Full List: Australia’s Pride 100 – our top newsmakers from the LGBTQIA+ community
More people have realised their sexuality or gender identity is no barrier to a high-flying career. Meet some of the corporate movers and shakers from Australia’s LGBTQIA+ community.
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This list of 100 Australian newsmakers reveals a profound shift that has taken place in our country in recent years.
Back in the ’90s, there were very few gay men and lesbians who were household names in this country, and even fewer trans people.
That’s changed dramatically. More and more people have realised their sexuality or gender identity is no impediment to a career in sport, or on TV, or in business, or parliament. We’ve had female sporting stars kiss their girlfriends after matches; celebrities debuting same-sex partners on social media and red carpets; even a male MP proposing to his partner from the floor of federal parliament.
Almost everyone who was ever rumoured to be in the closet is now out of it.
And this list celebrates that fact.
Coinciding with WorldPride celebrations in Sydney, our Pride 100 list identifies the biggest newsmakers from Australia’s LGBTQIA+ community.
Our list was developed by a team of News Corp reporters, straight and gay, working in a range of specialist areas in sports, entertainment, politics and business, including David Mills, Jonathon Moran, Kathy McCabe, Sarrah Le Marquand, Nicholas Fonseca and Nadia Salemme.
The list recognises the proudly out Aussies who make headlines. We chose to focus on those people with a truly national profile, whose newsworthiness cuts across state boundaries, and although we take our hats off to the great Australians who came out decades ago (when it was a tougher proposition), this list reflects those who are at the forefront in 2023.
The organisers of WorldPride have devised their own list of Rainbow Champions, who will lead a march over Sydney’s Harbour Bridge on Sunday, March 5. The lists have some crossover, but where the Rainbow Champions list recognises community contribution, the Pride 100 list identifies the newsmakers.
For Professor Dennis Altman, who has been writing about these issues for more than 50 years,
the Australian same-sex marriage debate proved to be a pivotal moment in the shift towards more well-known people coming out.
“The marriage vote is important because it represented much more than marriage. It actually represented a sign that being homosexual was acceptable, and what’s really interesting about the marriage vote is that it was passed in parts of the country that nobody would have really expected,” he said.
“Several people who are very well known like Ian Thorpe and Magda Szubanski really came out as part of that whole debate, and after that vote it clearly became much easier for people to come out,” Prof Altman said.
The big increase in “outness” was not a uniquely Australian phenomenon, he said, but what has happened here was “comparable to other western countries”.
There were trends within the trend, though, that had not been anticipated a generation ago, Prof Altman said – namely the “huge upsurge” in people identifying as trans, as well as the sheer number of younger people coming out.
THE ARTS
COURTNEY ACT
Drag queen
When the then 21-year-old Courtney Act (real name Shane Jenek) sang her way into Australian Idol in 2003, almost making her way into the final 10, few could have predicted she would still be earning a crust in a wig and heels two decades later. A reality TV stalwart, Act has won a UK series of Celebrity Big Brother, came runner-up on the Australian Dancing With The Stars, and competed on RuPaul’s Drag Race. With a long list of other stage and TV credits to her name, Act shows no sign of wanting to hang up her heels just yet, releasing her memoir in 2021 and starring in Blithe Spirit for the Sydney Theatre Company in 2022. She will co-host the opening concert for WorldPride in Sydney on February 24.
NEIL ARMFIELD
Director
A true giant of Australia’s performing arts, Armfield stepped down as Artistic Co-Director of the Adelaide Festival last year, a position he had held since 2017. Now 67, Armfield has directed for film, stage and television, with some of his greatest artistic successes including the acclaimed stage adaptations of Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet and Kate Grenvile’s The Secret River, the musical Keating! and various stage versions of Patrick White’s plays. He has also directed a number of gay-themed works, including Angels in America for the stage and Holding the Man for film. He was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2007. Last year he also revealed to The Australian he was the victim of a gay-hate attack in Sydney in 1986.
TONY AYRES
Film maker
Born in Macau, 60-year-old Ayres is one of Australia’s most successful TV producers, with a slate of shows including Fires, Stateless, Barracuda and The Slap to his credit. He’s also directed a number of feature films, and written extensively about his own identity as a gay Australian of Chinese descent. In recent years his work has been more international in focus, exemplified by the thriller series Clickbait for Netflix in 2021.
MURRAY BARTLETT
Actor
2022 was an exceptional year for 51-year-old Bartlett, scooping up the Emmy for his supporting role in the first season of The White Lotus and crowned GQ’s man of the year. But success was a long time coming for the Sydney-born NIDA graduate, who served his “apprenticeship” on a slew of Aussie TV soaps in the 1990s, with appearances in Neighbours, E Street, The Flying Doctors and more. He has since landed some big roles on the American small screen, starring in Iron Fist, Damages and Nashville, and most recently in Welcome to Chippendales. He’s also brought a number of gay characters to the screen, with roles in Sex and The City, Looking, Tales of the City and a memorable episode of The Last of Us.
JOEL CREASEY
Comedian
Currently one of the hosts of NOVA FM’s national drive-time radio show, 32-year-old Joel Creasey worked the stand-up circuit with back-to-back touring of shows in the early 2010s, before pivoting to TV and radio. He’s now one of the most familiar faces on Aussie TV, appearing in a wide range of panel and light entertainment shows, including the Eurovision broadcast, I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! and Neighbours. A sharp observer of the funny side of gay life, Creasey also disclosed (boasted?) he had an affair with a closeted AFL footballer in his 2017 memoir Thirsty: Confessions of a Fame Whore.
TIM DRAXL
Singer/actor
Tim Draxl has spent more than half his life in the public eye, thanks to a debut album released when he was just 17. The 41-year-old has since stepped into acting, with roles in film (A Few Best Men), stage (last year’s touring production of Jagged Little Pill) and TV (a recurring role on A Place To Call Home, and the upcoming ABC AIDS drama, In Our Blood). In recent years he’s also exhibited his abstract expressionist paintings, and built a strong social media following (34,000 on Instagram). In 2020, Draxl revealed to the Star Observer in his early days he was “flat out told that if I wanted a career in the entertainment industry that I couldn’t be gay … this stopped me from being who I naturally was.”
WESLEY ENOCH
Playwright, festival director
An accomplished playwright, 53-year-old Enoch is a former Artistic Director of the Sydney Festival and has worked in senior artistic roles for a range of Australian companies, including the Queensland Theatre Company, Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir and Kooemba Jdarra Indigenous Performing Arts. A Noonuccal Nuugi man, Enoch has revealed that when he came out as gay, his sister Leeanne (who is now a minister in the Queensland state government) “advocated on my behalf to our parents who didn’t understand at the time”. Among his many directorial triumphs was the original production of The Sapphires, which won the Helpmann Award for Best Play in 2005, and last year’s production of A Raisin in the Sun for STC. Enoch met his partner, choreographer David McAllister, at the 2020 Summit in Canberra in 2008.
SOPHIA FORREST
Actor
She’s the daughter of one of Australia’s most high-profile couples, Andrew and Nicola Forrest, but 28-year old Sophia Forrest is fast making her own name as an actor, with roles in Aquaman, Ride Like a Girl and Barons, among other credits. She announced her engagement to partner Zara Zoe last April, writing: “She makes heaven a place on earth.”
