100 Women We Love: Class of 2017

Every June, GO compiles a select list of talented tastemakers, influencers and all-around inspirational women who are making their mark on the LGBT community and on the world at large.

Nneka Onuorah

Photo by Fred Joesph Swift

GLAAD-nominated filmmaker Nneka Onuorah has dedicated her career to “making the invisible visible and giving voice to the voiceless.” She founded the “We Are All Women Campaign” that aims to stop injustice in the black LGBT women community. Her film, “The Same Difference,” explores a specific injustice: lesbians who discriminate against other lesbians based on gender roles. The doc sold out theaters and won best documentary from HBO’s New Fest, setting Onuorah on a “path to diversifying the stories told in mainstream media.” Even early in her career, she showed signs that that was her mission. She got her start as a “super intern” at BET Networks, launching a sort of reverse-mentorship program that matched millennials with executives in need of some knowledge from the younger demographic. She worked her way up from intern to coordinator to producer, and is now basking in accolades as an independent filmmaker. The most rewarding part of her work, she says, is “the opportunity to help someone see their truth on screen” and “to educate and challenge the masses through the vessel of film.” “It is so infectious and powerful and it’s the key to making the world a better place,” Onuorah says. After exploring a divide in the LGBT community in “The Same Difference,” she is devoted to strengthening queer unity. “We are such a marginalized community already that we should not be spending our time separating the L, the G, the B and the T” she says. “We should find ways in which we can support one another and unify no matter the color of the rainbow or letter in the group.” —SJ


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