Entrepreneur

Author & Former President's Niece

b. May 3, 1965

“Donald … destroyed my father.  I can’t let him destroy my country.”

Mary L. Trump is a psychologist, an author and a political figure famous for her best-selling memoir, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.” The niece of former president Donald J. Trump, she has been a scathing critic of her uncle’s presidency and political influence.

Mary Trump was born in New York City to Linda Clapp and the former president’s older brother, Fred Trump Jr. Growing up, she lived mostly with her paternal grandparents in Queens, New York. She suffered a traumatic childhood marked by callous and chaotic family dynamics, abuse and neglect. Her father, who was devalued by her grandfather and uncle Donald, died from complications of alcoholism when Mary was 16. His death became a source of family strife.

Trump attended Tufts University as an undergraduate, then earned her master’s degree in English literature from Columbia University. She received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies at Adelphi University.

In a 2020 interview by The Advocate, Trump described her family as “anti everything” that was unlike them. Her grandmother denigrated Elton John for being gay, referring to him as “that little faggot.” Trump feared disownment if she came out as a lesbian. She kept her sexual orientation hidden for many years. When she eventually married a woman, she did not disclose her spouse’s identity.

Simon & Schuster published Trump’s first book, “Too Much and Never Enough,” in July 2020. In it, Trump reveals herself as the main source for the New York Times’s investigation of Donald Trump’s financial history. She also provides a professional assessment of the former president’s mental stability, saying he exhibits sociopathic tendencies. She considers him a “terrified little boy” who was never held to any standard of accountability.

During the 2020 election, Trump worked with LPAC, an organization that encourages and supports female LGBTQ+ candidates for public office. “If it’s only men making decisions about women’s issues or straight people making decisions about LGBTQ issues,” she said, “then that’s where we run into problems.” LPAC is credited with helping Senators Tammy Baldwin and Kyrsten Sinema, two of 11 openly LGBT members of Congress, get elected.

Trump lives with her daughter on Long Island, New York. She has owned multiple businesses and is the founder and CEO of The Trump Coaching Group, a life coaching organization. Her second book, “The Reckoning: America’s Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal” was published in August 2021.

U.S. Chief Technology Officer

b. October 21, 1964

“You have to iterate before you’re successful, you’re always learning with each step.”

Megan Smith is an award-winning technology expert, entrepreneur and activist who served as the nation’s chief technology officer in the Obama administration. She is the first female and the first lesbian to hold the position.

Smith grew up in Buffalo, New York, and Fort Erie, Ontario. She spent several childhood summers at the Chautauqua Institution, a nonprofit educational resort. Her mother was the director of the Chautauqua Children’s School.

Smith earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She completed her thesis at the MIT Media Lab and helped build a solar race car that competed in the first cross-continental solar car race.

Smith went on to work for General Magic in California, where she was the product design lead on emerging smartphone technologies, and at Apple in Tokyo. In 1995 she helped launch PlanetOut, an early leading LGBT website community, becoming its COO in 1996 and CEO in 1998. She was instrumental in forming partnerships between PlanetOut and AOL, Yahoo!, MSN and other industry innovators. Smith helped oversee PlanetOut’s successful merger with Gay.com, an LGBT dating and social media site.

In 2003 Smith joined Google, where she advanced to vice president of business development across the organization’s global partnership teams. She led important acquisitions of platforms such as Google Earth and Google Maps and created Google’s “Women Techmakers,” an initiative to promote women and diversity in the tech field.

Smith joined the Obama administration in 2017, becoming the third U.S. chief technology officer and assistant to the president. Smith and her team focused on leveraging policy and innovation to advance the technological capabilities of the White House.

After her White House tenure, Smith helped established Tech Jobs Tour to promote female and multicultural diversity in the American technology sector. In March 2018 she founded and became CEO of shift7, a company that uses technology to help tackle social, environmental and economic problems.