HANNAH GADSBY
Comedian
The Hollywood Reporter called it “stand-up’s ultimate mic drop” and the Netflix streaming of Hannah Gadsby’s 2018 show Nanette propelled her into a global level of fame. The 44-year-old Tasmanian-born performer had been working the Australian circuit consistently for over a decade before Nanette’s incredible deconstruction of comedy took the world by storm. It also earned her a Prime time Emmy Award for writing. Gadsby’s follow-up show, Douglas, touched on her autism diagnosis, while last year’s Body of Work is expected to stream on Netflix later this year.
LIV HEWSON
Actor
Twenty-seven-year-old Liv Hewson has an enviable record of US screen credits, despite the lack of an Aussie soap springboard. Among other appearances, she has featured in Santa Clarita Diet, Marvel’s Inhumans and Top of the Lake. Coming out as non-binary in 2016, Hewson offered some timely advice on pronouns when she spoke to the Daily Telegraph’s Confidential section in 2021. “Saying the wrong thing is fine so long as you are not trying to hurt anybody, because that is how people learn and that is how people connect to each other,” they said. “My biggest advice to people who see pronoun usage as a hurdle, is just honestly relax. The advice is there, people will tell you what the right thing to call them is.”
KEIYNAN LONSDALE
Actor/Dancer/Singer
Sydney-born, LA-based “triple threat” Keiynan Lonsdale has been burning up screens both big and small over the past five years with roles in The Flash as well as the Divergent film series and the gay-themed Love, Simon. Working on that film had a profound effect on the then-25 year old. “When I went to do this film and I was still withholding information from my cast, I felt like a bit of a hypocrite where we are telling this story about embracing who you are and your sexuality, and I wasn’t being myself. It just made me really reflect on everything,” he told the Daily Telegraph in 2018. In interviews, the Nigerian-Australian star has stated he does not put a label on his sexuality – though, with a debut album called Rainbow Boy, he’s not hiding it either.
JAMES MAJOOS
Actor
The revamped Heartbreak High has become an unexpected global hit, praised for the way it taps into the realities of life in the 21st century. Sexuality plays a big part in that story with non-binary actor James Majoos a breakout star with their character, Darren. The child of South African immigrants, Majoos appeared in the debut stage production of Fangirls and was tapped to perform the title role in a production of the musical Everyone’s Talking About Jamie, which was later canned because of Covid. Featured in the current Pride issue of Vogue Australia, Majoos says: “I’m lucky to have a close circle of people who inspire me constantly by not doing much apart from being themselves – that’s why I love them, why I chose them, they’re mine.”
MAGGIE (MAX) MCKENNA
Actor
Maggie McKenna sang their way to national attention in 2017, playing the title role in the stage musical of Muriel’s Wedding, putting their own stamp on the character made famous by Toni Collette in the 1994 movie. Appearances in Dear Evan Hansen, Fun Home and Jagged Little Pill followed. The only child of Kath’n’Kim’s Gina Riley and producer Rick McKenna, McKenna opened up about their trans/non-binary status in Stellar in 2022. In another interview they said: “Getting to play queer roles has been incredible … Fun Home really helped me feel confident in a public setting to be more authentically queer and non-binary.”
TODD MCKENNEY
Performer
A well-known presence on the Australian small screen, 57-year-old McKenney has been a tough and – let’s face it – occasionally bitchy judge on Dancing With The Stars for 17 of its 19 seasons. But McKenney has proven his own performance skills time and again since the 1980s in a string of stage hits including The Boy From Oz, 42nd Street, Anything Goes, Orpheus in the Underworld and, most recently, in Hairspray.
NICK MITZEVICH
National Gallery of Australia (NGA) Director
Nick Mitzevich has held arguably the pre-eminent position in Australian visual art since July 2018, after eight years at the Art Gallery of South Australia, where he developed a reputation for a diverse artistic program, championing Australian artists such as Ben Quilty and Del Kathryn Barton, and fundraising. While some of his plans for the NGA were delayed because of Covid-19, in 2019 he launched Know My Name, a project designed to raise the profile of Australian women artists, and commissioned Patricia Piccinini’s extraordinary hot air balloon sculpture Skywhalepapa, which made its phantasmagorical debut over Canberra’s skies in 2021.
RUBY ROSE
Actor
You could call Ruby Rose the ultimate slashie – she’s been a model, actor, presenter – but with her striking, androgynous looks and multiple tattoos (some reports put her ink tally as high as 109), she’s unequivocally in the global cool business. Coming to prominence as a VJ with MTV Australia in 2007 – and open about her sexuality from the get-go – Rose joined the ranks of the globally famous around 2013 when she joined the cast of Orange Is The New Black. She was quickly hailed by Vanity Fair for her “3D-printed cheekbones” and “one of the best short-hair games in the biz”. She’s never looked back, with roles in John Wick and The Meg, and as the lesbian superhero Batwoman, a role she quit after one season amid some controversy. Identifying as genderfluid, the soon-to-be-37-year-old has been romantically linked with a strong of girlfriends over the years, including model Catherine McNeil and Jess Origliasso from The Veronicas.
HUGH SHERIDAN
Actor
Adelaide-born soapie star Hugh Sheridan ended years of speculation and scuttlebutt about his private life in 2020, penning a first-person essay for Stellar magazine in which he revealed he’d been in relationships with both men and women over the years, but chose not to label his sexuality. The 37-year-old, who rose to stardom as a regular on the much-loved soapie Packed To The Rafters, was poised to assume the title role in the outrageous musical Hedwig And The Angry Inch for the Sydney Festival in 2021 before controversy around his casting helped derail the production. Sheridan has just debuted as Jonathan Larson in the musical tick, tick … BOOM!, which will play in Sydney and Brisbane after it completes its Melbourne season.
GEORGIE STONE
Actress
Named as a “Rainbow Champion” by the organisers of WorldPride, Georgie Stone also has an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) and the title of Victorian Young Australian of the Year for 2018 to her name. She made history at the age of 10 when a court order gave her access to puberty suppressors, paving the way for other trans children and teenagers to get access to hormone treatments. In 2019 she pitched a role of a trans teen to the executive producers of Neighbours, who accepted the idea. The three-month stint was such a success that Stone’s character Mackenzie Hargraves became a permanent part of the line-up.
MAGDA SZUBANSKI
Comedian
One of Australia’s most beloved celebrities – and regularly rated as one the country’s most trusted – Magda Szubanski came to prominence in the late 1980s in The D-Generation and Fast Forward, before cementing her icon status with the role of Sharon Strzelecki in Kath & Kim. In 2012 she came out publicly, memorably describing her sexuality as “gay, gay, gay, gay, gay … little bit not gay, gay, gay, gay, gay”. Her 2015 memoir Reckoning was named Book of the Year at the 2016 Australian Book Industry Awards and won the non-fiction prize at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, among other accolades. She was also a vocal part of the campaign for marriage equality.
ZOE TERAKES
Actor
If anybody was in any doubt about Zoe Terakes’s potential to hit the global big time, they were silenced last year when it was revealed the 22-year-old was joining the cast of the upcoming superhero series Ironheart, making Terakes the first trans actor to be cast in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The breakthrough comes after Terakes came to national and international attention playing a transman in Wentworth, and then a role in Nine Perfect Strangers. Terakes came out about their own trans status around the same time as the Wentworth role, saying it “felt bigger, and because I was older and had a bit more work behind me … it felt like a greater risk”.
