LGBTQ+ Journalists Hall of Fame

“All of us in journalism have our heroes in this profession: Somebody who inspired us to get into this business by setting an example of telling the truth — whatever the cost and whatever the difficulties.

Some of us remember Edward R. Murrow for those famous World War II broadcasts from the London rooftops and his courageous denunciation of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Or all of the brave reporters — print and broadcast — who came to my native South to cover the civil rights revolution. Younger journalists may think of Woodward and Bernstein and the Watergate story. Or Seymour Hersh and his dogged reporting from My Lai through Abu Ghraib. Or Christiane Amanpour and her stories from so many hot spots around the globe.

We in the LGBTQ+ community have our own heroes: LGBTQ+ journalists who have shown courage and resolve by telling the truth, including their own personal truths, whatever the cost and whatever the difficulties.

Established in 2005 as part of NLGJA’s 15th anniversary celebration, the LGBTQ+ Journalists Hall of Fame was launched to make sure that their stories are told and preserved — not just for us, but for all journalists and for our readers and viewers.

The journalists honored here are true heroes. All of us hope that these stories will inspire you as they inspire us.”

– Kenneth Jost, LGBTQ+ Journalists Hall of Fame founder

2024 HALL OF FAME

Judy Wieder

Judy Wieder

Judy Wieder’s career has spanned roles as a folk singer, gold-record winning songwriter, journalist and the first female editor-in-chief of The Advocate. She wrote Grammy-winning songs for artists like the 5th Dimension and Ben Vereen. In 1992, Wieder became the...

Kevin Thomas

Kevin Thomas

Kevin Thomas, a Los Angeles Times film critic for over 50 years, is widely regarded as the dean of American movie critics. Beginning his reviews in 1962, he became the longest-running critic for a single newspaper in U.S. history. From 1984 to 2005, he wrote the...

Jeffrey Schmalz

Jeffrey Schmalz

Jeffrey Schmalz began his career as a copy boy in 1973 and worked at The New York Times for his entire professional life, becoming a political editor and reporter on HIV and AIDS. In December 1990, he suffered a brain seizure that revealed he was living with AIDS....

2023 HALL OF FAME

James B. Stewart

James B. Stewart

James B. Stewart is one of the 2023 inductees into the LGBTQ+ Journalists Hall of Fame. James B. Stewart is currently a contributor to The New Yorker and a columnist for The New York Times, as well as an award-winning author, attorney and educator. In 2007 he was...

Frances “Franco” Stevens

Frances “Franco” Stevens

Franco Stevens is one of the 2023 inductees into the LGBTQ+ Journalists Hall of Fame. Frances “Franco” Stevens is a pioneering lesbian publisher, editor, and community leader. She founded Curve magazine (originally titled Deneuve) in 1990 in her personal mission to...

Susan Horowitz and Jan Stevenson

Susan Horowitz and Jan Stevenson

Susan Horowitz and Jan Stevenson are two of the 2023 inductees into the LGBTQ+ Journalists Hall of Fame. Journalists and co-publishers Susan Horowitz and Jan Stevenson have been covering the triumphs, setbacks, and everyday experience of the Michigan LGBTQ+ community...

2022 HALL OF FAME

Michelle Johnson

Michelle Johnson

Michelle Johnson is one of the 2022 inductees into the LGBTQ Journalists Hall of Fame. Johnson, a former editor for the Boston Globe, was part of the team that launched the Globe’s award-winning regional website, Boston.com. Prior to moving into online media she was...

Debra Chasnoff

Debra Chasnoff

The late Debra Chasnoff is one of the 2022 inductees into the LGBTQ Journalists Hall of Fame. Chasnoff was an Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker and nationally recognized champion of using film as an organizing tool for social justice campaigns, and a pioneering...

Chris Cash

Chris Cash

Chris Cash is one of the 2022 inductees into the LGBTQ Journalists Hall of Fame. Cash is the founding publisher of Southern Voice (SoVo), the LGBTQ newspaper of record for Atlanta and the southeast. In 1988, Cash and a small group of volunteers launched a bi-weekly...

2021 HALL OF FAME

Christina Kahrl

Christina Kahrl

Christina Kahrl is the sports editor for The San Francisco Chronicle and the first out transgender editor at a major metropolitan media outlet. Prior to joining the Chronicle, Kahrl served as a senior writer and editor at ESPN for ten years. She is also one of the...

