Today Time magazine released their list of the 100 most influential people of 2022 including at least eight out LGBTQ+ individuals who are artists, innovators, leaders, icons, and pioneers in different fields. Noteworthy to the Florida LGBTQ+ community is the selection of Nadine Smith, the Executive Director of Equality Florida the state’s largest organization dedicated to ending discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Nadine came to national prominence as she was one of four national co-chairs of the historic 1993 National March on Washington. Nadine represents our non-profit 501c3 education mission here at Happening Out Television Network and Queer News Tonight as Smith is a former award winning journalist. She has written syndicated columns for various gay and mainstream publications. Smith was an award-winning investigative journalist for WUSF, the National Public Radio affiliate in Tampa, and later became a reporter for the Tampa Tribune.
In 1993, Smith was part of the historic oval office meeting between then-incumbent President of the United States Bill Clinton and LGBT social movement leaders.
Smith attended the U.S. Air Force Academy after graduating High School in Panama City. She left after the passage of Don't Ask Don't Tell in 1993.
In 1997 She helped form Equality Florida, a LGBTQ+ civil rights organization that would be the model to the nation and become one of the largest queer advocacy organizations in the world.
In 2007, Smith was arrested at a Largo City Council hearing after handing someone a flier that had the words "Don't Discriminate" printed on it. The Council was debating whether or not to fire Susan Stanton, the city manager who had transitioned from male to female. The charges were later dropped. The Police Chief and the City Council issued official apologies.
In 2010 Smith brought Florida's anti-gay adoption law that bans any gay person from adopting to the attention of President Obama. During a White House event, she presented the President with a picture of two boys the state of Florida was trying to block from being adopted by the gay man who had been their foster father for more than 5 years.
This year, Time Magazine takes special note of the international fight Florida has faced with Governor Ron DeSantis and the Conservative members of the GOP over “Don’t Say Gay” bills and more. Nadine Smith has been front and center in this fight and a literal voice from Florida to the entire world.
Nadine Smith was among 8 LGBTQ+ representatives awarded the impressive Time 100. LGBTQ+ Time 100 Recipient Emmett Schelling. This Transgender Activist is Executive Director of Transgender Education Network of Texas. Schelling, like Nadine Smith is at the heart of fighting and protecting rights of Transgender, especially young transgender people and their families in transphobic Texas.
LGBTQ+ Time 100 Recipient Apple’s CEO Tim Cook. When Cook took over for the company’s former CEO Steve Jobs in 2011, many wondered how time would judge the LGBTQ+ business leader. Results speak for themselves as under his leadership, Apple becomes the world’s first $1 trillion company in the US. He has also been at the forefront of business advocacy for the LGBTQ+ issues of importance.
LGBTQ+ Time 100 Recipient Michael R. Jackson. This Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright is a Broadway powerhouse now cemented by the stage musical A STRONG LOOP. His musical just snagged 11 2022 Tony Award nominations including the first-ever for a transgender actress.
LGBTQ+ Time 100 Recipient Megan Rapinoe. The GOAT of women's soccer has won every major competition and award for her sport. Perhaps even more notable, Rapinoe has been central to the near decade long fight over gender inequality in sports and was at the heart of this month's historic agreement of equal pay for the men’s and women’s national soccer teams.
LGBTQ+ Time 100 Recipient Ariana DeBose. This queer-identified musical theatre actor impressed film audiences in Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of West Side Story. Her role earned the Oscar and her acceptance speech specifically challenged why out queer identity was so important in the world we are living.
LGBTQ+ Time 100 Recipient Demna Gvasalia. This fashion designer and creative director of the high-end fashion brand Balenciaga. The gay East European has advocated for LGBTQ+ rights and is central to subverting the high fashion status quo into all of our lives.
LGBTQ+ Time 100 Recipient Kyrsten Sinema. While Sinema rarely mentions her bisexuality ever since becoming a US Senator from Arizona, she aggravates the LGBTQ+ community becoming notorious for helping sabotage Democratic President Joe Biden’s progressive agenda. Her approval rating is higher among state Republicans than Democrats and she is up for re-election in 2024.
We congratulate all of the LGBTQ+ representatives that made Time’s 100. But we thought we would take one more moment to show you the incredible history of Florida’s recipient in her own, I’ll even say, historic words.
Nadine Smith said, "They don't ask, we don't tell and rarely are they required to see with their own eyes the deep harm and real pain inflicted by laws that tell us we are less than our neighbors."
Nadine Smith said "George W. Bush and Al Gore shouldn't be talking about who's going to blink first. They should be talking about how we are going to restore faith in democracy in the American people, because it's been sorely tested right now."
Nadine Smith said "When fair-minded Floridians come to understand just how harmful this initiative is to so many Florida families, they will reject this amendment. Laws should not make it harder to take care of the people you love."
Nadine Smith said "As a child I was told that Rosa Parks was tired and fed up one fateful day and decided right then and there that she would not give up her seat. I was impressed by her courage. Later, when I learned that her protest had been contemplated at length with the consequences fully measured, I was inspired even more deeply by her willingness to intentionally sacrifice her freedom and safety to make the country confront the ugliness of Jim Crow."
Nadine Smith said "We march, we lobby, we educate, we protest and we should and we must. But it seems increasingly clear to me that we must now do what civil rights movements have always done: with forethought and solemnity place ourselves visibly at odds with an unjust law to provoke the consequences that can prick the conscience of our country. Every civil rights struggle in this country has required people to sacrifice and make institutionalized discrimination so visible no one could avert their eyes. People stepped forward knowing they could lose their homes, lose their jobs, their safety. They walked willingly toward hateful mobs and police…. They sacrificed and the country watched and changed. Every civil rights struggle in this country has required people to sacrifice. The country is watching. Are we ready to do the same?"