JOSH THOMAS
Comedian
With his utterly unique and style – not to mention voice – Josh Thomas found fame at the age of 17 when he won a Melbourne International Comedy Festival competition for emerging stand-ups. He has since become a regular on the Australian small screen, with appearances on panel shows such as Spicks and Specks, Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation and a series of commercials for Optus. His semi-autobiographical ABC series Please Like Me, which also starred Hannah Gadsby, won a swag of writing awards and was feted by the likes of Lena Dunham. He relocated to Los Angeles several years ago where he worked on his second semi-autobiographical series, Everything’s Going To Be Okay.
HOLLY THROSBY
Musician/author
The Australian musician and novelist wrote eloquently as a campaigner for same sex marriage after she came out publicly in 2013. Her 2016 debut novel Goodwood, a queer murder mystery, was praised for its memorable depiction of a coming-of-age lesbian romance. Her second novel Cedar Valley followed in 2018 and the third book Clarke was released last year, written at the home she shares with her partner Zoe and their two daughters on the NSW south coast. She also contributed her personal reflections in the book Growing Up Queer In Australia, edited by Benjamin Law.
CHRISTOS TSIOLKAS
Author
Once the enfant terrible of Australian literature, and now one of its most assured voices, Tsiolkas shot to prominence in the mid 1990s with his debut novel Loaded, which was later made into the film Head On starring Alex Dimitriades. Unflinching in its depiction of gay life and youth drug taking, Loaded was a grunge literary hit – but Tsiolkas would prove to be just as astute in his dissection of mainstream Australian suburbia in The Slap (2010), which spawned TV versions in both Australia and the US. His 2019 novel Damascus, another radical departure, received the Victorian Premier’s Award for Fiction.
REBEL WILSON
Comedian
Blessed with a self-deprecating sense of humour, perfect comic timing and an incredible work ethic (she has written many of her own shows and characters), Rebel Wilson is one of Australia’s most successful Hollywood transplants, with a string of big hits to her name (Jojo Rabbit, Pitch Perfect, Bridesmaids) as well as the almost-requisite epic fail (Cats). Now 42, the Sydney-born funny girl, who completed a law degree before turning to acting, came out on Instagram in mid 2022, revealing her relationship with fashion designer Ramona Agruma to pre-empt a gossip column article. Just this week, they got engaged. Earlier this month Wilson became the ambassador for Fluid, a new dating app for people who don’t necessarily wish to define their sexuality. “Sexuality is so complex and nuanced than just saying ‘straight’ or ‘gay.’ I like the word ‘fluid’,” Wilson told People magazine.
WILLIAM YANG
Photographer, performer
Born in Far North Queensland, Yang came to Sydney in the 1970s and worked as a social photographer, capturing the hedonism and glamour of the Emerald City of Oz, as well as the early years of Mardi Gras. Documenting the theatre, fashion and gay circles he moved in, Yang’s 1984 book Sydney Diary featured anyone who was anyone in the Australian arts at the time. Later, he elevated the slide show into performance art with highly personal monologue works such as Sadness, Friends of Dorothy and The North, which toured festivals around the world. In more recent times his work has explored his roots as a Chinese-Australian. Nearly 80, and still photographing, a major retrospective of his work was exhibited at the Queensland Galley of Modern Art last year. He received a Sydney Theatre Award for lifetime achievement in January, and will present the show Gay Sydney: A Memoir as part of Sydney WorldPride.
BUSINESS
GEORGIE HARMAN
Beyond Blue CEO
CEO of the national mental health organisation Beyond Blue since 2014, Harman has built a career in the community health sector since she moved from the UK in the late 1990s. “I met the woman I fell in love with and came out to Australia. I did the whole ‘dropped everything, sold everything, moved to the other side of the world’, no job, just kind of followed my heart and didn’t really think about it,” she told the Star Observer in 2016. She quickly became executive director of the HIV/AIDS charity the Bobby Goldsmith Foundation, followed by roles in health departments, both in the Northern Territory and federally. In her role with Beyond Blue, Harman has helped bring mental health issues to the fore of the Australian media.
ALAN JOYCE
Qantas CEO
Few Australian CEOs have become household names like Alan Joyce. As Qantas boss since 2008 (prior to that he was CEO of Jetstar), Dublin-born Joyce has been a sometimes controversial figure – for his hardline stance on industrial disputes, his generous pay packet and his outspoken advocacy on gay issues. (He donated $1 million to the campaign for marriage equality, and married his partner Shane Lloyd in 2019.) The 56-year-old stared down widespread calls for his resignation in the early 2010s before leading the airline to periods of record profit, pre-Covid-19 – but poor airline performance since the pandemic has seen him cop criticism once again. He was made a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in the 2017 Queen’s birthday honours list.
KYLIE KWONG
Chef
One of Australia’s best-known chefs, Kwong was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) on the Australia Day honours list this year. The third generation Chinese-Australian opened her first restaurant Billy Kwong in Sydney’s Surry Hills in the early 2000s, with TV shows and best selling cookbooks to follow. Now 53, Kwong married her partner, artist Nell, in 2019, having pledged to do so after same-sex marriage became a legal reality in Australia. She opened up about coming out to her family during an episode of Anh Do’s Brush With Fame in 2019, revealing her father initially wanted to throw her out of the family house, before tearfully recanting two days later. “He dropped 52 years of ego, just like that,” she said. “He had done this transformation in those two silent nights.”
PAUL O’SULLIVAN
Optus and ANZ Chairman
As COO between 2000 and 2004, CEO between 2004 and 2012, and chairman since 2014, Paul O’Sullivan has devoted the better part of the past two decades to Optus. During that time the company has become a mainstay in the lives of many Australians, with nearly one in three of us using its mobile phone network. In a 2016 profile, O’Sullivan revealed he had been discreet about his sexuality when he first joined the workforce in the 1980s, but being openly gay (and a public supporter of marriage equality) is no barrier now. O’Sullivan was appointed the inaugural chair of the Western Sydney Airport Corporation in 2017 and chairman of ANZ in 2020, where he succeeded David Gonski. O’Sullivan also sits on the board of Coca-Cola Amatil, and has a range of other business interests.
JENNIFER WESTACOTT
Business Council of Australia CEO
Westacott recently announced her intention to step down as CEO of the Business Council of Australia, after more than a decade. In that time, she has mounted the common sense case for issues such as marriage equality and a net zero emissions target at times when the federal government seemed incapable of doing so. She also hit back at those who said social issues were outside her remit, saying business was expected to take a stand on many other issues and critics “can’t have it both ways”. Although she has talked about coming out while working for KPMG, Westacott used her own story during the marriage equality debate to highlight why people were fighting for the cause. She revealed she had been in a loving same-sex relationship for 30 years, and during that time she had felt like an “outsider”, as her relationship “doesn’t have the same legitimacy, the same respect, the same acceptance as other people’s relationships”.
