The 200 most iconic queers in cultural history, part four

Queeries is a Digital Publishing Award-winning weekly column by CBC Arts producer Peter Knegt that queries LGBTQ art, culture and/or identity through a personal lens. This is a celebration of its 200th edition.

For the past month, this column has been celebrating its 200th edition with a four-part countdown of the 200 most iconic queers in all of cultural history. And we have finally arrived at its grand finale: the top 50.

This is it — the 50 queer people who have had (at least in my opinion) the most undeniable impact on culture and forever changed mainstream perceptions of queerness.

Looking for Tegan and Sara, Gritty, or Emperor Ai of Han? Try part one.

What about Bob Mackie, Lena Waithe, and The Babadook? You'll find them in part two.

Or maybe you're wondering where Bert and Ernie are? They deserve a spot in part three, right up there with Laverne Cox and Elliot Page.

All 200 are worthy of celebration, but it's time to count down all the way to the #1 spot. Let's go, girls.

• Check out even more stories from us on LGBTQ+ icons and activists

50. Stefon

Occupation: City correspondent, club kid
Years active: Born to David Bowie and Ms. Stefon at some point in the 1970s or 1980s, Stefon Meyers (né Zolesky) became the New York City correspondent on Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update in 2010.
Why so iconic: This list's hottest entry, Stefon has seen everything: split kicks, pachucos, pile after pile of expired Lunchables, Furbies, screaming babies in Mozart wigs, sunburned drifters with soap sud beards, Germfs (German smurfs), a Teddy Ruxpin wearing mascara, an old lady wearing Kid 'n Play hair, a sheepdog that looks like Bruce Vilanch, an entire room of puppets doing karate and more:

49. Lil Nas X

Occupation: Rapper, singer
Years active: After dropping out of college and moving in with his sister, Lil Nas X recorded his first single, "Old Town Road," on December 2, 2018, and independently released it the next day. By the following April, it had begun a record-breaking 19 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100.
Why so iconic: For deciding to come out during the reign of "Old Town Road" despite the rampant homophobia that still very much exists within both hip hop and country music (the two genres the song straddles). And for being a fearless force of nature in pop culture ever since. Basically everything he has done since then has broken precedent and defied naysayers, all while pushing queerness into the mainstream like no one else before (just consider what he did in 2021 alone). All hail the new king:

48. Rosie O'Donnell

Occupation: Comedian, actress, author, talk show host, LGBTQ family cruise magnate
Years active: Started doing stand-up in her late teens before getting her first big break on a 1984 episode of Star Search. She would make her film debut eight years later in A League of Their Own (a perfect movie) before starting her massively popular daytime talk show, The Rosie O'Donnell Show, in 1996.
Why so iconic: For being so bold and unflinching in her beliefs and her queerness from the moment she decided to publicly come out in 2002 (though it wasn't like she hadn't been spelling it out for us all along). Not unlike Lil Nas (though in a very different manner), O'Donnell has been one of the rare gay celebrities who refuses to cater to societal norms, pivoting hard from the "Queen of Nice" image of her talk show days to aggressively stand up for what she believes is right — even if it's gotten her into some trouble. 

47. Quentin Crisp

Occupation: Writer, humourist, actor, model, sex worker, window dresser
Years active: Born in 1908, Crisp did not become famous until the 1960s, when they published the wildly provocative autobiography The Naked Civil Servant, which detailed decades of refusing to hide their homosexuality during a time when it was still illegal.
Why so iconic: For being — in his own words — "not merely a self-confessed homosexual, but a self-evident one," even in 1930s England. And for living their entire life (he passed away in 1999, at the age of 90 and then came out as transgender in a posthumously published biography) in the most outrageous manner possible, even if it got them into exponentially more trouble than O'Donnell and Lil Nas X combined.

