Vivienne Armstrong and Louise Young

LGBTQ+ political and business leaders

Dallas, TX

Vivienne ‘Viv’ Armstrong was born on April 12, 1947, in Knoxville, Tennessee. While attending nursing school in San Francisco, she became active with the Daughters...
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Roy Ashburn

Reformed anti-LGBTQ+ politician

San Luis Obispo, CA

Roy Ashburn was born in Long Beach, California, in 1954, and grew up in San Luis Obispo along California’s central coast. At 8, Roy became...
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Al Baum

Lawyer, urban planner, psychotherapist, philanthropist

San Francisco, CA

Al Baum was born in 1930 and raised in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park. His father was a successful investment counselor, and hoped that...
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Ada Bello

Cuban-American chemist and lesbian activist

Philadelphia, PA

Ada Bello was born into a middle-class family in 1933 in Havana, Cuba. Aware from early on that she was attracted to girls, she also...
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Jean Belmont

Disabled Suquamish Veteran

Suquamish, WA

Jean Belmont was born on April 7, 1960, in Fort Dix, New Jersey, the military base where her father was stationed. The very next day,...
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Richard Bentley

Accountant, AIDS crisis survivor

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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Betty C. Berrysmith

Chef and Queer Rights Activist

La Quinta, CA

Betty C. Berrysmith was born on April 4, 1953 in Seattle, Washington and raised alongside her three siblings. Facing unjust working conditions and limitations due...
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Hector Black

Quaker peace activist, Radical Faerie

Cookeville, TN

Hector Black was born on February 12, 1925 in Brooklyn, New York. On the cusp of being sent to the front lines in World War...
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David Bohnett

Internet technology entrepreneur; philanthropist

Los Angeles, CA

David Bohnett was born April 2, 1956. His father was a business executive and his mother a preschool teacher. David earned his BS in Business...
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Sharon Bridgforth

Playwright of ritual/jazz theatre

Los Angeles, CA

Born in Chicago to a single mother from Memphis in 1958, and raised in South Central Los Angeles, Sharon Bridgforth identifies as a child of...
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Kylar W. Broadus

lawyer; founder, Trans People of Color Coalition

Washington D.C., DC

Kylar William Broadus was born on August 28, 1963 in Fayette, Missouri. His parents—William, a truck driver, and Fannie, a supervisor of housekeeping—instilled in their...
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Elaine Brune

Non-binary teacher and administrator

St. Louis, MO

Elaine Brune was born on June 30, 1955, in Kansas City, Missouri. Growing up in a tight-knit family and neighborhood, Elaine learned to value independence,...
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Donna Burkett

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...
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Stephanie Byers

1st openly trans Native American state legislator

San Antonio, TX

Stephanie Byers was born on February 5th, 1963, in Norman, Oklahoma, to a mother she describes as a “firecracker” and a gentle, studious father of...
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Grethe Cammermeyer

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...
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Connie Chan

Asian-American Sexual Minority Professor and Researcher

Cape Cod, Massachusetts

Connie Chan was born on January 16, 1954 in Hong Kong. Her father owned a stevedoring company in Shanghai, but in the wake of communism...
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