PAUL ZAHRA
Australian Retailers Association CEO
Paul Zahra became CEO of the Australian Retailers Association in May 2020, just as Covid-19-related lockdowns were decimating the sector. Since then he has been an effective advocate for the industry, building on a career’s worth of experience that started with a part time job at Target when he was 15 (by 22 he was managing a store). Zahra came to national prominence when he was CEO of David Jones between 2010 and 2014, where he became one of the first CEOs to publicly support marriage equality. Prior to his current role he was Director of Diversity at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
FASHION
JORDAN BARRETT
Model
It may have come as a shock to some fans when top Aussie male model Jordan Barrett announced he had married his partner, Fernando Augusto Casablancas. To those in the industry it was no surprise; while Barrett had never previously addressed his sexuality, he had always flown the equality flag on the international stage. Kate Moss was the celebrant at the nuptials, with a top tier star-studded guest list. Discovered at 14, the now 26-year-old has been dubbed “the world’s hottest male model” and worked with the world’s biggest fashion houses and photographers.
NATHAN MCGUIRE
Model
He’s modelled for everyone from David Jones to Dior, and he’s just become the first Australian indigenous man to feature in a campaign for Calvin Kelin, for its 2023 “This is Love” Pride collection. A proud Whadjuk Noongar man, 32-year-old McGuire has carved out a career based on truth and integrity and core values around representing First Nations designers. McGuire acknowledged his long term partner, stylist Rhys Ripper, when accepting the GQ Model of the Year Award in 2022.
ANDREA PEJIC
Model
She was born in the former Yugoslavia and discovered while working in a Melbourne McDonald’s, but trans model Pejic made the world her runway during the 2010s as she fronted shows for the likes of Marc Jacobs and Jean-Paul Gaultier, and posed for celebrity photographers such as Annie Leibowitz and Patrick Demarchelier. More recently, 31-year-old Pejic has pivoted into acting, starring in the 2018 thriller The Girl In The Spider’s Web, and appearing as 1970s disco diva Amanda Lear in the 2022 film Daliland, opposite Ben Kingsley.
LUKE SALES
Designer
Luke Sales is one half of the design team behind the fashion label Romance Was Born, which he co-founded with Anna Plunkett in 2005. The label is known and loved for its strong sense of quirk, lavish runway shows, and unbridled love of Australiana. The label has collaborated with a range of artists (and/or their estates) including Del Kathryn Barton, May Gibbs and Ken Done, and the team added another string to their bow late last year by designing costumes for the touring production of Amadeus.
MARIA THATTIL
Model
Former Miss Universe Australia Maria Thattil came out as queer very publicly in 2022 on reality show I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! Roughly a year later, in January 2023, the 29-year-old appeared on the cover of News Corp Australia’s Stellar magazine with partner Jorgia O’Hare. “If there is anything I can take away reflecting on the past year, it has shown me how much good and how much love can come into your life when you’re not betraying yourself and denying who you are,” she said. “Growing up, if I had seen an interracial same-sex female couple in the media – open, visible, living truthfully – that might have shaped my own experience a little bit more positively.”
MUSIC
ALEX THE ASTRONAUT
This Sydney musician has owned every stage they have graced with a joyful presence, wholly original lyrics and built-to-sing indie pop gems since launching their music career in 2017. (And all this after studying maths and physics on a soccer scholarship in New York; the original over-achiever.) Their heartwrenchingly beautiful song Not Worth Hiding was Alex’s first experience of sharing something deeply personal about their life in “the hope that people would get better at talking about (gender).” The song became an unofficial anthem during the Marriage Equality plebiscite in 2017 and since then Alex The Astronaut has used her music to also foster conversations about care-giving and autism.
COURTNEY BARNETT
The global indie rock star has served as a beacon to aspiring queer singer songwriters with her uncompromising musical vision and support for emerging artists via her own label Milk!Records, which she founded over a decade ago with Jen Cloher. Barnett’s music chronicles both her inner world and the injustices she observes outside her bedroom window, the power of talent drawing focus rather than being examined via the prism of sexuality or gender. She gracefully weathered homophobic backlash when she recorded INXS’s Never Tear Us Apart for an Apple campaign celebrating the introduction of same-sex marriage legislation in Australia, and has been a vocal activist against sexism and sexual harassment in the music industry.
BECCY COLE
When Beccy Cole came out as Australia’s queer queen of country music a decade ago, she attributed her public declaration to wanting to be a good example for her son by living as her authentic self. Through the unique experience of being Australia’s first prominent lesbian in country music, she has bravely shared her life with fans, including the breakdown of her marriage to cabaret star Libby O’Donovan in late 2021 and subsequent mental health struggles. Cole has also used her art to blow up country music conventions, featuring a lesbian love story in the video for her single Lioness, receiving overwhelming support from the loyal fanbase she has built over 25 years.
CASEY DONOVAN
Australia’s queen of the big gig, the proud Gumbaynggirr/Dunghutti woman has tirelessly used her powerful voice to advocate for First Nations people and the queer community. Since winning the country’s heart as a 16-year-old when she took the Australian Idol title in 2004, and then as I’m A Celebrity winner in 2017, she has served as an inspiration for thousands of people with her body positive message. Donovan’s work ethic is matched by the breadth of her talent, with the entertainer easily traversing television roles, owning the stages of musical theatre and recording artist and owning them all. The WorldPride Rainbow Champion possesses that magical gift of being able to unite many tribes of music fans in a safe space.
ELECTRIC FIELDS (ZAACHARIAHA FIELDING AND MICHAEL ROSS)
Vocalist Zaachariaha Fielding and keyboard player and producer Michael Ross have been at the forefront of blending Indigenous culture and language with electronic music since 2016. While they had a devoted legion of industry champions through the early years of their career, the duo exploded into the national cultural consciousness when they came a close second in the Eurovision: Australia Decides contest in 2019. They then went on to win more hearts with their unique interpretation of the Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody protest song From Little Things Big Things Grow. As a gender-diverse person of colour, Fielding is a prominent advocate for the community, asserting: “We all deserve to fulfil what Mother Nature made us to be.”
G FLIP
Georgia “G Flip” Flipo declared “I’m non-binary mother f*ckers!” in 2021 with an Instagram post. The drummer, indie pop sensation and AFLW advocate has become synonymous with Australia’s big gigs, wowing audiences with their New Year’s Eve concert performances and co-hosting the ARIA Awards last year. G Flip blew up the red carpet attending with their girlfriend, Selling Sunset star Chrishell Stause. Since G Flip’s music landed on the global radar with debut single About You in 2018, their songs have become staples on the Triple J playlist with queer anthem Gay 4 Me making an impressive showing at No. 11 on this year’s Hottest 100.
SIA FURLER
The music of the artist known as Sia has been embraced by a legion of fans in the LGBTQIA+ community, giving voice and comfort to countless young people struggling with their sexual identity. A video of a 13-year-old boy battling depression as he navigated being a young gay male in the world inspired her to “dedicate myself to the queer community in a more meaningful way. I am so very grateful for my queer community and would have withered away long ago without them.” Sia shared her queer identity via Twitter in 2013 writing “I’m queer. I don’t identify as a lesbian because I’ve dated men predominantly. But I’ve certainly dated women.”
DARREN HAYES
The Savage Garden frontman made a glorious return to his pop career with the unapologetic and flamboyant album Homosexual last year. His headlining performance at the 2022 Mardi Gras parade was a personal milestone; when he first performed at the event in 2005, he wasn’t publicly out and had suffered discrimination through most of his Savage Garden years and early solo career from record industry gatekeepers who wanted him to hide his sexuality. The 50-year-old performer used his comeback to bravely call out the homophobia he had endured and reclaim his pop legacy as his authentic self.