Smith serves on the boards of MIT, the MIT Media Lab, and Technology Review and is a member of the selection committee for the prestigious Caroll L. Wilson Award at MIT. The World Economic Forum named her a Technology Pioneer in 2001 and 2002, and Out magazine named her among its 50 most powerful LGBT people in the USA in 2012 and 2013.

Smith and her longtime partner, Kara Swisher, a technology journalist, married in 2008 and divorced in 2018. They have two sons.

Transgender Rights Advocate

b. November 28, 1980

“My mission is to prove that everyone has the right to pursue their dreams.”

Angelica Ross is a television actor and the founder and CEO of TransTech Social Enterprises, an organization that helps transgender people find work in the technology industry.

Born male, Ross grew up in Racine, Wisconsin. Perceived as feminine by the eighth grade, she came out as gay at age 17. Her evangelical Christian mother responded so negatively, Ross attempted suicide.

Ross entered the University of Wisconsin-Parkside but dropped out after one semester and joined the U.S. Navy to qualify for the G.I. Bill. After six months of service and harassment, Ross requested and received a discharge under the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy.

At age 19, Ross transitioned to female. Her mother and stepfather rejected her gender identity. Ross eventually went to live with her biological father in Roanoke, Virginia, where she waitressed so she could attend cosmetology school. After facing discrimination in Roanoke, she moved to Hollywood, Florida, where she overhauled a website for her employer and taught herself computer code. She used the experience to start her own web design and consulting firm, while she studied acting.

Ross later found a position as the employment coordinator at the Trans Life Center in Chicago, helping transgender people secure jobs and health care. In 2014 she launched her own nonprofit, TransTech Social Enterprises, to train transgender workers in technical computer skills and help them find employment. In 2015 she participated in the White House LGBTQ Tech and Innovation Summit as a featured speaker.

In 2016 Ross landed a role in “Her Story,” a web series about transgender women in Los Angeles. The same year, the program was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Form Comedy or Drama. Ross also served as executive producer and star of the short film “Missed Connections,” a black transgender love story. “Missed Connections” was an official selection at the 2017 Outflix and Outfest film festivals.

In 2018 Ross joined the cast of the critically acclaimed television series “Pose,” about New York City’s underground black and Latinx LGBT ballroom culture of the 1980s. The following year she starred as a psychologist in the FX television network series “American Horror Story.”

In 2018 the Financial Times named Ross a top 10 LGBT executive. In 2019 she served as a celebrity ambassador of the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Late in 2019, she became the first transgender person to host a national presidential candidate forum, when she hosted the official discussion of LGBTQ+ issues with the 2020 Democratic candidates. In January 2020, the luxury brand Louis Vuitton featured Ross in its ad campaign.

Indian Activist

b. April 6, 1985

“Loving another man does not make me a criminal.”

Keshav Suri is a prominent Indian activist and entrepreneur. He leads the The Lalit Suri Hospitality Group, which operates a chain of luxury hotels worldwide, and he founded India’s celebrated LGBTQ-friendly Kitty Su nightclub. In 2018 his petition of India’s Supreme Court ended in a landmark decision decriminalizing homosexuality.

Born in New Delhi, India, the son of a prominent hotelier and member of Parliament, Suri was bullied for being gay as a youth. As he matured, feeling the intense pressure imposed by a conservative, highly stratified society and his own family status, he considered marrying a lesbian to hide his sexual orientation. Ultimately unwilling to live a lie, he came out to his family and friends during graduate school in London.

At age 21, after his father died, Suri learned the hotel trade alongside his mother and sisters. As executive director of the family business, he has spearheaded various successful ventures across the hotel chain, including the Kitty Su nightclub. Kitty Su is the only nightclub in India to have been listed by GQ magazine among the top six nightclubs worldwide and by DJ Mag among the top 100 nightclubs in the world. Suri also founded The Lalit Food Truck Company and brought the first pop-up party concept to India.

