Lesbian

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.

Decorated WWII Veteran

b. April 4, 1922
d. December 30, 1997

“It would be unfair of me not to tell you, my name is going to head the list.”

Nell Louise “Johnnie” Phelps was a decorated World War II veteran and a lesbian rights activist. She dissuaded General Dwight D. Eisenhower from “ferreting out” the lesbians in her army detachment. “There were almost 900 women in the battalion,” Phelps later reported, “I could honestly say that 95% of them were lesbians.”

Phelps was born in North Carolina and raised by adoptive parents who abused her. She spent much of her youth in trouble with the law and eventually married a sailor. In 1943 she joined the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) to escape her marriage. The WAC, created during World War II, allowed women to serve in the military in non-combat positions. Phelps became a medic and earned the rank of sergeant.

While stationed in the South Pacific, Phelps met a lover in the corps, but lost her in 1944 when she was killed in a bombing. In 1945, after being wounded herself, Phelps received a Purple Heart and was honorably discharged. She reenlisted in the WAC a year later.

The second time, Phelps served in the post-war occupation of Germany under General Eisenhower, whom she greatly admired. He reportedly told Phelps he heard there were lesbians in the WAC and ordered her to “ferret” them out. Her response became military legend.

Phelps famously told Eisenhower she would be happy to oblige, but her name would be first on the list. Eisenhower’s secretary chimed in that her own name would come first.

Phelps explained that lesbians were serving in every role and rank in the corps. What’s more, they were not only the most decorated members but also were without any misconduct charges or pregnancies.

Eisenhower withdrew the order.

After a second honorable discharge, Phelps started her own printing business. In the early ’70s, she moved to Southern California, where she met her life partner, Grace Bukowski. Phelps joined the National Organization for Women (NOW), and in 1979 started NOW’s Whittier, California, chapter.

Phelps served as chair of the Lesbian Rights Task Force and was appointed to the Los Angeles Commission on Veterans’ Affairs. She helped lead the March for Gay Rights in Sacramento and advocated for women charged with homosexual misconduct. As a recovering alcoholic, she also became president of the Alcoholism Center for Women.

Phelps appeared in several documentaries, including “Trailblazers: Unsung Military Heroines of WWII.” In 1993 the Veterans for Human Rights hosted the Sgt. Johnnie Phelps Annual Awards Banquet in her honor.

Phelps died in 1997 in Barstow, California. Her partner donated her papers and effects to the ONE Gay and Lesbian Archives.

Deputy White House Press Secretary

b. August 13, 1977

“America is progressing towards a stronger, more inclusive future — and I know women of color are a driving force in that evolution.”

An immigrant, an activist and an author, Karine Jean-Pierre was named principal White House deputy press secretary in January 2021. She made history as the first Black person in 30 years — and the first out lesbian — to address the White House press corps.

Jean-Pierre was born in Martinique, the eldest child of Haitian parents who fled the dictatorship of François Duvalier. When Jean-Pierre was 5, her family moved to Queens, New York, in pursuit of the American dream. Instead, like so many immigrants, her parents faced financial hardship. Her father, a trained engineer, drove a taxi to support the family. Her mother worked as a home health aide.

Feeling like the ultimate “outsider” and under immense pressure to succeed, Jean-Pierre suffered from depression and attempted suicide in early adulthood. She discusses her struggles and achievements and offers advice to aspiring young changemakers in her political memoir, “Moving Forward: A Story of Hope, Hard Work, and the Promise of America” (2019).

Jean-Pierre earned a bachelor's degree from the New York Institute of Technology and a master’s degree in public affairs in 2003 from Columbia University. After graduate school, she served as a regional political director of John Edwards’s 2004 presidential campaign and Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign. When Obama was elected president, Jean-Pierre was named regional political director for the White House Office of Political Affairs. In 2012 she became the deputy battleground states director of President Obama’s reelection campaign.

In 2014 Jean-Pierre began teaching at Columbia University and served as campaign manager for the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Initiative. She joined MoveOn.org, the progressive policy advocacy group, in 2016. She became its chief public affairs officer and provided regular commentary on MSNBC and NBC News.

In 2019, during a political forum she was moderating, Jean-Pierre jumped between presidential candidate Kamala Harris and an angry protester who rushed the stage. “Here comes this guy with all of his male privilege,” Jean-Pierre said, recounting the experience as both scary and insulting. He insisted he had something “better to talk about.”