MONTAIGNE
The first queer artist to represent Australia at the Eurovision Song Contest, Montaigne premiering their entry song Technicolour at the 2021 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. More recently she starred in the bold Holding Achilles production which recast the story of Homer’s epic poem The Iliad through an LGBTQIA+ lens. Montaigne also wrote the lyrics for the dazzling theatrical show, confirming the indie pop star can do it all. When Montaigne isn’t wowing music fans with that distinctive voice and ambitious spin on pop music, she is a fierce advocate for the community and in particular the need for greater opportunities for emerging queer artists.
JESS ORIGLIASSO
Jess Origliasso never tried to hide her sexual identity from fans; she shared it in The Veronica’s early pop smashes including gay anthems Untouched and Take Me On The Floor. “Labels were loaded back then. But all of our fans knew I was queer; I wrote about it in so many songs.” After weathering the storm of media speculation about her sexuality as The Veronicas blew up on the world’s pop charts in the mid noughties, Jess eventually took control of her narrative via social media, speaking as a proud queer woman directly to fans about LGBTQIA+ issues and sharing intimate photos with her partners before music videos of same-sex PDAs were widely celebrated by the music industry and pop fans.
PEACH PRC
Pop singer and TikTok star Peach PRC dropped the L-word last year to her fans, after previously identifying as bisexual, when launching her single God Is A Freak. The wildly popular social media personality was applauded by many in the community who had also taken time to come to terms with their identity. “Thank you for the hyper-femme lesbian representation. My young lesbian self could have really used this when I was growing up,” commented one fan on her Instagram. Since coming out, Peach PRC has candidly shared her journey as an emerging queer artist and recently released the single Perfect For You about “crushing so hard on this girl.”
TROYE SIVAN
The pop star and actor has been a trailblazer for the community since he courageously came out to his huge YouTube following when he was 18, three years after telling his family. That “Coming Out” video has almost nine million views a decade later. But it would be eclipsed by the streams and views generated by songs including Youth, Wild and Bloom which candidly explored the life experiences of young gay men, accompanied by bold music videos depicting same sex relationships. He charted the rites of passage of a gay coming of age with the same pop sensibilities as Taylor Swift plotted the milestones of young womanhood, and claimed the same chart territory.
POLITICS, POLICY AND POWER
JAMES ASHBY
Political adviser
Thrust into the political spotlight nearly a decade ago thanks to sexual harassment allegations he made (and later dropped) against his then boss, House Speaker Peter Slipper, Ashby performed one of the great pivots in Australian political history when he began working as senior adviser to One Nation leader Pauline Hanson. While he has become central to One Nation operations (media profiles refer to him as Hanson’s “gatekeeper”; she has reportedly referred to him as an adopted son), he also remains enmeshed in the Slipper saga. In 2022 he failed on appeal to convince the Federal Court the Commonwealth should make an “act of grace” payment to cover the $4.5m in costs he incurred in his legal stoushes with the former Speaker.
ANDREW BARR
Chief Minister of the ACT
Forty-nine-year-old Barr has notched up a series of incidental firsts in his career: first openly gay member of the ACT parliament from 2006; first openly gay leader of any state or territory from 2014; and since 2019, the first Australian state or territory leader to be legally wed to a same-sex partner. The footage of Barr kissing his husband Anthony Toms after claiming victory in the ACT elections in October 2020 was celebrated for its ordinariness, but also a powerful sign that being gay was no barrier to leadership in Australian public life. Barr has arguably had a higher national profile than previous ACT Chief Ministers, due to the National Cabinet convened during the Covid-19 pandemic.
STEPHEN BATES
Federal MP for Brisbane
UK-born Bates became the new MP for Brisbane at the 2022 federal election, when the Greens picked up three lower-house seats in Queensland. In his emotional first speech to parliament, the 30-year-old – currently the country’s youngest federal MP – revealed that his politics had been shaped by working in a poverty-wage retail job in the US, and by coming out as gay. “I spent years hiding myself because I could not see anyone in my world that was openly gay,” he said, adding that once he came out he vowed to be open and proud, to “be that person I never saw growing up”. Bates is the Greens spokesperson on youth and LGBTQIA+ issues.
VIRGINIA BELL
Former High Court Judge
Virginia Bell served on the High Court between 2009 and 2021, but her judicial career is far from over: last year she was appointed to head up the inquiry into former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s multiple ministries. She was also a participant in the very first Mardi Gras, in 1978, and subsequently represented more than 50 people who were arrested by the police that night, many of whom were the victims of police violence.
BILL BOWTELL
Policy consultant
A senior adviser to the Hawke and Keating governments, Bowtell was at the forefront of Australia’s fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, helping create a science-led, community-involved response model that helped slow the spread of the virus. In more recent years Bowtell has worked internationally on health policy issues, particularly in the Asia/Pacific region, and as an Adjunct Professor through UNSW. He was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2012. In 2020 he emerged as a thought leader on Australia’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, calling for an elimination strategy and reminding many of the lessons that were learnt the hard way during the HIV years.
ANNA BROWN
Equality Australia CEO
Co-chair of the Equality Campaign during the Same-Sex Marriage Postal Survey, Brown is now CEO of Equality Australia, the peak lobbying organisation for issues affecting LGBTQIA+ people. She started her career in commercial litigation, and has said “If you’d asked me at that time whether I’d spend so much of my professional life talking about people’s sexuality and fairly intimate aspects of identity, I would have laughed.” Under her leadership, Equality Australia has campaigned against conversion therapies and fought to protect employees in religious organisations from discrimination on the grounds of sexuality and gender identity.
BOB BROWN
Environmental activist
Eleven years after he resigned as leader of the Greens, Dr Bob Brown remains the elder statesman of Australian environmental politics. The first openly gay man to lead any Australian federal political party, Dr Brown represented Tasmania in the Senate between 1996 and 2012. During his time as Greens leader (2005-2012), the party claimed its first-ever lower house seat and its overall share of the vote grew from 7 to 11 per cent. Dr Brown has written movingly of how he struggled to accept his sexuality as young man, even submitting to electro shock therapy. Now aged 78, he has lost none of his fight, leading protests against laws that criminalise environmental activism.
LUCI ELLIS
Assistant Governor, Reserve Bank
Dr Luci Ellis has notched up six years as Assistant Governor (Economic) of the Reserve Bank, and 30 years of almost continual service. (She had a two-year secondment to the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland in 2007-8.) Named as one of 50 outstanding LGBTI leaders by Deloitte and Google in 2018, she said; “Economics is a very male-dominated profession. Just being female is enough to challenge perceptions. I’ve always been open about being a lesbian throughout my career and over the years I have shared with colleagues some of the issues we face.”
CASSANDRA GOLDIE
Australian Council of Social Service CEO
As CEO of the national peak body for the community sector since 2010, Dr Cassandra Goldie has been one of the leading voices speaking out on poverty and inequality in Australian society over the past decade. An Adjunct Professor of Law at UNSW, Dr Goldie has campaigned recently on the need to increase JobSeeker payments. During the campaign for marriage equality in 2017, Dr Goldie revealed the issue was a personal one for her. “Each day, people directly affected by the denial of the human right to marry the person you love, are forced to keep sharing their intimate stories of pain, distress, love and hope … As an individual and through my family and friends, I am directly affected,” she said.
