Forbes is out with its list of the richest people on the planet, and you and I aren’t on it. However, the list does include a number of gay billionaires, and for the first time a transgender woman: Jennifer Pritzker, heir to the Hyatt fortune and a leader in the fight for trans rights in the military.
While having openly LGBT people on the list is noteworthy, perhaps what is more so is how small a fraction of the list they represent: a paltry 0.4 percent, far below even the most conservative estimate of what portion of the population the LGBT community represents. Out of 1,645 people, there are seven who are out. Other than Pritzker, they are:
- David Geffen, the Hollywood powerbroker, and the highest gay man on the list, at #227
- Peter Thiel, the PayPal founder who has used his money to enable the likes of Ted Cruz and Ron Paul
- Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, of the eponymous design firm
- Michael Kors, the designer and Project Runaway maven, appearing on the list for the first time
- Jon Stryker, heir to a medical equipment company fortune. Stryker has the lowest name recognition of the group, but he has been one of the LGBT community’s biggest philanthropists
Missing from the list? Any lesbians. One possible future candidate: Laura Ricketts, co-owner of the Chicago Cubs. Her father Joe made his money from the online brokerage house TD Ameritrade and is active in conservative causes, while Laura has appeared in an It Gets Better video and helped fund the drive for marriage equality in Illinois.
Billy Budd
Where are the photos of the Billionaires? I wanna see their butts and evaluate if I would date them or not.
dewin
What happened to Susie Orman who flogs her expensive credit cards and get dough from Public Broadcasting-
dewin
maybe she’s only a milklioraire- milking the lower classes-