As CEO of Apple, Inc. the world’s richest tech company, Tim Cook is the first CEO of a Fortune 500, who is openly gay. Having served as Apple’s chief executive officer since Steve Job’s passing in 2017, he also serves on the boards of Nike and the National Football League. Cook has proven his ability to see beyond the product, stressing the importance of creativity and collaboration. His philanthropy and wish to leave the planet a better place is reflected in his statement that he intends to leave his entire fortune to charity. Famously private, Cook came out to “inspire people to insist on their equality.”

​On this the 54th anniversary of Stonewall, the Greenwich riots that were the catalyst to the modern gay rights movement, it seems appropriate to honor business leader Martine Rothblattt, who represents how far the LGBTQIA+ community has come since the Sixties, when so many folks endured hidden lives of fear and shame. Rothblatt is the founder/CEO of United Therapeutics, the first publicly traded biotech company, identified as a Public Benefit Company (PBC). Under Rothblatt’s leadership, UT has gained FDA approval for 5 drugs and is working toward the development of novel therapies and an unlimited supply of manufactured organs for transplantation. Also the founder of SiriusXM, she is a lawyer, author and is now amazingly working on digital immortality through artificial intelligence. Together with Bina - her beloved wife of 41 years - Rothblatt came out at age 40 as transgender, changed her name and became a forthright advocate for LGBTQIA rights.

In honor of the tenth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s legalization of same-sex marriage in the U.S., let us remember advocate, Edith Windsor, who was the lead plaintiff in the case that led to the landmark ruling. A technology manager and considered a pioneer in operating systems, Windsor worked at IBM for 16 years, becoming their highest level senior programmer. In 1975, she founded her own software development firm, PC Classics, devoting much of her time to numerous LGBTQIA+ causes.. The nearly 44-year relationship between psychiatrist Thea Speyer and Windsor ended with Speyer’s passing in 2009, but they were able to be legally married in Canada in 2007. Windsor’s second wife, financial advisor/activist Judith Kasen is continuing the legacy of her trailblazing spouse.

​The 73rd governor of Massachusetts, Maura Healey is the nation’s first openly lesbian governor, an honor she shares with Oregon’s governor, Tina Kotek. Following her time as a prodigious Massachusetts Attorney, she has a vision for her administration, that emphasizes equality and inclusion, tax reformation, the housing crisis, the retooling of workforce training and climate change. The mother of two children, her partner, nonprofit executive, Joanna Lyndgate, founder and CEO of States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan Washington nonprofit, seeking to protect free and fair elections and to prevent political violence.

Mitchell Adams worked as Massachusetts Commissioner of Revenue for Governor William Weld and initiated the much-imitated “deadbeat dads initiative" that featured “most wanted posters” for those owing the most child support. In 1992, Addams and his partner Kevin Smith, Weld’s Commissioner of the Division of Capitol Planning and Operations came out publicly about their 12-year relationship. They also became one of the first gay couples to be legally married. Adams was Dean for Finance at Harvard Medical School and UMASS Medical Center and he ended his career as the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.

​For his courage in using his renown as a platform to speak out for other transgender people, Canadian actor Elliot Page deserves recognition as a trailblazer. After starring in numerous films and television programs as Ellen Page - from Juno and Hard Candy to Inception and Saturday Night Live and ReGenesis - he came out as gay in 2014 while presenting as a woman, but with The COVID pandemic and after increasing anti-transgender rhetoric in the media, he decided to reveal his true identity in 2020. Since then, his journey has helped to increase awareness and understanding of the challenges of being trans in a sometimes, hostile world. Page is the first openly transgendered man to appear on the cover of Time magazine. His revealing memoir, Pageboy, will be released this month.

​Born on June 23, Alan Mathison Turing is considered the “Father of Theoretical Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. An English mathematician logician, philosopher, cryptanalyst and the theoretical biologist, he provided a formalization of the concepts of the algorithm and computation with the invention of the Turing machine, the precursor of all modern computers. Turing’s skill in code-breaking led to his cracking the Enigma Code during World War II, which saved lives and determined the war’s course and outcome. A gay man, Turing was convicted of “gross indecency, was sentenced to probation and required to consume a medication that reduced his libido and made him impotent. He was pardoned posthumously in 2009.

Two-Spirit, activist, storyteller, artist and educator Geo Soctomah Neptune is a member of the Passamaquoddy Tribe. In 2020 Geo Soctomah Neptune became the first openly transgender elected official in Maine after getting elected for school board in Indian Township. He is also the first Two-Spirit person to run for any office for the state at large. A graduate of Dartmouth College, Neptune, is a nationally recognized, award-winning basketmaker, carrying on the traditions of his grandmother and also a drag performer, who incorporates Two-Spirit concept into their performances. (The term “two-spirit” is used to describe indigenous people who fulfill centuries-old, ceremonial and social roles in their cultures as members of a third-gender or other-gender variant.)

Born Alberta Lucille Hart, Alan L. Hart was an American physician, researcher and author and one of the first female-to-male transgender persons to undergo a hysterectomy in the United States and live the rest of his life as a man. A trailblazer, Hart pioneered the use of x-ray photography in early tuberculosis detection and developed screening protocols and programs that emphasized the use of radiology that saved thousands of lives, while fundraising extensively for medical research and to support economically challenged patients. As an author, Hart also penned novels with autobiographical themes of medicine and sexuality and plots that reflected the difficulties inherent in leading a secret life to avoid public slander and outrage.