Gay Heroes Present

We’re taking a moment to think of all the inspirational homosexuals of the past, the present, and the future. They have made it a little easier for us to be fabulous by being fierce on our behalf. There are countless gay freedom fighters, so we had to narrow it down to our twelve favs. This is part two, where we celebrate four heroes of the present.

A post shared by Riyadh Khalaf (@riyadhk) on Nov 21, 2017 at 2:25am PST

Riyadh K

We picked Riyadh as one to watch for 2018, and of course no one loves to gloat, but we were right. (Literally, everyone enjoys gloating.) In the past 12 months, Riyadh has gone from being a popular YouTuber to presenting Queer Britain for the BBC, and has become a documentarian in his own right. The boy is so impressively high achieving we even featured him in our latest Queer Careers. Riyadh, you are killing it, and we celebrate you as a gay hero of the present day.

A post shared by Hungry (@isshehungry) on Jun 1, 2017 at 11:01am PDT

Hungry

Hungry is the leading drag queen of the Berlin scene. Having interned with Vivienne Westwood while studying fashion design, this is a queen who builds the outfit by hand, and then paints her face. A look can take two weeks to perfect from material creation to end result. She has shot to even greater heights following her collaboration with Björk. Hungry was part of the design team to inspire and develop the cover for Utopia. Living her larger than life existence ensures Berlin stays sexy and adds a welcome magic to the LGBTQ scene.

A post shared by Nyle DiMarco (@nyledimarco) on Dec 4, 2017 at 1:08pm PST

Nyle DiMarco

Gorgeous, successful, deaf activist, and sexually fluid Nyle DiMarco, first grabbed the attention of the world on America’s Next Top Model. He is prolific online to raise awareness and shares cute instruction Gifs/videos on signing things like ‘Fierce’ and ‘Wanna be on top?‘ His eyes hold the secret to all things, and we want to drown in them for eternity.

A post shared by Eric Paul Leue (@ericpaulleue) on Jun 24, 2017 at 5:06pm PDT

Eric Paul Leue

You might have seen the impossibly charming Eric present a safe sex video that went viral in 2017. He is German, cute, sweet, honest, open, and he won Mr. Leather Los Angeles. Is there nothing he can’t do? Eric is an activist who’s dedicated to challenging stigma surrounding gay sex, and bringing our physical expression of love out into the bright, happy, shiny, light of day.