Monica Roberts

Monica Roberts

Monica Roberts was a blogger, writer and transgender activist, and the founding editor of TransGriot, a blog devoted to covering the experiences of trans women, particularly trans women of color. The Houston native was an award-winning advocate and voice on trans...

2020 HALL OF FAME

Cyd Zeigler

Cyd Zeigler

Jim Buzinski and Cyd Zeigler founded Outspots.com in 1999. At first, the blog primarily covered the N.F.L., but soon became a hub for sports news related to LGBTQ people. Since its founding, Outsports has reported on countless coming out stories, milestones and...

Linda Villarosa

Linda Villarosa

Linda Villarosa is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, where she covers race, inequality and health. For several years, she edited the health pages for The New York Times, working on health coverage for Science Times and for the newspaper at large....

Jim Buzinski

Jim Buzinski

Jim Buzinski and Cyd Zeigler founded Outspots.com in 1999. At first, the blog primarily covered the N.F.L., but soon became a hub for sports news related to LGBTQ people. Since its founding, Outsports has reported on countless coming out stories, milestones and...

2019 HALL OF FAME

Lilli Vincenz

Lilli Vincenz

Lilli Vincenz is a path-breaking journalist and pioneer of the gay rights movement beginning in the early 1960s. Born in 1937 in Germany, she lived there throughout World War II before coming to the U.S. with her family at the age of twelve. She joined the Mattachine...

Kara Swisher

Kara Swisher

Kara Swisher is an award-winning business journalist and is recognized as one of the nation’s most respected writers on the business of technology. In a 2016 profile headlined, "Kara Swisher is Silicon Valley’s Most Feared and Well-Liked Journalist. How Does That...

Steve Rothaus

Steve Rothaus

Steve Rothaus worked at the Miami Herald for over 30 years, covering LGBTQ issues for two decades. During his time there, he was part of news teams awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting. In 2014, he...

2018 HALL OF FAME

Dudley Clendinen

Dudley Clendinen

The late Dudley Clendinen was a national reporter and editor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Baltimore Sun and The New York Times, frequently known for his writings on gay life, societal inequality, addiction and illness. Clendinen explored gay life in...

Hilton Als

Hilton Als

Hilton Als is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, critic and social commentator. His work surrounding identity and queerness has earned him the praise of the nation’s leading literary and cultural institutions. He is currently a staff writer and theatre critic at The New...

2017 HALL OF FAME

Jinx Beers

Jinx Beers

Jinx Beers is the founding publisher and first managing editor of America’s longest running lesbian newspaper, The Lesbian News, launched in 1975. She is a pioneering journalist as well as a lifelong feminist and advocate for human rights. Beers proudly served in the...

Dan Savage

Dan Savage

Dan Savage is an award-winning journalist and author, TV personality, and activist best known for his political and social commentary, as well as his honest approach to sex, love and relationships. His sex advice column, “Savage Love,” introduced over 25 years ago, is...

2016 HALL OF FAME

Ina Fried

Ina Fried

Ina Fried is one of the nation’s top tech journalists, currently writing for Recode, while frequently covering and commenting on technology news on CNBC, National Public Radio, and a host of broadcast, online and print media. Her current beat focuses on, as she puts...

LZ Granderson

LZ Granderson

LZ Granderson is considered the nation’s most visible openly gay sports journalist and has been out his entire professional career while working exclusively within mainstream media. He is currently a sports and culture columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Granderson...

2015 HALL OF FAME

Armistead Maupin

Armistead Maupin

Armistead Maupin is the treasured author of nine best-selling novels, including six Tales of the City which were originally collected from the daily serials he wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle beginning in 1976. A young man of the South and a Vietnam veteran,...

Charles Kaiser

Charles Kaiser

An award-winning author and journalist, as well as an NLGJA founding board member and the second president of the New York Chapter of the NLGJA, Charles Kaiser has been practicing his craft since 1971, when he began writing for The New York Times while still an...

Lou Chibbaro, Jr.

Lou Chibbaro, Jr.

A prize-winning reporter for the nation’s oldest LGBT news publication, The Washington Blade, Lou Chibbaro, Jr. first took up his pen in 1976 under the pseudonym Lou Romano. Fast forward four decades, Chibbaro has covered almost everything for the Blade, including the...

Alan Bell

Alan Bell

Alan Bell has been an indelible, vibrant presence within LGBT journalism for almost 40 years. Beginning in 1977 when he founded Gaysweek, New York City’s first mainstream lesbian and gay newspaper, and continuing with BLK and Blackfire, Bell has been a pioneer of LGBT...

