Thriving Under 30: Celebrating 10 Young LGBTQ+ Trailblazers

Meet our young trailblazers of the year!

We’re celebrating 10 LGBTQ+ individuals who are 30 or under — from artists to athletes to activists to influencers — and are unapologetically using their platforms to create change, visibility, and a brighter future for all.

Mia Kaplan, 22 (she/they)

How do you become a Hollywood ingenue and body-positivity champion while also being a college student? Ask Mia Kaplan. The Southern California native is currently attending Texas State University and stars in the new uplifting teen dramedy Empire Waist. Kaplan says she relates in many ways to their character in the film, Lenore, explaining that she’s “who I would have been if I did not find myself or find acceptance for my body when I did. ... I got to realize how much that I have grown over the years through her as well as how much strength it took to do that. I would be lying if I said that I consistently love my body every day of the year, but I sure have come a long way since I was Lenore’s age.”

Kaplan, who identifies as genderqueer, says they’re “dying to play a queer character. Someone who is unapologetically fat and queer and yet that fact has very little to do with the storyline. I wanna be a lover, a superhero, a detective, a human that is so much more than facts on a page.”

To LGBTQ+ young people who may understandably be struggling in our country right now, Kaplan says, “There are so many people that love you and are rooting for you. I am. It can be really difficult to believe that it will get better, but trust me, it will.” @mia_kaplan

Click here to read our extended interview with Mia.

​Armonté Butler, 29 (he/him) 

Armonté Butler, MPH, is an accomplished health expert with a strong focus on advocating for marginalized communities such as youth, POC, and LGBTQ+ people. Butler, who lives in Washington D.C., is the associate director of LGBTQ health and rights at Advocates for Youth, an organization dedicated to promoting effective reproductive and sexual health programs and policies for young people in the U.S. and Global South.

As head of the Queer and Gender Equity Project, Butler helps provide community-based health care organizations with education, research, training, and technical assistance to increase support for queer youth of color and young people living with HIV. He also manages the All Students Count Coalition and the National Youth HIV and AIDS Awareness Day project.

Butler says that it was simply the lack of adequate sexual health education available when he was younger that led him to this current career.

“Mean Girls premiered in 2004 and remains a landmark in pop culture,” he says. “The gym teacher’s exaggerated, ‘Don’t have sex, because you will get pregnant and die!’ mirrored too close to the sexual health education I received growing up,” which he explains was filled with unrealistic and unhelpful sex-shaming. “I decided I no longer wanted a dishonest and stigmatized portion attached to sex education, and my passion for sexual health awareness grew.” advocatesforyouth.org

Butler was also recently honored as Health Hero of the Year by our sibling publication, Health PLUS Wellness. Click here to read the complete interview.

Chella Man, 25 (they/them)

Multihyphenate and multitalented artist, director, and educator Chella Man has continued to wow us with their work in various mediums — including painting, sculpture, writing, performance, film, tattooing, and curating. As a deaf, nonbinary, Chinese-Jewish person, Man has experienced being othered for much of their life and seeks to help change attitudes through their work.

In addition to their critically acclaimed performance piece Autonomy, which aims to shatter “the constraints of binary thinking” and celebrate “queer, disabled, and trans bodies,” the Jewish Museum in NYC featured an art installation by Man this year. The Frieze New York also recently featured their art film, The Device That Turned Me Into a Cyborg Was Born the Same Year I Was. @chellaman

Daniel Kyri, 30 (he/him)

Daniel Kyri, a classically trained actor born and raised on the south side of Chicago, coincidentally ended up becoming well known for playing a firefighter from the Windy City. Kyri, who celebrated his 30th birthday October 10, has played the character Darren Ritter on the NBC drama Chicago Firesince 2018. Ritter was the first gay character on the show, something that Kyri, who is queer, says helped him feel more comfortable with himself and his identity in real life.

Being an out actor “means an expansion of possibility for … little queer kids, as I once was, to see a version of themselves being represented and reflected back to them,” Kyri told Out magazine earlier this year. “It’s all about possibility. And when I think of the content or the media that I was met with when I was younger, it left a lot to be desired.”

In addition to Chicago Fire, Kyri has amassed an impressive roster of roles on television, film, and the stage. He also directed, produced, and starred in the online miniseries The T, which follows the story of a trans woman and a Black queer man (played by Kyri) who discovers he is living with HIV. @danielkyri

Hannah Einbinder, 29 (she/her)

2024 has been another great year for this young star of HBO’s Emmy-winning series Hacks. Hannah Einbinder further proved her comedic chops with her hilarious first stand-up special this year, Everything Must Go. While most have gotten to know Einbinder for her critically acclaimed portrayal of her Hacks character, bisexual comedy writer Ava Daniels, she says stand-up was her first passion.

Einbinder, who identifies as bisexual in real life too, says she first tried stand-up while she was majoring in broadcast journalism at Chapman University but never thought it could be a viable career choice for her. That is, until she met fellow female comedian Nicole Byer, who ended up recruiting Einbinder to open for her.