46. Robert Mapplethorpe

Occupation: Photographer
Years active: Started taking photographs in the late 1960s, when he was living with frequent collaborator (and then-girlfriend) Patti Smith. Over the next two decades, he would create a stunning body of work with a focus on gay male BDSM culture, which helped prove that both queerness and erotica were valid subjects in photographic art.
Why so iconic: There are no words greater than Patti Smith's when it comes to Mapplethorpe, so I will let this quote from her book Just Kids (one of the most beautiful memoirs I've ever read) explain what made his work so special: "Robert took areas of dark human consent and made them into art. He worked without apology, investing the homosexual with grandeur, masculinity, and enviable nobility. Without affectation, he created a presence that was wholly male without sacrificing feminine grace. He was not looking to make a political statement or an announcement of his evolving sexual persuasion. He was presenting something new, something not seen or explored as he saw and explored it."

45. Ursula

Occupation: Sea witch
Years active: The main antagonist of Disney's The Little Mermaid, Ursula is a composite of many drag queens and camp icons, most notably John Waters's muse Divine, whom the film's creators based Ursula's appearance on. She first appeared on screen in the 1989 original version (and was voiced by the incredible Pat Carroll), and will soon be played by Melissa McCarthy in a 2023 live-action remake that, personally, I did not ask for and do not need.
Why so iconic: For giving an entire generation of queers (myself included) their first drag show:

44. Howard Ashman

Occupation: Lyricist, playwright
Years active: Ashman became the artistic director of New York City's WPA Theater in 1977, which is where he'd begin collaborating with composer Alan Menken. Together, they created music for Little Shop of Horrors — originally staged in 1982 and adapted for the1986 movie — and the aforementioned Disney animated classic The Little Mermaid (Ashman was the one who encouraged Ursula's characterization to be based on Divine), among other masterworks.
Why so iconic: For changing Disney forever, and for doing so while he was fighting for his life.

42. & 43. Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith

Occupations: Blues singers
Years active: Rainey (born in 1886) and Smith (born in 1894) met in Georgia in the 1910s, forging a mutual mentorship and a complex — and, at times, romantic — relationship. Both would go on to have hugely influential recording careers in the 1920s, though both would also pass away far too young the following decade (Smith in a car crash in 1937 and Rainey of a heart attack in 1939).
Why so iconic: Dubbed the "Mother of the Blues" (Rainey) and the "Empress of the Blues" (Smith), or, collectively, "Queens of the Bisexual Blues," both women left behind legacies that included bringing blues music into the mainstream. Their stories would go on to help nab Viola Davis (in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom) and Queen Latifah (in Bessie) Oscar and Emmy nominations, respectively, for portraying them on screen. 

41. Lily Tomlin

Occupation: Actress, comedian, writer
Years active: Joined the sketch comedy show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In in 1969, quickly becoming a breakout star for characters like Ernestine and Edith Ann.
Why so iconic: From films like Nashville, 9 to 5 and All of Me to her one-woman show The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (written by her wife and long-time collaborator, Jane Wagner) to her more recent reunion with Jane Fonda on Grace and Frankie, Tomlin has been a beacon of light and joy in our lives for the nearly 60 years we've been lucky enough to enjoy her career.

40. RuPaul Charles

Occupation: Drag queen, actor, recording artist, television judge, model
Years active: After spending most of the preceding decade performing in Atlanta's club scene, Ru got his first national exposure dancing in the music video for the B-52's 1989 hit song "Love Shack." In 1993, he had a huge hit of his own when "Supermodel (You Better Work)" launched him to the international fame he very much maintains to this day. 
Why so iconic: Say what you want about RuPaul (like how he fracks?) or his Drag Race franchise empire (which has perhaps become slightly oversaturated?), it is undeniable that he is not just one of the most iconic queer figures of the past 30 years, but that he's also directly responsible for facilitating a culture that has allowed dozens and dozens (maybe hundreds at this point?) of other drag icons to thrive. And there's no doubt how far he had to come and how much he had to werk to get us there.

39. Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Occupation: Filmmaker, actor, playwright, composer, editor, essayist
Years active: Widely regarded as the catalyst of the New German Cinema movement, Fassbinder made his first feature, Love is Colder Than Death, in 1969. 
Why so iconic: For being astonishingly prolific. In the years between 1969 and 1982, when he died of a drug overdose at the age of 37, Fassbinder made over 40 films (in addition to 24 plays and two television series). He acted in 19 of them, while also often serving as their editor, art director and cinematographer. Among them are some of the greatest works of queer cinema ever made, including The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant (1972), Fox and His Friends (1975) and Querelle (1982). 

