Katherine Acey
Executive director of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice for 20 years. A national leader who is known for her principled and often controversial stances on LGBT issues. More details.

Becca Ahuja
Senior field organizer for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Ahuja is the consummate organizer: bright, energetic, effective and on the go. At the Task Force she has led campaigns to defeat anti-gay ballot indicatives in Oregon, Ohio, and Massachusetts. A recognized campus organizer, Ahuja directed the campus organizing program for the No on Constitutional Amendment 36 Campaign in Oregon. The program brought together over 1,200 students and volunteers going door to door and became a critical component to the campaign. More details.

Dorothy Allison
Dorothy Allison grew up in Greenville, South Carolina. Now living in Northern California with her partner Alix and her teenage son, Wolf Michael, she describes herself as a feminist, a working class story teller, a Southern expatriate, a sometime poet and a happily born-again Californian. Awarded the 2007 Robert Penn Warren Award for Fiction, Allison is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. More details.

Amy André
Currently a Point Foundation Scholar at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, André works in the LGBT nonprofit sector, most recently at Out & Equal Workplace Advocates. In honor of her work as a bi community advocate, she received the Dr. Maggi Rubenstein Leadership Award in 2007. Co-authored the study Bisexual health: An introduction and model practices for HIV/STI prevention programming. More details.

Virginia (Ginny) M. Apuzzo
Founding member and current president of the board of directors of the Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center in Kingston, NY and former executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force who will surely “ be written into all the 20th century histories of the LGBT movement...” More details.

Urooj Arshad
Director of the Youth of Color Initiative at Advocates for Youth and a long time activist. She is a former staff member for the National Youth Advocacy Coalition and very active in the queer Muslim community. More details.

Dorsey Barger
In addition to being a pioneer in the sustainable agriculture and green business communities, Dorsey is a tireless supporter of organizations and causes in the Austin, Texas LGBT community. More details.

Samiya Bashir
A writer and activist, formerly served as communications director for the Freedom To Marry coalition. More details.

Andrea Bernstein
WNYC Political Director Andrea Bernstein oversees political and campaign coverage at WNYC. Since joining WNYC in 1998 Bernstein has extensively covered national, local, and state politics. Her work has been honored with numerous prestigious awards, including the 2003 Investigative Reporters and Editors prize for radio, the 2003 Heyward Broun Award, the 2003 Society for Professional Journalists award, for her series, with Amy Eddings, on New York's "Handshake Hotels" for the Homeless. More details.

Vicki Blankenship
Vicki, the founder and president of Indie Music For Life, heads up the Indiegrrl division promoting independent women in the arts. More details.

Robin L. Bodiford, Esq.
In 1995 Bodiford was instrumental in obtaining an amendment to the Broward County Human Rights Ordinance, adding sexual orientation as a protected class, resulting in the broadest protections provided by a County in the U.S., at that time. More details.

Terry Boggis
Terry Boggis is director of Center Kids (NYC LGBT Community Services Center), the nation's oldest advocacy/support group for LGBT parents and their children. Trailblazer Boggis has lead the way in advocacy for family recognition, LGBT parenting and regard for children of same sex parents; a leader in Causes in Common - Reproductive Health rights are an LGBT issue - and board member of Queers for Economic Justice. More details here, here, and here.

Mary Bonauto, Esq.
Mary Bonauto has been the Civil Rights Project Director at Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) since 1990. She successfully argued the trailblazing Goodridge case. Her work concentrates on impact litigation for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, as well as people living with HIV or AIDS. More details.

Marsha Botzer
Founded the Ingersoll Gender Center in 1977 in Seattle, WA. Botzer was the first trans person to sit on the board of a national LGBT advocacy organization (the Task Force) and is a tireless advocate and leader for the transgender community. More details.

Michelle E. Brown
Michelle E. Brown is a leader in Michigan's LGBT community. She has served on the boards of Affirmations, The Black Pride Society, Michigan Equality, and Triangle Foundation. She was on the Board of Governors for the Human rights Campaign (HRC). An author and activist, Michelle gives willingly of herself for our community. Her viewpoints, which appear regularly in Between The Lines, really reach the heart of our concerns. She is also highly respected and has been recognized for her work in the community at large for work with youth, affordable housing, women and the homeless. Her Web site is www.michelleelizabethbrown.com. She is a friend and advocate in Detroit and nationally for the LGBT community.