MICHAEL KIRBY
Former High Court Judge
Serving on the High Court between 1996 and 2009, Kirby is renowned internationally as one of the most influential jurists Australia has ever produced. He outed himself in an oblique way, naming his partner, Johan van Vloten, in the 1998 Who’s Who. Since retiring from the bench, Kirby (who turns 84 on March 18) has been active in teaching, writing, advocating for various progressive causes and leading a UN inquiry into human rights abuses in North Korea. He and van Vloten married in February 2019, 50 years to the day of their first meeting.
HESTON RUSSELL
Veterans’ advocate
A retired special forces major and platoon commander, in recent years Russell has emerged as a prominent campaigner for veterans’ issues. He founded the Australian Values Party in 2022, but was unsuccessful in his campaign for a spot in the Senate. During his more than decade-long military career, Russell completed multiple deployments, including four tours to Afghanistan, as well as Iraq and East Timor. Still super-fit, Russell has raised eyebrows for a reportedly racy OnlyFans account.
DEAN SMITH
Senator for Western Australia
Smith will forever be remembered for his role in helping achieving same-sex marriage law reform in Australia, with his private member’s bill the one that eventually brought about the long-debated change in late 2017. The 53-year-old, who has been a Senator since 2012, has revealed in interviews how the death of gay man Tori Johnson in the Lindt Cafe siege of 2014 transformed his thinking about same-sex marriage. (Smith had previously considered it an issue for left-wingers.) Avowedly conservative on other social issues (he is a member of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy), Smith has nevertheless felt some blowback from Western Australian Liberals for championing same-sex marriage. He was appointed Chief Government Whip during the Morrison government and was re-elected to the Senate last year.
PENNY WONG
Minister for Foreign Affairs
Foreign Minister since the election of the Albanese government in May 2022, 54-year-old Penny Wong has been touted as future prime minister material in her own right. (She scoffed at the suggestion in Margaret Simons’ 2019 biography, asking “Why would I do it to myself and my family?”). A newspaper profile that appeared a few months before Wong joined the Senate in 2002 referenced her sexuality as a matter she wished to keep private, but she somewhat inevitably became one of the leaders in the public push for same-sex marriage. Renowned for her calm but steely demeanour, the footage of Wong bursting into tears when the results of the ABS marriage equality plebiscite were announced in 2017 was a genuinely moving moment in the campaign. Born in Malaysia, Wong is mother to two daughters with long-term partner Sophie Allouache.
SPORT
ALEX BLACKWELL
Cricket
In an impressive 15-year international career, Blackwell played 12 test matches for Australia and 144 one-day internationals. An all-rounder, in 2013 she became the first player in the international women’s competition to come out publicly, something she said was a “difficult choice”. She continues to smash barriers in her post-playing career, becoming in 2018 the first woman elected to the board of Cricket NSW in its 159-year history. The former Aussie captain married English cricketer Lynsey Askew in 2015.
ASHLEIGH BRAZILL
Netball/AFL
A top netballer since 2010, Ash Brazill added another string to her bow in 2017, playing in the foundation season of the AFLW for the Collingwood Magpies. She’s competed in both ever since – although a plan to play in both sports in the one weekend back in 2020 came awry due to injury. The 33-year-old, who was part of the gold-medal winning Australian netball team at the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games, was also named in the AFLW’s All-Australian Team in 2019.
ALI BRIGGINSHAW
Rugby League
At the very peak of the NRL women’s competition, 34-year-old Ali Brigginshaw is the captain of the Brisbane Broncos, Queensland and Australian women’s teams (the Jillaroos) and the winner of the Dally M Medal in 2020. She shot her way into national prominence in 2018, when, after leading the Broncos to the premiership, she planted a kiss on partner Kate Daly. Brigginishaw said she was not one to her hide her affection. “Little girls might grow up to love the same sex and I want them to see they don’t need to be ashamed of it,” she said at the time.
JOSH CAVALLO
Football
At the age of 21, A-League star Cavallo made world headlines in 2021 by becoming the first currently-playing professional footballer to come out in more than a generation. “The only reason why I came out is because I wasn’t happy with myself and I just wanted to be happy,” he told The Advertiser afterwards – but his announcement also encouraged at least two other professional footballers to come out (Jake Daniels in the UK and Jakub Jankto in Czechia). Cavallo played in youth teams at A-League clubs Melbourne Victory and Melbourne City before making his professional debut for Western United, then signing for Adelaide United.
NATALIE COOK
Beach volleyball
One half of Australia’s gold-medal-winning beach volleyball team at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, Natalie Cook has continued her involvement in elite sports as a coach, mentor and executive director of Elite Success and Partnerships at the Queensland Academy of Sport. The five-time Olympian and motivational speaker was named Athlete Ambassador for Queensland’s successful pitch for the 2023 Olympic Games.
BEC GODDARD
AFL/Basketball
Goddard assured her place in Australian sporting history as the coach of the Adelaide team that won the first ever AFLW premiership, in 2017. Since then she’s proved her versatility as assistant coach of the WNBL championship-winning University of Canberra Capitals. Now coach of Hawthorn in the VFL women’s competition, Goddard has helped pioneer the formation of an all-female coaching panel, an initiative she hopes will smooth the path for more women to get into senior coaching roles. Opening up about her sexuality in an interview in 2018, Goddard said she once used to make homophobic remarks of her teammates, with her religious upbringing preventing her from accepting herself early for a number of years.
ELLIA GREEN
Rugby Union and League
Fiji-born Green was part of the gold-medal winning Australian Rugby Sevens team at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, as well as the squad that took home the silver at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast two years later. The 30-year-old came out as trans last year, revealing he had transitioned after battling some serious mental health issues. Green is an outspoken advocate for the issue of trans participation in sport, describing bans as “disgraceful and hurtful”. He also appeared in SAS: Australia in 2022.
TAYLA HARRIS
Australian Rules/Boxing
The NRL has its iconic image of two competing gladiators, Norm Provan and Arthur Summons, and Tayla Harris inadvertently provided the AFLW with its iconic image in 2019, when a picture of her mid-kick went viral. Controversy erupted when Channel 7 removed the image from its website, a move that was seen as giving in to trolls and haters. A bronze sculpture of Harris’s image, celebrating her athleticism, was unveiled in Melbourne’s Federation Square. Harris currently plays for Melbourne and is fourth on the AFLW all-time goalscorers’ list. Dubbed “one of the world’s most exciting and inspirational athletes of our generation,” she also has an impressive boxing record: seven wins and one draw from eight fights.
MICHELLE HEYMAN
Football
She retired from international football in 2019 but 34-year-old Michelle Heyman is still proving to be a formidable force on the pitch with Canberra United, whom she first played for back in 2010. Heyman was one of the first Matildas to be open about her sexuality while still playing, and has revealed in interviews that Ellen DeGeneres was a role model. “With Ellen being LGBTI and her coming out story and the role model that she is and how kind she is, that’s something I take on for myself,” she said. “To see her overcome all that to where she is now is just incredible. I think seeing that story made me feel good about myself and to be who I am.”
