Kam Nedd
Disruptors
Kevin Maxen
Meet one of the artists, disruptors, educators, groundbreakers, innovators, and storytellers who all helped make the world a better place for LGBTQ+ people.
NFL history isn’t always made on the field. Case in point? Kevin Maxen, the assistant strength coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Just before the 2023-2024 season, Maxen publicly came out, making him the first male coach in a U.S. professional league to proudly declare himself as part of the LGBTQ+ community.
A coach for a few years now, having already worked with college teams including the Baylor Bears and the Vanderbilt Commodores, Maxen started to question his sexuality in college while he was still a football player and team captain. Then in 2022, he contacted fellow out NFL history maker Carl Nassib to ask for advice on how to navigate coming out in sports.
It was still not an easy process. As Maxen admits, some of the people he thought he had in his corner suddenly didn’t have faith in him. But he says being able to live in his truth, especially in a field of work as visible as his, was his biggest accomplishment this year. “I put my trust in the wrong people until I found the ones who were telling me to ignore them and listen to myself,” he says. “When I did that, I realized that the people I was being told to fear were the ones who were truly going to support me and love me no matter what.”
“People are good,” Maxen says about the message he wants to send to LGBTQ+ folks. “As a community that is asking for acceptance, love and understanding, we shouldn’t perpetuate the idea that we have to live in fear of how people react or live up to other people’s standards, [but focus on] only our own. The most important thing about equality should be seeing everyone as an individual — what their character as a person is and what they can contribute is more important than what or who or how they identify.” @kmax3824
Disruptors
Duncan Crabtree-Ireland
Meet one of the artists, disruptors, educators, groundbreakers, innovators, and storytellers who all helped make the world a better place for LGBTQ+ people.
Photo by Luke Fontana
Duncan Crabtree-Ireland — the national executive director and chief negotiator for SAG-AFTRA — oversees the world’s largest entertainment union, which boasts over 160,000 members. And along with SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher, he’s one of the faces of their strike over a labor dispute with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
As one of the few out leaders of a major entertainment group, Crabtree-Ireland knows that the fight for labor and LGBTQ+ equality go hand in hand. “One of the things that we’re fighting for is basic equity, inclusion, and fairness in the industry,” he says. “And I’m proud to say that SAG-AFTRA has been at the forefront of making sure that the entire American scene is represented on film, television, and streaming — and that’s a fight that we’re in for the long run.”
And there is a lesson to be learned from the strike to advance change, which is the power of solidarity. “When we stand together and when we fight together, that’s how we win,” he says. “Division always weakens us. Unity strengthens us.”
The outcome of Crabtree-Ireland’s advocacy through the SAG-AFTRA strike will determine the future of how actors and other entertainment professionals are treated in show business, as technological advances like streaming services and AI impact their careers and livelihoods. But the country’s largest strike in 26 years has also helped fuel a revolution for workers in hospitality, the automotive industry, and beyond.
This revolution shows the power of a compelling narrative. In fact, one of his biggest challenges during the strike was the task of clearly communicating SAG-AFTRA’s message “with the rest of the community, the industry, and the world so that everyone understood why we’re in the fight that we’re in, and how it was going to change everything for the better.” Clearly, the message has gotten through.
This year, Crabtree-Ireland is proud “to fight against the biggest companies in the world and say we demand to be treated with respect and fairness.” @duncanci