with another major lesbian power player – Jodie Foster.

3. Ione Skye & Jenny Shimizu

Bisexual actress Ione Skye (best known for her role in Say Anything) fell for legendary model/actress Jenny Shimizu when they met on the set of Quentin Tarantino’s movie Four Rooms, around the time that Skye’s seven-year marriage with Beastie Boy Adam Horowitz was crumbling into a million little pieces. Skye reportedly admitted, “I guess I was just looking for love. I was reeling, I didn’t know what I wanted. When Adam and I split up, I was making Four Rooms with Madonna. She had this gay entourage. She introduced me to them. And I have to admit, I dallied.” She described Shimizu as “kind of boylike, kind of dykey” with “a great figure.” Clearly, Jenny Shimizu has mad game. I mean she also dated Angelina Jolie. So.

4. Amy Ray & Jennifer Baumgardener

Jennifer Baumgardner, esteemed third-wave feminist activist, former editor of Ms., prolific journalist and author of  Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future, Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism and Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics, dated The Indigo Girls‘ Amy Ray from 1997 to 2002! Now Baumgardner lives in New York with her husband Michael and their two sons, and Amy Ray has been dating a lady in Seattle for the last ten years.

5. Patricia Velásquez & Sandra Bernhard*

Venezuelan model and actress Patricia Velásquez is best known for her print and runway work (she’s also been in several Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Editions) and her role as Anck-Su-Namun in The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. You may recognize her from Arrested Development (she was the second actress to play Colombian soap opera star Marta Estrella) and The L Word (she played Begoña, the actress playing Marina/Karina in Lez Girls). But did you know that she dated outspoken lesbian comedienne Sandra Bernhard in 1992? The two met at a fashion show in Paris. In her memoir Straight Walk, Velásquez confirmed that relationship and her lesbian identity, revealing that Sandra Bernhard was actually the first girl she kissed. “I was deeply in love with Sandra,” she wrote in her book, “in a way I’d never experienced before.”

6. Meshell Ndegeocello & Rebecca Walker

Alice Walker’s oft-estranged daughter, the writer and activist Rebecca Walker (Black, White and Jewish, Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood After a Lifetime of Ambivalence, BLACK COOL), was in a long term relationship with crush-worthy bisexual singer Meshell Ndegeocello once upon a time, a pairing which AfterEllen says was “for years… the most out couple in the black lesbian community.”

Ndegeocello and Walker co-parented Ndgeocello’s son, Soloman, born in 1989. Ndegeocello now lives in upstate New York with her partner of eight years, Alison, who had a baby in 2009. Ndegeocello spoke openly about her family to OUT Magazine in 2010, noting that “it’s kind of important to get it out into society about people who are gay or different, that they can have a family.”

Walker now lives in Maui with her partner, Buddhist teacher Choyin Rangdrol (or “Glen,” as Walker calls him) and her 11-year-old son, Tenzin. In 2012, she wrote about her first girlfriend and discovering her attraction to women for Marie Claire Magazine.

7. Portia De Rossi & Francesca Gregorini

If you’re anything like me, you’ve been asking yourself “What happened before Ellen?” pretty much constantly for at least ten years. Well, now we all know. It was Francesca Gregorini, an Italian writer and directer and the daughter or Bond Girl Barbara Bach and businessman Augusto Gregorini and the stepdaughter of Ringo Starr. Gregorini has also been rumored to have dated director Kimberly Pierce and actress Amber Heard.

8. Rosie O’Donnell & Sophie B Hawkins*

I’ve been hearing about this one for what feels like a decade, but although Rosie’s open about it, Sophie isn’t. Damn, I wish I could hear about her being her lover.

9. Leisha Hailey & KD Lang

These two are like the ultimate “omg remember when ____” couple. Crooner k.d. Lang and actress/musician Leisha Hailey, then a singer in The Murmurs, met at a friend’s birthday party in 1996 and broke up in 2000. Hailey has never talked much about their relationship, telling The Advocate, “It’s a very private matter for me. I learned a tremendous amount from that relationship, and I’m very sentimental about it and look back on it with beautiful memories.” She says their lifestyle “was about being at home and being with our dog.”

