Meet the LGBTQ+ dealmakers, trailblazers, and glass-ceiling breakers.
The people who are creating national public policy, running billion-dollar tech enterprises, and winning Olympic medals. The mentors, role models, and celebrities who have forged their own paths and changed the world.
To get where they are, to succeed at the highest level, they had to have an edge. And for each of them, in myriad ways, it was their queerness. The Queer Advantage explores from a kaleidoscope of angles how queer people view their identity as an essential, positive advantage to their success. The people interviewed here write our favorite movies, draft and pass national legislation, lead world-beating tech companies, and more. In this groundbreaking compilation, congress people from different generations explain how their sexuality powered their ascensions to the highest political positions in the country. A Silicon Valley tycoon discusses being both gay and black. One of Hollywood's top talent agents describes how being gay is the best thing that's ever happened to him.
These queer leaders' stories brim with the hard-won lessons gained over their careers. Despite the differences in age, background, careers, and races, key themes shine through.
• Channeling anger in a positive way - using it as rocket fuel to succeed and outshine others.
• Leveraging your difference to beget new ideas and strategies as you face people and life's obstacles.
• Bridging generational gaps.
• Accessing resources to conquer crippling denial, internalized homophobia, and doubt.
• Utilizing the power of the Internet as a form of self-discovery.
• Using your sensitivity and attunement to read the room, deciding when to fit in and when to stand out.
• Finding a queer tribe and learning to help and lean on each other.
Collecting incisive, deeply personal interviews with LGBTQ+ trailblazers about how they leveraged the challenges and insights they had as relative outsiders to succeed in the worlds of business, tech, politics, Hollywood, sports and beyond, The Queer Advantage celebrates the unique, supercharged power of queerness.
