Commentary
The road to DADT repeal — remember their names
‘Maybe not in my lifetime, but we are going to win in the end’
“Maybe not in my lifetime, but we are going to win in the end.” – Air Force TSgt. Leonard Matlovich, Sept. 19, 1975.
The road to repeal of the codified charade known colloquially as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), masquerading as something different than the Pentagon policy ban dating to World War II, was long and built by many hands. While a straight-identified Congress and president were necessary to reach the destination, LGBT Americans made it happen. But “DADT Speak” can unintentionally erase the some 100,000 discharged before its creation. The following focuses on some of the First Volunteers; those very few service members who chose to risk their careers by outing themselves, putting faces to the ban, without which it would still be destroying lives.
In March 1974, Leonard Matlovich was the happiest he’d ever been in his life. It had taken him until he was 30, and surviving thoughts of suicide-by-war and direct suicide, to finally accept and embrace that he was gay, and now he had a job that he loved: Race Relations Instructor for the Air Force. He was so good in this job that he was sent around the country to train other instructors. An African-American fellow instructor said that, “He has the classroom in the palm of his hand.”
His department chief wrote, “As a Race Relations Instructor there is none better. His mastery of group dynamics and group facilitation has enabled him to conduct seminar after seminar around the difficult and sensitive subject of race relations without incident. He should be promoted to Master Sergeant well ahead of his contemporaries.”
And then he read an interview with Frank Kameny in the Air Force Times.
World War II veteran Frank Kameny had a genius IQ and Harvard Ph.D. in astronomy. Hired by the Army Map Service (AMS) in 1957, his dream of being one of the first astronauts, in fact, his entire scientific career, crashed and burned when the AMS learned he was gay. LGBs were already banned in the military; now, per Republican President Dwight Eisenhower’s Executive Order banning “sexual perversion” among civilian federal employees, he was fired five months later, and, worse, blackballed from employment by any other federal agency or private company or university receiving federal funding.
Unaffiliated with any gay group, he did what no other fired gay person had done. Eight years before Stonewall, he appealed his case against the Secretary of the Army to the Supreme Court in a self-penned brief whose eloquent fury still stuns today.
“The government’s regulations, policies, practices and procedures, as applied in the instant case to petitioner specifically, and as applied to homosexuals generally [including in the military], are a stench in the nostrils of decent people, an offense against morality, an abandonment of reason, an affront to human dignity, an improper restraint upon proper freedom and liberty, a disgrace to any civilized society, and a violation of all that this nation stands for. These policies, practices, procedures, and regulation have gone too long unquestioned, and too long unexamined by the courts.”
Yale Law School professor William Eskridge, Jr., later called it revolutionary, “the birth of Gaylegal Equality Arguments”; and Frank “the Rosa Parks and the Martin Luther King and the Thurgood Marshall of the gay rights movement.”
In a “court of last appeal” letter to newly inaugurated President John F. Kennedy in May 1961, two months after the Court refused to hear his case, Kameny, still on his own, also denounced “the policies, practices, and official attitudes of the military” and “less-than-fully-honorable discharges.”
That November he cofounded the militant Mattachine Society of Washington (MSW; not a chapter of original Mattachine) whose four missions included challenging military homophobia— 29 years before the creation of the first national group dedicated to fighting the ban, and 32 years before its codification into DADT.
MSW’s unprecedented three pickets of the White House in 1965 included signs protesting the ban, and he led a picket at the Pentagon itself.
“STOP Wasting Taxpayers Money on Hunts for HOMOSEXUALS.” “65,000 Homosexual Sailors DEMAND NEW NAVY POLICY.” “Quarter Million Homosexual American Servicemen & Women Protest Armed Services Policies.” “15 Million U.S. Homosexuals Protest Treatment by Armed Forces.”
That year the Navy alone kicked out at least 1,365—some 100 more than all the branches kicked out in the worst year under DADT.
The ban was the subject of the first same day, nationally coordinated gay rights protests in 1966. Frank led another Pentagon picket then flew to New York City to lead a protest there. He was essentially the only non-lawyer source of help for LGB service members trying to avoid being kicked out or at least be granted an Honorable Discharge characterization.
Since at least 1964, he’d been looking for a “perfect test case” — a service member with a clean record willing to out themselves and fight the ban in court. Leonard Matlovich read that in the Air Force Times and called him describing his three tours in Vietnam, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and outstanding performance ratings. After a number of meetings, Leonard agreed to carry the banner, coming out on the front page of The New York Times and on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite on Memorial Day 1975.
