Marriage Equality
-
Groundbreaking marriage equality activist
Milwaukee WI
Donna Burkett was born in 1946 at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, and moved to Milwaukee with her family at age eight. Her grandfather...
READ MORE -
Bronze Star veteran, DADT challenger
Langley, WA
Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer, commonly known as Grethe, was born on March 24, 1942 in Oslo, Norway. At age 9, she and her family immigrated to...
READ MORE -
Nobel-nominated civil rights organizer
Durham, NC
Mandy Carter was born in 1948 in Albany, New York. Within a couple months of being born, Mandy and her two siblings were abandoned by...
READ MORE -
groundbreaking Minnesota politician
Minneapolis, MN
Karen was born in 1945 in Oklahoma, but her family soon moved to a farm in Edgerton, Minnesota. Because her family were sharecroppers, Karen learned...
READ MORE -
adoption trailblazer
Lawrenceburg, KY
Jennifer Crossen was born in 1957 in Yokosuka, Japan, where her father was stationed as a doctor in the U.S. Navy. At three, Jennifer’s family...
READ MORE -
-
Indigenous HIV community activist; Water Walker
St Paul, MN
Sharon Day was born in 1951 in Northern Minnesota. Both of her parents were enrolled members of Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe. She grew up...
READ MORE -
author, academic, activist
New York, NY
Martin Duberman is an American historian and writer, and one of the pre-eminent scholars of the LGBTQ movement. Martin was born in 1930. His father...
READ MORE -
bisexual activist, HIV community activist
Miami, FL
Luigi Ferrer was born in 1958 in Ponce, Puerto Rico. During his childhood, he bounced between Puerto Rico and Columbia, South Carolina, then attended the...
READ MORE -
Nanette Gartrell and Dee Mosbacher
psychiatrists in research and film
San Francisco, CA
Nanette Gartrell, MD and Diane (Dee) Mosbacher, MD, PhD are psychiatrists in love. Dee is also a filmmaker and social justice activist; and Nanette is...
READ MORE -
black lesbian vampire novelist
San Francisco, CA
Jewelle Gomez was born on September 11, 1948 and grew up in Boston. Jewelle is of Cape Verdean/Wampanoag/Ioway descent, and was largely raised by her...
READ MORE -
actor, dancer, music director
Gun Barrel City, TX
Jim Gribben was born in 1943 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Though his childhood was difficult, Jim’s “small but mighty” mother taught him strength and resilience. As...
READ MORE -
kentucky-born author and educator
Tucson, AZ
Fenton Johnson was born in Kentucky in 1953, the youngest of nine children in a bourbon-making family. His parents named him after a monk at...
READ MORE -
disabled writer, arts administrator, Vermont legislator
South Burlington, VT
John Killacky was born on June 24, 1952 in Chicago, and grew up in a working-class Irish Catholic family, the eldest son out of five...
READ MORE -
Navy veteran, transgender activist
Bay Saint Louis, MS
Crystal Little was born in 1943 in New Orleans, Louisiana, and named Charles. The second of seven kids in his family, Charles never felt a...
READ MORE -
late-blooming lesbian activist
Los Angeles, CA
Lee LeFaive Marquardt was born in 1942 in Jackson, Michigan. During World War II, Lee’s parents worked in factories to support their seven children. Afterwards,...
READ MORE