10. Camilla Grey & Clea Duvall

If you’re following along at home on your Chart then you will see that Leisha Hailey connects the prior couple to this couple! The exact timeline of this relationship is unclear, but it was definitely in full bloom circa Uh Huh Her‘s 2007 debut, during which time Clea was doing photography for the band. After their split, Grey hooked up with bandmate Leisha Hailey and Duvall kissed a girl in the park and also got all of our hopes up about Ellen Page.

11. Susan Powter & Jessica Kirson

Susan Powter, ’90s fitness icon (author of Stop the Insanity!) and current fitness/lifestyle/yoga guru, dated lesbian comedian Jessica Kirson circa 2008-2009-ish. Prior to dating Jessica, Powter had dated Animal of the band Bitch & Animal. Powter had divorced twice and had two sons by the time she came out in Curve magazine in 2004, describing herself a a “radical feminist lesbian woman.” She adopted a third son and presently lives in a self-described “earth ship” in New Mexico. Kirson, the stepsister of Zach Braff, has appeared on Last Comic Standing, Last Call With Carson Daily, The Tonight Show With Jay Leno and Comedy Central’s Premium Blend.  The internet offers no recent updates regarding her relationship status.

12 & 13. Rita Mae Brown & Fannie Flagg // Rita Mae Brown & Martina Navratilova

Rita Mae Brown was quite the romancer back in the day. She lived with Martina Navratilova from 1979-1981, a relationship which likely inspired her novel Sudden Death, about a lesbian tennis player. Martina went on to famously and publicly date beauty queen and mother-of-two Judy Nelson, starting in 1983, and when the couple suffered a messy breakup in 1991, it was Rita Mae who mediated their palimony dispute — and who then moved in with Judy. Rita Mae wrote the intro to Judy’s book Love Match, which was about her affair with Martina. Much later, Rita would meet Fannie Flagg at a party thrown by Marlo Thomas, but Rita has said that her relationship with Fannie ended up not working out because of generational differences: “It doesn’t mean we  don’t love each other, [it just means] we will never see the world quite the same because of our tremendous losses and disillusionment and then the realization that ‘Oh my god, we gotta fight back.'”

14. Amanda Moore & Kate Young

Model Amanda Moore and ex-Vogue writer Kate Young were featured in New York Magazine’s Sexiest Couples of 2003 with the following tidbit: “Now, that’s lesbian chic. Kate’s an ex–Vogue-ette with Marilyn-blonde hair and a pixie face. Amanda’s a tall, dark runway regular. They recently posed, making out, for iD magazine. And why not?”

15. Lindsay Lohan & Courtenay Semel

On the cover of Curve magazine in 2009, Courtenay Semel, daughter of former Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel, described herself as the “lesbian Don Juan,” having been linked romantically to Lindsay Lohan, Tila Tequlia and the now-deceased heiress Casey Johnson. Lohan and Semel were linked shortly prior to Lohan’s relationship with Samantha Ronson. Semel also appeared in Curve magazine again this month because she painted a large colorful mural in her garage.

---

It was difficult to determine exactly the proper level of forgotteness for these couples and thus the following couples almost made the list, but then did not: Rose Troche & Guinevere Turner, Corin Tucker & Carrie Brownstein, Linda Perry & Clementine Ford, Romi Klinger & Dani Campbell, Cherry Jones & Sarah Paulson. But perhaps you remember all these fine feathered felines like it was just yesterday! Keep the memory alive, friends!

The ALTERNATIVE Autostraddle Hot 105: Hotties You Will Like Who Also Like Girls

Once upon a time, The 2013 Autostraddle Hot 100 happened — a haphazard assemblage of kickass queers voted on by approximately 1,000 readers who mostly had really strong feelings about Tegan and/or Sara. Despite the voters’ near-unanimous interest in gazing dreamily into Rachel Maddow’s eyeballs and fantasizing about Brittney Griner’s wingspan, it’s abundantly clear that those 100 queer mostly female-identified humans are not the only 100 queer female-identified humans worthy of the subjective-to-the-point-of-meaninglessness adjective “hot.”

