Religion
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rural men’s circle founder
Centerville, MN
Don Quaintance was born in 1941 on a farm in Cherokee, Iowa. He was the oldest of eight children in a working-class family that moved...
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Feminist Poet, Writer, Photographer, and Peace Activist
Albuquerque, NM
Margaret Randall was born on December 6th, 1936, in New York City. Growing up, she had occasional crushes on women but gave little thought to...
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activist, organizer, reconciler
Des Moines, IA
For more than 30 years, Donna Red Wing was a national leader in the fight for human rights, civil rights and LGBTQ equality. The Christian...
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LESBIAN ACTIVIST, AUTHOR, ARTIST & NATURALIST
Elkins, AR
Born in New York City on Oct 17, 1931, Diana Smith (later Diana Rivers) grew up near Morristown, New Jersey, within an artistic and literary...
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former Catholic seminarian; sustainable agriculture activist
Lacona, IA
A fifth-generation Iowa farmer, Matt Russell was born in 1970 and raised in the rural community of Anita, Iowa. Of the 28 students in Matt’s...
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Drag performer, community activist, fundraiser, and author
San Francisco, CA
Donna Sachet was born Kirk Reeves in 1954, in South Carolina. Kirk’s young life was marked by a violent, alcoholic father, and a mother afraid...
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"Mother" to many; transgender rights advocate
Downey, CA
Guest interviewer Rain Valdez recorded Karina Samala’s oral history for OUTWORDS in 2022. Rain Valdez is an actress, writer, producer, and out and proud Filipino...
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Immigrant, Young Adult fiction author
East Rochester, NY
Alex Sanchez was born in Mexico City in 1957 to a German-Mexican father and a Cuban mother. At age five, his family moved to Austin,...
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Montana Legislator, Activist, and Oral Historian
Missoula, MT
Diane Sands was born March 23, 1947 in St. Ignatius, Montana. Her family was among the few white families on a Native reservation, and both...
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co-founder, ACT UP NY; founder, Housing Works
NYC, NY
Eric Sawyer was born in 1954 in Binghamton, New York. Although his parents had little money and even less in the way of social standing,...
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Stonewall witness, publisher, Philadelphia Gay News
Philadelphia, PA
Mark Segal was born in Philadelphia, and raised in the only Jewish household in his public housing project. As a child, he learned of friends...
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farm boy, teacher, fisting educator
Tajique, NM
Guy Seiler was born in Wichita, Kansas in 1955, the fourth of nine children in a German Catholic family, and raised on a wheat farm...
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transgender Buddhist teacher
Elmsford, NY
Hoshina Seki was born in 1941 in New York City. Three years earlier, her father, a Jōdo Shinshū Buddhist minister, had founded the New York...
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early human rights activist and LGBTQ ally
Miami, FL
Ruth Shack was born in 1931, and grew up on Long Island, New York. In 1953, after dropping out of college – she told her...
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Gay Liberation Front / Lavender Menace activist; writer
Portland, OR
Martha Altman (later Shelley) was born on December 27th, 1943, in Brooklyn, New York, to Jewish parents of Russian and Polish descent. At 17, she...
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