38. King Edward II

Occupation: King of England
Years active: Succeeded to the throne in 1307 at the age of 23, and reigned until 1327, when he was forced out of power by his own queen (who wasn't a big fan) dying in a prison castle a few months later (though some historians believe that was actually staged).
Why so iconic: For causing some of the gayest drama in the history of the British monarchy. Seven years before he became king, Edward II became super close to Piers Gaveston, the son of one of his father's knights. Edward II's father did not like what was almost certainly a sexual relationship, and had Gaveston exiled. But when his father died and Edward II became king, he promptly recalled Gaveston, made him the "Earl of Cornwall" (whatever that entails) and they continued to gay up the royal bed. This really pissed off a bunch of powerful barons who eventually had Gaveston executed, which Edward II basically spent the rest of his life trying to avenge. Where is this season of The Crown, you ask? Thankfully, there's no need: Derek Jarman (also on this list!) already made a movie about Edward and Gaveston in 1991:

37. Sir Ian McKellen

Occupation: Actor
Years active: Appeared in 23 plays over the course of his time as a student at the University of Cambridge in the late 1950s before breaking out as a major theatre actor in the U.K. in the next decade (one of his first big roles was none other than Edward II).
Why so iconic: For becoming only the second openly gay person to be knighted when the Queen did him the honours in 1991 (what a day that must have been for the ghost of Edward II). And for also being, I don't know, Gandalf, Magneto, and a stalwart of both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre of Great Britain all at once?

36. Jason Holliday

Occupation: Nightclub performer, sex worker, documentary film subject
Years active: In Holliday's own iconic words to filmmaker Shirley Clarke in her 1967 documentary about him, Portrait of Jason: "Began career at five years old as errand boy for prostitutes, pimps, bootleggers, schoolteachers, doctors, lawyers, etc. — and anyone else I could get a buck out of. Lonely old men and hot old maids."
Why so iconic: For being the sole on-screen presence in one of the most entertaining and insightful documentaries ever made:

35. Billie Holiday

Occupation: Singer
Years active: Started performing in nightclubs in Harlem as a teenager in 1929 before becoming one of the greatest jazz singers from the 1930s to the 1950s. 
Why so iconic: For having the most iconically haunting voice, which she had wanted to make sound like a musical instrument. That voice was on full display on one particular night in 1939, when she changed the history of American music by singing her now signature song, "Strange Fruit," for the first time at Café Society — New York City's only integrated nightclub at the time. With lyrics by Abel Meeropol protesting the lynching of Black Americans, legendary record label executive Ahmet Ertegun called the song "a declaration of war ... the beginning of the civil rights movement."

33. & 34. Truman Capote and Gore Vidal

Occupations: Writers, public intellectuals, rivals
Years active: Capote got a job as a copy boy at The New Yorker in 1942, when he was still in high school. He was fired after two years for pissing off the poet Robert Frost. Vidal wrote his debut novel Williwaw when he was 19 and stationed with the U.S. army during the Second World War. It was published a year after the war ended.
Why so iconic: For having the queer feud of the 20th century! It peaked when Vidal sued Capote for slander (Capote had said Vidal was kicked out of the White House for being drunk and then putting his arm around then-first lady Jackie Kennedy). "I'm always sad about Gore … very sad that he has to breathe every day," Capote said at the time. Vidal ultimately won the suit (though Capote had no money at the time, so it was a Pyrrhic victory). He also had the last word: When Capote died in 1984 (18 years before his rival), Vidal offered an iconic eulogy by calling his death "a wise career move."