The response was seismic, rippling from the Times to the Kokomo, Indiana, Tribune and around the world. So unlike the mainstream concept of a gay male one reporter asked him if he was really gay. The effect was magnified when he appeared in uniform on the cover of Time magazine with the bold, black caption “I Am a Homosexual”—putting a face on the ban for millions for the first time. Gay historian Nathaniel Frank, author of the definitive book on the evolution of DADT, “Unfriendly Fire,” said, “it began a national discussion on gay rights.”
Accounts of his four-day discharge hearing filled newspapers and TV screens. When the Air Force board couldn’t see past “Homosexual” to the perfect airman, they recommended his discharge; Leonard telling the crush of reporters outside: “Maybe not in my lifetime, but we are going to win in the end.” He failed to overturn the ban, but a 1981 Pentagon mandate that, barring extenuating circumstances such as sex on base, all discharge characterizations for gays should be Honorable can be linked to his case. No one imagined how short his lifetime would be, but he filled it fighting for gay equality. Frank was the lead honorary pallbearer, walking by the horse-drawn caisson carrying his body in 1988, and today his grave in Washington’s Congressional Cemetery with its iconic gravestone is a place of pilgrimage next to a Veterans Administration cenotaph for Frank.
“Exemplary” Army Reserve Drill Instructor Miriam Ben-Shalom was honorably discharged in 1976 after refusing to deny she was a lesbian during questioning about her criticizing the discharge of Leonard Matlovich. In 1980, a federal judge ruled that her discharge violated the First, Fifth, and Ninth amendments of the Constitution—the first court ruling that the ban was unconstitutional and 30 years before the ruling against DADT in the Log Cabin Republicans challenge—and ordered her reinstated. The Army simply ignored the order for seven years; until a Circuit Court forced them to return her to duty. But they refused to allow her to reenlist at the end of that period of service.
The Supreme Court refused to hear her appeal in February 1990. Three months later, she and five other veterans founded Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Veterans of America, the first such national lobby group; today American Veterans for Equal Rights (AVER). She and several other veterans were arrested at the White House in 1993 protesting the ban’s refashioning as DADT. She was arrested there again in 2010 protesting President Obama’s slow walk on repeal along with eight fellow veterans and four civilians including myself.
Sgt. Perry Watkins’ 16-year adventure in the U.S. Army began when Lyndon Johnson was president and would not end until George Bush père sat in the Oval Office. It spanned the globe, sometimes a comedy, sometimes a tragedy. It was sometimes even a musical comedy—but it was always, just as the ban itself, nonsensical; here ignoring that he was gay, there trying to kick him out because he was gay. Year after year, time after time, he demanded justice; and, in the end, it was his own truth that set him free—the truth he had told from the very beginning, during his draft physical in 1967 when he was 19 and checked the box indicating “homosexual tendencies.”
The first gay African-American soldier to make headlines, while the Army ignored a court order to reinstate Miriam, in May 1982, Watkins also became the first out gay service member returned to duty by a court. But he was kicked out again, and, eventually, the Supreme Court let a lower court ruling stand that he should be reinstated in the name of fairness. Like Leonard, for whom he was an honorary pallbearer in 1988, he chose a settlement; passing himself in 1996.
Petty Officer Keith Meinhold, a certified Master Training Specialist teaching sonar crews on P-3 Orion aircraft how to hunt submarines outed himself on ABC’s World News Tonight on May 19, 1992. Formerly recognized as “Aircrew Instructor of the Year,” his usually perfect performance ratings drop. Without any evidence, they claimed knowledge of his sexual orientation had “adversely affected his performance of duty and adversely affected the good order and discipline.” Though given an honorable discharge he sued and was ordered reinstated. Overall, his return was met positively, and his crew continued to win new awards. He retired four years later with full military honors, naval band music, a Navy Achievement Medal, and a 60-foot American flag.
