Gay
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Award-Winning Lesbian Author, Scholar, Historian
San Diego, CA
Lillian Faderman, born on July 18th, 1940 in the Bronx, moved with her mother to Boyle Heights in Los Angeles in 1948. Lillian’s father refused...
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TWO-SPIRIT LEADER, MEDICINE MAN
Blackfoot, ID
Marlon “Marty” Fixico was born in 1957 in Oklahoma to a Seminole father and a Cheyenne mother. Marty’s early awareness of his attraction to men...
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Author, critic, HIV rights educator
Sebastopol, CA
Chuck Forester was born on February 23, 1944, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He grew up in Wausau, WI, where his father worked as the Yawkey estate...
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Pansy Division co-founders, gay rock stars
California
Jon Ginoli was born in Peoria, Illinois In December 1959. Twenty months later, Chris Freeman was born in Seattle, Washington. Some 30 years later, Jon...
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Freeman Thomas Freeman and Steve Levine
Sexuality workshop organizers
Wayne, NY
Legacy of Voices is an oral history project created in 2008 by Lara Spotts and Brian O’Donnell, inspired by their realization that to better understand...
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DISABILITY ACTIVIST & WRITER
Berlin, Germany
Kenny Fries was born on September 22, 1960, to a lower middle class Jewish household in Brooklyn. Kenny was born with fibular hemimelia, a congenital...
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MATTACHINE ACTIVIST, HAIRDRESSER
New York, NY
Legacy of Voices is an oral history project created in 2008 by Lara Spotts and Brian O’Donnell, inspired by their realization that to better understand...
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FOUNDING MEMBER, NATIONAL COALITION OF BLACK LESBIANS AND GAYS
Cathedral City, CA
From the earliest moments of Gil’s life in Panama, his father taught him the importance of improvisation and truth, both of which would shape Gil’s...
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Gay Rights and Liberation Activist, Lawyer
Palm Springs, CA
Gerald “Jerry” Gerash was born on February 19th, 1934, in the Bronx, New York, to immigrant Russian Jewish parents. He grew up surrounded by families...
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Co-founder of Homan Los Angeles, Psychotherapist, Author
West Hollywood, CA
Payam Ghassemlou was born in 1966 in Tehran, Iran. From a young age, Payam realized he was different from his peers, identifying as gay in...
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Psychologist, advocate for AAPI and LGBTQ+ mental health
Los Angeles, CA
Terry Gock was born in Hong Kong on August 10, 1951. His family owned a large Shanghai department store, so Terry and his brother grew...
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Social justice-focused conceptual artist
Los Angeles, CA
Ken Gonzales-Day was born on November 11, 1964 in Santa Clara, CA, and grew up moving around cities all over the Bay Area. His white...
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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...
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businessman; physician; co-founders, Equity Foundation
Portland, OR
Jim Vegher was born in 1939 in San Pedro, California, the second oldest in a family of eight kids. Jim’s devoutly Catholic father was thrilled...
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realtor; HRC humanitarian of the year
Dallas, TX
Mike Grossman was born in Minneapolis in 1941 into a traditional Jewish family. At the age of five, he contracted polio, which separated him from...
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psychotherapist, ‘de-cluttering’ professional
Lauderdale, MS
Kim Grubbs was born in 1955 in McComb, Mississippi. When he was about nine years old, his dad purchased a pharmacy in Harlandale, a town...
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