The beginning of the 21st century continued to mark slow and steady progress for the LGBTQ+ community. In April, the Netherlands became the very first country to legalize same-sex marriage without caveats preventing adoption or obtaining joint custody of a child. Public acceptance of LGBTQ+ people was inching forward in the United States, and several states took strides to ban discrimination based on sexuality.
Television may have played a role in those shifting attitudes. Queer As Folk premiered at the tail end of 2000, and the first season proved to be a ratings hit for Showtime over the first half of 2001. Stars Randy Harrison and Peter Paige were among those featured on the Out100 list that year. Both stayed with the show through all five influential seasons, and Paige later went on to co-create another queer favorite, The Fosters.
Just four years after the outcry that surrounded Ellen DeGeneres having her sitcom character come out as a lesbian, leading to the show's cancellation not long after, the comedian was given another shot with The Ellen Show. It was a swing and a miss, canceled in 2002 after one season, paving the way for DeGeneres to go on to be a daytime TV juggernaut.
John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig and the Angry Inch made the leap from off-Broadway to Hollywood, opening to positive reviews and abysmal box office numbers — it was released on September 12, 2001 — the movie eventually became an undeniable cult classic. It even finally made it to Broadway in 2014.
While Melissa Etheridge was releasing her seventh album and making headlines for starting up a relationship with Popular star Tammy Lynn Michaels, other music icons were finally finding their way out of the closet. R.E.M. front man Michael Stipe described himself as a "queer man" in an interview for the first time, acknowledging that he had been in a relationship with another man for the past three years. And Styx bassist Chuck Panozzo used the annual Human Rights Campaign dinner as an opportunity to come out as both gay and HIV-positive.
Steven Spielberg got a nod on the Out100 for active allyship after stepping down from his position on the Boy Scouts of America's advisory board following their legal battle to keep gay men and boys out of the group.
"I thought the Boy Scouts stood for equal opportunity and I have consistently spoken out publicly and privately against intolerance and discrimination based on ethnic, religious, racial, and sexual orientation," Spielberg said at the time.
Another Hollywood heavy-hitter, out bisexual Angelina Jolie, was featured on the list after her turn in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Despite largely negative reviews, the film was an international success, and turned Jolie into a bonafide action star.
More importantly, she credits her time filming in Cambodia with inspiring her humanitarian efforts, particularly her work with refugees. She became an Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency later that year, and has gone on to do a truly impressive amount of good in the decades that followed.
Of course, 2001 is most remembered by Americans for the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. New York firefighter Tom Ryan was among those recognized on the Out100 as the year came to a close, and in 2023, Outpaid tribute to two gay men who died heroically saving others that day — Mark Bingham, a passenger on Flight 93, and Father Mychal Judge, who ran into the North Tower after it was struck to help.
