5 LGBTQ-friendly companies to support on National Coming Out Day

Stuzo Clothing is a Los Angeles-based company that sells gender-neutral clothing. It was created in 2010 by Stoney Michelli and Uzo Ejikeme.

According to its website, Stuzo Clothing's mission is "to create a space in the fashion world where all are welcome without judgment."

Selling everything from face masks to hats, Stuzo Clothing appeals to a wide audience and has even been worn by celebrities like Ruby Rose, Lena Waithe, and Gina Yashere.

Wildfang was founded in 2013 by CEO Emma Mcilroy as a company dedicated to making tomboy fashion more accessible to people across the globe. Mcilroy told Business Insider that the company is inherently LGBTQ-inclusive in its mission because of the style it caters to.

"The queer community has been part of our DNA since day one," Mcilroy said. "Tomboy style or menswear-inspired fashion wasn't invented by Wildfang — the queer community owned it long before us. We just help make it accessible."

Wildfang sells everything from blazers to button-ups to accessories, all in a wide array of patterns and large size ranges. In addition to the products Wildfang sells, Mcilroy said the company takes its LGBTQ-inclusive mission to heart in its company culture and practices.

"We have a diverse team, diverse models, diverse community, and diverse marketing," Mcilroy said. "We start every meeting with our pronouns, we have models who identify all over the spectrum, and we've given tens of thousands of dollars to queer-focused charities."

Mcilroy said that Wildfang's goal is to provide a space for women and non-binary people to break societal rules placed upon them.

"We exist to break those rules," Mcilroy said.

Married couple Fran Dunaway and Naomi Gonzales said the inspiration to found their company, TomboyX, in 2015 was the lack of clothing options for women and gender non-conforming people. After their initial Kickstarter campaign garnered a great deal of support, Dunaway said that she and Gonzales realized they had the opportunity to create a brand in response to this need.

"We decided to do a Kickstarter campaign and picked the name Tomboy because it was cute," Dunaway said. "We identified as tomboys and we thought it was a nice nod that we were wanting what you could find in menswear and not in women's wear," Dunaway said.

The next step was building a brand and making Tomboy a full-time project, not just "a side job in our one-car garage," Dunaway said, adding that "we had a real opportunity and almost a responsibility because it was our community."

The company went on to create the first boxer briefs for women at the time, and began focusing on developing size-inclusive products to fit all of its customers. TomboyX also added apparel, accessories, and a gender-neutral fragrance line to its inventory.

Dunaway said the ultimate goal of the company is to create a better world where people can be themselves.

"We want people to feel good about being unapologetically who they are, all day, every day," Dunaway said.

Otherwild, a Los Angeles-based boutique, was created by Marisa Suárez-Orozco and Rachel Berk in 2012 to serve a variety of creators and artisans. Acting as a retail space, design studio, and gathering space, Otherwild sells clothing, art, and forms of self-care goods such as lotions and soaps, in addition to hosting workshops and community events.

Splinter News wrote that "Otherwild caters to the outsiders, the ones who are out-of-the-box and living life by their own rules. It's a place where feminism and LGBTQ pride is celebrated, not side-eyed."

Berk told Splinter that the importance of focusing on queer, lesbian, and transgender women in the space comes from her own identity as a queer person and her desire to make space for her community.

"It's me being unapologetic, and also feeling like, as a queer woman, as an outsider in some ways, to make sure that I'm including a lot of different kinds of people when I think about what I'm putting out into the world. My community is the queer community," Berk said. "It's expansive and intersectional."