In 2020 the Biden campaign tapped Jean-Pierre to serve as a senior advisor. She became campaign chief of staff for Harris, then the vice presidential nominee, making Jean-Pierre the first Black person and the first out lesbian to hold the position. In 2021 the Biden administration named Jean-Pierre principal deputy press secretary in a historic move that also placed her on the first all-female White House communications team.

Jean-Pierre lives in Washington, D.C., with her wife, Suzanne Malveaux, a national CNN correspondent, and their daughter, Soleil.

Singer-Songwriter

b. April 7, 1951

“Truth is not the enemy, and whatever does not kill us sets us free.”

Janis Ian is a folk singer-songwriter and lifelong activist. She has won three Grammy Awards and been nominated for 10.

Born in Farmingdale, New Jersey, to a liberal Jewish family, Ian grew up on a farm. She began playing piano at age 2 and guitar at age 10.

In 1965, at age 14, Ian wrote “Society’s Child” (“Baby I’ve Been Thinking”). The song was released the following year and reached No. 14 on the Billboard 100. Even so, Ian was harassed both on- and offstage for its lyrics, which depict an interracial relationship. In 1967 she was nominated for her first Grammy for Best Folk Performance.

In 1975 Ian performed on the premiere episode of “Saturday Night Live.” The following year she won two Grammy Awards, including Best Pop Female Vocalist, and was nominated for three more.

Ian married an abusive man in 1978 and divorced him five years later. She moved to Nashville “penniless, in debt, and hungry to write.”

In 1992 Ian came out as a lesbian and started her own label, Rude Girl Records. After a nine-year music-industry hiatus, she released the album, “Breaking Silence” (1993). It was nominated for a Grammy for Best Folk Album.

Ian became a columnist in 1994. She wrote for The Advocate until 1997 and for Performing Songwriter until 2001. In 1998 she and her future wife founded The Pearl Foundation in honor of Ian’s mother. Since its inception, the organization has donated more than $1.2 million in college scholarships to support returning students.

Ian’s mother, Pearl, put her lifelong dream of attending college on hold when she married at age 18. When Ian was 15, Pearl was diagnosed with MS. Ian then convinced her mother to return to school and paid for her tuition. Ian insists “the proudest thing” she ever did “was sending her to college.”

In 2001 Ian began publishing her science fiction short stories online. She was one of the first recording artists with a personal website and controversially maintained that “free Internet downloads are good for the music industry and its artists.”

In 2002 Ian’s debut song, “Society’s Child,” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 2008 her hit single “At Seventeen” was also inducted. Ian’s autobiography, “Society’s Child” (2008), earned her a 2009 Grammy (Best Spoken Word) for the audiobook. She was nominated again in 2016 for her reading of the lesbian classic, “Patience and Sarah.”

Ian has been honored by the New York State Senate and the Human Rights Campaign. She lives in Nashville with her wife.

Miss Universe Contestant

b. November 16, 1999

“If I say that I’m a lesbian, it will have a big impact on the LGBTQ community back in Burma.”

Swe Zin Htet is a Burmese model and beauty pageant winner. In 2019, as the reigning Miss Myanmar, she became the first out lesbian to compete in the 67-year-old Miss Universe contest. In Myanmar (also known as Burma), homosexual conduct is criminalized.

Swe Zin Htet was born to a Buddhist family in rural Burma. She spent much of her time meditating and maintaining the family’s shrine to the Buddha.

Around the age of 15 or 16, Swe Zin Htet discovered her attraction to women. She came out to her parents, who were initially shocked and unsupportive. She told People magazine, “The difficult thing is that in Burma, LGBTQ people are not accepted.”

At age 16, Swe Zin Htet began competing in beauty pageants. In 2016 she was crowned Miss Golden Land Myanmar and won Miss Supranational Myanmar the same year, earning her a spot at Miss Supranational 2016. She took home the Miss Personality title from that pageant and set her sights on the Miss Universe competition. She won Miss Universe Myanmar in 2019, qualifying her for the international contest in Atlanta, Georgia, later that year.

A week before the global Miss Universe competition, Swe Zin Htet came out publicly on the beauty blog “Missology” to capitalize on the publicity surrounding the pageant. She also took to Instagram, posting a photo collage of herself and her girlfriend of three years, Gae Gae — a popular Burmese singer — with the word “proud” and a rainbow flag emoji.

“I have that platform that, if I say that I’m a lesbian, it will have a big impact on the LGBTQ community back in Burma.” Swe Zin Htet said. Although she did not take home the crown, she made an undeniable impact on the Miss Universe contest, which aired in more than 190 countries. “We are honored to give a platform to strong, inspirational women like Miss Universe Myanmar,” pageant organizers said. “[We] will always champion women to be proud of who they are.”

