Jake Daniels

 At age 17, British soccer player Jake Daniels came out as gay (May 2022), becoming the UK's only male professional footballer to be publicly out at the time. He was praised by Prince William, who was then president of the Football Association.

 

When Daniels went public with his personal relationship with partner Mark Potts, there was a shocked response to the age difference. Potts is 28 years older than Daniels.

The couple still posts photos from their travels and activities. May Daniels have continued success on and off the field.

 

 

UPDATE: Tim Cook Steps Down as Apple CEO

My original post was 15 years ago (2011), when it was announced that Tim Cook, a gay man, had been named CEO of Apple. That original post follows this update. On Monday, August 31, 2026, Tim Cook completed a 15-year run as Apple CEO. However, he is staying with the company in a new role as Executive Chairman. John Ternus is now Apple CEO, and he has not shared public details regarding a spouse, partner or sexual orientation.

Apple's market value increased tenfold under Cook's tenure, and its revenue and profits quadrupled. Apple under Cook has grown to become the second largest company in the world. According to the Washington Post (Sept. 2, 2026), Cook was the real genius at Apple. That same article made no mention of Cook's sexual orientation.

ORIGINAL POST (Sept. 2011): 50-year-old Tim Cook, the head of the $355 billion Apple company, is a gay man, although he does not publicly acknowledge his sexual orientation. He is destined, however, to become an icon for gay advancement. Cook has gone from being the most powerful gay man in Silicon Valley to the most powerful gay man in the world, if not one of the richest. His compensation in 2010, before being named CEO, was $58 million (unless my math is wrong, that's over $1 million a week). If he stays with Apple another ten years, he will receive a $389 million bonus in the form of restricted stock (if he stays five, he gets only half that amount). Wow. Talk about incentive.

Cook joined Apple in 1998 overseeing computer manufacturing and was later promoted to chief of worldwide sales and head of the Macintosh division. Cook made his mark early on by fixing Apple's storied manufacturing inefficiencies. He also kept the company on track as Apple's interim leader during Steve Jobs' 2004 two-month medical leave and during his six-month leave in 2009. His steady hand kept iPhone 4 and iPad development on track, grew Macintosh sales and strongly rallied the stock value. As Apple’s CEO, Cook has been running day to day operations since Jobs's most recent medical leave began in January, deferring strategic decisions and other CEO prerogatives to Jobs. Apple's growth and stellar financial performance have continued unabated under his watch.

Cook is known to be a "fitness nut," in the gym by 5 am, often on the hiking trail and even more often on his bike. After Cook was profiled as a "lifelong bachelor" and "intensely private," many wondered if he might be gay. That is indeed the case, and Cook's sexual orientation has been the topic of at least some discussion within the company. One tech executive who has spoken to multiple Apple management veterans about Cook was told executives would support Cook if he publicly acknowledged his orientation, and even would encourage him to do so as he steps up his leadership role. If that happens, Cook would be by far the most powerful openly gay executive in the tech industry.

The media has danced around this subject. Felix Salmon wrote: "Keeping Cook’s sexual orientation a secret is no longer an option, so the press shouldn’t treat it as though it’s something to be avoided at all costs. There’s no ethical dilemma when it comes to reporting on Cook’s sexuality; rather, the ethical dilemma comes in not reporting it, thereby perpetuating the idea that there’s some kind of stigma associated with being gay. While stigma does still exist in much of society, it’s not the job of the press to perpetuate it. Quite the opposite."

Apple has been rated among the top gay-friendly tech companies among brands, and is widely considered to offer a workplace and culture that is open to people regardless of their background and preferences. Randy Ubillos, one of Apple's most well known engineers as the creator of Final Cut, the man who redesigned iMovie for Mac, and who was introduced last year by Jobs to demonstrate his new iMovie app for iPhone, is openly gay. Randy Ubillos (left, holding cup) is the life partner of Rick Fath, shown here on their honeymoon in the British Virgin Islands in 2000. Their commitment ceremony took place in San Francisco aboard a yacht. They were married in San Francisco’s City Hall on June 20, 2008.

In this video, Randy is introduced by Steve Jobs and goes on to introduce video editing using the new iMovie 11 software. He demonstrates step-by-step video editing to create a movie trailer.