Charlotte Bunch
Founder and executive director of the Center for Women's Global Leadership at Rutgers University, has been an activist, author and organizer in the women's, civil, and human rights movements for four decades. Bunch is honored in the Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls NY. More details here and here.

Elizabeth Burden
Interim Executive Director of Wingspan, Southern Arizona's LGBT Community Center.

Jenn Burleton
Director of the film, “Transgender Children – Out of the Shadows”; viewed more than 300,000 times and translated into several languages.

Cathy Busha
Director, LGBTQ Affairs, The University of Arizona. More details.

Leslie Cagan
Leslie Cagan is co-chair of the anti-war coalition United For Peace and Justice (UFPJ), which consists of more than 1,300 local and national groups whose shared mission is "to oppose our government's policy of permanent warfare and empire-building." Since the 1970s, Cagan has mobilized millions of demonstrators in rallies denouncing America's foreign policies, its military-related spending, and its purportedly virulent racism, sexism, and homophobia. More details.

Leslie Calman, Ph D.
Executive director of the Mautner Project: the National Lesbian Health Organization. Calman previously served as vice president of the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW); as deputy executive director of NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund; and director of the Barnard College Women’s Research Center. More details.

Rea Carey
Carey is the deputy executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. She has more than eighteen years of experience in nonprofit start-up, development, and management. In 1999, the Advocate named Carey one of its "Best and Brightest" for individual contributions to the LGBT rights movement. More details.

Debbi Carlsen
As an organizer for Jobs with Justice in Seattle, Debbie recently orchestrated a solidarity action that included Miss Gay Seattle and a Teamsters local! Debbie co-founded the wildly popular Queen Bees performing troupe. She founded Dyke Community Activists, who were very prominent at the WTO protests in Seattle, and co-founded Allyship, an organization in Seattle that strives to build solidarity between local queer communities with struggles for racial, economic, and social justice.

Mandy Carter
A founding member of two groundbreaking organizations, Southerners On New Ground (SONG) and the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC). She's a self-described "southern out black lesbian social justice activist," who's been a grassroots organizer for the past 37 years. More details.

Virginia Casper
Developmental psychologist, educator and trailblazer in research on the impact on children of growing up in lesbian and/or gay headed households. The author of “Gay Parents/Straight Schools,” she directs the Infant and Parent Development and Early Intervention Program at Bank Street College of Education. More details.

Louise Chernin
Chernin, executive director of the largest LGBT chamber of commerce in the country, is also a longtime anti-war activist and a former chapter leader of Seattle NOW. She was honored with a National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Leadership Awards in 2008. More details.

Jenn Chrisler
Executive director of the Family Equality Council, an organization that protects the rights of gay families in the United States. Jennifer has become a leading advocate fighting for the rights of families. More details.

Yvette M. Christofilis
In January 2008, Yvette Christofilis was appointed by the Westchester County Executive, Andrew Spano, as the County’s Liaison to the LGBT community and Director of the Office for LGBT Affairs. Christofilis advises the County Executive on matters that pertain to the LGBT community. She works with the LGBT community to ensure that LGBT interests are represented in Westchester County. More details here and here

Cecilia Chung
Deputy director of the Transgender Law Center, Cecilia was a member of the Transgender Discrimination Task Force in 1994 that lead to a groundbreaking report by the SF Human Rights Commission. She has worked for UCSF AIDS Health Project as HIV test counselor and residential counselor for Ferguson Place, a residential treatment program for people living with HIV. More details.

Rep. Karen Clark
Minnesota State Representative Clark is the longest-serving openly lesbian state legislator in the U.S. More details.

Kim Clark
Producer of God & Gays: Bridging the Gap, Clark is a highly-acclaimed professional speaker whose interactive topics include "Comfort Zones are Slow Dream Killers." Her energy and ability to speak to everyone in the audience individually - no matter where they are in their life - places her in high demand by churches, schools and conference coordinators. Clark helps people connect the dots in their lives and guides them to the "head to heart transfer." More details.

Alice Cohan
Alice devoted many years to NOW activism as a grassroots leader, staffer, and political director. She was the organizing power behind many great marches, including NOW's 1992 March for Women's Lives, which brought 750,000 people to Washington, D.C. to stand up for women's rights. She is currently director of national programs for the Feminist Majority. More details.

Cathy Cohen
Cathy J. Cohen is the David and Mary Winton Green Professor of Political Science. Cohen is the author of the book "The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics" (University of Chicago Press, 1999) and the co-editor with Kathleen Jones and Joan Tronto of "Women Transforming Politics: An Alternative Reader" (NYU, 1997). Her work has been published in numerous journals and edited volumes including the "American Political Science Review," "GLQ," "NOMOS," and "Social Text." More details.