MOANA HOPE
Australian Rules
Moana Hope played the first three seasons of AFLW (two for Collingwood and one for North Melbourne) but the 35-year-old is arguably even between known for two stints on Australian Survivor, in 2018 and 2020. Last month the mother of two said she lived out a “childhood fantasy,” by playing in a celebrity tennis match at the Australian Open.
ISAAC HUMPHRIES
Basketball
He stands 211cm tall, but Isaac Humphries has been standing even taller since November, when he came out to his Melbourne United teammates, becoming the first openly gay NBL and former NBA player. The 25-year-old, who has played with the Sydney Kings, Adelaide 36ers and the Atlanta Hawks during his career, revealed that he had attempted suicide as he struggled to come to terms with his sexuality.
SAM KERR
Football
Captain of the Matildas; Chelsea player; all-time top scorer in the W-League; PFA Women’s Footballer of the Year, four times over; a W-League debut at the age of 15. Space does not permit a full listing of 29-year-old Kerr’s extraordinary accomplishments on the field. Her pitch prowess and post-goal backflips have made her a superstar of the game, and she’s been described as “a player who transcends the barriers that have kept women’s football clustered and on the periphery”. In a relationship with American footballer Kristie Mewis, Kerr has been upfront and unapologetic about who she is. Asked about out players in the Matildas – and the occasional homophobia they cop – Kerr said in a 2019 interview: “We reflect society … there’s different types of people … People get to see real people in this team.”
DANI LAIDLEY
Australian Rules
Dani Laidley’s gender transition in 2020 came amid a storm of legal troubles and media attention, as the former AFL player and coach battled an ice addiction that at its worst had her staying up for nine days straight. Since then, the 55-year-old has kicked the drugs and released her memoir, Don’t Look Away: A Memoir of Identity & Acceptance. “If I can break down the barriers for mature-age transgender people, people who are starting to transition or the next generation of people, if I can break down barriers and it makes life easier for them, that’s what I’ll do,” she said upon the book’s release. In a stellar career, Laidley played for the West Coast Eagles from 1987-92 and the North Melbourne Kangaroos from 1993-97, before coaching the Kangaroos from 2003-2009.
CHLOE LOGARZO
Football
Notching up 10 years as a Matilda in 2023, and still only 28, Chloe Logarzo has had a peripatetic playing career, competing in Australia, the US, UK, Sweden and Norway. The midfielder was omitted from the squad for the recent Cup of Nations because of injury concerns, but will hopefully take to the pitch with the Matildas for the home-turf Women’s World Cup in July and August. Logarzo has revleaed in interviews she came out to her parents at the age of 17. “I just live my life without lying to people about it, because I don’t want to hide who I really am,” she told the Daily Mail last year.
MATTHEW MITCHAM
Diving
At a time when being same-sex attracted seemed to be an incredible source of angst for other elite athletes, Matthew Mitcham was a breath of fresh air: a happily, unashamedly gay man. He shot to global fame at the 2008 Beijing Olympics with a gold medal win in the 10 metre platform event, after scoring four perfect tens for his final dive (the highest single-dive score in Olympic history). In more recent years, he’s written his memoir and dabbled in cabaret. In 2020 he was inducted into the Australian Sports Hall of Fame and in 2022 he was made an Honoree of the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
POPPY STARR OLSEN
Skateboarding
Olsen has been competing internationally in skateboarding since the age of 14, and now, at 22, she is ranked fourth in the world. Her achievements include a fifth place in the finals of the women’s park event during the 2022 Tokyo Olympics, and a bronze medal at the 2017 X Games in the USA. Last year she told the ABC she had come out to her mum in a quintessentially Gen Z way – via text message. She also co-wrote a novel based on her own life, The Colourful World of Poppy Starr Olsen, for young readers, saying she hoped it “inspire(d) kids to be completely themselves because life is too short to hide who you are”.
ERIN PHILLIPS
Basketball/Australian Rules
Phillips is that athletic rarity: a champion in two distinct sports. After a successful 14-year career in basketball, during which she won two championships in the US and one in Australia, and was part of the world championship-winning Australian team in 2006, Phillips realised a lifelong dream and pivoted to Australian Rules. Phillips has proved to be the standout player of the fledgling AFLW, winning three premierships, and two best and fairest awards. She was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in 2021 in recognition of her services to sport.
IAN ROBERTS
Rugby league
Twenty-eight years after he posed nude for the debut issue of the gay magazine blue, Ian Roberts remains the only NRL footballer to ever come out (and he did it while still competing, too). And he remains in the public eye, recently championing the establishment of Australia’s first museum dedicated to telling the stories of LGBTQIA+ people. He’s also become a key voice in the public discussion about the long-term effect of concussion in contact sports, although the background was all there in his 1997 biography, Finding Out: “The first few games of a new season are always a shock,” he said then. “The first few knocks to the head are really disorientating … Your head’s not used to it. Then it becomes part of the routine again.”
DANNI ROCHE
Hockey
A member of the gold-medal-winning Hockeyroos from the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, 52-year-old Roche has served on the boards of the Australian Sports Commission and the St Kilda Football Club, and in 2017 became the first person to ever challenge John Coates for the presidency of the Australian Olympic Committee. While she was unsuccessful in that bid, she said the strong vote she attracted was evidence of a “strong desire for change” in the administration of Australian Olympic sports. She has been chair of the National Australia Day Council since 2017.
MEGAN SCHUTT
Cricket
Making her international test debut in 2013, 30-year-old Schutt has been one of the dominant Australian players at a time when women’s cricket has surged in popularity. Ranked the number one T20 bowler on the planet in 2020, Schutt is still at the top of her powers, taking five wickets for 15 runs in a T20 match against Pakistan on Australia Day. She was also part of the gold-medal winning Australian team at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in 2022.
SAMANTHA STOSUR
Tennis
It was a bittersweet goodbye for 38-year-old Sam Stosur at this year’s Australian Open, drawing the curtains on a career that spanned nearly a quarter of a century. With nine titles to her credit (including the 2011 US Open, where she defeated Serena Williams), Stosur was the top-ranked Aussie player for an astonishing nine years. She introduced the world to her partner Liz Astling and newborn baby in an Instagram post in 2020, although she later said it “wasn’t news” to those close to her. “Just to really open up was always kind of hard for me,” she said.
IAN THORPE
Swimming
Five times Olympic gold medallist. Eleven times world championship gold medallist. The “Thorpedo” remains one of the most recognised names in the history of Australian sport, thanks in part to his career peaking during the Sydney 2000 Olympics. (Who could ever forget his anchor leg in the men’s 4x100m relay, when the Aussies outswum the big-talking Americans to claim gold?) When Thorpe revealed he was gay in an interview with Michael Parkinson in 2014, it put an end to years of speculation and denials about his sexual orientation. In the years since, Thorpe has been an outspoken advocate for a number of causes, including the environment and same-sex marriage, and been candid about his battles with depression.
SHARNI WILLIAMS
Rugby Union
She turns 35 next week, and Sharni Williams has spent an incredible 15 of those years playing rugby union at the international level for Australia. She was co-captain of Australia’s gold-medal winning Rugby Sevens team at the 2016 Rio Olympics, and won gold again in the same team at the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games. She was awarded an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) in 2017.