See: almost all of the votes in the Hot 100 went towards the Top 30 girls on the list and Autostraddle staff. This means that people who are super hot, but not super-famous (or employed here) didn’t really have a fighting chance, which is unfortunate because those are the people you really should know more about!

There were heaps of humans who got between one and five votes — not enough to rank, but “ranking” is so ridiculous and ultimately arbitrary anyhow. A reader suggested that perhaps another Hot 100 was in order — featuring those who only got a few votes. The reader also noted that assembling that information might be an logistical nightmare, which was 100% true! It took forever but we learned about so many amazing new people.

This list features 105 human beings who are in the public eye in some fashion that we could find good pictures of, and who 1-5 of you voted for. This list is honestly possibly the coolest list of all time.  The order is random, with a few of the folks who have come out in the past two months hanging out in the top spots because yay newly-out gays!

We didn’t know very much about a lot of the women on this list so in many cases we took your word for it w/r/t whether or not the person is gay.  If somebody’s on here who shouldn’t be, or if we got any facts at all wrong about a person, let us know — email bren at autostraddle dot com. 

If you’re on this list, you should consider coming to A-Camp because you’re really awesome.

---

The Autostraddle Alt-Hot-105

---

105. Alexis Hornbuckle, WNBA Basketball Player

wnba profile

Basketball player Alexis Kay’ree Hornbuckle was named a WBCA All-American in high school and awarded Most Valuable Player for the 2004 WBCA High School All-America Game. (Fun fact: she also played soccer in high school!) She went on to graduate from the University of Tennessee, where she had played for two NCAA Championship teams, to be drafted by the Detroit Shock in 2008. She set a WNBA franchise record with seven steals in 19 minutes in her first game, and helped bring the Shock to the 2008 WNBA championships. She’s since played for The Tulsa Shock and the Minnesota Lynx and currently plays for the Phoenix Mercury.

---

104. Nicole Albino, Musician, Nina Sky (New York, NY)

nina sky // music

“At the end of the day, we want to be successful and we want any young girl to look up to us and say, “If two girls from Queens who grew up with their brothers and sisters in a regular apartment and didn’t come from money can do it, then I can do it, too.” (via clayton-perry)

Twins Natalie and Nicole Albino grew up in a musical family with parents who were super-supportive of their daughters’ musical ambitions. The twins eventually started performing together, using the first two letters of each of their names to make “Nina.” Their first hit was “Move Ya Body” in 2004, which mixed Carribbean, R&B and pop styles. Nina Sky, their first album, debuted in 2004, and their second album, Nicole and Natalie, came out in 2012. Speaking of coming out, in 2010 Nicole Albino came out as a lesbian and married fashion designer Erin Magee, who she had been dating since 2009.

---

103. Sassy of “The Black Ink Crew,” (New York, NY)

website

via vH1: “Sassy is sweet, sexy, and fun. She has a tattoo of an AK47 on her back, but the AK47 has no trigger. Sassy keeps the guys in line and keeps the shop from burning down. Whether it is taking appointments, being the peacemaker at the shop, or planning an event at the shop, Sassy keeps things running smoothly. She has a strange obsession with being clean and takes more than one bath a day. She is best friends with Puma, and believes in girl power all the way…and is about to take the Black Ink world by storm!”

---

102. Ivette, Creative Director at Marimacho (Brooklyn, NY)

website

via marimacho: “Fashion has been Ivette González-Alé’s artistic outlet from a young age. Having grown up in Los Angeles’ rockabilly scene, she continues to draw inspiration from music subculture and throwback fashion. As creative director, Ivette’s love of vintage clothing bleeds through every piece. She has years of experience working in the apparel industry managing finance and operations, but designing is what she loves.”

---

101. Kirsten Vangsness, Actress (Los Angeles, CA)

“I am as queer as a purple unicorn singing Madonna.”

Kirsten crawled her lesbian way into our monstercrushing hearts via Criminal Minds, where she plays the computer wizard and flamboyant dresser Penelope Garcia. She’ll be marrying her fiancee, film editor Melanie Goldstein, this year.

