Five iconic people of colour who are also LGBT role models
George Takei on the TCA Tour (Getty Images)
These people of colour are cultural icons in their own right in various fields – from literature to music.
What you may or may not also know, is that these celebs are all out and proud.
Below, PinkNews brings you a list of five people of colour who are also LGBT role models.
Roxane Gay
Roxane Gay (Getty)
Roxane Gay identifies as a bi woman, and is perhaps best-known for her New York Times best-seller, Bad Feminist. NPR named it book of the year.
Gay is the author of numerous best-selling books, and it isn’t a stretch to call her an LGBT polymath.
She’s an editor, an associate professor, and a publisher. She’s officially paving the way for young queers of colour. And her Twitter content isn’t bad either.
(@rgay/Twitter)
Michelle Rodriguez
Michelle Rodriguez (Getty)
Known best for playing Paul Walker’s love interest in the Fast and The Furious film series, Michelle Rodriguez is a Latina woman who hails from Texas.
She recently came out as bisexual telling Latina magazine: “What’s wrong with being bi?
“I mean, we’re getting flak everywhere we go.”
She enjoys DJing, tactical gun training, skydiving, and is a screenwriter on the side.
Kele
Kele Okereke in concert (Getty)
Anyone who was a teenager in the 2000s is likely to know Kele Okereke, best known as just ‘Kele’.
As the lead singer of one of Britain’s top crossover bands, Bloc Party, he and his band were often in the charts for hit singles like Flux, Banquet, and Helicopter.
Bloc Party took some time out in 2012, before returning to action with last year’s Hymns album. In his band’s time out Kele focused on his solo career.
He appeared on the front cover of an Australian zine titled ‘They Shoot Homos Don’t They?’ way back in 2005 and more formally came out as gay in BUTT magazine in 2010.
Lena Waithe
Lena Waithe on stage (Getty)
Lena Waithe is an American actress, producer and screenwriter. She’s best known for starring in the critically acclaimed Netflix show, Masters of None.
She plays Denise, the childhood best friend and confidante of Dev (Aziz Ansari).
Waithe is a lesbian and even infused her own coming-out story into one of the show’s episodes, ‘Thanksgiving’.
The actress received two Emmy nominations, one for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series, and the other for Writing for a Comedy Series, for ‘Thanksgiving’.
George Takei
George Takei in conversation (Getty)
George Takei is a Japanese-American actor, director, author and activist, and identifies as gay.
But you probably know him best from his role in the Star Trek television series. He played Hikaru Sulu, the helmsman of the USS Enterprise.
He is active in local and state-level politics, acting as a delegate in a number of Democratic conventions.
He came out in 2005, and told Howard Stern in a telephone interview that gay people “are masculine, we are feminine, we are caring, we are abusive.
“We are just like straight people, in terms of our outward appearance and our behaviour. The only difference is that we are oriented to people of our own gender.”
He has received numerous awards for his LGBT activism, including from the state of California, GLAAD, and the American Humanist Association.
