Bella Ramsey, Zooey Zephyr, Ice Spice, and More Made This Year’s TIME100 Next

Mae Martin

Martin’s first Netflix standup special, SAP, hit the platform in April. While they certainly discuss heavy topics like transphobic comedians and drug addiction, their main goal with the special was to “spread messages of hope and positivity,” as Them contributor Michael Cuby wrote in an interview with the nonbinary comedian.

Julio Torres

Torres co-created the (sadly canceled) HBO comedy series Los Espookys. He went on to write and direct the forthcoming movie, Problemista, starring Tilda Swinton. (Its release is delayed due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes.)

Lauren Halsey

Halsey produces both standalone artworks and site-specific installations that reflect “the lives of the people and places around her and [address] the crucial issues confronting people of color, queer populations, and the working class,” per Gagosian Quarterly. She was recently commissioned to produce an installation on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, entitled “the eastside of south central los angeles hieroglyph prototype architecture (I).”

WangShui

WangShui is a painter and one of the earliest adopters of artificial intelligence as a tool for making art. They train an AI to produce generative works with their own paintings, and they’ve spoken to their usage of AI as a way of avoiding the boxes that art institutions tend to trap queer and trans artists in, per Art Basel.

R.F. Kuang

Kuang’s fantasy novels have been widely acclaimed, and she broke into literary fiction with Yellowface, released in May. She came out in June 2020 on Twitter. More recently, she spoke about her desire to write queer Asian representation in her work in an interview with Off Colour.

Kristen Kish

The longtime Top Chef fave and lesbian icon was announced as the new host of the reality cooking show earlier this year. She opened her restaurant, Arlo Grey, in Texas in 2018 and has hosted a number of food shows, including Netflix’s Iron Chef.

Silver Iocovozzi

The trans Filipinx chef was Them’s Now Awards Honoree in Food this year, and for good reason. He’s the founder, owner, and chef at Neng Jr.’s in Asheville, North Carolina, where his staff is majority queer/trans/POC. The restaurant is innovative in both its cooking and its policies, which include protections specifically for trans workers.

Zooey Zephyr

Montana’s first openly trans lawmaker made headlines earlier this year when she was censured by her Republican colleagues. This happened largely because she was speaking out against a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, but that hasn’t stopped her from being one of the most visible advocates for trans rights on the national level.

Elly Schlein

Schlein is the head of Italy’s Democratic Party and the first woman to lead the country’s left wing. She came out as bisexual in 2020, revealing that she had a girlfriend, per Open Democracy. Considering that Italy is one of the most homophobic countries in Western Europe, Schlein being out is absolutely worth commending.

Dylan Brandt

Brandt is a 17-year-old teenage trans boy, and he’s the main plaintiff in Brandt v. Rutledge, the lawsuit that successfully challenged Arkansas’ ban on gender-affirming healthcare for minors. In June, a federal judge ruled that the ban was unconstitutional, making it the first such law to be struck down by a federal court.

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