---

100. Alixa + Naima of Climbing Poetree, Poets & Musicians & Activists (Brooklyn, NY)

website

“Creativity is the antidote for violence and destruction. Art is our most human expression, our voice to communicate our stories, to challenge injustice and the misrepresentations of the mainstream media, to expose harsh realities and engender even more powerful hope, a force to bring diverse peoples together, a tool to rebuild our communities, and a weapon to win this struggle for universal liberation.”

read their full bio at climbingpoetree.com: “With roots in Haiti and Colombia… Alixa and Naima’s acclaimed performance is composed dual-voice poems and multimedia theater that explores diverse themes, including: healing from state and personal violence, social / environmental / economic / racial / sexual justice,human rights, spirituality and women’s empowerment… for the last 10 years, Alixa and Naima have been guest artists and workshop facilitators at hundreds of universities, conferences, correctional facilities and high schools — from Cornell University to Rikers Island prison. They have toured to more than 75 cities… traveled over 11,000 miles with an all-women crew in a recycled vegetable oil-powered bus, delivering their largest theater production and national organizing strategy, Hurricane Season: The Hidden Messages in the Water, to thousands of people, and featuring 150 community based organizations.”

---

99. Kristen Stone, writer (Gainesville, FL)

website // tumblr // author of domestication handbook

---

98. Jenny Lee Lindberg, musician, Warpaint (Los Angeles, CA)

 tag // warpaint website // music

“I think that sex should be in the actual music of the song, more than the costume or the act. Sex should be in the instrument.” (via the skinny uk)

Jenny plays bass in Warpaint, an indie rock band founded in 2004 with Emily Kokal (vocals, guitar), Theresa Wayman (guitar, vocals) and drummer Stella Mozgawa, who replaced actress and founding member Shannyn Sossamon — who just-so-happens to be Jenny’s sister. (Nice genes in this family, eh?) Their debut EP, Exquisite Corpse, was released in 2008, and their first full-length album, The Fool, came out in 2010.

---

97. Efva Attling, Jewlery Designer (Sweden)

website // twitter

Efva Katarina Attling has quite the resume: a stint in the band “X Models” in the early 1980’s, working as a designer with Levi’s and H&M, twelve years of professional modeling and getting famous for being one of Sweden’s best professional disco dancers. Now she’s Sweden’s leading jewelry designer. She married pop singer/writer Niklas Stromstedt and they had two children, but in 1996 she entered into a civil union with Swedish pop singer Eva Dahlgreen. When Sweden passed its gender neutral marriage law in 2009, the two got married.

---

96. AZMarie Livingston, Model (Los Angeles, CA)

tag // facebook

Born in Louisiana, Ashley Marie Livingston grew up in Minneapolis with her mother and her gay father, who were divorced but “best friends.”  Growing up, Livingston was teased for being a tomboy. On a trip to Los Angeles with her Dad at age nine, she got interested in modeling, and would eventually drop out after three semesters at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater to move to Los Angeles and pursue her dreams. From 2009 to 2011, she worked as a runway model in LA and New York, appearing on BET’s Rip the Runway and in London Fashion Week. She appeared in the film Precious and The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty. But it’s likely you know AZMarie from her 2012 stint on America’s Next Top Model: British Invasion, and her subsequent role on the homolicious teevee show DTLA.

---

95. Adelina Anthony, multi-disciplinary artist (Santa Barbara, CA)

website // facebook for AdeRisa Productions

“I sometimes joke with my audiences about being on a “collective date” together, but it’s true. I know I’m my most honest, interesting and generous self on that stage. It’s the space I’ve learned to be the most courageous because you can’t lie in your art or let your ego lead you. If the art is all about ego, then the artist has failed in a deep, fundamental way.” (via xqsi magazine)

via adeliaanthony.com: “Adelina Anthony is a critically acclaimed and award winning two-spirited Xicana lesbian multi-genre artist, cultural activist, teaching artist, director and producer. The themes in her works address colonization, feminism, trauma, ancestral memory, gender, health, race & ethnicity, immigration, sexuality, land & environment, and issues generally affecting the queer/lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender/two-spirited communities. She has nearly 20 years of stage experience and has garnered Best Actress nominations and awards.” (read more here)

---

94. Vicci Martinez, Musician (Tacoma, WA)

tag // website // autostraddle interview

via facebook: “Vicci Martinez is a singer/songwriter from Tacoma, Washington, who was one of the finalists on Season 1 of NBC’s The Voice. At only 28 years of age, she has already opened for or shared the stage with notables such as Sting, Annie Lennox, B.B. King, the Doobie Brothers, and Jonny Lang.”

