Simon Nkoli

South Africa's 1996 constitution was the first in the world to ban discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, and Nkoli is a large part of why. Tried for treason alongside anti-apartheid leaders in the Delmas trial of 1985 to 1988, he was openly gay throughout, which pushed fellow defendants and the ANC to treat gay rights as part of the freedom struggle. He founded the Gay and Lesbian Organisation of the Witwatersrand and helped organise Johannesburg's first Pride march in 1990. The National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality, which he helped build, then used the equality clause in court to strike down the sodomy laws in 1998, the year he died.