Purposely coinciding with Meinhold’s coming out the same day, 25-year old Navy Lieutenant Junior Grade Tracy Thorne, first in his class in flight training, outed himself on “Nightline.” A bombardier-navigator flying A6 Intruders, like a ship on a roiling sea, his status repeatedly changed due to the unknowns of what might happen—or not—to the ban following Bill Clinton’s possible election, then election. He joined a five-week, 32-city cross-country veterans bus Tour of Duty to try to drum up public support for an end to the ban. He testified against the ban before the Senate Armed Services Committee — homophobic Sen. Sam Nunn’s dog and pony show where he was jeered by 1,000 sailors and Marines. To wild applause and laughter, infamous racist Sen. Strom Thurmond told him, “Your lifestyle is not normal. It’s not normal for a man to want to be with a man or a woman with a woman. Have you considered getting help from a medical or psychiatric standpoint?” He filed a lawsuit in 1994 and returned to active duty with the stipulation that the Navy could attempt to discharge him under DADT. In 1995, he was discharged. He sued again; his challenge ending when the Supreme Court refused to hear his case.
Their high-profile outings were planned to coincide with the same-day introduction of the long forgotten end-the-ban Military Freedom Act of 1992. Popular war hero and chair of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell’s statements to Congress killed not only that bill but crippled Bill Clinton’s intentions even before he had the party’s nomination. Powell: “Skin color is a benign, non-behavioral characteristic. Sexual orientation is perhaps the most profound of human behavioral characteristics.” His disingenuous, pseudo intellectual way of saying, “they choose to be gay so it’s not a civil rights issue.”
Navy Reserve Lieutenant Zoe Dunning outed herself at a Jan. 16, 1993, rally in support of Keith Meinhold. She was allowed to stay in after convincing a board that “status” did not equal “conduct” — a finding immediately forbidden in future cases by the Pentagon. By retirement in 2007, she’d risen to the rank of commander, having served openly for more than 13 years. In December 2010, as co-chair of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) Board of Governors, she was invited to stand next to the president as he signed the provisional DADT repeal bill. Co-founder Dixon Osburn just released “Mission Possible,” his account of the crucial role SLDN played in ending the ban.
Former Marine of the Year Sergeant Justin Elzie had served 10 years when he outed himself on “World News Tonight” on Jan. 29, 1993. The Corps reneged on their existing approval for his early separation in April with benefits, moving to honorably discharge him immediately with none. He testified to Congress in support of ending the policy ban. A judge ordered he be retained until his legal challenge was resolved. He eventually settled out of court, receiving the early retirement bonus after having served as an out gay Marine for four more years during which he was recommended for promotion three times. He was one of our 13 arrested at the White House in November 2010 demanding DADT repeal.
Twenty-three-year old Desert Storm veteran and former Sixth Army Soldier of the Year Joe Zuniga outed himself at a huge event honoring gay military activists the night before the April 1993 March on Washington, including Meinhold and Thorne. “The roar was deafening. People cried. People hugged each other.” – The Washington Post. The next morning the three joined the veterans’ contingent in the march with hundreds of thousands.
Conversely, his Army command was enraged, discharging him, however honorably, in record time—in less than a month. They also brutally demoted him from Sergeant to Specialist after falsely accusing him of wearing a decoration he had not earned. His battalion commander melodramatically threw newspapers in which his story had appeared into a trashcan during his administrative hearing. But he continued to speak out all across America, and appeared in the historic first national gay TV ad; created for the Campaign for Military Service, an ad hoc group representing multiple existing gay groups hoping to offset the rabidly homophobic campaign of those in and out of the Democratic-controlled Congress determined to prevent President Bill Clinton from ending the ban. He also travelled the country and TV newsrooms trying to promote public support.
Army First Lieutenant and Iraq veteran Dan Choi came out on “The Rachel Maddow Show” on March 19, 2009, resulting in his discharge in June 2010. Far from just another came-out-on-TV story, Dan was the first Asian-American to become a leader in the anti-ban movement, and shook that movement when he began to engage in nonviolent direct action in the second year of the Obama administration after the president broke his promise to start working with Congress to end DADT when he took office. Dan allied with new direct action group GetEQUAL, and a small but growing number of people joined him in handcuffing themselves to the White House fence (including transgender veteran Autumn Sandeen); each time growing more media coverage, never more critical than in November 2010 when word went round that the repeal provision bill, stalled in the lame duck Congress, was going to be withdrawn likely damning the chance for repeal for years. Republicans would take over the House in 2011.
I have no proof that the action Dan led that month, joined by Miriam, Justin, et al., helped salvage the bill and, thus, repeal. I can only say that I am proud to have been next to them; one wrist handcuffed to the White House fence behind me; and holding Leonard’s Time magazine cover aloft with my free hand.
“Remember your roots, your history, and the forebears’ shoulders on which you stand.” – Marion Wright Edelman.