Beyond its global impact, Swe Zin Htet’s coming out was particularly brave, as consensual homosexual conduct remains illegal in Burma, carrying a potential prison sentence of 10 years or more. She hopes her confident self-acceptance will inspire legislative and social change.

Though Swe Zin Htet largely avoids publicity, she stays active on social media. She spends most of her time modeling.
 

American Suffragist

b. February 15, 1820
d. March 13, 1906

“Men their rights and nothing more; women their rights and nothing less.”

Susan Brownell Anthony was an American activist central to the women’s suffrage movement. She rallied for women’s voting and labor rights and for the abolition of slavery. Her efforts were foundational to securing women’s voting rights in America.

Anthony was born in Adams, Massachusetts. She grew up in a Quaker household, raised with the belief that all people are equal in God’s eyes. Quaker values underpinned Anthony’s lifelong battle for equality. Her seven siblings also became women’s rights activists and abolitionists.

In 1846 Anthony began teaching at Canajoharie Academy in New York. Five years later, she traveled to Seneca Falls for the seminal abolitionist convention. There, she forged friendships with Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who inspired her to include the abolition of slavery in her activism. Anthony eventually became the chief New York agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society, which Garrison founded.

In 1851 Anthony and Stanton began working and traveling the country together in the fight for women’s rights. Anthony gathered signatures for petitions and spoke publicly about women’s suffrage, despite the taboo against women making speeches. She faced angry hecklers who claimed her campaign was an attempt to destroy the institution of marriage. She was nearly arrested many times for speaking out.

Anthony and Stanton became lovers and lifelong companions. In 1866 they created the American Equal Rights Association, which distributed a newspaper called The Revolution. They used the publication to address all aspects of women’s equality, but especially suffrage, eliciting both love and hate from the citizenry. Detractors labeled Anthony “manly” — one of the worst insults a woman of the era could receive. Anthony countered with a published essay titled “The New Century’s Manly Woman.”

After the 15th Amendment was proposed, ensuring the right of Black men to vote, Anthony and Stanton were outraged that women were excluded. They formed the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869 to pressure Congress to include women’s voting rights. In 1870 the U.S. ratified the 15th Amendment, leaving women out. Anthony managed to vote in the next election anyway. The police arrested her, and she received a $100 fine, which she refused to pay.

Though rarely acknowledged, Anthony is one of the most famous lesbians in American history. In addition to Elizabeth Stanton, she is known to have had relationships with a least tw oother women.

Anthony died at the age of 86. Fourteen years later, the United States ratified the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote. In 1979 she became the first woman depicted on a circulating U.S. coin.

National Rabbinical Leader

b. February 20, 1967

“Creating a world that goes beyond inclusion, that embraces people in their unique differences, is work for us all.”

Rabbi Deborah Waxman is the first woman and the first lesbian to lead a Jewish seminary and national congregational union. She serves as president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC) and of Reconstructing Judaism, the leading organization of the Reconstructionist movement.

Waxman was born to conservative Jewish parents in West Hartford, Connecticut. Her father was a traveling salesman and her mother was the president of their synagogue’s sisterhood.

Waxman earned her bachelor’s degree in religion from Columbia University, her Master of Hebrew Letters from the RRC, and her doctorate in American Jewish history from Temple University. She also completed a certificate in Jewish women's studies from the RRC in conjunction with Temple University.

In 1999 the RRC ordained Waxman. She began teaching at the seminary and served as the rabbi of Congregation Bet Haverim in New York, before becoming vice president for governance of the RRC. In that role, she merged the RRC and the Jewish Reconstructionist Communities. Together, they form the Jewish Reconstructionist movement. In 2014 she became its president.

Waxman won grants from prominent donors, such as the Kresge, the Wexner, and the Cummings Foundations. She led initiatives to create interactive digital content, to bolster Reconstructionist Judaism’s ties to Israel and to help young people through camping programs.

Waxman is regarded as the Reconstructionist movement’s thought leader. She has provided an important voice for feminism in Judaism, encouraging gender equality in Jewish leadership. A member of the Academic Council of the American Jewish Historical Society, she researches, writes and speaks at conferences about Jewish identity, women in American Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism. Publications such as The Times of Israel, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, HuffPost, Forward, and other media and academic outlets have published her articles. She also created and hosts the podcast “Hashivenu: Jewish Teachings on Resilience.”

