[custom_adv] Best known for her role as Sophia Burset on the hit Netflix show Orange is the New Black, Cox was the first transgender person to ever be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. She now works to advocate for trans rights. [custom_adv] Former People staff editor Janet Mock transitioned at age 18 and came out publicly as a woman in a Marie Claire article in 2011. Since then she has become a spokesperson for transgender rights with her New York Times bestselling memoir, Redefining Realness. [custom_adv] Before transitioning, she rose to fame as a supermodel who modeled both male and female clothing before transitioning in 2014. She is the first trans model ever spotlighted by Vogue. [custom_adv] A British actress and model who starred as a Bond girl in For Your Eyes Only and modeled for Playboy, she was outed as transgender by the British tabloid The News of The World, after appearing in the Bond movie in 1981. [custom_adv] The Canadian model made headlines and broke down barriers in 2012 when she legally fought to be allowed to compete in Miss Universe Canada. By the way, she won the title of Miss Congeniality. [custom_adv] Born into the famous Arquette acting family, Alexis has had supporting roles in several movies and her transition from male to female was documented in the 2007 film, Alexis Arquette: She’s My Brother. [custom_adv] King was a contestant on both the 11th cycle and the 17th cycle of the reality television show America’s Next Top Model. She was the first trans woman to compete on the show, and became one of the most visible transgender people on television. [custom_adv] The only child of Sonny and Cher, Chaz documented his transition from female to male in the 2011 film, Becoming Chaz. Back in 1995, when Chaz Bono was still Chastity Bono and came out as a lesbian, he used his platform as the child of one of the most powerful stars in Hollywood and became an outspoken LGBTQ+ activist. [custom_adv] An American drag queen, gay liberation and transgender activist, Rivera was a founding member of both the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance. She also co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), a group dedicated to helping homeless young drag queens and trans women of color. [custom_adv] George Jorgensen, a quiet New Yorker, shocked a nation by returning from a trip to Denmark transformed into the glamorous Christine. As the slender, blonde 27-year-old woman wrapped in a fur coat stepped out of the plane on to the tarmac in New York, her long eyelashes, high cheekbones and full red lips betrayed little of the shy man she had once been. [custom_adv] Darling was an American transgender actress who starred in Andy Warhol’s films Flesh (1968) and Women in Revolt (1971), and was a muse of the band The Velvet Underground. [custom_adv] As a reality star, model, and burlesque performer who appeared on RuPaul’s Drag Race and Real Housewives of New York City, she has announced that she is a transgender woman and not a man in drag, as was presented on television. [custom_adv] Harvie is a transgender comedian who came out at the age of 32 and is best known for his work with Margaret Cho, with whom he’s toured and starred as a permanent member of her off-Broadway comedy revue. [custom_adv] This pair of siblings rose to fame directing The Matrix franchise, but first one, then the other transitioned to female and continued to make amazing content. Their most recent project was Sense8 on Netflix, a show that featured a wide variety of LGBT+ experiences. [custom_adv] In 2014, Lea was selected to be the face of Redken, making her the first openly transgender model to front a global cosmetics brand. The daughter of a well-known Brazilian soccer player, fashion model Lea T was born Leandro Medeiros Cerezo -- a male -- in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, in 1981. After growing up in Italy, she was then discovered by Riccardo Tisci, the Creative Director of Givenchy, and went on to be his muse. [custom_adv] She is the first openly transgender member of staff at the White House, appointed by President Obama in 2015 as his outreach and recruitment director, and was the first openly transgender legislative staffer to work in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. [custom_adv] Nadia Almada (born Jorge Leodoro, January 28, 1977) is a Madeiran reality television star, best known for being the first transsexual winner of Big Brother (UK series 5) in 2004. She was born male on the Portugal Island of Madeira, under the name of Jorge Leodoro, but she was known as Carlos Leodoro . [custom_adv] Born Jacques Charles Dufresnoy, she took the stage name Coccinelle when she entered show business, making her debut as a transgender showgirl in 1953 at Chez Madame Arthur. She was the first widely publicized transgender individual in Europe, where she was a national celebrity and a renowned club singer. [custom_adv] Former Olympic German pole vaulter, Balian Buschbaum announced his retirement from the sport in 2007 and began gender reassignment surgery. Since then, he has appeared on Germany’s version of Dancing With the Stars.