Toni Collins
The board chair of Transgender Health Empowerment, D.C., an organization which aims to enhance the quality of life of diverse transgender populations by advocating for and supporting a continuum of health and social services. More details.

Blanche Wiesen Cook
Author Blanche Wiesen Cook, noted historian and biographer of Eleanor Roosevelt, bucked the establishment with her honest reportage on the relationship between Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok. Cook, Distinguished Professor of History and Women’s Studies at John Jay College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, has been called a “masterful researcher, historian and writer” by Publishers Weekly. She has authored "The Declassified Eisenhower, Books on Crystal Eastman and her Circle," and is a provocative op-editorial writer. She is the current vice president for research of the American Historical Association. More details.

Trishala Deb
Deb’s work has focused on welfare rights, domestic violence, immigrant and refugee/women’s/LGBT rights and building progressive spaces within the South Asian community. She is currently working at the Audre Lorde Project, a community organizing center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit, Trans and Gender Non-Conforming People of Color in New York City. More details.

Ingrid Duran
Ingrid is the co-founder & principal of D&P Creative Strategies, a company that she and partner Catherine founded to increase the role of corporate, legislative and philanthropic efforts in addressing the concerns of the Latino, women, and LGBT communities. More details.

Julie Ebin
Manager of the BiHealth Program at The Fenway Institute, Fenway Community Health. Ebin has been active in bi issues and BGLT issues for the past 6 years, including presentations, trainings, speaking engagements, and varied advocacy. She co-authored the study Bisexual health: An introduction and model practices for HIV/STI prevention programming. More details.

Ruth Eisenberg
As a partner at Harmon, Curran, Speilberg and Eisenberg LLP, Eisenberg specializes in employment, disability rights and civil rights law. Ruth has litigated disability cases as the deputy litigation director at National Veterans Legal Services Program and has represented people with HIV as director of legal services at the Whitman-Walker Clinic. She recently completed a six-year term on the Board of Directors of Lambda Legal. More details.

Paula Ettelbrick, Esq.
Paula L. Ettelbrick is executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, a US-based global organization that engages in global sexual and gender rights advocacy. Ettelbrick has a 20-year history in leadership positions within lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy organizations including Lambda Legal and the Empire State Pride Agenda. She has made significant contributions in the field of family recognition and the law. More details.

Rebecca Fox
Executive director of the National Coalition for LGBT Health, she was previously assistant director for public policy at the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), where she did extensive outreach to state and local organizations, building partnerships to further reproductive and sexual health policies. Fox also conducted detailed analyses of federal and state legislation and funding. More details.

Jessalyn Frank
Over the years disability activist Jessalyn Frank has organized events and services that give deaf, hard-of-hearing, and deaf/blind LGBT people access to healthcare, education, and events. In large part because of her dedication, the Twin Cities area is one of the best places to live for deaf queers in the U.S. More details.

Phyllis Frye
Phyllis Frye is the Quentin Crisp, the Bela Abzug, the Sidney Poitier of the transgender movement in Houston, and perhaps even the country. Forthright and smart, Frye was out there when nobody in Houston was out there as a transgender. More details.

Dr. Donna Futterman
Donna Futterman, MD is the Director of the Adolescent AIDS Program at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx, N.Y., where she has worked since 1989. Dr. Futterman, a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, has been a world leader, working determinedly for close to two decades in the fight to address, support and treat HIV+ teens. More details.

Hillary Goodridge , Julie Goodridge, Maureen Brodoff , Ellen Wade, Heidi Nortonsmith, Gina Nortonsmith, Gloria Bailey, Linda Davies
Plaintiffs in the Goodridge v. Department of Public Health case in Massachusetts; because of their devotion to the cause, same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts. For more about the Goodridge case see: www.glad.org.

Dr. Linda Garber
Director of Women and Gender Studies Program, Santa Clara University. More details.

Antonieta Gimeno
Antonieta Gimeno has been involved for the last 30 years in a variety of community initiatives, serving as executive director, program director, community organizer, and health educator. More details.

