You Think You Don’t Know Many Gay People? You’re Wrong.
Ask the average straight guy how often he interacts with a gay person, and the answer is usually the same: few and far between.
Meanwhile...
The Lawyer. In 2013, Todd Hughes became the first openly gay judge confirmed to a U.S. Court of Appeals — one step below the Supreme Court. NALP has tracked openly LGBT lawyers since 2002, when they were just over 1% of the profession; by 2021 it was 3.7%, and among today’s summer associates it’s 11.7%. The National LGBTQ+ Bar Association had 293 members at its 1989 launch; today it has over 1,700.
The Doctor. Dr. Rachel Levine served as U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health from 2021 to 2025 — the first openly transgender federal official confirmed by the Senate. GLMA, founded in 1981, is the world’s oldest and largest association of LGBTQ+ healthcare professionals, representing tens of thousands of members with a standing seat on the American Medical Association’s advisory committee.
The Psychologist. John Amaechi retired from the NBA in 2003, came out in 2007, and went on to earn a doctorate — he’s now a professor of leadership at the University of Exeter Business School. The American Psychological Association has an entire division, Division 44, built around LGBTQ psychology.
The Professor. Judith Butler, one of the most influential philosophers alive, has spent decades as an openly LGBTQ professor at UC Berkeley. Beyond any single name, large national studies have repeatedly found gay and lesbian workers overrepresented on university faculties nationwide.
The Priest. Monsignor Krzysztof Charamsa held a senior post at the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith until 2015, when he came out as gay and in a relationship at a Rome press conference — the Vatican stripped him of his post immediately. In his resignation letter to Pope Francis, he accused the Church of hypocrisy, saying the clergy itself was “full of homosexuals” even as it publicly condemned them.
The Social Worker. Caitlin Ryan, a clinical social worker, has spent decades pioneering LGBTQ health research as director of the Family Acceptance Project, reshaping how families and providers support LGBTQ youth. The National Association of Social Workers has more than 150,000 members across 55 chapters, with LGBTQ+ caucuses built in.
The Creative — design, art, music. This is the field with the most names to point to:
• Interior designer Jeremiah Brent
• Painter Kehinde Wiley, who painted President Obama’s official portrait
• Musicians Elton John, Frank Ocean, Sam Smith, Ricky Martin, Lil Nas X
• Fashion designer Tom Ford
Maybe it’s not a coincidence — growing up having to read a room and think on your feet builds a resourcefulness that has to go somewhere.
The Public Worker. Kristin Crowley became the Los Angeles Fire Department’s first female and first openly LGBTQ+ fire chief in 2022, leading the department through the catastrophic 2025 Palisades wildfire. About 1 in 10 LGBTQ workers hold a government job — at roughly 9% LGBTQ identification nationally (Gallup), that’s an estimated 1.5 million LGBTQ Americans in public-sector jobs: mail carriers, road crews, firefighters, DMV clerks, teachers, police officers. Until 2003, when Lawrence v. Texas struck down the last state sodomy laws, being openly gay could get you arrested by the department you wanted to join. New York City banned anti-gay discrimination in police hiring in the early 1980s, and NYPD’s Gay Officers Action League has operated openly ever since.
The Soldier. Pete Buttigieg spent eight years as a Navy Reserve intelligence officer, including a seven-month deployment to Afghanistan in 2014 tracking terrorist financing networks, and was honorably discharged as a lieutenant — a career that became the foundation for his run as U.S. Secretary of Transportation, the first openly gay person confirmed by the Senate to a cabinet post. It’s a job too: an estimated 100,000 LGBTQ+ people currently serve in the U.S. armed forces, about 6% of the force, alongside roughly 1.5 million LGBTQ+ veterans. That number only exists in the open because “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was repealed in 2011 — before that, more than 100,000 service members had been discharged since World War II for who they were.
The Sports Player. Jason Collins became the first openly gay active player in a major U.S. men’s pro league in 2013 (NBA). Michael Sam became the first openly gay NFL draft pick in 2014. Robbie Rogers did the same for pro soccer in 2013. Carl Nassib became the first openly gay active NFL player in 2021. Women’s sports tell a different story: Megan Rapinoe and Billie Jean King are among the most famous openly gay athletes on the planet, out for years at the top of their sport. Worth naming honestly: men’s pro leagues remain the most closeted major workplace in America — those “firsts” mean that for decades before each one, the honest answer was zero.
The real picture
The cashier who rang you up at Home Depot this morning. The teacher’s aide in your kid’s classroom. The postal worker who dropped off your package. The driver who delivered your groceries. The flight attendant — or the pilot — on your last trip. The person next to you on the bus. The lawyer handling your divorce. We’re not the exception in your day. We’re woven through all of it.
Fact is, gays work more than straight people do: 65% of LGBT adults reported working in the past week, compared to 57% of non-LGBT adults
The fantasy that gay people can be pulled out of American life — like people of color can be pulled out, like immigrants can be pulled out, like women can be pulled out— is insane. It is, in fact, the unraveling of a cloth (perhaps a flag?), that leaves the whole fabric in tatters.
You don’t want to do that.
So stop doing that.
