Meet the amazing LGBT women who defined 2015

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Earlier this year, the Independent on Sunday came out with their 2015 Rainbow List of the 101 most influential LGBTI people in the UK. I was number 100, meaning I have slightly less influence than, say, the phenomonally talented actor Rebecca Root, but more than Conservative MP Crispin Blunt (although he would beat me in a list of ‘people whose names sound like slang for marijuana’).
It ticked an item off my bucket list unexpectedly early – next up is ‘become the new Doctor Who’ so watch out, Peter Capaldi. But it also got me thinking about the LGBT women who have defined my 2015. Here they are:

Lea DeLaria

DeLaria (left) with Natasha Lyonne in Orange Is The New Black

 Lea DeLaria has been flying the flag for fat butch dykes for years, but the third season of TV show Orange is the New Black gave her the biggest platform yet.It was the turn of her character Big Boo to get an entire episode dedicated to exploring her backstory. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when she turned to her disapproving parents and told them “I refuse to be invisible.”

 

Carrie Brownstein

 The Portlandia star and Sleater-Kinney frontwoman brought out her hotly anticipated memoir Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl this autumn.

 Carrie Brownstein performs with Sleater-Kinney at the Roundhouse in London

 Recounting her early years raised by an anorexic mother and a closeted gay father through to life as a key figure in the riot grrrl movement, it’s one of the best books about music, queerness and feminism in recent years.

 

Mhairi Black

 The political success story of the year, if not the decade, Black swept to victory as the SNP candidate for Paisley, displacing Douglas Alexander from what was once a Labour stronghold before she’d even finished her degree. At 21, she was the youngest MP elected in 350 years.

 

Mhairi Black Credit: Allan Milligan 

 

She got a first and went on to become one of Scotland’s favourite public figures after her maiden speech in the House of Commons went viral. Props.

 

Caitlin Stasey

 Not content with starring in hit feminist costume drama Reign (think The Tudors but with less nudity and more female empowerment than a Women’s Studies lecture) queer actress Caitlin Stasey made headlines in January when she launched Herself.com.

 

 Caitlin Stasey, the creator of herself.com

 

 The website interviews non-famous women about sex and body image, and is packed to the rafters with non-exploitative, un-airbrushed images of naked women that she describes as “female form in all its honesty without the burden of the male gaze.” On top of that, she’s a gifted actor and her Twitter account bristles with righteous anger.

 

courtesy: THE TELEGRAPH