40 People Under 40 to Teach Us About Each Other

Justin LeBlanc says that although being a gay man has had the bigger impact on his career, his deafness has been the source of the harder lifelong struggle. Two years after being a contestant on Project Runway, LeBlanc is still designing and fighting for deaf visibility. He speaks regularly at conferences and charity events that benefit the deaf and other groups faced with unique challenges. "Today, the LGBT community is more mainstream than the deaf community, so we feel more aligned to each another," he said. "There is still a lot of discrimination against the deaf with respect to equal access to education and job opportunities, even though the deaf are as capable as the hearing. It is a matter of educating and providing equal access." (Read the complete profile)