Out Magazine has released a preview of the 2011 Out 100 List, which celebrates the year’s most inspiring people.  First in the preview is author, LGBT activist and recent Dancing With The Stars contestant Chaz Bono.  Bono made headlines, and ruffled feathers, earlier this year for becoming the first transgender contestant on the ABC reality show.  The magazine says that “seeing Bono dancing with his female instructor was one of television’s most inspiring images of 2011 — and a salutary reminder of how rare such positive images are.”

Bono also released an Emmy-nominated documentary entitled Becoming Chaz and a book, Transition: The Story of How I Became a Man.

Out Magazine celebrated the accomplishments with a shirtless photo of Chaz, based 1951 photo of Marlon Brando by photographer Richard Avedon.