Suzanne Goldberg Esq.
Professor of law at Rutgers School of Law. She served as senior staff attorney at Lambda from 1993 until 2000, when she joined the Rutgers faculty. She has published several articles in the areas of gay rights, workplace rights, equality theory, and international human rights law, and co-authored the book "Strangers to the Law: Gay People on Trial."
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Jewelle Gomez
Gomez describes herself as an activist for gay rights, women’s rights, race and environmental issues. She is the author of many books including: The Gilda stories: a novel; Best Lesbian Erotica 1997; Over the Rainbow Lesbian and Gay Politics. More details.

Leticia Gomez
Gomez is a long time activist in the Latina/o community. She is one of the co-founders of LLEGO, the National Latino/a LGBT Organization.

Jaime Grant, PhD
Director of the Policy Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Grant is a scholar, writer, researcher and longtime activist for LGBT and other progressive communities. She is recognized for her work on the causes and impact of discrimination. Most recently, she was program director for the Ford Foundation's signature leadership awards program, Leadership for a Changing World, at the Advocacy Institute/Institute for Sustainable Communities. More details.

Sonali Gulati
An independent filmmaker, educator, feminist and activist. She has been involved in organizing within the South Asian queer community since 1996 through organizations such as MASALA and SALGA. She teaches film production at Virginia Commonwealth University. More details.

Audrey Haberman
Executive Director for the Pride Foundation in Seattle, WA. More details.

Helen Harrell
Host of bloomingOUT radio show since the beginning of the show – almost 5 years. More details.

Daisy Hernandez
Hernandez is the managing editor of ColorLines, and her writing focuses on race, gender, sexuality, and other issues affecting young women of color. She is also the co-editor of "Colonize This! Young Women of Today’s Feminism" (Seal Press, 2002). More details.

Marjorie Hill
Dr. Marjorie J. Hill is the Chief Executive Officer of Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), the nation’s oldest AIDS service organization. Dr. Hill previously served as GMHC’s Managing Director for Community Health where she had responsibility for the Women’s Institute, the Institute for Gay Men’s Health (IGMH) and coordination of agency wide community level health promotion initiatives. More details.

Barbara Hoffman
Legislative director and co-chair emeritus of the Bay State Stonewall Democrats, Barbara's selfless contributions span decades marked by efforts leading to the election of multiple gays and lesbians, as well as many other legislators who are straight friends of the LGBT community. Over the years her strong influence has helped achieve many LGBT-friendly legislative results, not least of which is that which led to Massachusetts moving forward to become the first US state to enact civil marriage equality. More details.

Amber Hollibaugh
Highly regarded activist, writer and community organizer, Hollibaugh has worked on cutting edge issues of the LGBT liberation movement since 1969. As a senior strategist at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Hollibaugh heads up the work on LGBT aging and organized “Make Room for All,” a counter-conference to the White House’s Summit on aging. She was a trail blazer in introducing recognition and support for women who are HIV+ and was the first director of the Lesbian AIDS Project at Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC). More details.

Lorraine Hutchins
Bisexual rights advocate and author activist Loraine Hutchins, Ph.D. is a sexuality educator who inspires people to integrate the spiritual and the erotic in their everyday lives. Since the 1970s Dr. Hutchins has been leading workshops and publishing educational materials on sexuality-related issues with a focus on bisexuality. More details.

Sue Hyde
Director of The National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change, Hyde has inspired organizers for two decades, leading community members to participate in democracy with the goal of securing freedom, justice and equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and inter-sex people and their families. Long time member of the steering committee of the Massachusetts Marriage Equality, Hyde is also author of the organizers guide Come Out and Win. More details.

Carrie Jacobs, Ph.D.
Executive Director and Co-founder of The Attic Youth Center, Philadelphia, Penn, which is one of only thirteen independent LGBT youth centers nationally. More details.

Lori Jean
Lorri L. Jean, nationally recognized as one of the most seasoned and effective leaders in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights movement, is CEO of the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, the world's largest LGBT organization. She was formerly executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force where she held strong to the position that the Task Force was against the war in Iraq. More details.

Lani Kaahumanu
Bisexual rights advocate, writer, editor, poet and parent, Kaahumanu has been actively involved in social justice movements since the sixties when she was a full-time suburban housewife, Little League mom, and Another Mother for Peace. More details.

Surina Kahn
A longtime progressive activist and writer, Kahn has written extensively about politics, progressive movement building, sexual rights, immigrant rights and transnational organizing. She has served as executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, has been a research analyst with Political Research Associate, and is currently the Senior Program Officer for the Women’s Foundation of California. More details.