---

93. Kim Ann Foxman, DJ & Dance Music Artist (New York, NY)

website

---

92. Jincey Lumpkin, Writer & Juicy Pink Box Chief Sexy Officer (New York, NY)

website: Juicy Pink Box // @juicyjincey

“I suffer from overthinking. I can be very shy. But let me tell you: Your inhibitions drop very quickly when you’re sitting on the floor naked, eating a macadamia-nut cookie while looking point-blank at nine women’s inner labia.” (via the huffington post)

Jincey Lumpkin, Esq. grew up in Carrolton, Georgia, and went on to graduate from the Darlington School, Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, and then the Florida Coastal School of Law in Florida. Jincey wanted to go into fashion law but in the meantime was super-bored with her law job, which inspired her to start an anonymous porn blog. It got mad hits, so she quit her job and in 2008 became “the founder and Chief Sexy Officer of Juicy Pink Box, a lesbian lifestyle brand that entices all women to explore their female fantasies.”

---

91. Zanele Muholi, Photographer (South Africa)

artist spotlight // website

“I always say to people that I’m an activist before I’m an artist. To me, you take a particular photo in order for other people to take action. So you become an agent for change in a way. I say that I am a visual activist because it’s important to me to go beyond just being a photographer. Because you know, that sounds so sexy, and it’s a ‘profession.’ I think to myself – what’s the point of just taking a picture? What happens after that? I’m doing what I’m doing to make a statement and also to say to people: This is is possible.” (via nomorepotlucks)

via zanelemuholi.com: “Zanele Muholi was born in Umlazi, Durban, in 1972, and held her first solo exhibition in 2004, at the Johannesburg Art Gallery.  She has worked as a community relations officer for the Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW), a black lesbian organisation based in Gauteng, and as a photographer and reporter for Behind the Mask, an online magazine on lesbian and gay issues in Africa. Her work represents the black female body in a frank yet intimate way that challenges the history of the portrayal of black women’s bodies in documentary photography. Her solo exhibition Only half the picture, which showed at Michael Stevenson in March 2006, travelled to the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg and the Afrovibes Festival in Amsterdam. In 2008 she had a solo show at Le Case d’Arte, Milan, and in 2009 she exhibited alongside Lucy Azubuike at the CCA Lagos, Nigeria. She was the recipient of the 2005 Tollman Award for the Visual Arts, the first BHP Billiton/Wits University Visual Arts Fellowship in 2006, and was the 2009 Ida Ely Rubin Artist-in-Residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).”

---

90. Hannah Gadsby, Comedian (Australia)

website // @hannahgadsby

via token.com: “Hannah Gadsby is an award-winning Australian comedian who thinks quickly and moves slowly.  She is sardonic, laconic and, after numerous bone crunching accidents, bionic.  Her droll delivery, delightful wordplay and heart-breakingly funny, self-deprecating observations have delighted audiences all over the world. You can see her on ABC TV’s Adam Hills In Gordon Street Tonight, or live at a festival near you. Desperate to make use of her art history degree, Hannah has written and presented two specials for ABC TV’s Artscape and takes every opportunity to present her incredibly popular comedic art lectures at festivals around the world.”

---

89. Morgane Richardson, Blogger, Lecturer & Professional Feminist (Costa Rica)

website

“I was raised in an environment where I was able to witness the undying strength of black queer women, our resilience and ability to fight against injustices. I have begun to recognize that being a black queer woman is not just a shared identity, it is a form of activism, and it is a movement that I am honored to be a part of.” (via elixHER)

26-year-old Morgane Richardson is a self-described “professional feminist, lecturer, professor and freelance blogger who addresses race, gender and sexuality in today’s society… without dwelling on theorists and terminology.” She worked fearlessly as a campus organizer while earning her BA in Sociology/Anthropology and The History of Art and Architecture at Middlebury College and later put that activist experience to work by founding Refuse the Silence: Women of Color in Academia Speak Out. Her writing has appeared in Bitch, Feministing, University of Venus and More Magazine and she’s the co-founder of social media film Mixtape Media. She tours the country working with college students and administrators to promote diverse campuses within elite academia’s existing hegemony and is presently pursuing a master’s degree in Gender and Peace Building at the University for Peace.

