Meet the visionaries blazing a trail for LGBTQIA women and non-binary people

The DIVA Power List is back and better than ever. It’s vitally important to celebrate the people doing groundbreaking work in our community and beyond. From tireless activists sparking real-world change to queer performers creating the media we desperately need to see, the folks on the following pages are an inspiration to us all. ››

DIVA Power List 2023 CAMPAIGNER

Char Bailey

Autism & LGBTQIA campaigner @char_bailey_

Char is an award-winning facilitator and a director at Birmingham Pride UK, autism advocate within the LGBTQIA community and board member at Neurodiversity In Business. She is also involved with organising UK Black Pride as their education and inclusion officer.

Eva Echo

Activist, writer & public speaker @evaech0

Eva Echo is a transgender and mental health activist, writer and public speaker, drawing on her own experiences as an East Asian trans woman. She is director of innovation at Birmingham Pride and a director at Trans In The City. Eva sits on the Crown Prosecution Service’s hate crime panel.

Jack Monroe

Food writer & journalist @BootstrapCook

Jack is a British food writer and journalist, campaigning for poverty and hunger relief issues, who rose to prominence through their blog, A Girl Called Jack, now renamed Cooking On A Bootstrap, where inexpensive recipes are shared. They have campaigned alongside organisations such as Unite and Oxfam.

Katie Neeves

Founder of Cool2BTrans #KatieNeeves @cool2btrans

Katie formed Cool2BTrans to advocate for trans visibility through her media appearances, public speaking, blogs and training courses, drawing motivation from her own journey. Her mission is to inspire other trans people and to educate everyone else about trans issues by sharing her story using the power of humour.

Mikaela Loach

Climate justice activist @mikaelaloach

Based in Edinburgh, Jamaican born Mikaela is a climate justice activist who is also the author of It’s Not That Radical, a call-to-action book to transform the world. With over 100,000 followers on Instagram, she uses her voice to make the climate movement more inclusive and accessible.

Nancy Kelley

Chief executive officer, Stonewall @Nancy_M_K

Nancy is the chief executive of Stonewall, the organisation behind the global movement campaigning for LGBTQIA+ human rights. Her career has focused on social justice, and she holds degrees in English from the universities of Bristol and Cambridge, and in Law from the University of London.

Phyll Opoku- Gyimah

LGBTQIA political activist @MsLadyPhyll

The LGBTQIA political activist better known as Lady Phyll has dedicated her life to racial, gender and queer equity. She is the co-founder and executive director of UK Black Pride and the executive director of Kaleidoscope Trust. Lady Phyll is a force within UK politics, campaigning publicly as a Black lesbian and highlighting the importance of intersectionality.

Sue Sanders

LGBTQIA rights activist @suesanders03

For over 50 years, British LGBTQIA rights activist Sue has challenged all forms of oppression. As chair of Schools OUT UK, which aims is to visibilise LGBTQIA people in all their diversity, she also co-founded LGBT+ History Month and The Classroom, a website which provides resources on LGBTQIA issues for use across the curriculum.

Valentino Vecchietti

Intersex consultant, writer, creative & founder of Intersex Equality Rights UK @ValentinoInter

Photos Mariano Vivanco, David Woolfall, Siorna Ashby

Writer and artist Valentino created the Intersex- Inclusive Pride flag in 2021. She is the founder of Intersex Equality Rights UK, an intersex-led organisation working to create systemic change for support and inclusion in schools, universities and workplaces. She is also a diversity speaker and consultant advocating for intersex visibility and representation.

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Munroe Bergdorf

Model, author & activist @munroebergdorf

Munroe is a model and LGBTQIA activist. Motivated to become a model after witnessing the lack of diversity in the industry, Munroe was the first transgender woman to model for L’Oréal. Similarly, in 2022, she became the first transgender woman to appear on the cover of Cosmopolitan UK, having been named their Changemaker of the Year in 2018, a trailblazing move for trans visibility. She has been an active voice for trans people, becoming the face of Illamasqua’s Beauty Spotlight campaign in 2017, highlighting gender fluidity. In 2019, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Brighton for her work towards furthering trans rights and was appointed as a National Advocate for UN Women UK. In 2021, she was recognised with the GAY TIMES Honour for British Community Trailblazer. Munroe is a proud ambassador for gender-diverse and transgender youth charity Mermaids and has spoken at various international panels on gender, inclusivity and race – from Oxford to Princeton universities. Her memoir, Transitional: In One Way Or Another, We All Transition was published earlier this year.

DIVA Power List 2023 COMMUNITY ADVOCATE

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Moud Goba

National manager, Micro Rainbow @MicroRainbow

Moud is a national manager for Micro Rainbow, a charity that supports homeless LGBTQIA people seeking asylum. Micro Rainbow recently won Charity of the Year at the prestigious Burberry British Diversity Awards. She is an LGBTQIA and human rights activist with more than 15 years’ experience working with grassroots community groups. As a lesbian and Zimbabwean refugee, Moud passionately supports LGBTQIA people seeking asylum and refugees, especially women in immigration detention centres. She was a founding member of UK Black Pride and is its current chair of the board of trustees. Moud is the recipient of an Attitude Pride Award and also earned a Kaleidoscope Lifetime Achievement Award in 2022. She was recently named as one of the BBC 100 Women in 2022 in recognition of her work with LGBTQIA refugees and asylum seekers.

Dame Angela Eagle

MP for Wallasey @angelaeagle

A backbencher in the House of Commons and the first lesbian Labour minister to voluntarily come out in UK history, Dame Angela has been MP for Wallasey since 1992. Hailing from Yorkshire, she graduated from St. John’s College in Oxford with a BA (hons) degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, and was appointed dame commander of the order of the British empire in 2021 in recognition of her political work and services to equality.

Hannah Bardell

MP for Livingston @HannahB4LiviMP

Hannah has been the Scottish National Party serving member of parliament for her hometown, Livingston, since 2015 and was its spokesperson for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport between 2018 and 2019. Having studied at the University of Stirling, Hannah started her professional life in commercial television.

Helen Jones MBE

Mental health & inclusion specialist @MindOutLGBTQ

As the former chief executive officer of MindOut, an LGBTQIA mental health charity based in Brighton, Helen draws her inspiration and motivation for her activism from her own personal mental health experience. She was awarded an MBE in 2022 in recognition of her contributions to the field.