GLAPN and Portland Q Center are pleased to share a Queer Hero
per day, through the month of June, 2012!
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In 1970, John Wilkinson and Holly Hart were writing for the Willamette Bridge, an alternative newspaper in Portland. Their articles provided focus for the earliest organizing in the queer community. Read more … |
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Anyone who spends time exploring the Portland queer community will learn the name Laura Calvo. Her reputation for hard work and cool composure is well deserved. Laura’s public social justice career provides a role model for would-be activists everywhere. As an out Transgender woman … Read more … |
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Frank Roa returned to his home town, Irrigon, in conservative Eastern Oregon, in 2002. As an HIV positive Latino, gay male in poor and rural America, he knew that if he wanted services … Read more … |
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Some of the earliest advances in LGBT equality were accomplished by attorneys within our community. One of the standouts is Charlie Hinkle, whose pioneering efforts have benefited Oregonians and set precedents on the national level … Read More … |
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Cindy Cumfer was one of the first Oregon lawyers to handle domestic partner issues and she acted as attorney for the first same-sex two parent adoptions in the U.S. Read more … |
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Years ago, before women were wearing Nike uniforms as they played sports, there were women such as Louise Chris Mazzuca who paved the way for others to follow. Read more … |
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David Martinez grew up in Eastern Oregon, and was the first member of his family to graduate from high school and college. He is a co-founder of Portland Latino Gay Pride, and is currently Outreach & Coordination Coordinator for Portland Community College Rock Creek. Read more … |
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Darcelle XV is an author, playwright, actor, costume designer, owner and headliner of the Darcelle XV Showplace, the oldest continuously running cabaret in the United States. Read more … |
| Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) has been a beacon of love and hope in the queer community. Every founder of PFLAG deals with community resistance and institutionalized discrimination, and they are all heroes for what they put up with, and the contributions they make to our community. Read more … | |
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Jenn Burleton is the founder and executive director of TransActive Education & Advocacy. She leads a team that provides services focused on the needs of transgender and gender non-conforming children and youth. Read more … |
| Alberta Lucille Hart (left) underwent a hysterectomy shortly after graduation from medical school in 1917, and lived the rest of her life as Dr. Alan Hart – a pioneering use of surgery in transition. Read more … | |
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Dr. Marie Equi, right, was a radial progressive, living openly with a woman with whom she adopted a child – in the teens of the last century. Read more … |
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 The late Gladys and Bill McCoy were both active politically, and were the first African-Americans in the positions to which they were elected. Each of them also contributed to gay civil rights on the legislative front. Read more … |
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From the beginnings of LGBTQ civil rights efforts, there have been members of the clergy working to include all colors of the rainbow in the community of faith. Rev. Cecil Prescod, Rev Tara Wilkins, and Rev. David Weekley were all nominated as Heroes for the work they do in the LGBTQ community. Read more … |
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Lynn Nakamoto has been practicing law since 1988. She has been a judge in the Oregon Court of Appeals since January, 2011. In the early 1990s, Lynn was one of the founders of Asian Pacific Islander Lesbians and Gays (APLG), which still exists, but under a new name – Asian Pacific Islander Pride. Read more … |
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Norm Costa has been out as a gay man since 1947. He has made Oregon his home since 1958, and he has been a hardworking advocate for the queer community for longer than most of us have been alive. Read more … |
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Marcy Westerling began organizing in the rural communities of Oregon in 1992 to combat the anti-gay Ballot Measure 9 of the Oregon Citizens Alliance. In 1993, the groups she founded joined forces to become the Rural Organizing Project, with Marcy as Director. Read more … |
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Peggy Burton was fired from a teaching job in Oregon in 1971 for being gay. She took the matter to court, becoming the first LGBT public school teacher in the United States to file a federal civil rights suit, and the first LGBT person in Oregon to file a civil rights lawsuit of any kind. Read more … |
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Terry Bean began his LGBTQ activism in 1977, fighting an anti-gay referendum in Eugene, Oregon. Our side lost in that election, but Terry escalated his efforts on the state and national level in the fight for LGBTQ equality. Read more … |
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Sally Cohn was born in Heppner, Oregon, and graduated from the U of O. She was prominent in the Lesbian Community Project and is a driving force in OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change), focusing on ageism, senior healthcare, and GLTB-friendly retirement facilities. She is also a hand-whistler who competed on America's Got Talent in 2010. Read more … |
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Mary Ann Humphrey-Keever has proudly carried the American flag in the Pride parade for 20 years. She is the author of a book about queer people in military service, and she was the first full-time coach for women's baskeball, volleyball, and softball and Portland Community College. Read more … |
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What's a community without its newspaper? GLAPN and Q Center honor Just Out as the voice of our community, beginning in 1983. Read more … |
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Lupita Mendez runs the only program in Oregon for LGBTQ victims of domestic violence, and its companion, a healthy relationships program which is also unique in the state of Oregon. Read more … |
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Reid Vanderburgh is a Oregon therapist who used the experience of his own transition to fundamentally reshape the national conversation about mental health for trans people. Read more … |
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Bonnie Tinker worked for social justice all of her life. She is possibly best-known for Love Makes a Family, supporting children in non-traditional families, but her profile pic shows her getting arrested in Portland for a pacifist cause. Read more … |
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Steve Fulmer has been an LGBTQ activist since the 1970s. He was founding President of Portland Gay Mens Chorus, and there is a long list of other ways he has contributed to the queer community. Read more … |
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Elizabeth Ann Harbaugh (1927-1999) managed a bookstore and gathering place in Eugene which was one of the few resources available to LGBTQ young people in Eugene, Oregon. Read more … |
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Portland Town Council (PTC), founded in 1974, was the first LGBT umbrella group in Oregon to embrace mainstream legislative politics in the battle for civil rights for lesbians and gay men. Read more … |
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Kathleen Saadat helped organize Portland's first gay rights march in 1976. She was a leader in defeating the Oregon Citizens Alliance measures of the 1990s, and she has touched all levels of government in Oregon. Read more … |
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The late Lady Elaine Peacock left an indelible mark on Portland with her beauty, talent, fundraising and networking skills, and her legacy continues today. Read more … |
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Larry Smith's classrooms were always safe places for queer kids. He has chaired the Oregon Chapter of the Gay Straight Education Network (GLSEN) since the 1990s, and worked for Gay Straight Alliances (GSAs) for just as long. Read more … |
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Aaron Ridings' first job with an LGBTQ affiliated organization was with Cascade AIDS Project. He was the 1999 AIDSWalk Assistant, and he worked for the CAP Housing Program in the furniture warehouse in 2000. As of 2012, he is Development Manager at Basic Rights Oregon. Read more … |
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Amari Fauna and Chloe Flora are the pioneers of Q Center’s TransFem* group as well as the Trans Life programs and the Communi-T Trans Resource Fair at Q Center. Read more … |
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Alex Horsey has begun his career as a queer activist while still in high school. He founded Project Believe In Me as an anti-bullying initiative, and he is the president of the Gay-Straight Alliance at Wilson High School, where he will be a senior in 2012-2013. Read more … |
P.O. Box 3646 • Portland, OR 97208-3646 • info@glapn.or
Copyright © 2012