32. Alvin Ailey

Occupation: Dancer, choreographer, activist
Years active: Joined Lester Horton's dance company in 1953, making his debut with Horton's Revue La Bal Caribe. By 1958, he had founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, which quickly became a haven for nurturing Black artists. The company has gone on to perform for an estimated 25 million people in 48 states, as well as 71 countries on six continents. 
Why so iconic: For his choreographic masterpiece Revelations, which Ailey created in 1960, when he was just 29 years old. Paying homage to and reflecting on African American cultural heritage, it's been performed everywhere, from presidential inaugurations to Olympic opening ceremonies. You can watch it in full below:

31. Marlene Dietrich

Occupation: Actress, singer
Years active: Born in Berlin in 1901, Dietrich got her first job at a cinema playing violin in a pit orchestra for silent films. She was fired after only four weeks, but by the next year was already making her debut on screen with a small role in the 1923 German film The Little Napoleon. Her international breakout would come in 1930 with the lead role in Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel, which made Hollywood komm klopfen on her door.
Why so iconic: For the transgressive, gender-fluid style she unapologetically brought to mainstream culture (the Journal of Lesbian Studies has described Dietrich as adopting "double drag" because she "upsets the traditional dichotomy encoded more generally as that of male or female and more particularly as that of the butch or femme"). In 1960, Dietrich herself iconically described her own fashion sense: "I dress for the image. Not for myself, not for the public, not for fashion, not for men." We should all be so lucky to follow her lead.

30. Pussy Riot

Occupation: Feminist protest punk rock and performance art group
Years active: Started in August 2011 by roughly a dozen women (many of whom identify as LGBTQ, and many whom have remained anonymous due to extremely justified concerns for safety). The group began as a response to fascist national politics in Russia. Over the following months, they staged a series of unauthorized guerrilla gigs in public places. Their first involved several masked women performing "Osvobodi Bruschatku," which translates to "release the cobblestones," atop a scaffold in a Moscow subway, showering feathers onto the train platform below. The song asked Russians to protest their upcoming election (which would ultimately bring Putin back to power) by throwing cobblestones during street clashes. 
Why so iconic: For spending the past decade fighting for women's rights and LGBTQ rights in opposition to Putin and his policies, even when it has endangered their lives and sent multiple members to prison.

29. Stephen Sondheim

Occupation: Composer, lyricist
Years active: Began his career in basically the most iconic way possible: writing the lyrics for the original 1957 stage version of West Side Story. From there, he'd be credited for reinventing the American musical with shows like A Funny Thing Happened on the Way To The Forum (1962), Company (1970), Follies (1971) and Into The Woods (1987).
Why so iconic: Obviously, for being the most important figure in the history of musical theatre, but also for inspiring Christine Baranski, Audra McDonald and Meryl Streep to do this in celebration of his 90th birthday — truly the greatest thing to ever come out of COVID quarantine culture:

28. Touko Laaksonen

Occupation: Erotic illustrator 
Years active: Born in Kaarina, Finland, in 1920, Laaksonen became better known by his pseudonym, Tom of Finland, when his editor used it to start publishing his drawings in the American magazine Physique Pictorial in 1956. By the 1970s, his work — which largely featured muscled, mustachioed men — had become significantly emblematic of gay male culture.
Why so iconic: Rightfully called "the most influential creator of gay pornographic images" by historian Joseph W. Slade, Laaksonen produced more than 3,500 illustrations over his four decades of work. In 2014, the Finnish postal service released a series of stamps celebrating his work — a world first for its use of homoerotic art. They quickly became the country's best-selling stamps ever.

25. to 27. Elton John, Freddie Mercury and George Michael

Occupations: Singers, songwriters, stars
Years active: John's debut album came out in 1969; Mercury's (via Queen) in 1973; Michael's (via Wham!) in 1983. 
Why so iconic: For being so legendarily iconic that I really shouldn't have to explain to anyone why they are iconic. These three have collectively sold 200 quadrillion records (by my rough estimate, at least), been responsible for hundreds of the most iconic moments in pop culture history and had their lives turned into one of the best and one of the worst music biopics ever made (we are still waiting on George's). 

24. Audre Lorde

Occupation: In her public appearances, Lorde famously often introduced herself the same way: "I am a Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet."
Years active: After writing poetry while working as a librarian, her first volume of work, The First Cities, was published in 1968. Two years later, she released Cables to Rage, which explored her anger at the racism and sexism embedded in the history of the United States. It also contained the first poetic expression of her queer sexuality.
Why so iconic: For so powerfully embodying all of her identities and expressing necessary insight about the intersectionality of race, gender and sexuality, which would inspire so many that came after her. 