---

88. Harmony Boucher, Musician & Model (UK)

website

Harmony Boucher is a model/singer known for “her unconventional look in line with the East London scene: defiant attitude and fierce features make Harmony unique and her look — one of a kind.” She created her band Vuvuvultures in 2009, known for “promoting offbeat events and parties that bring together underground musicians, artists and creative people and mix rock and electronic music.”

---

87. Martina Navratilova, Tennis Player & Coach (Sarasota, FL)

website

“Being blunt with your feelings is very American. In this big country, I can be as brash as New York, as hedonistic as Los Angeles, as sensuous as San Francisco, as brainy as Boston, as proper as Philadelphia, as brawny as Chicago, as warm as Palm Springs, as friendly as my adopted home town of Dallas, Fort Worth, and as peaceful as the inland waterway that rubs up against my former home in Virginia Beach.”

---

86. Susan Allen, Politician, Minnesota House of Representatives (Minneapolis, MN)

website

“[Native Americans] are such a small minority and yet we have this history with the state. When I go there and sit in that room, on the house floor, and all that history is there and I’m sitting there, in some ways it’s just ironic… So it’s really important for me to be there. Because it’s like we are still here. We are still here. We still have a political existence. We have this place in the state and that needs to be recognized.” (via star-tribune)

Attorney Susan Allen became the first openly lesbian Native American elected to a state legislature in 2012 when she won a special election for a seat representing District 61B in the Minnesota State House. Allen told Minnesota Public Radio that district 61B, an area of south central Minneapolis which where almost half the children live in poverty, “reminds me a lot of the places I grew up.” Allen is also the first Native American woman to serve in the Minnesota Legislature. A member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, her law practice specializes in helping tribes draft tribal laws. After losing the election, Nathan Blumenshine, her opponent, said of Allen: “Her personal story is a powerful one, and I can’t think of a stronger leader to serve as the voice of this community.”

---

85. Ashley Reed, Writer, Producer & Cook (Los Angeles, CA)

twitter

When she’s not at her day job cooking shit up with Giada De Laurentiis, Ashley Reed is writing and producing, making music or sometimes starring in a little webseries you know as Unicorn Plan-It.

---

84. Kylie Kwong, TV Chef (Australia)

website

via 15 gay chefs: “Australian chef Kylie Kwong is an author, restauranteur and television presenter who began making a name for herself in the early ’90s as the head chef of Sydney’s Wockpool. With dreams of running her own restaurant, in 2000 Kylie opened the doors of Billy Kwong, which focuses on traditional Asian cuisine that is made from locally grown, organic and biodynamic produce. It also happens to be my favourite restaurant in Sydney.

Kylie went on to create two successful television shows, At Home With Kylie Kwong and My China: A Feast For All The Senses, the latter which takes Kylie on ‘an inspiring journey from the rural simplicity of her ancestral village in China’s southwest to the wilds of the Tibetan plateau and the stylish modernity of Hong Kong and Shanghai’ and is super interesting. Kylie also makes an occasional appearance as a guest chef on MasterChef Australia.

Most were unaware of Kwong’s sexual orientation until a few months ago, when she mentioned that her girlfriend of five years was pregnant.”

---

83. Mia Tu Mutch, Social Justice Advocate (San Francisco, CA)

website // trans 100

via facebook: “Mia Tu Mutch is a queer and trans social justice advocate, organizer, and educator. As a former Equality Rider and featured speaker on the Vanguard Queer History Tour, Mia has facilitated community conversations on LGBTQ issues and identities at over 25 universities. Now she serves on the SF LGBTQ Speaker’s Bureau Advisory Board and facilitates various workshops for the schools and organizations. Commissioner Tu Mutch is currently Chair of the Housing LGBTQ and TAY Committee of the San Francisco Youth Commission and uses her passion to create, advocate and implement policies that create safer and more equitable communities for all.”