Commentary
Defunding LGBTQ groups is a warning sign for democracy
Global movement since January 2025 has lost more than $125 million in funding
In over 60 countries, same-sex relations are criminal. In many more, LGBTIQ people are discriminated against, harassed, or even persecuted. Yet, in most parts of the world, if you are an LGBTIQ person, there is an organization quietly working to keep people like you safe: a lawyer fighting an arrest, a shelter offering refuge from violence, a hotline answering a midnight call. Many of those organizations have now lost so much funding that they may be forced to close.
One year ago this week, the U.S. government froze foreign assistance to organizations working on human rights, democracy, and development worldwide. The effects were immediate. For LGBTIQ communities, the impact has been severe and far-reaching.
For 35 years, Outright International has helped build and sustain the global movement for the rights of LGBTIQ people, working with local partners in more than 75 countries. Many of those partners are now facing sudden closure.
Since January 2025, more than $125 million has been stripped from efforts advancing the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer people globally. That figure represents at least 30 percent of yearly international funding for this work. Organizations that ran emergency shelters, legal defense programs, and HIV prevention services have been forced to close or drastically scale back operations. At Outright alone, we lost funding for 120 grants across nearly 50 countries. We estimate that, without intervention, 20 to 25 percent of our grantee partners risk shutting down entirely.
But this is not only a story about one community. It is a story about how authoritarianism works, and what it costs when we fail to recognize the pattern.
The playbook is not subtle
Researchers at Outright and partners across human rights and democracy movements have documented the same sequence playing out across sectors worldwide: governments defund organizations before passing restrictive legislation, eliminating the groups most likely to document abuses before abuses occur.
In December, CIVICUS downgraded its assessment of U.S. civic freedoms from “narrowed” to “obstructed,” citing what it called a “rapid authoritarian shift.” The message was unmistakable: independent organizations that hold power to account are under growing pressure, in the United States and around the world.
And the effects have cascaded globally. When one of the world’s largest funders of democracy support and human rights work withdraws, it doesn’t just leave a funding gap. It sends a signal to authoritarians everywhere: the coast is clear.
The timing is not coincidental. In the super election year of 2024, 85 percent of countries with national elections featured anti-LGBTIQ rhetoric in campaigns. Across the 15 countries we tracked, governments proposed or enacted laws restricting gender-affirming care, rolling back legal gender recognition, and censoring LGBTIQ expression. The defunding often came first. Governments know that if they can starve the movement, there will be no one left to document what comes next.
Why US readers should care
It may be tempting to see this as a distant crisis, especially at a moment when LGBTIQ rights in the United States are under real pressure. But this story is closer to home than it appears. American funding decisions often help determine whether organizations protecting LGBTIQ people abroad can keep their doors open. And when independent organizations are weakened, no matter where they are, the consequences do not stay contained. The same political networks driving anti-LGBTIQ legislation in the United States share strategies and resources with movements abroad. Global repression and domestic rollback are not separate stories. They are the same story, unfolding in different places.
LGBTIQ organizations are often the first target, but never the last
Why target LGBTIQ communities first? Because we are politically easier to isolate. The same playbook — foreign funding restrictions, bureaucratic harassment, banking access denial — is now being deployed against environmental groups, independent media, women’s rights organizations, and election monitors. When one part of our community is silenced, all of us become more vulnerable. What happens to us is a preview of what happens to everyone.
This is not speculation. It is documented history. In Hungary, the government restricted foreign funding for civil society before passing its “anti-LGBTQ propaganda” law. In Russia, “foreign agent” designations preceded the criminalization of LGBTIQ identity. In Uganda, funding restrictions on human rights organizations came before the Anti-Homosexuality Act. The pattern repeats because it works.
And yet, even as these attacks intensify, victories continue. In 2025, Saint Lucia struck down a colonial-era law criminalizing consensual same-sex intimacy after a decade of regional planning and coalition-building. Courts in India, Japan, and Hong Kong upheld trans people’s rights. Budapest Pride became the largest in Hungarian history — and one of the country’s biggest public demonstrations — despite a government ban. In Thailand, years of patient advocacy culminated in marriage equality becoming law in 2025, the first such victory in Southeast Asia.
These wins happened because our movement built the capacity to survive hostility. Legal defense funds. Documented evidence. Regional coalitions. Emergency response networks. The organizations behind these victories are precisely the ones now facing drastic funding cuts and even closure.
