In this article, we’ll discover the top 8 LGBT icons who have influenced the fashion industry, arts, music, poetry and more. The talented and successful people who have contributed to the LGBT community and helped to write their story.
The path to recognizing the LGBT community was not easy.
Half a century ago, LGBT people were faced with many difficulties; homosexuality was considered a mental disorder and homosexuals were harassed and assaulted.
On the 28th of June 1969 at the “Stonewall Inn” bar in New York, there was a police raid which led to three days of uprising from the LGBT community. They were fighting back against the brutality that had been suffered for so many years.
This date in history is an important reminder of the power of standing together in defiance of those who seek to divide us. The LGBT stood together fighting for the same rights that their heterosexual friends had; the right to love freely, the right to marry, the right to have children and, most importantly, the right to live without fear.
Top 8 LGBT Icons of all time
Francis Bacon: Artist
First on the list of Top 8 LGBT icons is Francis Bacon. Francis was born in Dublin, in the family of a former military man. The head of the family, Edward Bacon, kept the whole family at bay, demanding unquestioning obedience from the children. But the real tragedy happened when the father became aware of Francis’s homosexuality. Edward Bacon was completely furious.
A young artist had to leave the house in disgrace, he went to London. There, he plunged headlong into a bohemian life: expensive restaurants, numerous lovers, gambling and alcohol.
Christian Dior: Сouturier
A man who understood women better than anyone and was completely not interested in them, Christian Dior became the creator of the New Look style in the second half of the 40s.
After the second world war, European women seemed to have forgotten about jewelry, heels and other luxuries. In 1947, Christian Dior suggested returning to femininity and pulled the female waist into corsets and returned fluffy skirts to the catwalk.
Christian Dior was gay, but he never advertised his connections: public condemnation was very great. Although when Dior met a young Algerian singer and he started to go public him.
Oscar Wilde: Author
Wilde for a long time managed to combine the traditional role of the father of the family with homosexual relationships. His fatal passion was Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie).
Wilde did not consider it necessary to hide his love for Bosie, for which in 1895 he was sentenced to two years in hard labor. After his release in May 1897, the writer moved to France.
Ellen DeGeneres: Сomedian
American TV presenter, open lesbian and LGBT activist Ellen Degeneres starred in the sitcom Ellen in the mid-1990s.
In one of the episodes, Ellen is asked where she was. “Oh, I was in the closet,” she replies, literally leaving the closet.
This metaphor is used to refer to a non-heterosexual person who is forced to hide his identity. The expression “get out of the closet” means “commit a coming out”.
Jean Genet: Novelist
By the age of 18, he managed to live on the street, become a thief and rewind his term in prison. In the 1940s, he began to write books, and he also protested against police arbitrariness and the war in Algeria. In his books, Genet touched and intertwined taboo topics, such as male homosexuality.
By the way, in 1972, David Bowie released the single The Jean Genie, explicitly referring to the name of the writer.
Christine Jorgensen: The first famous transgender woman
The first American transgender woman to become a media sensation. Christine before the transition served in the army, from where in 1945 she returned to her native New York. There she found out that corrective operations had begun in Europe, and decided to go to Denmark.
After returning to the United States in the early 1950s, Jorgenson did not leave the front pages of newspapers for a long time and quickly gained star status. She played in the theater and cinema, performed in nightclubs as a singer and for a long time became an icon of style.
The film “A Girl from Denmark” is dedicated to her with Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Wikander in the lead roles.
Ellen Page: Actress
Two years ago, Ellen Page came up with a touching speech at an LGBT rights conference. Since then, the actress has made a lot of efforts in order to maintain an open conversation about homosexuality.
“Gaycation” is a small web-series in which the actress goes on a trip to America, Japan, Brazil and Jamaica to learn first-hand how the LGBT community lives. The actress puts on a humanistic mission in her series and hopes that thanks to him, more people will understand how hard it is to be LGBT members around the world, especially where they are not legally protected.
Freddie Mercury: Singer
Freddie Mercury was at a crossroads between mainstream and queer culture. He undermined and overcame the traditional culture of values in order to completely free his artistic and sexual expression.
The sense of freedom expressed in his unique voice cannot be separated from his acceptance of sexual freedom and all that it implied.