Suri uses his position as an influential businessman to create opportunity and inclusion for LGBTQ+ and other marginalized people. In Indian cities, known for their exclusionary club scenes, Kitty Su has emerged as a welcoming nightspot for LGBT and disabled patrons and has helped introduce and grow drag culture in India. Kitty Su also welcomes acid burn survivors—the majority of whom are poor women—who Suri works to aid, both in their physical recovery and through job opportunities. Under Suri’s leadership, half of Kitty Su’s DJs are female and its resident DJ, Varun Khullar, a.k.a. DJ Aamish, is India’s first wheelchair-using DJ.

In June 2018 Suri married his partner of 10 years, Cyril Feuillebois, in Paris. At the time, the relationship alone—much less the marriage—was illegal in India. In 2017, as one of four other activists, Suri filed a petition in the Supreme Court of India to repeal Section 377 of the Penal Code, which banned gay sex. Three months after Suri wed, the high court unanimously struck down the law, decriminalizing homosexuality countrywide.

Suri and Feuillebois live in New Delhi.

Governor of Colorado

b. May 12, 1975

“I'm in this fight to build a Colorado economy that works for everyone.”

A member of the Democratic Party, Jared Polis is the first openly gay person—and only the second openly LGBT person—to be elected governor in the United States. A gifted entrepreneur and well-known philanthropist, he previously served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Colorado State Board of Education.

Polis was born to a Jewish family in Boulder, Colorado. He studied politics at Princeton University and started his first business, American Information Systems, in his college dorm room. By age 30, he had launched and sold three successful companies, including ProFlowers, one of the world’s leading online flower retailers. Passionate about education, he founded two innovative charter schools serving at-risk and immigrant youth and the Jared Polis Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports Colorado educators. He has used his wealth to generously support progressive causes.

Polis entered politics in 2000. In one of the closest races in Colorado history, he was elected to the State Board of Education, where he served until 2007. In 2008 he won a heavily contested election for U.S. representative of Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District. In his five terms in Congress, he co-introduced numerous legislative measures concerning education and affordable housing, including the 2011 Race to the Top Act, which rewards innovation and reforms in K-12 education. One of the first openly gay people and the first gay parent elected to the House of Representatives, he served as co-chair of the LGBT Equality Caucus and pushed for repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act.

In 2018 Polis was elected the 43rd governor of Colorado in a double-digit landslide. He campaigned to build a state economy that “works for everyone” and on issues such as education, lowering the cost of health care and transitioning to renewable energy. One of his top legislative priorities, state-paid full-day kindergarten, was signed into law in 2019.

On September 15, 2021, Polis married his longtime partner, Marlon Reis. The wedding was the first same-sex marriage of a sitting governor in U.S. history. Polis and Reis have two children.

Entrepreneur

b. August 19, 1919
d. February 24, 1990

“Failure is success if we learn from it.”

Malcolm Forbes was an American businessman and publisher of Forbes, a magazine founded by his father in 1917. 

The son of a Scottish-born journalist and an American mother, Forbes was born in Brooklyn and grew up in New Jersey. After graduating from Princeton as a political science major, Forbes enlisted in the Army in 1942 and served in Europe as a machine gunner in the 84th Infantry Division. He rose to the rank of staff sergeant before he was wounded in combat. He received both the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart for his heroism. 

Forbes served as a borough councilman and later as a state senator in New Jersey. He ran unsuccessfully for New Jersey governor in 1957. It was publishing, not politics, however, that would eventually cement his fame and fortune. 

Forbes acquired control of the family business in 1964, cultivating Forbes magazine into one of the most successful print publications in the world, covering real estate, finance and business. The magazine, which is published in print and online, is still owned and operated by his family. 