Apple has also recognized the achievements of its third party developers who happened to be gay, including Steve Demeter, who left his job at Wells Fargo to work for himself, becoming independently wealthy after creating the early iPhone game Trism. “I’m totally out in my private life, but I’m not sure about wanting to be out professionally. I’m not worried about a backlash or anything like that, I’m just not sure that my being gay has anything to do with my business and the kinds of games we’re creating. It’s not like we’re making ‘gay’ games. I’m proud of the fact that I’m gay and that some of the guys who work with me are gay, but at the end of the day all that matters is that we put stuff out there that’s high-quality and that makes people happy.”

Here’s a video of Steve talking about his creation TRISM.

David Hockney

UPDATE: David Hockney died on June 11, 2026, in London at age 88. 

British painter, photographer, set designer

British-born, longtime Los Angeles resident David Hockney (b. 1937) is a gay artist who has worked in several genres. He is a painter, photographer, set designer*, draftsman, print maker and graphic artist, among other things. He is perhaps the most popular and versatile British artist of the twentieth century. The sensual, the libidinal, and the homosexual have always infused his art. Open declarations on the theme of homosexual love are evident in a series of paintings produced in 1960/61. For example, We Two Boys Together Clinging (oil on board), took its title and some of its written passages (surrounding the images of two men) from a poem by gay American poet Walt Whitman. However, Hockney’s gay erotic drawings were so explicit that they were suppressed in a controversial 1980's Los Angeles retrospective.

Hockney is ever experimenting, pushing the envelope of what can be art. He has produced images using photocopy and fax machines, as well as computers. At present Hockney lives in England.

*Hockney was born with color synesthesia, which means he sees certain colors as an involuntary response to musical stimuli. It is a common underlying principle in his designs for stage sets for various ballets and operas, in which he bases the background colors and lighting on the colors he sees while listening to the music of the theater piece he is working on. This synesthesia is shared with Eddie Van Halen, Duke Ellington, Franz Liszt and jazz pianist Marian McPartland. Fascinating.

Every day I have breakfast in front of a large print of one of Hockney's paintings from his "Paper Pools" series, done while he was living in California. There is no better way to grace a dining room, although I lament that mine does not show a human figure, as does the famous one below:

Peter Getting Out of Nick’s Pool (1967 acrylic)

This painting shows the communal swimming pool of an apartment block at 1145 Larrabee Street, Hollywood, just north of Sunset Boulevard. This was the home of one of Hockney’s friends, the art dealer and gallery owner Nick Wilder. Hockney’s lover, Peter Schlesinger (photograph below), a 19-year old painter whom he had met while teaching, is the naked figure climbing out of the pool (Hockney was 40 years old at the time). While living in California, Hockney created iconic images of the self-indulgent, poolside life of the American west coast.

Other homoerotic works by David Hockney:

U.S. Congressman Barney Frank

UPDATE: Congressman Frank died May 19, 2026, at age 86. Original post follows.

Barney Frank is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives (D-Massachusetts) and is the most prominent gay politician in the United States. He is the former chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee (2007–2011). Democratic speech writer Josh Gottheimer describes Frank as "one of the brightest and most energetic defenders of civil rights issues."

Frank often refers to himself self-deprecatingly as a “gay, left-handed Jew.” His frequent quick witted, blunt, brash and painfully honest comments have earned him a reputation that he is not to be messed with, and to say that Frank is outspoken on matters of civil rights is understatement. Just one example: In 2006, Frank and incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were accused by Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN) of having a "radical homosexual agenda." Frank responded, "I do have things I would like to see adopted on behalf of LGBT people: they include the right to marry the individual of our choice, the right to serve in the military to defend our country, and the right to a job based solely on our own qualifications. I acknowledge that this is an agenda, but I do not think that any self-respecting radical in history would have considered advocating people's rights to get married, join the army, and earn a living as a terribly inspiring revolutionary platform."

