Time published its list of the 100 Most Influential People for 2026 on Wednesday. At least six extraordinary members of the LGBTQ+ community are included in their ranks.

Lawyer Shannon Minter stands out among them.

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The transgender civil rights attorney and legal director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights in San Francisco has been interviewed twice by LGBTQ Nation about cases he’s led challenging the Trump administration’s transphobia. He’s brought insight to complicated legal issues along with a dogged sense of optimism.

Eight years ago, Minter shepherded the first of four lawsuits through the courts to overturn Trump’s first ban on transgender service members in the military; he earned a preliminary injunction that lasted until President Joe Biden overturned the ban.

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After Trump’s second ban last year, the Supreme Court “big-footed us and issued a stay,” Minter said in July. The U.S. has entered “a rough interim period,” he added.

Ricardo Martinez, executive director of GLAD Law and Minter’s colleague, said what strikes him about listening to Minter in court “is his conviction.”

“His steadiness comes from operating squarely within the truth: that the Constitution’s promise is real, the American dream belongs to all of us, and law, wielded with courage and precision, can be an instrument of genuine justice.”

The longtime attorney, 65, has “a soft core, a brilliant mind, and a love for all beings that radiates even in a courtroom,” Martinez said. “He reminds us why this work matters and what it looks like to serve something greater than yourself.”

Chanel Creative Director Matthieu Blazy, 41, made this year’s 100 Most Influential list for serving looks.

The French-Belgian designer was plucked from his graduating class by jury member Raf Simons. The designer hired him on the spot.

By 2023, fashion influencer Vanessa Friedman of The New York Times had dubbed Blazy the “Magician of Milan,” after his 2023 Bottega Veneta collection turned heads.

Actress and fashionista Margaret Qualley, last seen in her Globe-nominated performance exploding in The Substance, calls Blazy’s creations “dreamy and otherworldly.”

“Matthieu’s impression is at once intimate and grand,” Qualley said. “I’m endlessly eager to see what he makes. Like a good marriage” — between designer and client — “where yearning never dies.”

Hockey forward Hilary Knight, 36, made her own magic in Milan earlier this year when she helped strike gold for the USA at the Winter Olympics in February.

The team captain for both the U.S. Women’s National Ice Hockey team and the Seattle Torrent is a natural-born leader and — according to the stats — the GOAT among women who’ve played the sport. Knight holds all-time World Championship records for goals, assists, and points, along with two Olympic gold medals.

“She loves the sport so completely, she never stops finding new ways to be great,” says Nobel Prize-winning women’s rights activist Malala Yousafzai.

“But her legacy extends far beyond the record book,” Yousafzai writes. “A critical voice in the U.S. Women’s National Team’s fight for fair pay, Hilary advocated for better wages, investment in girls’ programs, and greater visibility for women’s teams. She helped build the Professional Women’s Hockey League from the ground up—and ensured the road will be easier for the next generation.”

She’s also just plain romantic. A week into this year’s games, Knight got down on one knee to propose to her longtime girlfriend, speedskater Brittany Bowe. The couple met at the Beijing Games in 2022.

“Olympics brought us together. This one made us forever,” she posted to Insta.

Jonathan Groff is on this year’s Most Influential list, maybe just for sheer exuberance in back-to-back Tony-nominated musical performances. Last year, he won for Lead Actor in a revival of Merrily We Roll Along. This year, he picked up a nod for his portrayal of crooner Bobby Darin in the musical Just in Time.

Groff, 41, has played gay in a string of popular shows and movies, from Glee to Looking to M. Night Shyamalan’s gay family creepfest Knock at the Cabin a couple of years ago. But his heart belongs to Broadway.

“Jonathan Groff radiates from within,” says Broadway geek Sutton Foster of the actor. “I first saw him onstage during Spring Awakening’s original run in 2006, and he was so beautiful and heartbreaking and vulnerable. I went on to see him in Hamilton as King George, and in Merrily We Roll Along as the composer Franklin Shepard, for which Jonathan won his first Tony in 2024. It’s hard to make that character likable, but Jonathan is inherently likable—you just root for him. Backstage at Merrily, we sat on the floor of his dressing room, shooting the s**t. He gives the biggest hugs, and he’s a real seeker—he wants to understand the world and his place in it.”

Actress Keke Palmer grew up on screen, basically, making her first appearance in the movie Barbershop 2: Back in Business at age 11, and really breaking out in Akeelah and the Bee two years later. She’s been in back-to-back TV and movie projects — plus a year-long run on Broadway as Cinderella — ever since.

In that spotlight, there’s been lots of speculation about the 32-year-old’s sexuality. In the past, she’s described it as fluid. In February, she posted to Insta after a Valentine’s Day spent with her family that she is “almost 100% sure” she is asexual. Influential, for sure, for the ACE community.

Brian Grazer, one of Hollywood’s most prolific producers, calls Palmer “the kind of talent you spend a career hoping to find.” She’s currently starring in his show The ‘Burbs on NBC.

“When I asked Keke to star in The ’Burbs, I gave her almost nothing, only a loose idea of the role,” Grazer says. “Most actors need more, but not Keke. She caught it in the air and immediately built something vivid, large, and alive. She found the heartbeat. Then she deepened it, shaped it, and made it more human.”

“Keke doesn’t wait to be told, she decides,” Grazer added. “She doesn’t just reflect the moment, she creates it. We are just lucky to be watching.”

Gay favorite Alan Cumming, 61, is having an influential moment as the villainous host of the uber-popular The Traitors reality competition.

In a wildly meta conflagration, actress Lisa Kudrow appeared on the back-stabbing show recently, not as herself, but her character Valerie Cherish, now in season three of the follow-doc comedy The Comeback, about an actress “of a certain age” doing what it takes to navigate Hollywood years after a long run in a wildly popular sitcom. Sounds familiar.

“This will come as no surprise, but Alan Cumming is just as spectacular in person as he is on your television screen,” Kudrow says, maybe channeling Cherish, but it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s not in this case, just like on The Traitors.

“I mean, are you kidding? He steps into the room, and you just can’t help but think, ‘Yes. Glorious.’ Everything about him is thrilling.”

“Watching him on The Traitors is so much fun,” Kudrow/Cherish says, “not only because he always looks fantastic, but because he plays such a great villain. The Alan I know offscreen is sweet, bubbly, and friendly. He chooses joy, he chooses glee, and he sees the wonderful in everything. He’s a phenomenal person and also, luckily for us, a brilliant performer. Alan can do anything and everything, and that’s really all there is to it.”

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