The decision to include Janet Mock in DBG’s annual list of the Loud 100 LGBT People of Color was no decision at all. It was a given. The thirty-year-old Hawaiian native graduated with honors from the University of Hawaii and New York University’s graduate school of journalism. She is the former staff editor of People magazine’s website. In 2011 Marie Claire magazine profiled her and her coming out experience. Although she is not gay—she is transgender—GBM News named her one of the “15 Most Powerful Gay Celebrities of 2012.” A frequent contributor to the Huffington Post, Ms. Mock delivered the Lavender Commencement keynote speech honoring LGBT students at the University of Southern California, was co-chair and presenter at the GLAAD Media Awards, and received the 2012 Sylvia Rivera Activist Award. Her memoir—Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More—the first autobiography by a trans woman of color published by a major publishing house (Simon & Schuster), will be released February 4th.  And she has been a proud advocate for transgender rights since realizing she was a girl born in a boy’s body.  Janet Mock is a happy and accomplished young woman living in her dream city of New York with her handsome boyfriend, filmmaker and photographer Aaron Tredwell. It was an enlightening experience to have this candid conversation with so distinguished an individual.

Queen of comedy, Academy Award winner, and now 'Mother Dearest' opens up about her new film Blackbird and her personal connection to the LGBT community

Handsome as he is sensitive, sexy as he is smart, actor-musician Jussie Smollet is currently heating up the screen in his starring role as a hot gay college co-ed navigating romance and friendship in “The Skinny,” the latest feature film from “Noah’s Arch” auteur Patrik-Ian Polk.  One of six acting siblings—he starred with his three brothers and two sisters in the TV series “On Our Own,” and his sister Jurnee made cinematic waves in the feature film “Eve’s Bayou”—twenty-nine-year-old Jussie’s been doing his thing on screen for nearly two decades, including appearances in such feature films as “The Mighty Ducks” and “North.” Had a chance to sit down with the Hollywood-based actor recently after a screening of his latest flick.

She arose standing six feet tall and she called me by my full name as if she had written and knew my story. She hugged me like I was her son, and invited my godfather and I to sit at her kitchen table. That day at Maya Angelou's home in Winston Salem, North Carolina would be divine, because, she was my kingdom come and I felt she was the true Wizard of Oz.