Joo-Hyun Kang
Former Executive Director of The Audre Lorde Project, the nation's only center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit & Transgender People of Color communities. She has also served on the staff of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. More details.

Kate Kendell, Esq.
Executive Director of the National Center for Lesbian rights (NCLR). Under her leadership, NCLR’s programs, budget, and impact have grown exponentially, and the issues facing the LGBT community—from homophobia in sports to immigration policy—have taken center stage in our nation’s discussion of civil rights and justice. More details.

Laura Kiritsy
Associate Editor of BayWindows, New England’s largest LBGT newspaper, Worcester born and bred Kiritsy searches out, compiles, and shares with all of New England information about that LGBT community’s political concerns, personal triumphs, and everyday lives. Through involvement in the publication and the LBGT community itself, she has become a trusted journalist and valued spokesperson. More details.

Kathy Knobloch
Former director/creator of The Center in Sioux Falls, SD. The success of The Center in Sioux Falls, SD led to the development of "the center west" in Rapid City SD, and eventually the organization Equality South Dakota. More details.

Ana Maurine Lara
She coordinates the Magic makers, an oral history project documenting the lives of LGBT artists and is also co-author of www.bustingbinaries.com.

Gina Mamone
Founder and CEO of Riot Grrrl Ink , an organization committed to promoting Queer art and music.

Dyana Mason
Single-handedly took Equality Virginia from being merely a few hundred members statewide to an organization that attracts 1500 people to its annual gala. More details.

Pam McMichael
Executive director of the Highlander Center, Pam is a Kentucky native and long-time social justice activist in her home community of Louisville and has extensive experience throughout the southern region. For over two decades now, her organizing and cultural work have focused on connecting people and issues across divides with particular focus on helping build a strong anti-racist movement. More details.

Lisbeth Melendez Rivera
Lisbeth Meléndez Rivera, a 20+ year veteran of the LGBT and Labor movements, has played a significant role in advancing awareness of Latino/a LGBT rights issues. She is a leader in organizing and training at the intersections of sexual orientation, gender identity, race and culture. More details.

Elisha Miranda
A visionary Latina voice, Elisha Miranda is a community activist and artist involved in a series of progressive projects in film, television and literature. Her work is a socially conscious effort to create an entertaining framework through which young people can create dialog, pursue social justice, and promote leadership. To challenge the stereotypes usually associated with the portrayal of race, sexuality and gender in the media, Elisha co-founded the non-profit Chica Luna Productions. More details.

Suzanne Moe and her partner, Gaye Adegbalola
Suzanne is an artist and videographer who created the documentary of a lesbian couple from Virginia who after 40 years chose to leave the state due to discrimination: “A Love Story - in the Face of Hate.” Gaye provided songs for the film and is also part of the musical trio: Saffire: The Uppity Blues Women. More details here and here.

Doreen (D.) Moritz
Long-time advocate for social justice for all people, but especially LGBT individuals. Currently a shuttle bus driver (Univ. of Nebraska, Lincoln) who proudly displays her "rainbow mouse pad" on the dashboard.

Cherrie Moraga
Cherríe Moraga is a poet, playwright and essayist, and the co-editor of "This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color." She is the author of numerous plays including "Shadow of a Man" and "Watsonville: Some Place Not Here," (both won the Fund for New American Plays Award in 1991 and 1995, respectively) and "Heroes and Saints," which earned the Pen West Award for Drama in 1992. More details.

Lisa Mottet, Esq.
Mottet is the transgender civil rights project director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. A graduate from Georgetown University Law Center, Mottet held the nation's first legal fellowship specifically aimed at addressing discrimination against transgender people on a national level. She is a tireless ally to the transgender community. More details.

Joy O’Donnell
Joy is a historian and project management professional who has worked for several nonprofit gender, sexuality and social justice related organizations over the past decade. Currently she is the national outreach director for the National Sexuality Resource Center, San Francisco State University. More details.

Ana Olivera
Ana Oliveira became the President & CEO of The New York Women’s Foundation in February 2006. She has worked in the health and human services field for over 20 years, developing programs for vulnerable populations throughout NYC. She served as the first woman and Latina Executive Director of Gay Men’s Health Crisis for over seven years, overseeing a complete turn-around of the agency. More details.

Pauline Park
Park co-founded the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA), the first statewide transgender advocacy organization in New York. Park also co-founded a number of other organizations, most notably: Queens Pride House (a center for the LGBT communities of Queens), Iban/Queer Koreans of New York (Iban/QKNY), and the Guillermo Vasquez Independent Democratic Club of Queens (GVIDCQ). More details.

