Jacqueline Wilson among LGBTQ+ figures recognised in 2025 New Year Honours List

Novelist Jacqueline Wilson is among the LGBTQ+ figures recognised in the 2025 New Year Honours.

The author has been created a Dame Grand Cross for services to literature. Best-known for her children’s books, which tackle realistic topics such as adoption, divorce, body image and neglect, Wilson’s first adult novel, Think Again, was published earlier this year.

Wilson came out publicly as gay in 2020 at the age of 74, revealing that she’s been living “very happily” with her partner of 18 years.

“I’ve never really been in any kind of closet,” Wilson told The Guardian at the time. “It would be such old news for anybody that has ever known anything much about me. Even the vaguest acquaintance knows perfectly well that we are a couple.”

Meanwhile, gay actor and author Stephen Fry has been knighted for his work on mental-health awareness.

Blackadder star and QI host Fry was recognised for “devoting much time and effort in generating awareness of bipolar disorder, using his public platform to speak candidly about his own journey, undermining the taboo that has prevented many from seeking support”. 

He described feeling “startled and enchanted” by the honour.

“When you are recognised, it does make you feel a bit ‘crikey’, but I think the most emotional thing is when I think of my childhood, and my dreadful unhappiness and misery and stupidity, and everything that led to so many failures as a child,” he said, according to The Independent.

“And for my parents, really, what a disaster. I mean every time the phone rang, they thought: ‘Oh, God, what has Stephen done now?’ It was a sort of joke in the family.”

The honour comes just weeks after Fry described Stonewall’s current campaigning, particularly for trans rights, as “nonsensical”.

When asked on the Triggernometry podcast about his support for the LGBTQ+ charity, Fry said: “I’m not sure I do support them.”

He previously backed the organisation’s fight to equalise the age of consent and legalise same-sex marriage but said he had “no interest in supporting this current wave of nonsensical [policies]”.

Other queer people recognised in the New Year’s Honours List include Debbie Lane, the founder and chief executive officer of the LGBT+ Cymru Helpline and Progress Cymru Counselling, who was appointed OBE, Ubaid-ul Rehman, appointed OBE for services to equality in the LGBTQ+ community, and Louise Smith, who was appointed OBE for services to the Fintech Industry and the empowerment of the LGBTQIA+ community.

LGBT+ Conservatives chairman Luke Robert Black, and the author, broadcaster and former editor-in-chief of Attitude magazine, Matt Cain, were appointed MBE.

Share your thoughts! Let us know in the comments below, and remember to keep the conversation respectful.