Frank and "driver" Steve Gobie (right)

In 1987, Frank revealed his homosexuality to the public. He was the first U.S. congressman to do so voluntarily. Just two years later he was embroiled in a scandal. He had engaged the services of a male escort (Steve Gobie) some years before and subsequently befriended him, housed him and hired him as a driver, despite knowing that the driver was on probation. Worse, Frank used his House of Representatives privileges to void the driver’s parking tickets. Then Frank found out that his driver was running a prostitution service out of his Capitol Hill apartment and fired him. With that, the driver went public and told his story to the media. Surprisingly, attempts by the House Ethics Committee (led by Larry Craig - I’m not making this up) to censure or expel Frank failed, and he has won reelection ever since (fifteen times).

Although Frank brought shame to the doorstep of the House of Representatives, he did not hide from his "sins". His skills at bi-partisan brokering served him well. At the same time as the Frank-Gobie Capitol Hill prostitution scandal erupted, sex-related cases were brought up against congressmen Gus Savage, Jim Bates, and Buz Lukens. One Republican congressman said,  "I don't give a damn about Buz Lukens. . . I don't give a damn about Gus Savage . . . I don't give a damn about Jim Bates. . . . but if I were dying in the hospital, Barney Frank would come see me.  The others would be filing for my office space."

Shortly after coming out, Frank met and began dating Herb Moses, an economist and LGBT activist; their relationship lasted for eleven years until an amicable break-up in July, 1998. Moses was the first partner of an openly gay member of Congress to receive spousal benefits, and the two were considered “Washington's most powerful and influential gay couple.”

During the sub-prime mortgage crisis, Frank was characterized as a key congressional deal-maker, an unlikely bridge between his party's left-wing base and free market conservatives in the Bush administration. Hank Paulson, the U.S. Treasury Secretary for the Bush administration, said he enjoyed Frank's penchant for brokering deals. "He is looking to get things done and make a difference; he focuses on areas of agreement and tries to build on those.”

Frank resides in a modest studio apartment in Newton, Massachusetts, and a small apartment in Washington, DC. Frank married long-time partner James Ready in Boston in 2012, the year Frank did not seek re-election..

Orlando Cruz

Update to original post:

When Orlando Cruz retired from boxing in 2018, the World Boxing Organization (WBO) ranked him at #4 among featherweights. Also mentioned in this post is Robbie Rogers (soccer), who retired in 2017, and Jason Collins (basketball) who retired in 2014 (Collins died of brain cancer on May 12, 2026, at 47 years old).  

 

 

 

Original post on May 30, 2013:

What with all the recent attention given active professional team sports athletes Jason Collins (basketball) and Robbie Rogers (soccer), professional boxer Orlando Cruz (b. 1981) wants to remind everyone that he came out in 2012, before either Rogers or Collins.

Puerto Rico’s featherweight boxer Cruz has won two fights since coming out last year. As an amateur, he represented Puerto Rico at the 2000 Olympic Games in Australia. Cruz made his professional debut that same year against Alfredo Valdez in Puerto Rico. Cruz was undefeated for nine years, until he lost to Cornelius Lock by a technical knockout in 2009. Cruz is currently ranked at No. 4 among featherweights by the World Boxing Organization (WBO).

On October 4, 2012, Cruz became the first WBO boxer to come out as gay while still active professionally, stating that "I have and will always be a proud Puerto Rican. I have always been and always will be a proud gay man.”

Cruz revealed in his statement that he was tired of hiding who he really was.

"I don't want to hide any of my identities," he said. "I want people to look at me for the human being that I am. I am a professional sportsman who always brings his best to the ring. I want for people to continue to see me for my boxing skills, my character, my sportsmanship. But I also want kids who suffer from bullying to know that you can be whoever you want to be in life, including a professional boxer, that anything is possible, and that who you are or whom you love should not be an impediment to achieving anything in life.”

Cruz said he met with psychologists and others before making the announcement, adding he had the full support of his family, trainer and manager. He praised his mother and sister for their unconditional love and said his father has always backed him. At the time Cruz came out, no active professional team sports player had yet come out as gay. Robbie Rogers (b. 1987) and Jason Collins (1978-2026) have since taken care of that deficiency.

