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Latinx Heritage Month Profile | Carmen Vázquez

Latinx Heritage Month Profile | Carmen Vázquez

From September 15th through October 15th the National LGBTQ Task Force is observing Latinx Heritage Month by celebrating Latinx individuals who are also LGBTQ—including our staff members, supporters, and board members.

Carmen Vázquez has played significant roles in the LGBTQ, reproductive justice, and immigrant rights movements as an activist, organizer, writer, public health expert, and so much more.

Carmen Vázquez has been working to build our movement since 1974. She was a founder of The Women’s Building in San Francisco, California, a non-profit community center aimed at advocating for self-determination, gender equality and social justice.

Carmen Vázquez served on the board of the National LGBTQ Task Force, was a board member of the Funding Exchange’s OUT Fund, a Co-Chair of Equality Federation from 2004 – 2006, and currently serves as the Co-Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Woodhull Freedom Foundation.

Vazquez’s activism led her to be one of the founders of Causes in Common; the national coalition between LGBT and reproductive justice activists to illustrate the political bridge between the two movements through policy change.

Carmen Vazquez is a prominent voice surrounding issues of racism, classism, sexism, and LGBT discrimination and how they influence each other. Her papers are kept at Smith College. Her essays have been published in several anthologies, and some of her work regarding liberation is published in conmoción, a Latina lesbian magazine.