What we are doing and what we need
On Jan. 20, 2026, Outright International publicly launched Funding Our Freedom, a $10 million emergency campaign running through June 30, 2026. We have already secured over $5 million in pledges from more than 150 donors. But the gap remains enormous.
The campaign supports two priorities that must move together. Half of the funds go directly to frontline LGBTIQ organizations facing sudden shortfalls: keeping staff paid, maintaining safe spaces, securing legal support, and continuing essential services. The other half supports Outright’s global work: documenting abuses, training activists, and advocating for LGBTIQ inclusion at the United Nations and other international forums. This is how LGBTIQ people remain seen, heard, and defended, even when governments attempt to erase them.
We structured Funding Our Freedom this way because frontline support without protection is fragile, and global advocacy without frontline truth is hollow. Both must survive.
Funding Our Freedom is not charity. It is how we keep the global LGBTIQ movement alive when governments try to erase it.
A call to those who believe in equality and democracy
If you are part of the LGBTIQ community, this moment is personal. Whether you give, share this work, host a small fundraiser, or bring others into the effort, you become part of what keeps our global community connected and protected.
If you are an ally or simply someone who believes in fairness, free expression, and accountable government, this fight is yours too. The defunding of LGBTIQ organizations is not an isolated decision. It is a test case. If it succeeds, the same tactics will be used against every group that challenges power and defends vulnerable people.
We are not asking for sympathy. We are asking for commitment. The organizations now being forced to close are the ones that document abuses, provide legal defense, support people in crisis, and show up when no one else will. If they disappear, we lose more than services. We lose the ability to know what is happening and to respond.
Authoritarians understand this. That is why they target us first.
The question is whether the rest of us understand it in time.
Maria Sjödin is the executive director of Outright International, where they has worked for over two decades advocating for LGBTIQ human rights worldwide. Learn more at outrightinternational.org/funding-our-freedom.
January arrives with optimism. New year energy. Fresh possibilities. A belief that this could finally be the year things change. And every January, I watch people respond to that optimism the same way. By adding.
More workouts. More structure. More goals. More commitments. More pressure to transform. We add healthier meals. We add more family time. We add more career focus. We add more boundaries. We add more growth. Somewhere along the way, transformation becomes a list instead of a direction.
But what no one talks about enough is this: You can only receive what you actually have space for. You don’t have unlimited energy. You have 100 percent. That’s it. Not 120. Not 200. Not grind harder and magically find more.
Your body knows this even if your calendar ignores it. Your nervous system knows it even if your ambition doesn’t want to admit it. When you try to pour more into a cup that’s already full, something spills. Usually it’s your peace. Or your consistency. Or your health.
What I’ve learned over time is that most people don’t need more motivation. They need clarity. Not more goals, but priority. Not more opportunity, but discernment.
So this January, instead of asking what you’re going to add, I want to offer something different. What if this year becomes a season of no.
No to things that drain you. No to things that distract you. No to things that look good on paper but don’t feel right in your body. And to make this real, here’s how you actually do it.
Identify your one true priority and protect it
Most people struggle with saying no because they haven’t clearly said yes to anything first. When everything matters, nothing actually does. Pick one priority for this season. Not 10. One. Once you identify it, everything else gets filtered through that lens. Does this support my priority, or does it compete with it?
Earlier this year, I had two leases in my hands. One for Shaw and one for National Landing in Virginia. From the outside, the move felt obvious. Growth is celebrated. Expansion is rewarded. More locations look like success. But my gut and my nervous system told me I couldn’t do both.
Saying no felt like failure at first. It felt like I was slowing down when I was supposed to be speeding up. But what I was really doing was choosing alignment over optics.
I knew what I was capable of thriving in. I knew my limits. I knew my personal life mattered. My boyfriend mattered. My family mattered. My physical health mattered. My mental health mattered. Looking back now, saying no was one of the best decisions I could have made for myself and for my team.
If something feels forced, rushed, or misaligned, trust that signal. If it’s meant for you, it will come back when the timing is right.
Look inside before you look outside
So many of us are chasing who we think we’re supposed to be— who the city needs us to be. Who social media rewards. Who our resume says we should become next. But clarity doesn’t come from noise. It comes from stillness. Moments of silence. Moments of gratitude. Moments where your nervous system can settle. Your body already knows who you are long before your ego tries to upgrade you.
One of the most powerful phrases I ever practiced was simple: You are enough.
