During Pride and every month beyond it, Black queer creators and advocates are using their digital platforms to redefine what it means to live in your truth. From sexuality and gender expression to self-acceptance, love, and mental health, these creators are offering more than content. They’re creating radical care, community, and culture.
Below are six Black queer influencers to know in 2025—educators, artists, and advocates reshaping how we talk about gender, love, style, and self across digital media.
Kenny Ethan Jones
Kenny Ethan Jones made history as the first trans man to front a period campaign, but his impact doesn’t stop there. As an activist and writer, Kenny has led powerful conversations around body politics, mental health, intimacy, and period inclusivity—especially for trans people. In 2024, he founded Bodyco, a groundbreaking period care company designed with trans bodies in mind, while offering products for people of all genders. A longtime ambassador for Bloody Good Period, Kenny continues to challenge shame and center empathy in conversations around menstruation, self-worth, and bodily autonomy.
Char Ellesse
Char Ellesse is a London-based creator who curates community through intentional storytelling. As the founder of Girls Will Be Boys and host of the podcast Saying it With Your Chest, Char provides space for people navigating marginalization to speak boldly about their journeys to self-acceptance. Drawing from her own lived experience with mental health struggles, she crafts deeply resonant content that resists surface-level activism in favor of vulnerability, truth-telling, and joy. Her platform is as stylish as it is sincere, a vibrant blueprint for identity-driven storytelling.
B. Hawk Snipes
B. Hawk Snipes is a multi-hyphenate creative. An entertainer, activist, and fashion icon, whose work spans television, music, and the ballroom scene. Best known for their standout appearances on Pose, B. Hawk blends nonbinary visibility with bold style, using their platform to advocate for gender-expansive representation in fashion and media. Their expressive looks and candid reflections offer not only inspiration but also healing for those who’ve never quite seen themselves reflected in the spotlight.
Ericka Hart
Few voices in sexuality education are as powerful or paradigm-shifting as Ericka Hart (she/they). A Black queer femme with a Master’s in Human Sexuality, Ericka’s work sits at the intersection of pleasure, race, chronic illness, and embodiment. They gained widespread attention in 2016 for going topless to reveal their double mastectomy scars, an act of radical visibility that continues to reverberate today. As a writer, professor, and nationally acclaimed speaker, Ericka’s content is rooted in unapologetic truth-telling, deep emotional labor, and expansive views on what liberation can, and should, look like.
Shahem Mclaurin
Shahem Mclaurin is a licensed therapist and social worker whose online presence feels like a virtual care space. With over 800,000 followers and a new mental health practice, Freedom Collective Therapy, Shahem uses their platform to destigmatize therapy, offer healing tools, and speak directly to the mental health needs of queer and trans communities of color. With each Reel or post, they demystify therapy, uplift joy as resistance, and bring tenderness to topics like grief, trauma, and self-worth.
Ev’Yan Whitney
Ev’Yan Whitney is a sensual guide and somatic educator who invites us to slow down, feel deeply, and reclaim the wisdom of our bodies. Their work as a former Sexuality Doula® has evolved into a broader focus on embodiment and self-inquiry, with a gentle yet powerful digital presence. As the author of Sensual Self and host of the podcast by the same name, Ev’Yan brings breath and intention to the digital landscape, reminding us that liberation is not only political but also personal—and often, deeply sensory.
At a time when queer and trans lives, especially the Black community, are under political and cultural attack and historical and cultural erasure, creators like these offer space to imagine otherwise. They teach us that authenticity is healing, that softness is revolutionary, and that digital platforms can be fertile ground for transformation.
This Pride, we’re honoring the educators, artists, and innovators who are showing us new ways to exist, love, and liberate. Follow them not just for content, but for connection, care, and community.