Note: U.S. Virgin Islander Emile Griffith, who told The New York Times in 2005 that he struggled with his sexuality, admitted that he had sexual relations with both men and women. His comments, however, came decades after he ended his 18-year career as a pro boxer. Griffith (1938-2013) was well-known for his 1962 fight against Cuban boxer Benny Paret, who taunted Griffith with gay slurs before their bout (during the weigh-in at Madison Square Garden NYC, Paret patted Griffith’s behind and called him a maricon – Spanish for “faggot”). Griffith knocked him out live on national television, and Paret, who never regained consciousness, died in a hospital 10 days later. Griffith, who retired in 1977, was also a former middleweight champion and a Hall of Famer.

Roberto Velasco

 

Mexico installs openly gay Secretary of State

 

The Mexican Senate confirmed President Claudia Sheinbaum’s nomination of Roberto Velasco Álvarez (b. 1987) as the new Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Mexico’s equivalent of Secretary of State. Velasco, who is 38, is the youngest Mexican foreign minister to assume the position and the first openly gay person to head the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He received a congratulatory call from Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, upon assuming office on April 8, 2026.

Velasco took the oath of office with these words: “I assume this responsibility at a time when the international order is undergoing a very profound reconfiguration.”

Velasco holds a Masters Degree in public policy from the University of Chicago and served an internship at Chicago City Hall. In 2013 he earned a law degree from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City.

Alan Turing

British mathematician Alan Turing (1912-1954) masterminded cracking the German Enigma code during WW II, thus helping to shorten the war. He is also considered the father of computer science and the modern digital computer, with his invention of the Turing Machine (1936). His work continues to influence the field of artificial intelligence and the application of computer techniques in understanding biological forms and systems. He was a mathematical genius, and he was also homosexual.

While attending a noted independent school in Dorset, sixteen-year-old Turing fell in love with an older male schoolmate, Christopher Morcom, who died unexpectedly of bovine tuberculosis at the age of nineteen. Socially inept, Turing exhibited symptoms of autism, and Morcom had brought him out of his shell. Grief stricken following Morcom's death, Turing spent the next few years studying the question of how the human mind might survive death – Morcom's mind in particular. This research led to the study of quantum-mechanical theory and ultimately to the concept of thinking machines. He went on to study at Cambridge but moved to the U.S., where he earned a doctorate at Princeton (1938). He later became a specialist in the field of cryptanalysis.

For his work for the British government at the top-secret Bletchley Park facility (museum display with Turing's photo shown at right) during WW II, Turing was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1946. Shortly thereafter he became a professor at Cambridge University, where he fell in love with Neville Johnson, a student. Turing was surprisingly open about his sexual orientation, given the mores of the time. In 1952 a young man from Manchester attempted to blackmail Turing for his homosexuality, leading Turing to go to the police to report the attempt at extortion. Instead of deciding to prosecute the extortionist, they arrested Turing on twelve counts of gross indecency. Turing would not deny the charges, taking the stance that he had done nothing wrong. The court disagreed, and Turing's security clearances were withdrawn, putting an end to his brilliant work. To avoid a prison term, Turing agreed to be subjected to experimental hormone treatments designed to curb his homosexual desires. Massive doses of estrogen caused him to grow breasts and become chemically depressed. His life thus ruined, he committed suicide in 1954, by ingesting a cyanide injected apple two weeks before his 42nd birthday. Not until 2009 did the British government issue a formal apology for the way Turing was treated after WW II.

The year 2012 was a centennial celebration of Turing’s life and scientific impact, with a number of major events taking place throughout the year. Most of those were linked to places with special significance in Turing’s life, such as Cambridge, Manchester and Bletchley Park. In 2013, the following year, Queen Elizabeth II issued a posthumous Royal Pardon for Turing. Historians estimate that breaking the Enigma Code shortened the war by more than two years and saved approximately 14 million lives.

In 2014 actor Benedict Cumberbatch portrayed Turing in the film "The Imitation Game", based on Turing's brilliance and heroism in cracking the Enigma Code. Cumberbatch received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his performance. The film is available on several streaming services. 

Trivia: A blue plaque outside the 4-star luxury Colonnade Hotel in London indicates where Turing was born one hundred fourteen years ago, on June 23, 1912, when the hotel served as a hospital.