23. Pedro Almodóvar

Occupation: Filmmaker
Years active: In 1971, he bought a Super 8 camera with his first paycheque from his job as an administrative assistant at a Spanish telephone company, and spent the rest of the decade making (often overtly sexual) short films that he'd screen at bars and nightclubs in Madrid and Barcelona. In 1978, he made his first feature, Folle, folle, fólleme, Tim, which indeed translates to F--k Me, F--k Me, F--k Me, Tim.
Why so iconic: For offering the world access into his bold, complex, passionate mind through five decades (and counting) of the most fabulous cinema, from Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) to Talk To Her (2002) to this past year's Parallel Mothers. Also, for offering the world access to a young Antonio Banderas:

22. Tennessee Williams

Occupation: Playwright, screenwriter
Years active: After struggling for more than a decade to get his work produced or seen, Williams essentially became an overnight sensation at the age of 33 when The Glass Menagerie debuted on Broadway in 1945. This led to a string of massive successes (A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) that would go on to define him as one of the greatest American playwrights of the 20th century.
Why so iconic: For writing one of the most iconic scenes in the history of theatre and film:

20. & 21. Marlon Brando and Richard Pryor

Occupation: Actor (Brando); comedian (Pryor)
Years active: Brando got his break in 1951, playing Stanley Kowalski (see the clip above) in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire. Pryor rose to fame on the New York City comedy club circuit in the 1960s.
Why so iconic: For being widely considered the greatest actor and the greatest comedian of all time, which is about as iconic as it gets. But also for being the subjects of a legendary piece of celebrity gossip; in a 2018 interview with Vulture, Quincy Jones said of Brando: "He was the most charming motherf--ker you ever met. He'd f--k anything. Anything! He'd f--k a mailbox. James Baldwin. Richard Pryor. Marvin Gaye." Later that day, TMZ confirmed this with an even wilder quote from Pryor's widow, Jennifer Lee Pryor: "It was the '70s! Drugs were still good, especially quaaludes. If you did enough cocaine, you'd f--k a radiator and send it flowers in the morning." (Stars — they're just like us!) 

19. Julius Caesar

Occupation: General, statesman, dictator
Years active: Born in 100 BC, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before becoming the dictator of Rome from 49 BC until his assassination five years later.
Why so iconic: Sure, he was more or less responsible for the rise of the Roman Empire ... but did you know Caesar was also allegedly history's first known power bottom? Men were free to have sex with other men at the time, but for those in high social positions, they had to be the top or it was considered humiliating. But Caesar apparently was really into bottoming, earning him the title "The Queen of Bithynia" from his enemies (after King Nicomedes IV of Bithynia, who was rumoured to be Caesar's sexual partner).

18. Larry Kramer

Occupation: Activist, writer, shit disturber
Years active: Began his career rewriting scripts for Columbia Pictures in the 1960s, which led to his own Oscar-nominated screenplay, an adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love. In 1978, he debuted the controversial, confrontational style that he'd become both loved and loathed for by fellow queer men, when he released his first novel, Faggots. A satirical look at the lives of gay men in 1970s New York City, it was dismissed by many — and even banned from some gay book stores — because of its criticism of gay men's obsession with vanity, promiscuity and recreational drug use (which many viewed as self-loathing on Kramer's part).
Why so iconic: For not giving a shit what people thought of him, particularly other gay men. It was in large part because of that attitude that he was able to make such an aggressive contribution to AIDS activism in the 1980s and 1990s:

17. Frida Kahlo

Occupation: Painter
Years active: Began painting during her recovery from a severe bus accident that left her bedridden for three months in 1925. She was 18 years old at the time, and her mother gave her a specially made easel so she could paint from her bed. Most of the work that resulted were portraits of herself, her sisters and her friends from school. 
Why so iconic: Kahlo only painted around 200 paintings in her life, and her work was generally underappreciated by the mainstream art world until the late 1970s, over two decades after her death. But, by the turn of the 21st century, her paintings were selling for millions, inspiring fashion collections by Jean Paul Gaultier and featured on U.S. postage stamps. 

