7. Andy Bey 

As a jazz singer and pianist in the 1960s and 70s, Andy Bey faced rampant homophobia in the tight-knit jazz community. (This was a long-held tradition, despite a few LGBT jazz luminaries like Duke Ellington's writing partner Billy Strayhorn.) Bey's decision to come out to friends and family in the 1970s and again publicly in the '90s was influenced by his desire to spread awareness and compassion in the space where two of his communities overlapped.

In his own ords: "There’s homophobia in the jazz business: the jazz-club owners, the jazz writers, the whole thing. We create our own little thing. We pick who we want to pick, we make those big, we make those small. We don’t acknowledge people that have a gift or talent. We acknowledge who we want to acknowledge." — to NAJP