During the 1980s, Forbes became known for his lavish lifestyle and celebrity-studded parties. He regularly discussed his holdings, which included private jets, yachts, an international art collection and homes around the world. Actress Elizabeth Taylor co-hosted his legendary 70th birthday party in Morocco, for which the rich and famous were flown in on private jets. Forbes also gave millions of dollars to charity. His worth was estimated between $400 million and $1 billion.

In addition to life as a publishing mogul, Forbes became the first person to fly coast to coast in a hot air balloon; he also flew over Beijing, setting a world record. 

It was only after his death in 1990 that he was outed in a story called “The Secret Gay Life of Malcolm Forbes,” written by Michelangelo Signorile. In the controversial exposé Signorile asked, “Is our society so overwhelmingly repressive that even individuals as all-powerful as the late Malcolm Forbes feel they absolutely cannot come out of the closet?” The Forbes family has always denied the allegations. 

Forbes was married for 39 years and had five children.

DNC Treasurer

b.  April 20, 1947

“I wanted to tell young gay and lesbian kids and their parents that you can have a good, happy, productive life.”

Andrew Tobias is a well-known author and journalist, who has written several best-selling books. He was named treasurer of the Democratic National Committee in 1999 and has served on the board of directors of the Human Rights Campaign.

Tobias majored in Slavic languages and literature at Harvard, but demonstrated his business acumen running a million-dollar student business, Harvard Student Agencies, which included “Let’s Go: The Student Guide to Europe.” After graduating, he became vice president of the National Student Marketing Corporation and later wrote about the company’s demise in his book, “The Funny Money Game,” which garnered national attention. 

At 23 Tobias enrolled in Harvard Business School, while writing for New York magazine. He joined the publication as a contributing editor after graduation, where he covered finance. He went on to write for magazines such as Esquire, TIME, and Parade, and to create the best-selling "Managing Your Money" software, which inspired many in the 1980s to purchase their first home computers.

In 1973 Tobias wrote a coming-of-age memoir, “The Best Little Boy in the World,” under the pen name John Reid. He eventually took public credit when the book was republished in 1998. He followed it with “The Best Little Boy in the World Grows Up,” which discusses his life as an out gay man.

“I wanted to tell young gay and lesbian kids and their parents that you can have a good, happy, productive life if you’re gay,” Tobias said in an interview. “You can be out and be respected.”

During the AIDS crisis in the 1970s, many of Tobias’s friends fell victim to the disease. Much of his advocacy since has focused on LGBT rights and health education. “I am the first to admit that I have been blessed in life,” he said, “and this is one of the reasons I feel a very strong obligation to try and make a positive difference.” 

Tobias has published a dozen books, including three New York Times best sellers: “Fire and Ice,” a biography of Revlon founder Charles Revson; “The Invisible Bankers,” about the insurance industry; and “The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need,” which is in its seventh edition.

An anti-smoking advocate, Tobias once blanketed the former Soviet Union with nightly ads urging, "Kids! Don't become slaves to the tobacco companies like your parents." In 2014 he told the top leadership of the Chinese Communist Party that he and other elected officials of the Democratic party were LGBT. 

Tobias has received the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism, Harvard Magazine’s Smith-Weld Prize, the Consumer Federation of America Media Service Award, and GLSEN’s first Valedictorian Award. 

Tobias had a 16-year relationship with Charles Nolan, a fashion designer who died in 2011.

Rock Star

b. September 5, 1946, Zanzibar, Tanzania

d. November 21, 1991, London, England

“Success has brought me world idolization and millions of pounds. But it has prevented me from having the one thing we all need, a loving, ongoing relationship.”

Freddie Mercury ranks among the most sensational rock ’n’ roll vocalists in history. He was one of the leading musicians, record producers and songwriters of the 1980s.

Born Farrokh Bulsara to Parsi parents, Mercury was a British citizen who spent his childhood in India. At age 7, he began to study piano. When he was 8, he matriculated to an all-boys school near Bombay (now Mumbai). While enrolled there, he adopted the name “Freddie” and formed a band, the Hectics. In his teens, he moved with his family to Middlesex, England.