---

82. Joanna Lohman, Soccer Player & Motivational Speaker (Cambridge, MA)

twitter // jolia academy

Joanna Lohman, the first four-time First Team All-Big Ten selection in Penn State women’s soccer history, has played with the US Women’s National Team and The Philadelphia Independence. Currently, Joanna plays for The Boston Breakers, is the Vice President of commercial real estate firm Tenant Consulting and is the co-founder of JoLi Academy LLC, a global soccer initiative that aims to raise the social status of women.

---

81. Spectra Speaks, Writer & Activist (Nigeria, US, UK)

website // autostraddle essay: I Am Alike: A Nigerian Boys Reflection on Pariah

“Afrofeminism is how I move through the world; how I live, learn and evolve. Afrofeminism is my personal compass, a way for me to stay centered as I navigate life as an idealist using a constellation of frameworks–feminism, social justice, spirituality and others. Afrofeminism guides every step I take forward, as it is grounded in my multi-layered, trans-national identity and personal experiences.”   (via spectra speaks)

It’s hard to know where to begin when talking about Spectra because she has done so much. She describes herself like this: “Queer Nigerian Afrofeminist Writer and Media Activist. Social Entrepreneur Nurturing Principled Diaspora and Women’s Philanthropy in Media and Tech. Self-Care and Self-Love Evangelist. Idealist Warrior Woman. Big Dreamer. Big Thinker. Big Doer, Too.” She’s also the founder & executive editor for media advocacy organization Queer Women of Color Media Wire and the Community Engagement Officer at Africans in the Diaspora. She’s appeared in mainstream and alternative media outlets all over the world including ABC, Huffington Post, Ms. Magazine, Curve Magazine, Racialicous and BET, hosts the monthly podcast Kitchen Table Conversations, and offers coaching and support services to women-led ventures in new media as a principal at her boutique consulting firm.

---

80. Beth Clayton, Opera Singer (Santa Fe, NM)

website

Beth Clayton is a mezzo-soprano opera singer most recently seen in Opera Colorado’s production of Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas, in which she played Paula. Clayton was raised in Arkansas by a Methodist minister and got her feet wet doing musicals at church camp and in high school.

Clayton has appeared as Carmen in the Arizona Opera, The New York City Opera and The Austin Lyric Opera, opened New York City Opera’s 2009/10 season as Vashti in Hugo Weisgall’s Esther, sung the world premiere of Howard Shore’s The Fly at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris (produced by film director David Cronenberg) and later for the Los Angeles Opera. She’s performed Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the San Diego Symphony, and Verdi’s Requiem with the Winston-Salem Symphony… I could go on. I mean she’s been in a lot of things all over the world. She’s a big deal.

Clayton met her partner, opera soprano Patricia Racette, in 1997, at a party shortly before the two were set to go into production for Santa Fe Opera’s La traviata. Clayton was initially weary to reveal her sexual orientation, but in 2002, when Patricia Racette was featured on the cover of Opera News, they used that opportunity to come out in the pages of the magazine. In 2005, they got married!

---

12 Monumental Moments In Lesbian Blazer-Wearing History

It is a truth commonly acknowledged that queers are much better at blazers than other humans. Back in the day, we rocked blazers and suitjackets with style…

…and in the modern era, nobody does blazers better:

But this also means that we were especially vulnerable to the late ’80s-’90s terrible/AWESOME Blazer Situation. You know the situation I’m talking about.

There was a lot of that. There was also a little bit of this…

Furthermore there were often things like this:

But how did this impact the lesbians? Let’s look at some of these kickass moments in queer fashion history.

12 Retrobad/AWESOME ’80s/’90s Blazer Situations

1. k.d. Lang, 1989

2. Rosie O’Donnell, 1998

 3. Amanda Bearse, 1982 (with Sandra Bernhard)

4. Martina Navratilova, 1994

5. Ellen DeGeneres, 1997

6. Melissa Etheridge, 1989

7. Lily Tomlin, 1986

8. Jodie Foster, 1992

9. k.d Lang

10. Ellen Degeneres, 1996

11. Leisha Hailey, 1996

12. Riese, 1992