Trans actor Riley Carter Millington tops Rainbow List 2015
By Ben Kelly
The trans actor Riley Carter Millington has topped the Independent’s Rainbow List, which names the 101 most influential LGBTI people in the UK. Riley, who has been cast as the first transgender character on Eastenders, is entering the list for the first time, among many other trans and intersex personalities, who have taken a strong proportion of the list’s places this year.
In an interview with the Independent today, 21 year old Riley has said he thinks it’s “amazing” how trans visibility has advanced since he started transitioning five years ago. “I couldn’t really go, ‘Oh, I know, I feel like that person on the television’. As a kid, I couldn’t really describe it.”
Rainbow List judge Paris Lees said that the Eastenders casting was “the biggest thing to happen for the transgender community in Britain this decade”. The man who made it possible – Eastenders’ producer Dominic Treadwell Collins – also appears on the list for the first time at number 37.
Other notable trans people who have made the list include chef and activist Jack Monroe (8), actresses like Rebecca Root (11) of Boy Meets Girl and Bethany Black (53) who starred in Banana, and the UK’s first trans MP, Emily Brothers (60). They appear alongside dozens of people like Stonewall CEO Ruth Hunt (3) and the columnist Owen Jones (12), who are praised for leading the trans inclusivity in the LGBTI community, which marked 2015.
The Independent also comments that, “Three intersex activists now occupy two of our top five spots, demonstrating just how important we think the fight for intersex rights is.” They are the addiction expert and intersex advocate Sarah Graham (2), closely followed by the Co-directors of Intersex UK, Dawn Rachel Vago and Holly Greenberry (5).
New entries include celebrities like the model Cara Delevingne (7) and the rugby player Keegan Hirst (14), as well as the R U Coming Out founder Wayne Dhesi (15), and the UK’s youngest MP, Mhairi Black (30).
Attitude‘s Editor Matthew Todd has risen to number 22 on the list this year, for his work on combating homophobic bullying in schools, and for inaugurating the first Attitude Pride Awards earlier this year.
You can read the full Rainbow List 2015 on the Independent’s website.