Out Magazine Releases Their 100 LGBTQ Influencers of 2018!
Billy Porter Is The Performer Of The Year!
One of my favorite LGBTQ publications, Out Magazine, released their yearly list of their top 100 influential members of our community. Many times I have strongly questioned with their decisions on who to highlight, but today I am completely impressed by their collective decision to include more than YouTube personalities, hot white guys, and celebrities in 2018. Now, we are graced with likeable and colorful characters who certainly deserve the recognition and applause from our community.
Topping the list with Performance of the Year is Billy Porter in Pose. Literally everyone should be giving Porter a standing ovation due to his raw character of Pray Tell, an emcee to the New York ball scene. His storyline includes losing a love to HIV while dealing with the news of his own infection, and that of his friends. In general, Pose is a groundbreaking series which should be recognized nationally as perhaps the greatest LGBTQ television series for a particular urban niche within our community. The love for Pose was well received by Out: Creator Ryan Murphy, Actresses Indya Moore, Mj Rodriguez, Dominque Jackson, and Director+Adviser Janet Mock (who I believe is sole reason the series saw much success) are also honored.
Newsmaker of the Year went to Emma Gonzalez, a survivor of the Stoneman Douglas High School Shooting turned Activist, who continues to interrogate NRA advocates. The *new* Queer Eye, Fab 5 (Bobby Berk, Karamo Brown, Tan France, Antoni Porowski, and Jonathan Van Ness) earn the title of Entertainers of the Year. A Musician who I haven’t heard of, Sophie, scored big as Artist of the Year. Thankfully an easy Google search gave me her website. ABC Reporter, Karl Schmid, is recognized after revealing he is HIV-Positive, while Cynthia Nixon AKA Miranda from Sex and the City, received Hero of the Year after her failed race for Governor of New York. World of Wonder’s moguls: Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey, gain the title of Media Pioneers, rightfully so. Rupaul’s Drag Race has drag queens in mainstream media.Llike, small town nowhere has drag race parties. How mind blowingly awesome is that?
My favorite stand out of the crowd is Anthony Rapp. If you don’t know Rapp from his acting credits (RENT, Road Trip) then you should definitely know him as the person to publicly come forward with allegations of child sexual abuse at the hands of infamous Kevin Spacey. Rapp debatably incorporated the LGBTQ community within the #MeToo movement and it’s been downhill for any sexual predator since. There are still dominoes waiting to fall…
Other honorees include Saturday Night Live’s Kate McKinnon, RuPaul’s Drag Race girls Peppermint and Aquaria, Will and Grace Executive Producer (and smokeshow!) Max Mutchnick, and Comedian Wanda Sykes. But of course, that’s only the beginning of the list of influential community members. To see the full list of community activists, artists, medical professionals, students, and so much more, head here!
Cynthia Nixon ??? Who made
Cynthia Nixon ??? Who made such a fool of herself in politics ?
Well, at least she ran. You
Well, at least she ran. You regularly make a fool of yourself just commenting about politics.
You make a bigger fool
You make a bigger fool responding to me and defending someone …..because she ran ? Pat Robertson ran for President too.
What a list of (mostly)
What a list of (mostly) horrors. Munroe Bergdorf..a vicious anti-white racist ? The staff of Out need their heads examined.