16. Alan Turing

Occupation: Mathematician, computer scientist, logician
Years active: After completing a PhD in mathematical logic at Princeton University in 1938, Turing began working for a British codebreaking organization. When the Second World War broke out, he oversaw the top-secret effort to decrypt the codes of Nazi Germany's Engima machine, which was believed to be uncrackable. But Turing cracked it, which played a huge role in ending the war. Disturbingly, this was met with far from a hero's welcome as he would be arrested in 1952 for homosexuality and forced by the authorities to choose between jail and a chemical castration (he chose the latter). He was found dead of cyanide poisoning two years later, an apparent suicide. 
Why so iconic: For literally saving the world, even if it took 60 years for his own country to give a shit.

15. Michelangelo

Occupation: Sculptor, painter, architect, poet
Years active: Born in 1475, Michelangelo had sculpted his two best-known works (Pietà and David) by the time he was 30, had painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel before he was 40 and became the architect of St. Peter's Basilica in his 70s. He lived an impressive 88 years — both in becoming one of the most influential artists of all time, but also just for living to 88 in the 1500s (that Mediterranean diet!).
Why so iconic: I don't know, maybe for this:

14. Andy Warhol

Occupation: Artist, filmmaker
Years active: Became a sensation in 1962, when an article in Time magazine featured his painting Big Campbell's Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable). By the end of that decade, he had established the Factory, founded Interview magazine, managed and produced the band the Velvet Underground and coined the phrase "15 minutes of fame." He continued to be a mammoth of American culture until he died of cardiac arrhythmia in 1987 at the age of 58.
Why so iconic: For redefining art via pop culture and celebrity culture, and for essentially defining the word "iconic" when it comes to artists in the 20th century.

13. James Dean

Occupation: Actor
Years active: After several years of small parts in films like Douglas Sirk's Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (where he famously played "Youth at Soda Fountain"), Dean had a truly remarkable breakout year in 1955 when both East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause were released, making him an instant star. As we all sadly know, however, he would die in a car accident that same year, at the age of 24.
Why so iconic: For managing to become arguably the ultimate bisexual icon (and just a massive cultural icon in general) in what was really just one year of fame.

12. Virginia Woolf

Occupation: Writer
Years active: Born in 1882, she started a family newspaper, the Hyde Park Gate News, at the age of nine (she modelled it after the magazine Tit-Bits, which was hugely popular at the time). She began writing professionally in 1900, and published her first novel, The Voyage Out, in 1915. She struggled with mental illness her entire life, and drowned herself in 1941 at the age of 59.
Why so iconic: For winning Nicole Kidman that Oscar, obviously. (And I guess also for being one of the most important modernist authors and for pioneering the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device, among many other things.)

11. Keith Haring

Occupation: Artist
Years active: Haring started receiving public attention in 1980 for his graffiti on New York City subways, with signature images including a radiant baby, large hearts, barking dogs and figures with televisions for heads. His work turned into social activism during the onset of the AIDS epidemic, utilizing images to advocate for safe sex. Like far too many people on this list, Haring himself would die from AIDS-related complications in 1990, when he was only 31 years old. Imagine what could have been if he was still alive today (he'd only be 63).
Why so iconic: For having arguably the most instantly recognizable visual language of any artist from the past 50 years. (And also for forever living in spirit on my back.)

10. Angela Davis

Occupation: Writer, activist, academic
Years active: Became an international symbol of resistance in 1970 when she was labelled "the dangerous terrorist Angela Davis" by then-president Richard Nixon and wrongfully arrested for "aggravated kidnapping and first degree murder." She spent 18 months in prison before being acquitted of all charges, and has been fighting for Black liberation and for the rights of women, queers and transgender people ever since. 
Why so iconic: For the six decades she has spent accepting the things she cannot change and changing the things she cannot accept.

