Welcome, lovely Prism readers, to Representation in Media. Today we'll be talking about the American LGBTQ+ magazine called Out and their list called Out100. It was founded in 1992 with a focus on gay men for a few years before criticism started coming in. In 2008, someone shared the statistic that only 22% of the people featured in Out100 were lesbians, and none of them had ever appeared on the cover. In 2018 and 2020, there were controversies regarding the owners of the companies that owned Out paying to donate to Republican politicians with non-LGBTQ+ stances, and in 2019, issues regarding paying freelancers were reported. In 2022, the magazine was acquired by Equal Pride, which owns several LGBTQ+-related companies and whose goal is to create a culture of equality for all. Equal Pride is owned and operated by members of the LGBTQ+ community.

The Out100 has been said to have been done since the beginning, and is said to be 'the greatest and most well-known tradition' by an ex-editor. The list is meant to recognize members of the community for their achievements, accomplishments, and impact on culture and society. Nominations for the Readers' Choice were announced on August 4th, followed by voting being announced on August 23rd, which had the ten most nominated people listed. The winner will be featured in their November/December issue of Out100 and will win the Readers' Choice distinction.

We'll quickly go over this year's list of nominees in the following section, starting off with Allyson Newman, who composed the music for "All About Me" from the show The L Word: Generation Q. For this composition, she was also nominated for an Emmy Award.

Second, we have Andrew Gurza, who's a queer content creator who advocates for people with disabilities. Andrew uses they/he pronouns, created the hashtag #DisabledPeopleAreHot, and hosts the podcast "Disabilities After Dark".

Next up is Celeste Trianon, who organized Montreal's Trans March for Liberation, which became the largest march in Quebec's history. She's a transfeminine jurist and activist who runs the Quebec Trans ID Clinic.

Moving on to Daniel J. Downer, the executive director of The Bros in Convo Initiative, which is a black queer-led grassroots organization that builds communities, educates, and empowers other queer people of colour within Central Florida.

The next person is a singer who started her career on The X Factor in 2011. FLETCHER identifies as queer with a strong attraction to feminine energy (which, in her words, usually happens to be women). She's also supported LGBTQ+ organizations such as The Trevor Project and GLAAD.

Following up with astrologer Kyle Thomas, who has been featured on many popular websites and identifies as homosexual. He was on CBS News in the segment Java with Jamie, and talked about his family, upbringing, past relationships, and how this has led to where he is in life now.

Now, we have the founder of Rainbow Media Co., Levi Chambers. Rainbow Media Co. partners with people to develop LGBTQ+ content that is authentic and engaging. They also help reach a wider audience when their partners are hosting LGBTQ+ live events.

Next in line is Nina West, drag queen and queer activist, as well as actor and singer-songwriter. He took part in RuPaul's Drag Race on season eleven, winning Miss Congeniality and placing 6th. He's also got three EPs under his name: Drag Is Magic, John Goodman, and The West Christmas Ever.

Theo Grimes is the ninth person on this list. He's a black trans digital artist who focuses on illustrations that feature a queer experience. Theo goes by they/he pronouns, and the primary focus of their work is providing more visibility for trans people of colour in mainstream media.

Last but not least, Michael Henry. He is a comedian and content creator who released a short film about gay pool parties in West Hollywood, in which he shares his personal struggle with them.

I hope you enjoyed reading about all of these LGBTQ+ celebrities as much as I enjoyed learning about them, and I hope to see you back next month for more representation in the media.

Welcome back, readers! For this month's This Day in History, I'd like us to go back - wayyy back - to one of the first recorded queer writers in history. Let me introduce you to the great poet, Sappho.

Sappho was a poet in ancient Greece, sometime between the seventh and sixth centuries B.C.E. She was born into a wealthy family, the youngest of four children and the only daughter. She is best known for writing epic lyric poetry, or poetry that is supposed to be sung while accompanied by a musician. Unfortunately, her story is only known in fragments, as many of her works and writings have been lost to time. Only one, the 'Ode to Aphrodite', survived mostly intact to this day. The poem itself is a prayer to Aphrodite, appealing for help in order to win the affection of a woman the speaker is in love with. The speaker begs the goddess to ease the pain of unrequited love, and the goddess responds that the woman who spurned the speaker's advances will soon change her mind and pursue her in turn. The speaker in the poem is identified as Sappho herself, which effectively paints Sappho as a 'lover of women'. Indeed, this is where we get the origins of the words 'sapphic' and 'lesbian', as Sappho (who loved women) lived on the island of Lesbos.

Now, we can't be 100% sure that Sappho was a lesbian in the context of modern definitions, but we do know that she had romantic entanglements with both men and women throughout her life. She was also held in high regard by scholars; she was considered the Tenth Muse and one of the great Nine Lyric Poets of the Hellenistic period of Alexandria (between 323 B.C.E. and 31 B.C.E.). She has also been the center of some pretty big controversies, as some stories say early theologians and clergy of the newly formed Church tried to slander her reputation, while others tried to rewrite her identity as a strictly heterosexual person. Whatever her identity may have been, it is clear from her work that she loved and appreciated women, writing at length about the effect their mere presence could have on the senses. As an example, I'll leave you with one of her unfinished works, 'On the Sublime':