TYLER WRIGHT
Surfing
WSL Women’s World Champion for 2016 and 2017, Wright literally wore her pride on her sleeve, wearing a rainbow design on her rashie in some competitions. The 28-year-old first shot to prominence in 2008, taking out the Beachley Classic, and in 2019 she discussed her relationship with former partner and singer Alex Lynn with 60 Minutes. Before donning the rainbow rashie for the first time in Maui, she released a statement on social media saying she was “a proud bisexual woman of the LGBTQ+ community”. “Today for me feels like another step in my realisation of my true and authentic self,” she wrote, adding she was “delighted” to represent both her country and community on the professional circuit. Wright married her partner Lilli Baker in an intimate loungeroom wedding in November last year.
MEDIA
MEGAN BARNARD
Journalist
Thirty-eight year old Fox Sports presenter Megan Barnard made national headlines in 2022 when she was outed by a colleague. While the cricket and NRL commentator said she knew she was same-sex attracted from the age of 12, she also told Stellar magazine that “no one should ever be forced to come out before they’re ready, it can be dangerous”. In an Instagram post to her more than 20,000 followers, she said she hoped her experience could be “a catalyst for change in not just the sports industry, but every industry”.
BROOKE BLURTON
Reality TV star
Brooke Blurton made history when, in 2021, she starred in a global first for the Bachelorette franchise, with both men and women vying for the reality star’s love. She is a proud Noongar-Yamatji Australian who has flown the rainbow flag as a bisexual cis-gendered woman. At the time, she said: “I wouldn’t have it any other way. If it makes people feel uncomfortable in any way, I really challenge them to think about why it does. Times are progressive and sexuality and gender expression are just so fluid these days. I am not too sure if Australia is ready for it. I hope they are. I certainly am.” She released her memoir, Big Love, last year.
ABBIE CHATFIELD
Radio and TV host
With more than 450,000 followers on Instagram, radio and TV host Abbie Chatfield is arguably one of the most influential popular culture figures from the Australian LGBTQIA+ community. She shot to fame as the runner-up on the 2019 season of The Bachelor, and came out as bisexual immediately afterwards, although more recently she has said ‘Queer’ is a more accurate label for her sexuality. In addition to a radio show on the Hit Network, the 27-year-old has appeared in other reality TV franchises including The Masked Singer and I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!
FIONA FALKINER
TV host
Fiona Falkiner stepped from appearing in The Biggest Loser in 2006, to helming the program for two seasons in 2015 and 2017. The model and body-positivity advocate has worked with a range of big-name brands including Target and eHarmony. After multiple delays through successive Covid lockdowns, she tied the knot with her sports journalist partner Hayley Willis last year. The couple have two children, conceived through IVF.
NARELDA JACOBS
Newsreader
Long familiar to Western Australian TV audiences – she started reading the Channel 10 evening news bulletin in 2008 – Jacobs has built an increasingly national profile over the past few years as a panellist with Studio 10 and as a commentator for the broadcast of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade on SBS. The 45-year-old has spoken candidly about the difficulties she faced coming out, particularly as an Indigenous woman from a Christian family background. She has been named one of the ‘Rainbow Champions’ for Sydney WorldPride.
PATRICIA KARVELAS
Journalist
Forty-two year old Karvelas is one of Australia’s most respected journalists, putting the blowtorch of scrutiny to our political leaders every weekday as host of RN Breakfast on Radio National. Formerly with The Australian, Karvelas is also a regular commentator on shows such as Insiders and Q&A.
FRAN KELLY
Journalist
One of Australia’s most respected veteran journalists, Kelly hosted Radio National’s breakfast program between 2005 and 2022, and was the ABC’s Chief Political Correspondent as far back as the mid 1990s. After passing the early-morning mic on to Patricia Karvelas last year, Kelly debuted a new Friday night chat show for ABC TV called Frankly. In her younger days in the 1980s, Kelly spent some time singing in a feminist rock bank called Toxic Shock.
ANGIE KENT
Reality TV star
From Gogglebox to The Bachelorette and I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!, 33-year-old Angie Kent is one of the stalwarts of Australian reality TV. The Nova radio host, podcaster and author came out as pansexual in 2021, telling the Daily Telegraph’s Confidential section: “Humans are humans. I don’t fall in love with the outer, I fall in love with the soul connection. Gender is not a massive thing for me and never really has been.” This year she started as co-host of the Channel 9 lifestyle series Space Invaders.
BENJAMIN LAW
Journalist, writer
Forty-year-old Law came to national attention with his memoir The Family Law in 2010, which was later turned into a three-season series on ABC. He’s since written extensively on political, cultural, social and racial issues for a wide cross-section of the Australian media and edited the collection Growing Up Queer in Australia. A contestant on the latest season of Survivor, Law also co-created the series Wellmania (based on a book by Brigid Delaney) which will premiere on ABC in late March.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Journalist
Macdonald is one of the hosts of Network Ten’s The Project, though its performance will be watched closely in 2023 after the departure of key panellists late last year. The 41-year-old journalist, who has also worked with the US ABC and Al Jazeera, hosted Q&A for eighteen months in 2019 and 2020, a period which saw ratings drop, after a shift in timeslot. In 2019 Macdonald was photographed with his boyfriend Jacob Fitzroy at a red carpet event, the moment widely interpreted as a coming out moment.
CATE McGREGOR
Media figure, writer
Outspoken and out about her transgender status over the past decade, McGregor has been an army captain, political speechwriter, cricket commentator and Sky TV host. The 66-year-old is occasionally controversial in her views, telling Sky in May 2020 that a second Donald Trump administration would be preferable to Joe Biden as President, whom McGregor said had signs of “manifest deterioration”. In a deeply personal segment about her life on 7.30 in 2018, McGregor said she was “a great role model for what not to do” because she took “ages to actually be honest with the world and myself about who I was”. She advised young viewers that the “heart knows what your mind doesn’t” and that they should “trust their inner compass”.
JAKE MILLAR
Journalist
In the high turnover world of magazine publishing, Jake Millar is that rare thing: a stayer.
He’s been editing the Aussie man’s style bible GQ Australia since 2020, but his time on the masthead goes all the way back to 2011, when he started as an editorial assistant. More recently he’s also brought his discerning eye to bear as acting editor of Vogue Living. As GQ editor, Millar has championed LGBTIQ+ issues, naming actor Murray Bartlett as GQ Man of the Year, and putting out football star Josh Cavallo on the cover.
SHANNON MOLLOY
Journalist, author
Molloy’s memoir Fourteen, detailing the bullying he experienced as a gay teenager at an all-boys Catholic school in Yeppoon in the 1990s, was released to critical acclaim in 2020, with a stage version performed as part of the Brisbane Festival in 2022. Molloy’s second book You Made Me This Way has just been published by Harper Collins. Formerly a senior reporter with news.com.au, Molloy is also a frequent commentator on cultural and political issues on The Drum.
BEN WIDDICOMBE
Journalist
Brisbane-born scribe Ben Widdicombe stepped from the world of Australian glossies and gay community newspapers to the major leagues of New York publishing in the late 1990s. He’s been a gossip and style columnist for The New York Times, managing editor of TMZ, and editor-in-chief of Avenue Magazine. His first book, Gatecrasher: How I Helped The Rich Become Famous And Ruin The World, a sharp and very funny dissection of the modern cult of celebrity, was released in 2020 to glowing reviews.
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