people together. He also thanked his partner, Todd Gage, and said that, even though he has accomplished many things throughout his career, coming out was the most important thing he had ever done.
Suze Orman
Personal Financial Expert
“People first. Then money. Then things.”
For fourteen years, every week, Suze Orman reached three million people with The Suze Orman Show, an Emmy Award-winning program about money and personal financial independence. She became America’s go-to person for financial advice and, in addition to hosting her own show, made regular appearances on various others including The View, Anderson Cooper 360, Good Morning America, and Larry King Live. As the host of one of CNBC’s most successful television shows, Orman would take calls from viewers and give them advice on how to fix their financial problems, discussing everything from paying off student loan debt to saving for a mortgage. She educated millions of people on stocks and bonds, and explained how long it would take to pay off their credit cards if they only made the minimum payment. Orman is known for tough love, telling it like it is, and never sugarcoating her message to viewers.
In addition to her television show, Orman is the author of nine consecutive New York Times bestsellers. Her books educate readers on how to be smart with money in any situation. She was a longtime contributing editor to O, The Oprah Magazine and a regular columnist for AARP magazine. She was included in Forbe’s list of the World’s 100 Most Power Women and was twice named to Time magazine’s list of the World’s 100 Most Influential People. While on top of the world, Orman came out in a 2007 interview with the New York Times. She said she was in a seven-year relationship with her life partner, K.T. The two were married in 2010 and have since retired to a mansion in the Bahamas. Her advice to you, no matter what your background or challenges are, is: “If you hold on to your goals and dreams, you will get there.”
Tim Cook
CEO, Apple
“The sidelines are not where you want to live your life. The world needs you in the arena.”
Many people know that Steve Jobs was the co-founder of Apple and the product visionary of the company, but did you know it was a gay man who turned their leading product, the iPhone, into one of the most successful tech products in history? Tim Cook became the CEO of Apple in 2011, and, three years later, became the first openly gay man to run a Fortune 500 company, after coming out of the closet in a Bloomberg editorial. As if that wasn’t enough, Apple became the first one-trillion-dollar publicly traded US company under his leadership.
Most of Apple’s profits have been driven by the iPhone, which tens of millions of Americans use in their everyday lives to make calls, send texts, take pictures, check email, listen to music, post on social media, play games, and more. Cook used the product to take high-tech security features normally only used by businesses and made them available to homes around the world. Ordinary people suddenly had the capability of unlocking their devices using fingerprint technology or by scanning their faces, something that was previously only seen in sci-fi movies. He also revolutionized the way consumers make purchases when Apple rolled out a digital wallet, giving people the ability to replace their credit cards with their phones when making in-person purchases.
In addition to being a leader in the business and technology fields, Cook is also a leader when it comes to social issues, and has a long history of supporting LGBTQ equality. In 2013, he wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, urging the US Senate to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a bill that would ban employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity. In 2015, he pushed even harder for LGBTQ equality. He wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post against “religious freedom” bills (laws that would legalize discrimination against LGBTQ people if done for religious reasons), wrote a statement to the Human Rights Campaign in support of the Equality Act (a bill that would provide protections from discrimination for LGBTQ people in employment, housing, credit, education, and other key areas of life), and he even got Apple to file a joint friend-of-the-court brief to the US Supreme Court, urging them to overturn same-sex marriage bans. When the court finally ruled that marriage equality was legal across the country, Cook celebrated by marching in the San Francisco Pride Parade with approximately eight thousand Apple employees.
Cook has also used his platform, and Apple’s position of influence in the world, to stand up on other social issues, such as racism, immigration, and climate change. For example, after the 2017 alt-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left one counterprotester dead and nineteen people injured, Cook pledged one million dollars in donations to both the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League. In 2017, Apple joined other companies in filing a joint court brief against Trump’s stringent Executive Order on Immigration, which halted entry of all refugees and banned citizens from seven predominantly Muslim nations. The companies all agreed that increased background checks were important, but so was America’s commitment to welcoming immigrants. The brief made the claim that “Immigrants do not take jobs away from US citizens—they create them,” while pointing out that immigrants or their children founded more than two hundred of the Fortune 500 companies, including Apple. In his role as CEO of the largest tech company in the world, Tim Cook has proved that LGBTQ people can be great business leaders. Ironically, even more than his stellar leadership, big heart, and generous financial contributions, Cook’s forthright example as the most recognizable gay person in the public eye is likely to have the most far-reaching impact on all youth, both queer and straight.
Part 3
Dance
Bill T. Jones
Dancer and Tony Award–Winning Choreographer
“We can get up and do it over again, better.”
When it comes to modern dance, Bill T. Jones is one of the most notable choreographers and directors of our time. He was born the tenth of twelve children to migrant potato pickers and studied at Binghamton University, which he attended on a special program for underprivileged students. While there, he studied West African and Afro-Caribbean dance, classical ballet, and modern dance. From there, he went on to become the Artistic Director of New York Live Arts and Artistic Director/Co-Founder of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company.
Politics, race, and social issues have often been themes in Jones’ work. As a longtime AIDS survivor, HIV and AIDS have frequently been highlighted in his pieces. He choreographed Absence, which showcased heartrending performances that expressed his grief following the death of his partner, Arnie Zane, who died of AIDS-related lymphoma. In 1994, he choreographed Still/Here, a controversial piece that explored mortality and what it’s like to live with a life-threatening medical diagnosis. His work gained national attention, and in that year, he graced the cover of Time magazine.
Jones also made a significant mark on the Broadway stage. In 2007, he won the Tony Award for Best Choreography for the musical, Spring Awakening, the story of a nineteenth-century German schoolgirl coming of age and the collective rebellion of German teens in an era of repression and structure. In 2010, he again won the Tony Award for Best Choreography, this time for FELA!, a musical based on the life of Fela Kuti, the Afrobeat musician and activist who was jailed numerous times in his young life and was severely beaten after speaking out against the Nigerian