9. David Bowie

Occupation: Singer, songwriter, actor
Years active: Bowie formed his first band, the Konrads, in 1962 at the age of 15. He released his self-titled first album five years later, and by the early 1970s had become a flamboyant glam rock icon.
Why so iconic: For queering popular culture like no one else, particularly in the Ziggy Stardust era of the early 1970s. Justin Vivian Bond (an icon in her own right) said it best in a post after his death in 2016: "I'm sure this is true for many queers for whom Bowie was the first outspoken and shameless sexual libertine in the rarified pop culture strata. He was the embodiment of glamour, talent, and a new kind of personal expression."

7. & 8. Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera

Occupations: Activists
Years active: Both Johnson and Rivera defined themselves as drag queens as they came up through the New York City queer scene in the 1960s (though it is important to note that the term "transgender" was not in broad use at the time). The dear friends would come to be seen as iconic symbols of the movement for queer rights in America.
Why so iconic: Not for throwing the first brick or bottle at Stonewall (that is a myth, folks!). But certainly for being outspoken queer rights activists who were prominent figures in the Gay Liberation Front and co-founders of the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, a group dedicated to helping homeless queer and trans youth.

6. Oscar Wilde

Occupation: Playwright, poet
Years active: Born in 1854, Wilde became the definitive queer man of the 19th century through his epigrams, plays, and sole novel, 1890's iconic The Picture of Dorian Gray. One of the most quotable people in cultural history, he was convicted of "gross indecency for consensual homosexual acts" in 1895 in what is considered one of the first "celebrity trials" (tragic, but also iconic) and died shortly after, leaving behind a staggering legacy. 
Why so iconic: For setting the witty, flamboyant, fabulous tone for an entire 20th century's worth of the most extraordinary gay men. And then for foreshadowing the 21st century's most horrible gay men by writing a novel about a man so obsessed with his own beauty that he sells his soul to ensure it will never fade.

5. Harvey Milk

Occupation: Politician
Years active: Moved to San Francisco in 1972 and opened a camera store in the LGBTQ-oriented Castro neighbourhood, where he soon became a popular figure in the community. The following year, he entered local politics, running for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He lost, as he would again (but more narrowly) in 1975. But in 1977, he easily won his third bid, becoming the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California. He was tragically assassinated less than a year later, but not before sponsoring a bill that would successfully ban discrimination in public accommodations, housing, and employment on the basis of one's sexual orientation.
Why so iconic: For rallying a generation of queer people to have hope.

4. Sappho

Occupation: Lyric poet
Years active: Born on the Greek island of Lesbos around 625 BC. Little is known about her life, but she is believed to have written roughly 10,000 lines of poetry (650 or so of which survive today), many of which were believed to be about her love and desire for women. 
Why so iconic: Because they named lesbianism after her. The English words "lesbian" and "sapphic" are derived from her birthplace and name, making Sappho the only person in the history of time to have literally inspired an entire human sexuality.

3. James Baldwin

Occupation: Writer, activist
Years active: Baldwin's first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, was published in 1953. He has said it was the book he "had to write if [he] was going to write anything else" because it dealt with the death of his father. It also absolutely allowed him to continue writing, including Giovanni's Room a few years later. That book is now widely considered one of the greatest works of queer fiction ever written. From the late 1950s on, he was a passionate, public voice on racial discrimination in America.
Why so iconic: For being the most eloquent person to have ever lived.

1. & 2. Divine and John Waters

Occupations: Actor, drag queen, singer (Divine); filmmaker, author, actor (Waters)
Years active: After meeting as teenagers growing up in 1960s Baltimore, they collaborated on the short films Roman Candles (1967) and Eat Your Makeup (1968) before making the absolutely iconic "trash trilogy" of feature films: Pink Flamingos (1972), Female Trouble (1974) and Desperate Living (1977). Their final film together before Divine's death was 1988's Hairspray, which would go on to be adapted into a hugely successful stage and film musical. 
Why so iconic: For being the Pope of Trash and the Drag Queen of the Century, and gloriously queering the mainstream with their demented and delinquent message of filth. May we forever aspire to be more like both of them, the two most iconic queers in all of cultural history (according entirely to me).

Thank you for going on this subjective and excessive journey through the 200 most iconic queers in cultural history. And come back in 4 years for a celebration of this column's 400th edition, which will count down the 400 least iconic queers in cultural history, starting with my sad gay uncle Frank.