Kim Pearson
Executive Director of Trans Youth Family Allies. More details.

Denise Penn
Bisexual Rights Advocate, Penn is journalist and editor who has been covering political and social issues for alternative and LGBT press since the early nineties. She is the editor-in-chief of BiMagazine. More details.

Suzanne Pharr
Suzanne is an organizer and political strategist who has spent her adult life working to build a broad-based social and economic justice movement. She founded the Women’s Project in Arkansas, was a co-founder of Southerners on New Ground, and was the director of the Highlander Center 1999-2004. More details.

Jennifer C. Pizer
Senior Counsel for Lambda Legal, the nation's premiere legal advocate for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights movement. Pizer has handled cases to advance domestic partner protections and the rights of lesbian and gay parents, and to end sexual orientation discrimination in employment, education, health care and housing.
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Grace Poore
Regional Coordinator for Asia and the Pasific Islands at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. A Malaysian activist, Grace Poore has been working to end domestic violence and child sexual abuse in the U.S. for over 20 years, and was recently recognized for her anti-violence work by the Sunshine Lady Peace Foundation. Grace has written, directed and produced documentaries that have been screened in 18 countries, and won the 2000 Rosebud Award and 2001 Creating A Voice Award. More details here and here.

Libby Post
Post has served as press secretary, campaign manager, and media coordinator for various politicians and organizations in New York State's Capital Region. She has also worked with several Capital Region organizations promoting gay and lesbian rights. She became co-chair of the Albany-based New York State Lesbian and Gay Lobby in 1989 and oversaw its merger in 1990 with FAIRPAC, a New York City based organization, to become the Empire State Pride Agenda. In 1994, she became a board member of the Capital District Gay and Lesbian Community Council. She went on to become president of CDGLCC in April 1999, becoming president emeritus in April 2004. More details.

Achebe Powell
Powell, a long time activist, has served as both the co-coordinator of the New York City Black and Jewish Women's Dialogue Group and as a member of the Multicultural Advisory Committee to the New York City Board of Education. She is the founder and director of Betty Powell Associates, a management consulting firm specializing in diversity awareness and multicultural organizational development in the public and private sectors.

Minnie Bruce Pratt
An educator, organizer, poet and writer for five years Pratt was a member of the editorial collective of Feminary: A Feminist Journal for the South, Emphasizing Lesbian Visions. She is currently Professor of Women’s Studies and Writing at Syracuse University. More details.

Deb Price
A widely read, ground-breaking syndicated columnist on LGBT issues in mainstream press. Deb Price is a columnist for the Detroit News and on May 8, 1992, she became the first openly gay columnist to write on gay issues for a major metropolitan daily newspaper. More details.

Beth Richie
Beth Richie is engaged in research projects designed to explore the relationship between violence against women in low-income African American communities and violence. She was the recepient of three major awards: the National Advocacy Award by the Department of Health and Health and Human Serivces, Office of Violence Prevention; the Audre Lorde Legacy Award of the Union Institute stemming from her work with the National Network for Women in Prison; and the Visionary Award Of the Violence Intervention Project. More details.

Sarah Reese
Organizing and Training project director at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. For over a decade, Reece has worked as a community and electoral organizer for non-profit organizations, candidate campaigns and municipal government. During her five-year tenure at the Task Force, she has worked side by side with state and local LGBT leaders in Ohio, Kentucky, and California to build political power through dynamic and aggressive electoral organizing and leadership development efforts. More details.

Lisa Rogers
Lisa co-founded OutYouth in 1990. OutYouth is the only organization in Central Texas providing support services to LGBT and questioning youth ages 12 to 19. Executive director of the group for seven years, she is currently responsible for organizing OutYouth's community outreach efforts. More details.

Randi M. Romo
Co-founder and executive director of Center for Artistic Revolution; Randi has spent many years of involvement in community organizing work across the South that has included HIV/AIDS, LGBT rights, immigrant communities, worker's rights and youth organizing. More details.

Donna Rose
Trans writer, educator, and advocate. Donna Rose stepped down from the HRC board of directors in 2007 in protest of their support of a non- inclusive ENDA. She writes and speaks famously about trans issues. More details.

