Cynthia Ann Stephanie Lauper is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and activist. Her career has spanned over 40 years. Her album She's So Unusual (1983) was the first debut album by a female artist to achieve four top-five hits on the Billboard Hot 100—"Girls Just Want to Have Fun", "Time After Time", "She Bop", and "All Through the Night"—and earned Lauper the Best New Artist award at the 27th Annual Grammy Awards in 1985. Her success continued with the soundtrack for the motion picture The Goonies (1985) and her second record True Colors (1986). This album included the number-one single "True Colors" and "Change of Heart", which peaked at number three. In 1989, she had a hit with "I Drove All Night".
Allison Brooks Janney is an American actress. Known for her performances across the screen and stage, she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, and seven Primetime Emmy Awards, in addition to nominations for two Tony Awards.
Curve is a global lesbian media project. It covers news, politics, social issues, and includes celebrity interviews and stories on entertainment, pop culture, style, and travel.
Kalpen Suresh Modi, known professionally as Kal Penn, is an American actor, author, academic lecturer, and former White House staff member in the Barack Obama administration. As an actor he is known as Lawrence Kutner on the television program House, White House staffer Seth Wright on Designated Survivor, and Kumar Patel in the Harold & Kumar film series. He is also recognized for his performance in the film The Namesake. Penn has taught at the University of Pennsylvania in the Cinema Studies Program as a visiting lecturer.
Barbara Dare is an American former pornographic actress. She was one of the industry's initial contract performers with Essex Video and Vivid Entertainment and is an AVN and XRCO Hall of Fame inductee.
Joshua Lucas Easy Dent Maurer is an American actor. He is best known for his roles in various films, including American Psycho (2000), You Can Count on Me (2000), The Deep End (2001), A Beautiful Mind (2001), Sweet Home Alabama (2002), Hulk (2003), An Unfinished Life (2005), Glory Road (2006), Poseidon (2006), Life as We Know It (2010), The Lincoln Lawyer (2011), Red Dog (2011), J. Edgar (2011), The Mend (2014), Breakthrough (2019), Ford v Ferrari (2019), and The Forever Purge (2021). He has also appeared in television series such as The Firm (2012), The Mysteries of Laura (2014–2016), and Yellowstone (2018–2022).
Franchell "Frenchie" Davis is an American Broadway performer and a soul, dance/electronica, and pop singer. She came to public attention in 2003 as a contestant on the singing competition show American Idol. Davis began performing in Rent on Broadway soon afterward, and was a member of the cast for four years. In 2011, Davis reached the top 8 on the first season of singing competition The Voice.
Sara Elena Ramírez is a Mexican-American actor and singer. Born in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Ramírez moved to the United States at eight years old, eventually graduating with a fine arts degree from the Juilliard School.
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama is an American attorney and author who served as the first lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. She was the first African-American woman to serve in this position. She is married to former president Barack Obama.
Barbara Crampton is an American actress and producer. She began her career in the 1980s in television soap operas before starring in horror and thriller films—both paths would define her continued accolade-winning career.
The Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) is an eleven-day film festival held in Santa Barbara, California since 1986.
The Theater Offensive is a Boston-based theatrical organization dedicated to the production of queer works. The Theater Offensive was founded in 1989 by Abraham Rybeck "to present the diversity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender lives in art so bold it breaks through personal isolation, challenges the status quo, and builds thriving communities." The Theater Offensive mounts and produces festivals and individual productions by national and local queer performers, and also serves as a development environment for new theatrical work. In addition, The Theater Offensive works to build community through education, outreach, and political activism.
Justin Drew Tranter is an American songwriter, singer, and activist. Frequently co-writing with Julia Michaels, Tranter has written songs for artists such as Britney Spears, Gwen Stefani, Linkin Park, Kelly Clarkson, Sara Bareilles, Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber, DNCE, Citizen Queen, Kesha, Imagine Dragons, Fifth Harmony, 5 Seconds of Summer, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, RAYE, Bea Miller, Demi Lovato, Dua Lipa, Måneskin, and Fall Out Boy. From 2004 to 2014, Tranter was the lead singer of Semi Precious Weapons, a rock band based in New York. Since February 2017, they have been a board member of GLAAD, an organization that promotes LGBT acceptance in the entertainment and news industries. Tranter's songs have garnered over 50 million single sales and 40 billion streams on Spotify and YouTube as of May 2021.
Harry Shum Jr. is a Costa Rican-American actor, dancer, choreographer, and singer. He is best known for his roles as Mike Chang on the Fox television series Glee (2009–15), Benson Kwan on the ABC television series Grey's Anatomy (2022–), and as Magnus Bane on the Freeform television series Shadowhunters (2016–19). He was nominated for six Screen Actors Guild Awards for best ensemble performance in Crazy Rich Asians, Glee and Everything Everywhere All At Once, winning for the latter two. Shum won the award for The Male TV Star of 2018 in the E! People's Choice Awards for Shadowhunters.
True Colors United is an American nonprofit organization addressing the issue of youth homelessness in the United States. Founded in 2008 by Cyndi Lauper, the organization focuses on the unique experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth, who make up 40% of the homeless youth population in America.
Conrad Wayne Ricamora is an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Oliver Hampton on the ABC television series How to Get Away with Murder (2014–20). As a stage actor, he is noted for his roles in the original Off-Broadway musicals Here Lies Love and Soft Power, which premiered in 2013 and 2019, respectively. He made his Broadway debut in the 2015 revival of The King and I.
Southside with You is a 2016 American biographical romantic drama film written, produced, and directed by Richard Tanne, in his feature film directorial debut. The film stars Parker Sawyers and Tika Sumpter as a young Barack Obama, and Michelle Robinson, respectively, and focuses on the couple's first date in 1989.
Daveed Daniele Diggs is an American actor, rapper, and singer-songwriter. He is the vocalist of the experimental hip hop group Clipping, and in 2015, he originated the dual roles of Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in the musical Hamilton, for which he won a 2016 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical. Along with the main cast of Hamilton, he was awarded a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album in the same year.
Lily Gladstone is an American actress of Blackfeet and Nimíipuu heritage. Gladstone's breakout role came in 2016 in Kelly Reichardt's feature film Certain Women, for which she won and was nominated for several accolades. She had a small role in Reichardt's 2019 film First Cow, She will star in Martin Scorsese's feature film Killers of the Flower Moon alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Brendan Fraser, Jesse Plemons, and Robert de Niro, releasing in 2023.
In the United States, LGBT youth of colour are marginalized adolescents in the LGBT community. Social issues include homelessness; cyberbullying; physical, verbal and sexual abuse; suicide; drug addiction; street violence; immigration surveillance; engagement in high-risk sexual activity; self-harm, and depression. The rights of LGBT youth of colour are reportedly not addressed in discussions of sexuality and race in the larger context of LGBT rights.
