George Takei

George Takei is an actor and activist best known for playing Hikaru Sulu on Star Trek: The Original Series (1966–1969). He came out as gay in October 2005 in Frontiers magazine, saying he had kept his sexuality private out of fear rooted in childhood experiences of Japanese-American internment. He married his longtime partner Brad Altman in 2008, becoming one of the first same-sex couples to wed in California after the Supreme Court ruling. Takei has leveraged his enormous social media following to become a leading voice for LGBTQ+ rights, marriage equality, and civil rights more broadly, drawing parallels between the internment of Japanese Americans and the oppression of LGBTQ+ people.