When he was 24, Mercury, with guitarist Brian May and percussionist Roger Taylor, formed Queen. Mercury designed the crest of the band, which features the zodiac signs of all the band members, a ribbon circled in the form of a Q and a phoenix symbolizing continual rebirth.

Mercury’s unique musical style blended pop, disco, rockabilly, and operatic influences. He wrote many of Queen’s most popular songs, including “Another One Bites the Dust,” “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” “We Are the Champions” and his elaborate masterpiece, “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

Mercury was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the UK Music Hall of Fame. He ranks 18 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of 100 greatest singers of all time. “Bohemian Rhapsody,” one of the best-selling singles of all time, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2004.

Mercury died at 44 of AIDS-related illness.

Movie Director

b. December 24, 1959, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

“I don't work with fear, and I don't work with actors that are fearful.”

Lee Daniels is an Academy Award nominated producer, director, screenwriter and actor.

Daniels survived a traumatic childhood. After being caught wearing his mother’s pumps, he was violently assaulted by his father. Daniels stated, “When I came out it was because I loathed my dad so much.”

Torment also followed Daniels to school. He was gay and black in a predominantly white school. “I was always told that I was nothing because I was gay,” he said.

At age 21, Daniels started a nurse-staffing agency, which he sold a year later. The sale made him a millionaire and allowed him to pursue his dream of working in the entertainment industry. He first worked as a casting director and later as a talent manager. He built a client base of Academy Award winners and nominees, most of whom later worked in Daniels’s films.

Daniels became a Hollywood force in 2001 when his production company released “Monster’s Ball,” a movie for which Halle Berry won the Oscar for Best Actress. Daniels later directed the film “Precious.” His experience as a sexually abused child inspired his direction of the film. “Precious” received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Director, and earned two Academy Awards.

In 2012 his film “The Paperboy,” with Nicole Kidman, was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

In 2013 Daniels directed the critically acclaimed film “The Butler,” with Oprah Winfrey, Forest Whitaker, John Cusack, Jane Fonda and Mariah Carey.

Artist   

b. May 8, 1920 

d. November 7, 1991

"My whole life long I have done nothing but interpret my dreams of ultimate masculinity, and draw them."

Tom of Finland was an artist whose sexually charged drawings of musclemen impacted gay culture. He is known as the most influential creator of homoerotic images. 

Born Touko Laaksonen in a small Finnish town, he was the son of two school teachers. At 19, Laaksonen moved to Helsinki to study advertising and began drawing erotic images. 

In 1957, he submitted drawings to Physique Pictorial, an American magazine, under the pseudonym Tom. When his gay-themed illustrations were published, the magazine credited Tom of Finland, a name he assumed for the remainder of his career. 

Tom introduced to mainstream culture a stylized masculinity in sharp contrast to the effeminate stereotypes of gay men. His work, which embraced sailors, bikers, lumberjacks and construction workers in leather and jeans, became popular and widely distributed in the gay community. 

In the late 1950s, U.S. censorship codes restricted depiction of “overt homosexual acts” and limited the distribution of Tom’s work. In the 1962 case of MANual Enterprises v. Day, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that nude male photographs were not obscene. As soft-core gay pornography flourished, Tom’s illustrations became more explicit, including exaggerated musculature and genitalia. 

By 1973, Tom was publishing erotic comic books and exhibiting his work in the mainstream art world. In 1984, he cofounded the Tom of Finland Foundation, which is dedicated to the preservation of homoerotic artwork. In 1995, the Tom of Finland Clothing Company introduced a fashion line based on his art. 

Tom created more than 3,500 illustrations in his four-decade career. Five of Tom of Finland’s drawings are featured in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Harvey Miller, an art patron, said, “Tom of Finland is one of the five most influential artists of the 20th century. As an artist he was superb, as an influence he was transcendent.”