Alison Bechdel

Alison Bechdel

Alison Bechdel, the creator of the Bechdel Test for gender bias in works of fiction, has been writing for and about the LGBT community since 1983 when she began producing and self-syndicating Dykes to Watch Out For, a comic chronicling the lives, romances, and...

Randy Alfred

Randy Alfred

Randy Alfred may be best known for his detailed 1980 probe of the biased and unfair portrayal of San Francisco’s gay community inCBS Reports’ “Gay Power, Gay Politics,” an investigation that ultimately resulted in CBS making a rare public apology for its failed...

2014 HALL OF FAME

Donna Cartwright

Donna Cartwright

Donna Cartwright, born in 1947, served as a highly respected copy editor for The New York Times for three decades, and was a member and officer of The Newspaper Guild before retiring from the Times in 2006. She also has been a longtime transgender, LGBT and labor...

Lisa Keen

Lisa Keen

Lisa Keen has been reporting news for LGBT audiences for over 35 years and is frequently considered the dean of gay political reporting in America. She served as the top editor of one of the nation’s most respected gay publications, The Washington Blade, for 18 years....

Tracy Baim

Tracy Baim

Tracy Baim, born in 1963, began her career at Gay Life newspaper in 1984, a month after graduating from Drake University. She cofounded Windy City Times in 1985 and Outlines newspaper in 1987. Lambda Publications, the parent company of Outlines, bought Windy City...

2013 HALL OF FAME

Mark Segal

Mark Segal

Mark Allan Segal, born in 1953, founded Philadelphia Gay News as a monthly in 1976, after being inspired by Frank Kameny when they met in 1970. Segal has been publisher of the now-weekly newspaper ever since. Today, PGN, as it’s often known, is one of the two oldest...

Bob Ross

Bob Ross

Bob Ross (1934-2003), along with Paul Bentley, founded San Francisco’s Bay Area Reporter on April 1, 1971. Bentley sold his interest in 1975. Ross set the highest professional standards for the newspaper and, by 1979, Mayor Dianne Feinstein was asking Ross and San...

2012 HALL OF FAME

Randy Wicker

Randy Wicker

Charles Gervin Hayden Jr., who in 1967 legally changed his name to his then-pseudonym Randolfe Hayden Wicker, was born February 3, 1938, in Plainfield, New Jersey. He discovered the homophile movement as a University of Texas at Austin undergraduate, and he spent the...

Jill Johnston

Jill Johnston

Jill Johnston was born in London, England on May 17, 1929, and was raised in Little Neck, New York. She attended college in Massachusetts and Minnesota, then earned an MFA from the University of North Carolina. In 1958, she married Richard John Lanham, whom she...

2011 HALL OF FAME

Michelangelo Signorile

Michelangelo Signorile

Michelangelo Signorile hosts his eponymous radio show on Sirius XM Radio's OutQ channel (SiriusXM 108) weekdays 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. EDT. On satellite radio, streamed on the Internet and to Android, BlackBerry and iOS handheld devices, his show is available to 20+ million...

Don Michaels

Don Michaels

In 1976, Don Michaels was in Buffalo, where he was Mattachine Society president and a self-described “full-time gay activist” managing a gay community center and editing a small gay newsletter, when he and his partner, John Yanson, decided to move to Washington, D.C....

William Dorr Lambert Legg

William Dorr Lambert Legg

William Dorr Lambert Legg (1904—July 26, 1994), was trained as a landscape architect at the University of Michigan, then was a landscape architecture professor at what is now Oregon State University by 1935. In the 1940s, he moved back to Michigan to care for his...

2010 HALL OF FAME

Richard Rouilard

Richard Rouilard

Richard Rouilard, one year out of law school, co-founded in 1979 the National Gay Rights Advocates of San Francisco, which was the first public interest law firm for lesbians and gay men in the United States. In 1981, he moved to Los Angeles, and began a journalism...

Hank Plante

Hank Plante

Hank Plante began his journalism career as a copyboy for the Washington Post. Plante developed a love for journalism there, worked on the city desk, and became managing editor at Sentinel Newspapers. He then moved to television, in which he worked at KHJ-TV (Los...

