Queer POC Icons
Learn about some important, talented, and impressive queer people of color!
Stormé DeLarverie
1920 -2014
DeLarverie was a biracial butch lesbian from New Orleans who toured in a Black Theatre Circuit not only as the emcee but also as the only Drag King of the Jewel Box Revue in 1955. She was also a bouncer for several lesbian bars in NYC and held some leading positions in the Stonewall Veterans Association. She was nicknamed as the "guardian of lesbian village" as she served the community as a street patrol worker.
Gladys Bentley
1907 - 1960
Bentley was was a blues singer who bent gender stereotypes in the Harlem Renaissance. She is known as Harlem’s most famous lesbian.
Bayard Rustin
1912 - 1987
Rustinwas an LGBTQ+ and Civil Rights activist who was also known as a key advisor to MLK Junior. He organized the march on Washington (1963) against segregation, voting rights, and unemployment for all African Americans. He was also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously by Obama. Later on, his arrest in1953 was pardoned by governor Newson; he was found having sex with two men and had to serve 50 days in L.A. county jail and register as a sex offender. It was recognized by Newson how poorly and unfairly queer people were treated by U.S. law enforcement at the time.
Geena Rocero
1983 -
Rocero is an international model and transgender rights advocate. On International Day of Trans Visibility, she held a TED Talks and said, “The world makes you something that you're not, but you know inside what you are, and that question burns in your heart: How will you become that?” Her powerful coming out story went viral and she has since launched Gender Proud, a media production company that tells stories of the transgender community worldwide to elevate justice and equality.
Helen Zia
1952 -
Zia is an award-winning author and journalist who advocates for Asian-American/LGBTQ+ rights. Being at the forefront of Asian-American issues for decades, Zia, who is Chinese-American and openly lesbian, testified for the plaintiff's in the landmark case Perry v. Schwarzenegger in 2010; which challenged California’s now infamous, anti-marriage equality act, Proposition 8.
1984 -
Yan is a powerful poet and an electric voice for LGBT+ Asian-Americans. Their slam-poetry frequently draws from their experience as a queer, trans Asian-American, and has received recognition from New York Magazine, Curve, and HBO’s Asian Aloud.
José Sarria
1922 - 2013
Sarria was a drag queen and LGBTQ+ rights activist known as The Grand Mare, the Widow Norton, and Her Royal Majesty, Absolute Empress José I de San Francisco, he blazed trails not only as an openly gay man in the ’60s, but as a loud, proud, and visibly gay man. HE became the United States’ first openly gay public office candidate when he ran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1961. Although losing the election, he got 6,000 votes. He fought against the police force's harassment of the LGBTQ+ community.
Dennis deLeon
1948 - 2009
deLeon publicly disclosed his HIV status in an op-ed for the New York Times, becoming one of the first New York city officials to do so. He was a dedicated HIV/AIDS activist and Latino community leader who served as both the New York City Human Rights Commissioner and President of the Latino Commission on AIDS. During his tenure as president, the organization grew from a small local organization with a staff of two into a national organization with 45 employees and a $5 million budget. The organization translated AIDS information into Spanish, built networks of Spanish-language AIDS prevention programs, and raised awareness of AIDS in the Latino community.
Horacio Roque Ramírez
1969 - 2015
Ramírez was a Salvadoran-American writer, LGBTQ+ rights advocate, and oral historian who focused his work on the experiences of LGTBQ+ Central American Latinos. At the time of his death, Ramírez was working on a book compiling the oral history of Latino communities in San Francisco. He was one of the first historians to study and chronicle the lives of gay Latinos in the Mission District.