The going public of basketball player Jason Collins about his being gay has reopened the debate on whether a person's sexual orientation is important to his career.

The next question is who will come out next among professional athletes amid speculations that some famous sportsmen such as footballer Cristiano Ronaldo is also gay.

While lesbian athletes are quite common especially those who play in sports considered as masculine such as basketball and tennis, a few athletes had also disclosed their real sexual preference in the past such as American diver Greg Louganis and professional bowler Scott Norton.

In other industries such as the tech world, gays and lesbians also thrive, but are under less scrutiny because they are celebrities only within the tech world.

Mashable made a list of 9 gays in the industry who made a difference and here they are.

1. Chris Hughes - One of the co-founders of Facebook but left the company in 2007 to direct the online organisation of Barack Obama's first presidential campaign. He founded Juno in 2010, a social network that connected users who are into social good and activities. He is married to Sean Eldridge, president of investment fund Hudson River Ventures.

2. Peter Sisson - Founder to the telecom firm Toktumi that developed the successful app Line2, which is similar to Skype. Since he is from San Francisco, California, being a gay entrepreneur is not an issue at all for him.

3. Peter Thiel - He is the co-founder of PayPal and is the company's CEO. He is an open supporter of LGBT causes and has contributed to the American Foundation for Equal Rights and GOProud.

4. Megan Smith - She is Google's vice president for business development and was former CEO of PlanetOut, an entertainment and media firm that targeted the LGBT community. She is married to journalist Kara Swisher and they have to sons.

5. Dana Contreras - She is a senior systems engineer at Twitter. Dana is a transgender woman who is married to Melissa for five years before she underwent gender transition.

6. Tom Coates - He runs the plastigbag.cor, an award-winning new media blog until mid-2011, which was the same time he left Yahoo. He is an adviser to several startups.

7. Joel Simkhai - He is the founder of Grindr, a popular dating and social network for gay and bisexual men. The site bas more than 4 million users in 192 nations.

8. Jason Goldberg - Jason is the founder and CEO of Fab.com, a social network for gay people which eventually transitioned into a company with focus on design and ecommerce. He is also the co-founder of The Four 2012, which is pushing for gay marriage equality through social media efforts. He is married to Christian Scoenherr.

9. Jon Hall - He is the executive director of Linux International which promotes Linux-based open source software development.

Besides Collins, other pro athletes who came out were English footballer Justin Fashanu, Welsh rugby player Gareth Thomas and Swedish footballer Anton Hysen, with mixed results.

Fashanu became the object of criticism, scorn and speculation that he eventually committed suicide when he was accused of sexual assault although he insisted he had consensual sex with his accuser. Thomas was accepted by his teammates.

Collins is luckier because of the growing acceptance of gays in different sectors and even got a call from U.S. President Barack Obama who expressed his support for the gay basketballer.

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