I said it for years before I believed it. And when I finally did, everything shifted. I stopped chasing growth just to prove something. I stopped adding just to feel worthy. I could maintain. I could breathe. I could be OK where I was.
Gerard from Baltimore was enough. Anything else I added became extra.
Turning 40 made this clearer than ever. My twenties were about finding myself. My thirties were about proving myself. My forties are about being myself.
I wish I knew then what I know now. I hope the 20 year olds catch it early. I hope the 30 year olds don’t wait as long as I did.
Because the only way to truly say yes to yourself is by saying no first.
Remove more than you add
Before you write your resolutions, try this. If you plan to add three things this year, identify six things you’re willing to remove. Habits. Distractions. Commitments. Energy leaks.
Maybe growth doesn’t look like expansion for you this year. Maybe it looks like focus. Maybe it looks like honoring your limits. January isn’t asking you to become superhuman. It’s asking you to become intentional. And sometimes the most powerful word you can say for your future is no.
With love always, Coach G.
Gerard Burley, also known as Coach G, is founder and CEO of Sweat DC.
Commentary
Honoring 50 queer, trans women with inaugural ‘Carrying Change’ awards
Naming the people who carry our movements forward
Dear friends, partners, and community:
We write to you as two proud Black and Brown queer women who have dedicated our lives to building safer, bolder, and more just communities as leaders, organizers, policy advocates, and storytellers.
We are June Crenshaw and Heidi Ellis.
June has spent almost 10 years guiding the Wanda Alston Foundation with deep compassion and unwavering purpose, ensuring LGBTQ+ youth experiencing homelessness have access to stability, safety, and a path forward. Her leadership has expanded housing and support services, strengthened community partnerships, and helped shift how Washington, D.C. understands and responds to the needs of queer and trans young people. In her current role with Capital Pride Alliance, June advances this work at a broader scale by strengthening community infrastructure, refining organizational policies, and expanding inclusive community representation.
Heidi is the founder of HME Consulting & Advocacy, a D.C.–based firm that builds coalitions and advances policy and strategy at the intersection of LGBTQ+ justice and racial equity. Her work spans public service, nonprofit leadership, and strategic consulting to strengthen community-driven solutions.
We’re writing because we believe in intentional recognition — naming the people who carry our movements forward, who make room for those who come next, and who remind us that change is both generational and generative. Too often, these leaders do this work quietly and consistently, without adequate public acknowledgment or what one might call “fanfare,” often in the face of resistance and imposed solitude — whether within their respective spaces or industries.
Today, we are proud to introduce the Torchbearers: “Carrying Change” Awards, an annual celebration honoring 50 unstoppable Queer and Trans Women, and Non-Binary People whose leadership has shaped, and continues to shape, our communities.
This inaugural list will recognize:
- 25 Legends — long-standing leaders whose decades of care, advocacy, and institution-building created the foundations we now stand upon; and
- 25 Illuminators — rising and emerging leaders whose courage, creativity, and innovation are lighting new paths forward.
Why these names matter: Movement memory keeps us honest. Strategy keeps us effective. Recognition keeps us connected. By celebrating both Legends and Illuminators side by side, we are intentionally bridging histories and futures — honoring elders, uplifting survivors, and spotlighting those whose work and brilliance deserve broader support, protection and visibility.
Who will be included: The Torchbearers will represent leaders across a diverse range of sectors, including community organizing, public service, sports, government, entertainment, business, education, legal industry, health, and the arts — reflecting the breadth and depth of queer leadership today. They include organizers providing direct service late into the night; policy experts shaping budgets and laws; artists and culture workers changing hearts and language; healers and mutual-aid leaders; and those doing the quiet, essential work that sustains us all.
Intersectionality is our core commitment: identity in its fullness matters, and honorees must reflect the depth, diversity, and nuance of queer leadership today.
How you can engage: Nominate, amplify, sponsor, and attend. Use your platforms to uplift these leaders, bring your organization’s resources to sustain their work, and help ensure that recognition translates into real support — funding, capacity, visibility, and protection.
We are excited, humbled, and energized to stand alongside the women and non-binary leaders who have carried us, and those who will carry this work forward. If history teaches us anything, it’s that the boldest change happens when we shine light on one another, and then pass the flame.
YOU CAN MAKE A NOMINATION HERE
June Crenshaw serves as deputy director of the Capital Pride Alliance. Heidi Ellis is founder of HME Consulting & Advocacy.
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