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Meet more of Mamamia's 50 most kick-arse LGBTQI women.

To celebrate Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, Mamamia is proud to launch our 50 most kick-arse LGBTQI women list.

We’re here to celebrate the women who inspire us. The women we admire and want to be friends with. The women we want to date. The women who are changing the game.

Mamamia will be counting down until Mardi Gras. If you missed the first groups of women, click here and here. You can read all about more of these amazing women below:

Eloise Brooke

(Source: Supplied.)
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Eloise Brooke writes about and advocates for positive representations of trans people in the Australian media. Brooke utilises her academic knowledge, community understanding and personal experience to better represent the issues of transgender Australians. She is also the media spokesperson for the Gender Centre. Brooke is about to launch a new project on behalf of the Gender Centre and the Aurora group, to help bridge the gap between the way journalists report on trans people and the actual experience of being trans.

Brooke Powers

(Source: Facebook.)

Brooke Powers is a DJ who has appeared in various public forums in order to speak openly about the trans experience in modern Australia. Powers is also a successful musician who has performed for multiple years within the queer community at festivals, club nights and prestigious events such as Melbourne Music Week.

Tania Safi

(Source: Buzzfeed.)
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Tania Safi is a journalist, producer, director and film-maker whose industry talents have attracted a global audience. Winner of Sydney’s Best Filmmaker award in 2012, Safi has travelled across the world in order document the stories of countless others. Safi is perhaps most recognisable from her work as on-screen talent for media company Buzzfeed, but that is just a hint of much larger body of influential work.

Robyn Lambird

(Source: Facebook.)

Robyn Lambird is a young queer and disabled rights activist who has worked extensively in order to affect change. Lambird first rose to prominence after she began sharing her experience as queer teen living with cerebral palsy in her YouTube series, Queer and Disabled. Lambird continues to work across media platforms in order to raise awareness about her experience, call out media for a lack of representation and spread messages that are both positive and bring hope. 

Georgie Harman

(Source: Twitter.)

Georgie Harman is passionate about championing support for mental health. She’s been the CEO of Beyond Blue since 2014, is the former Deputy CEO at the National Mental Health Commission and is responsible for the Commonwealth policy and investment in mental health, suicide prevention, tobacco control, substance misuse, cancer and chronic disease introduced between 2006 and 2012. She was also the inaugural Executive Director for the Bobby Goldsmith Foundation in Sydney, Australia’s first and largest independent HIV/AIDS charity.

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Christine Forster

(Source: Facebook.)

In 2012, former journalist Christine Forster, who is the sister of Tony Abbott, was “outed” as lesbian by The Australian, four years after she left her husband and moved in with Virginia Edwards, the woman she had fallen in love with. It was this “bruising experience” that spurred Forster to enter the political sphere as the liberal councillor candidate for Lord Mayor of Sydney. She is a vocal supporter and campaigner of same-sex marriage.

Julie Kalceff

(Source: Facebook.)

Julie Kalceff is the writer and director of Starting From Now, a web series turned TV show which aired on SBS in 2016 that focuses on portraying complex, diverse female characters in inner Sydney - who happen to be lesbians. The series has won a number of awards including the Audience Award at the Mardi Gras Film Festival last year. With 15 years in the industry, Kalceff is also the founder and director of Sydney-based production company Common Language Films which tells dramatic, character-driven and female-centric stories in a humorous and appealing way.

Ruby Rose

(Source: Getty Images.)
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Ruby Rose is an Australian model, DJ, actress and presenter who came out as a lesbian when she was 12 years old. She directed and starred in Break Free, a short viral video exploring gender fluidity and identity expression in which she transforms from a very feminine woman to a heavily tattooed man. Rose has also been open about her experience with depression and is an ambassador for mental health support service Headspace.

Portia De Rossi

(Source: Instagram.)

Australian actress Portia De Rossi has spoken about how fearful she was of being exposed as a lesbian during the early stages of her career. It wasn’t until 2005, a year after she started dating TV host Ellen DeGeneres that she spoke about her sexual orientation publicly. The pair have been marries since 2008 and support a variety of charitable organisations including Locks of Love which provides human hair wigs to children with alopecia, FXB International an African AIDS relief organisation and The Art of Elysium, an art foundation for terminally ill children.

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Lucy Thomas

(Source; Facebook.)

As the co-founder of Project ROCKIT, an organisation that encourages young people to stand up for what’s right, Lucy Thomas is passionate about educating students on issues such as respect, self acceptance, bullying, leadership and LGBTQI rights.

Sarah Walker

(Source: Facebook.)

For years, Sarah Walker has been championing same-sex relationships on mainstream television - often to her detriment -  after realising there weren’t any characters that represented her as a part of the LGBTQI community. Introducing the lesbian character of Charlotte Beaumont on All Saints, Walker also worked as a consultant on Season Four of Wentworth and was instrumental in writing the romance of Bea and Allie (Danielle Cormack/Kate Jenkinson).

Beccy Cole

(Source: Facebook.)

An Australian country musician, Beccy Cole admittedly never wanted to be gay, but after seeing two women kissing on television after the breakdown of her marriage, she realised she couldn’t deny who she was any longer. With eight albums and nine CMAA awards to her name, coming out on Australian Story allowed Cole to experience true freedom.

To see Mamamia's complete list, scroll through the gallery below. Stay tuned to learn more about each of these incredible women in our next installments.

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