Caitlin Ryan
Director of Adolescent Health Initiatives at the César E. Chávez Institute, SFSU. Ryan is a clinical social worker who has worked on lesbian and gay health and mental health since the 1970s, and AIDS since 1982. Her research includes the National Lesbian Health Care Survey, the first major study to identify lesbian health and mental health needs and concerns; the development of the GSA Policy Project, an initiative to study the impact of Gay Straight Alliances on school climate and youth development; care of LGBT youth in faith-based agencies; and the Family Acceptance Project, which she developed with Rafael Diaz in 2002 to improve care and health outcomes for queer youth. More details.

Graciela Sanchez
Sanchez has been making her voice heard for over 15 years in speaking out against racism, sexism, homophobia, and poverty while championing women's empowerment, gay/lesbian liberation, and environmental issues as the head of Esperanza Peace and Justice Center. More details.

Lisa Scheps
Lisa is an activist and champion of human rights. She is the Chairwoman of TACT (Transgender Activists of Central Texas) which advocates for all gender variant people. Lisa is a Board member of Equality Texas and is very active in pursuing the shared vision of all LGBT people; of a Texas where all Texans enjoy the same rights as provided to the many. More details here

Kelly Schlageter, Paula Prettyman
Founders of Equality Fairfax, Fairfax, VA. More details.

Rinku Sen
Sen is the president and executive director of the Applied Research Center (ARC) and publisher of ColorLines magazine. She has written extensively about immigration, community organizing and women’s lives for a wide variety of publications including Third Force, AlterNet and tompaine.com. More details.

Pamela Shifman
Child Protection Officer at UNICEF; As of May 1 2008 Shifman is the deputy director at the Novo Foundation. Pamela Shifman grew up in a big family in Oak Park, Michigan, outside Detroit. When she was a girl, her parents were actively committed to children’s rights on a local level. “They instilled in me and my brothers and sisters an idea that we can make the world a better place,” she says. “And that we cannot ignore inequality and injustice, and that we have to work for change.” More details.

Alisa Simmons
A longtime black lesbian activist, Simmons is the Executive Director of The Unity Project of Oregon (formerly Brother to Brother). More details.

Lee Sislow
Lee Swislow has served as Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders’ (GLAD) executive director since 2005. Since coming to GLAD, Lee has worked to deepen the organization's work throughout New England by building strong coalitions with state equality organizations to achieve shared goals. More details.

Roberta Sklar
Has served as Task Force press secretary, and subsequently director of communications since 2003. A seasoned veteran of civil and equal rights campaigns, she has managed media campaigns for the Empire State Pride Agenda, The NYC Lesbian Gay, Bisexual Transgender Community Center, United Nations Populations Fund, Family Care International, Save the Children, Global AIDS, and other NGOs concerned with challenging public policy regarding reproductive health, family planning and the AIDS pandemic. In another life Sklar was a founding director of the Women’s Experimental Theater ( NYC 1974-1986) On the personal side, after many years of unwedded bliss, she and partner Sondra Segal were married in Vancouver, B.C., in August 2003. More details.

Inga Sorensen
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force deputy director of communications served as a reporter, editor and producer for print and broadcast media outlets representing mainstream and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) press. She previously served as a reporter and producer covering New York politics and government for a National Public Radio affiliate in Albany, N.Y. In addition, she was an editor of Just Out, a leading Pacific Northwest LGBT newspaper, and editor of the New York Blade in New York City. Prior to coming to the Task Force, she was the communications director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York City. More details.

Martha Stark
Martha E. Stark, New York City's Finance Commissioner, leads a 2300-person agency charged with helping people and businesses pay the right amount of city fees and taxes on time. Commissioner Stark, the first African-American woman to serve as Finance Commissioner, also serves as chair of the New York City Employees’ Retirement System and the Teachers’ Retirement System. More details.

Dr. Jane Adams Spahr
Rev. “Janie” Spahr has contributed to the LGBT faith community and the LGBT community at large. Her work began in the 1970s and hasn't stopped since. She continues to face ecclesiastic proceedings for presiding over the marriage ceremonies of two lesbian couples (as have a handful of other brave Presbyterian Church (USA) ministers). More details.

Anne Stanback
LGBT rights activist and the founder and executive director of Love Makes a Family (LMF), a statewide non-profit advocacy organization working for equal marriage rights for same-sex couples in Connecticut. Stanback was extremely influential in passing a statewide civil unions law in 2005 and continues to advocate for full marriage rights. On October 18, 2006, Stanback was inducted into the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame for her work as a social justice activist on behalf of the gay and lesbian community. More details.

