Pink List 2013: The Judges

Heather Peace

Actress and musician

A favourite of our readers (this year she was nominated 226 times, but all our judges have elected not to appear on the list) and TV viewers (Lip Service was BBC3’s most popular show) Peace finished filming series nine of Waterloo Road in May, before touring Australia and headlining Manchester Pride. She is a patron of Diversity Role Models, and the only person to appear twice in six months on the cover of Diva magazine.

Christine Burns

Strategic Equality and Inclusion Specialist

A leading activist for transgender rights, Burns has been a patron of LGBT History Month; is the author of Making Equality Work; and a former vice-president of Press for Change. She was part a team who brought about legal protections against discrimination, the right to treatment on the NHS, and the Gender Recognition Act for trans people. She retired from frontline campaigning in 2007 and now blogs at blog.plain-sense.co.uk

Kim Watson

Media Director on GT, Diva and Meta print and digital magazines

Watson has more than 20 years’ experience in LGBT community media. Diva & GT were shortlisted for media pioneer awards in 2011 for magazine apps, and the Pink Paper and Diva won a Net Observer excellence award for their news-based websites. She became a Fellow of the Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing in 2013. Watson lives with her partner, 10-year-old daughter and two tom cats in east London.

Ben Summerskill

Chief executive of Stonewall

Summerskill has led Stonewall, the organisation that was founded in 1989 to campaign against Section 28, since 2003. Since then he has led campaigns on the introduction of civil partnerships, protection against discrimination, and the creation of a new criminal offence of incitement to homophobic hatred. In 2011, the one-time gossip columnist was shortlisted as Britain’s most admired charity chief executive in the Third Sector Awards.

Independent on Sunday judges:

Lisa Markwell Editor;

Katy Guest Literary Editor;

Neil Robinson Head of Sport;

Alexander Fury Fashion Editor; Jane Merrick Political Editor; Mark Leftly Associate Business Editor; Sarah

Morrison Reporter; Hugh Montgomery Associate Editor of The New Review