The Most Awesome LGBTQ Women In History

Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde was an African-American writer, civil rights activist and vocal feminist. She was also a tough-to-the-bone lesbian and was never afraid to be outspoken in her plight for change. Audrey’s poetry was truly radical and dealt with the very taboo topics of civil rights, feminism, and exploring the black female identity.

Audre Lorde’s mission was to smash the patriarchy. She famously said, “Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society’s definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference — those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older — know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master’s house as their only source of support.”

Katherine Zappone

Katherine Zappone is an American politician, feminist, and theologian. She became one of the first openly lesbian members of the Oirechtas (Ireland’s legislative branch) and the first one to be in a same-sex relationship. She has served as a both a member of the Irish Human Rights Commission and chief executive of the National Women’s Council of Ireland.

Zappone paved the way for LGBTQ visibility. The scholar (with a PhD from Boston College) is Ireland’s first openly lesbian government minister and the world’s 32nd lesbian to be elected to parliament (yes, only 32 out lesbians worldwide have worked in a high branch of government). She’s currently the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs and teaches at Trinity College in Dublin.