“That was when it became very clear to me,” she told the Los Angeles Times in June. “I didn’t really view it as ‘This is my career.’ I just maybe naively viewed it as like ‘I’m obsessed with this and I’m going to pursue this, and I can’t stop doing it.’” @hannaheinbinder

Lee Gordon, 20 (they/them)

Lee Gordon, an undergraduate at Harvard College, is an LGBTQ+ community organizer, activist, Black feminist researcher, and criminal justice reform advocate who’s worked extensively with various national nonprofits. Among their many roles, they’re currently serving as the head of racial justice for Queer Youth Assemble.

“The hate and harassment I faced within my school growing up as a queer person pushed me to fight for the lives of other queer and trans youth,” says Gordon. “No child should have to fight for the right to exist and express themselves openly like so many of us do. This is an uncompromising need that must be met in the movement, and that has driven my passion for LGBTQ+ organizing.”

Gordon says they are “so grateful” for their role at QYA and “to find such an amazing, strong community of LGBTQ+ leaders and activists. ... Serving as their head of justice has been such a joy, and we are working on a ton of campaigns relating to racial, economic, and disability justice in the queer and trans movement.” @fuzzylogiclee

Blu del Bario, 27 (he/they/elle)

Blu del Barrio made history in 2020 when the nonbinary actor joined the Star Trek: Discovery cast, playing its first nonbinary character. And since the popular sci-fi series concluded this past May, Del Barrio has snagged several new lead roles.

They’re starring in several upcoming feature films — including the horror-comedy Blue Balls, the queer heist drama Pink Moon, and the Dave Bautista-led action flick Trap House. Del Barrio also voices the titular character of Max in Nickelodeon’s new animated series Max and the Midknights. Del Barrio confessed that they connected so deeply with their queer character in Pink Moon, they were initially fearful of not getting the part.

“Only a quarter of the way into reading this script I was heartbroken at the possibility of not getting to play K,” they told Deadline. “It is one of those projects you cling onto immediately. This story is beautiful and so necessary. K is very special to me, and I’m so honored to step into this role.” @bludelb

Nikki Hiltz, 30 (they/them)

Three years before they competed in the 2024 Paris Games, Olympian runner Nikki Hiltz, originally from Aptos, Calif., came out as trans/nonbinary on International Transgender Day of Visibility in 2021. In an Instagram post Hiltz wrote, “Hi I’m Nikki and I’m transgender. That means I don’t identify with the gender I was assigned at birth. The word I use currently to describe my gender is non-binary.”

During this year’s Games, Hiltz, who just turned 30 on Wednesday, expressed gratitude toward the LGBTQ+ community for being a key source of support and motivation when competing.

“I feel like no matter what, like before the gun goes off, I know that I’m loved and supported and that just allows me to run free,” Hiltz told the San Francisco Chronicle in August. “It doesn’t matter what the result is. I have so much love for my community, I just want to give that love back and thank them and try to advocate and use my platform as much as possible.” @nikkihiltz

Cameron Bartosiewicz, 23 (he/him)

Cameron Bartosiewicz of Los Angeles founded Youth Pride Association in 2020 based on “his own experiences growing up LGBTQ, in the hopes that future generations will grow up in a society that accepts them for who they are,” as YPA’s website states. The young social entrepreneur continues to lead the organization as its president and CEO.

Bartosiewicz’s achievements are too numerous to list, but he’s received the President’s Award for Student Innovation and the Newman Civic Fellowship, among many other honors and accolades.

“My drive really comes from serving my community,” he says. “I didn’t go into this work with a particular end goal or vision; I just wanted to help folks have a better experience in school than I had. I could have never imagined I would be the CEO of a national LGBTQ nonprofit, with the potential for having an even greater positive impact — that keeps me excited.”

In terms of the amount of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment happening in our country right now, Bartosiewicz says, “I have found that no matter how tolerant or accepting an area is, almost every LGBTQ person has struggled with isolation at some point in their lives. ... Whether it be online or in person, small or large, local or international, I have seen firsthand the power positive and authentic community support can have. Find your people.”

YPA is working to expand its Peer Support program to reach LGBTQ+ students from across the world. Visit ypapride.org/support-us to learn how you can help.

Luke Prokop, 22 (he/him)

To date, very few professional gay male athletes have come out while active in their sport. However, Canadian hockey player Luke Prokop made history in 2021 when he became the first out gay player with an NHL contract. Since then, he’s continued to be a proud and inspiring example for queer athletes and many others.

“Today I am proud to publicly tell everyone that I am gay,” Prokop wrote on Instagram in 2021. “It has been quite the journey to get to this point in my life. From a young age I have dreamed of being an NHL player, and I believe that living my authentic life will allow me to bring my whole self to the rink and improve my chances of fulfilling my dreams.”

In an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation this year, Prokop reflected on the decision to come out publicly and admits it wasn’t easy.

“Coming out, thinking about what might happen — acceptance, the reaction to it — I didn’t want to hinder my chances of making my dreams a reality,” he said. “So that was really something I struggled with for a long time.”

Fortunately, the NHL and his fellow players, not to mention legions of fans, have been overwhelmingly supportive so that Prokop can continue to fulfill his dreams and be his authentic self. @lukeprokop