Michele Stone
Produced and published the newsletter for the Triangle Community Center for seven years, handled membership and ran a statewide helpline in Connecticut for a decade.

Jan Strout
Jan serves as national organizing director of NOW, is a longtime champion of independent media, Cuba solidarity, labor, and a wide range of progressive issues. She co-founded Allyship, an organization in Seattle that strives to build solidarity between local queer communities with struggles for racial, economic, and social justice.

Kara Suffredini, Esq.
Kara Suffredini is the State Legislative director at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Experienced at drafting pro–LGBT legislation, she has provided important technical assistance to state organization in their efforts to draft similar legislation. She is admitted to the bar in California, Connecticut and the District of Columbia. More details.

Lois Thetford
Lois was a co-founder of the Lesbian Mothers Legal Defense Fund in the 1970s, and her work was recently featured in the documentary "Mother's Apple Pie." Lois co-founded the 45 Street Clinic over 25 years ago to help address the health care needs of homeless and low-income people and continues to work there and to teach in the University of Washington's physician assistant's program.

Janice Thom
Has worked in the movement for decades (New York’s Heritage of Pride, AmFar) and currently director of special events for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. More details.

Robin Tyler
Executive director of DontAmend.com and the Equality Campaign. Tyler was the co-founder of StopDrLaura.com and has a long history of being an outspoken feminist advocate for women, minority and LGBT rights. More details.

Urvashi Vaid
Urvashi Vaid is an American activist who has worked for over 25 years promoting civil rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons. She is currently the executive director of the Arcus Foundation and a former executive director National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Vaid made news when she publicly confronted President Reagan on his silence regarding HIV AIDS. More details.

Carmen Vazquez
A thirty-year veteran of political organizing, formerly director of Public Policy at the NY LGBT Community Services Center and the Empire State Pride Agenda, Vasquez is widely recognized for her leadership and intellectual contributions to the women 's movement and the LGBT community. More details.

Olga Vives
Vives was the first openly out lesbian to serve in a high leadership role at NOW. Originally from Cuba, she has been a strong women's rights advocate in Illinois for decades. She was elected Action Vice-President of NOW in June 2001 and Executive Vice-President in July 2005. More details.

Rebecca Waggoner-Kloek
Speaker, trainer, and proud bisexual woman who is the manager of the Anti-Violence Program at OutFront Minnesota. More details.

Lisa Weiner-Mahfuz
Lisa Weiner-Mahfuz is the director of capacity building for the Task Force, where she works in partnership with statewide LGBT organizations to help strengthen their capacity at the grassroots level. She has a degree in women's studies and political science from Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., where she began her social justice activism as a student organizer. For the past decade, Weiner-Mahfuz has worked across movements for social justice as an organizer and trainer. More details.

Debbie Willhite
Ms. Willhite is the campaign manager of Arkansas Families First, the campaign to stop the first ever anti-parenting ballot measure in Arkansas. She has served as a senior official at the United States Postal Service, and managed such major events as the Denver Summit of the Eight, the 1997 Presidential Inaugural, and the 1992 and 1996 Democratic Coordinated Campaigns. More details.

Judge Mary Wiseman
Former Dayton city commissioner is Ohio's first openly gay judge after being appointed by Gov. Ted Strickland. More details.

Alyce Gowdy Wright
Wright worked on economic justice issues with the Unitarian Universalist Washington Office and the North Carolina Occupational Safety and Health Project where she founded the African American/Latin@ Workers Alliance and started IUE-CWA Local 188. She is currently the executive director of South Florida Jobs with Justice. More details.

Persis Yu
Persis serves as co-president of the Asian Pacific Islander Law Students group at Seattle University School of Law; serves on the executive board of SEAMEC, an organization that for the past 25 years has been interviewing and rating candidates for public office based on their history, commitment, knowledge, and eloquence on LGBT issues and helped to co-found Allyship, which is an organization in Seattle that strives to build solidarity between local queer communities with struggles for racial, economic, and social justice.

Karen Zelermeyer
Executive director of Funders for Gay & Lesbian Issues. Karen is a seasoned professional with 25 years of non-profit management experience and 12 years experience working in organized philanthropy. Her areas of focus have included LGBTQ human rights, women’s rights, children’s rights and empowerment, media activism and peace. More details.

Beth Zemsky
Beth is the former board co-chair for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and founder of the LGBT Programs Office at the University of Minnesota. She currently works as a consultant and coach to movement organizations that seek to build and advance the LGBT movement.