In 2015 Waxman was named to the “Forward 50,” a list of Jewish Americans “who have made a significant impact on the Jewish story.” She was interviewed by MSNBC following the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in October 2018, and she wrote an opinion piece on Jewish values amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Waxman lives in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, with her partner, Christina Ager, a professor at Arcadia University.

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.

Seventh Century B.C. Poet

b. 630 B.C.
d. 570 B.C.

“You who judge me, for me you are nothing.” 

Sappho was a lone female voice among the great ancient Greek lyric poets. She flourished in an age when women were rarely afforded a formal education, a place outside the home or a standing among men.

Born to aristocratic parents, Sappho lived most of her life in Mytilene on the Greek island of Lesbos. She had at least two brothers, Larichus and Charaxus. One of her poems describes a daughter, Cleis. Experts have long debated the facts of her personal life, including her sexuality and her marriage to Ceryclas, a wealthy man from the island of Andros.

In the third century B.C., Alexandrian scholars collected Sappho’s poetry into nine books. Today, only fragments of various lengths remain. Just two of her complete poems have survived.

In ancient Greece, “lyric” poetry was meant to be sung, accompanied by a harp-like instrument known as a lyre. Sappho would have been a musician as well as a poet. Her sensual songs largely conveyed themes of eroticism, passion and longing—explicitly toward women. Examples from her canon include a hymn to Aphrodite, the goddess of sexual love and beauty, calling upon her to join the poet as a “comrade in arms.” In Fragment 31, Sappho speaks of her yearning for a woman in the company of a man: “He seems to me an equal of the gods—whoever gets to sit across from you and listen to the sound of your sweet speech so close to him.”

Sappho became a symbol of female same-sex ardor. The word “sapphic,” referring to the unique style of four-line stanzas she devised, comes from her name, and “lesbian” derives from her home on Lesbos.

Throughout history, Sappho’s lyrics sparked praise and controversy. Ancient critics celebrated her work and poets imitated it. The Greeks referred to Homer as “the poet” and Sappho as “the Poetess.” Plato, who generally disapproved of poetry, called her the “tenth Muse.” She was honored on coins and in public statuary. Christian censors through various ages in Alexandria, Rome and Constantinople rejected her work. In the first millennium A.D., Saint Gregory of Nazianzus and Pope Gregory VII ordered her verses burned. Victorian moralists and literary editors condemned her.

Sappho’s impact is clear: she altered existing ideas about poetry, which had previously been ceremonial, structured and impersonal. She turned it into an art form, creating unique meter and intimate, descriptive language directed toward female love interests and friends. Scholars recognize Sappho as one of the great poets of world literature.

Co-Owner of the Chicago Cubs

b. December 15, 1967

“I think the Cubs have come quite a long way … I'd like to see it expand for the LGBT community.”

Laura Ricketts is a lawyer, a philanthropist, a businesswoman and the first openly LGBT co-owner of an American major-league sports franchise. She is also an activist who supports LGBT and Democratic causes.

Ricketts and her three brothers grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. She is the daughter of John Joseph Ricketts, the multibillionaire founder and former CEO of TD Ameritrade. Ricketts’s brother Pete is the governor of Nebraska. Her brother Tom is chairman of the Chicago Cubs.

Raised in a conservative Catholic family, Ricketts worried about coming out. In the early 1990s she told her family, and to her relief, they were immediately supportive.

Ricketts earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago in 1994 and her Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1998. She became a corporate attorney practicing with Schiff, Hardin & Waite, a Chicago law firm.

Ricketts left the practice to cofound Ecotravel, LLC—a company dedicated to promoting ecotourism worldwide—that operated Ecotravel.com, an online magazine. The Wall Street Journal named Ecotravel.com one of the top websites of its kind in 2002.

Ricketts has generously supported organizations such as Lambda Legal, GayCo Productions, Opportunity Education and the Democratic Party. She serves on the boards of Lambda Legal and Housing Opportunities for Women (HOW), Inc., an organization supporting homeless women and children in Chicago.

Although her parents and siblings are Republicans, Ricketts champions Democratic politics. She co-chaired the Democratic National Committee’s LGBT Leadership Council and became the cofounder and chairwoman of LPAC, the first lesbian political action committee. She was a prominent fundraiser for President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign and for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. At the 2016 Democratic National Convention, Ricketts served as an Illinois superdelegate.

In October 2009, with her brother as board chairman, the Ricketts family paid $845 million for 95% ownership of the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field. Ricketts and her brothers are board members of the Cubs.

In 2013 the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame inducted Ricketts. In June 2015 she married Brooke Skinner, an executive at Cars.com. They live in Chicago with their daughter.