"Lisa Ben"

"Lisa Ben"

Lisa Ben, pseudonym for the editor of the first lesbian publication. From June 1947 to February 1948, a lesbian who used the pseudonym “Lisa Ben” wrote a small newsletter in Los Angeles called Vice Versa. She relied on a laborious process at her office at the RKO...

2009 HALL OF FAME

Deb Price

Deb Price

Deb Price's debut column for The Detroit News invited readers to help her come up with a less awkward way of introducing her boss to the woman who, at the time, had shared her life for six years: “Surely, a little ingenuity will solve this problem. So tell me, America...

Ronald Gold

Ronald Gold

Ronald Gold opened a brief biography by stating that he “was born in Brooklyn in 1930, entered Brooklyn College at fifteen, and took twelve years to get a degree. By that time he had been a junkie in San Francisco and had his head shrunk in Topeka, KS.” A sharp writer...

Garrett Glaser

Garrett Glaser

Garrett Glaser was the first television journalist to come out of the closet to the radio and television news industry. During a 1992 speech before a large group of TV and radio executives at RTNDA's annual convention Glaser began his remarks by asking the that the...

2008 HALL OF FAME

Gail Shister

Gail Shister

Gail Shister is widely regarded as the first “out” reporter in mainstream news media in the United States. The groundbreaking journalist earned the distinction of being, at three separate newspapers, the news organization’s first female sportswriter. In 1974, she was...

Richard Goldstein

Richard Goldstein

Richard Goldstein has been writing about the intersection of politics and pop culture for more than four decades, starting by covering the 1960s rock scene for New York’s Village Voice. He became a regular contributor and, eventually, editor and executive editor....

2007 HALL OF FAME

Jack Nichols

Jack Nichols

Washington, D.C. native Jack Nichols helped found a Mattachine Society chapter in the city in 1961. In 1965, the same year he founded the Society’s Florida chapter and organized the first gay rights protest at the White House, Nichols and his partner Lige Clarke began...

Barbara Gittings & Kay Tobin Lahusen

Barbara Gittings & Kay Tobin Lahusen

At the time of Barbara Gittings’ death, she and Kay Tobin Lahusen had been together 46 years. Best known for their revolutionary work with the Daughter of Bilitis’s publication, The Ladder, the two were true pioneers of the LGBT movement. Gittings became The Ladder’s...

Jim Kepner

Jim Kepner

Jim Kepner began writing extensively for ONE Magazine under his own name and a variety of pseudonyms in April 1954. With assistance from others nationwide, he documented the 1950s witch hunts, exposing the police and liquor control tactics that targeted gay people and...

2006 HALL OF FAME

Marlon Riggs

Marlon Riggs

In 1992, Marlon Riggs wrote about the questions the approaching 21st century raised. The challenges to the "cozy myths by which America has been ritually defined…In the next century, can we even continue to speak (could we ever?) of a collective 'we?'" For the longest...

Phyllis Lyon & Del Martin

Phyllis Lyon & Del Martin

Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin founded The Ladder, a legendary publication that, according to historian John D'Emilio, “offered American lesbians, for the first time in history, the opportunity to speak with their own voices.” The two journalists, who also were — and...

2005 HALL OF FAME

Don Slater

Don Slater

Don Slater was a leader among the gay men who, in 1953, founded ONE magazine. Slater saw that act as essential to the effort to secure rights for gay men and lesbians. A social movement has to have a voice beyond its own members,” he said. For the first time, ONE gave...

Randy Shilts

Randy Shilts

The name Randy Shilts is inextricably linked with the modern AIDS epidemic. As a reporter for The Advocate and the San Francisco Chronicle and as the author of the 1987 book “And the Band Played On,” Randy spent the bulk of his career covering the disease that, sadly,...

Sarah Pettit

Sarah Pettit

Sarah Pettit's life was cut short in 2003 by lymphoma, but her work as a senior editor at Newsweek and a pioneer in gay media had a lasting impact. Pettit's emergence as a groundbreaking journalist began in 1989, when she became the arts editor for the now-defunct...

Thomas Morgan III

Thomas Morgan III

The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) was not particularly welcoming to its lesbian and gay members before Thomas Morgan III was elected as the association's president in 1989. Many doubted that they existed — sometimes openly referring to homosexuality...

Leroy F. Aarons

Leroy F. Aarons

By the time a 56-year-old Leroy Aarons outed himself in an emotional address at the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) conference in 1990, he'd already had a remarkable journalism career as a longtime Washington Post scribe, co-founder of the Maynard...