American

National Rabbinical Leader

b. February 20, 1967

“Creating a world that goes beyond inclusion, that embraces people in their unique differences, is work for us all.”

Rabbi Deborah Waxman is the first woman and the first lesbian to lead a Jewish seminary and national congregational union. She serves as president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC) and of Reconstructing Judaism, the leading organization of the Reconstructionist movement.

Waxman was born to conservative Jewish parents in West Hartford, Connecticut. Her father was a traveling salesman and her mother was the president of their synagogue’s sisterhood.

Waxman earned her bachelor’s degree in religion from Columbia University, her Master of Hebrew Letters from the RRC, and her doctorate in American Jewish history from Temple University. She also completed a certificate in Jewish women's studies from the RRC in conjunction with Temple University.

In 1999 the RRC ordained Waxman. She began teaching at the seminary and served as the rabbi of Congregation Bet Haverim in New York, before becoming vice president for governance of the RRC. In that role, she merged the RRC and the Jewish Reconstructionist Communities. Together, they form the Jewish Reconstructionist movement. In 2014 she became its president.

Waxman won grants from prominent donors, such as the Kresge, the Wexner, and the Cummings Foundations. She led initiatives to create interactive digital content, to bolster Reconstructionist Judaism’s ties to Israel and to help young people through camping programs.

Waxman is regarded as the Reconstructionist movement’s thought leader. She has provided an important voice for feminism in Judaism, encouraging gender equality in Jewish leadership. A member of the Academic Council of the American Jewish Historical Society, she researches, writes and speaks at conferences about Jewish identity, women in American Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism. Publications such as The Times of Israel, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, HuffPost, Forward, and other media and academic outlets have published her articles. She also created and hosts the podcast “Hashivenu: Jewish Teachings on Resilience.”

In 2015 Waxman was named to the “Forward 50,” a list of Jewish Americans “who have made a significant impact on the Jewish story.” She was interviewed by MSNBC following the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in October 2018, and she wrote an opinion piece on Jewish values amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Waxman lives in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, with her partner, Christina Ager, a professor at Arcadia University.

Revolutionary War General

b. September 17, 1730
d. November 28, 1794

“You say to your soldier, 'Do this' and he does it. But I am obliged to say to the American, 'This is why you ought to do this' and then he does it.”

Baron Friedrich von Steuben was a German-born American general and a hero of the Revolutionary War. Historians believe he was openly gay—a rarity at the time, especially for a military officer.

Born in Magdeburg, Germany, the son of an engineer lieutenant in the Prussian Army, von Steuben joined the military at age 17. He served as the personal aide to Frederick the Great, a gay monarch, in the Seven Years War (1756 – 1763), a world conflict that arose from the French and Indian War in North America.

In 1763, when von Steuben was an army captain, the military abruptly discharged him. Some scholars believe he was dismissed due to his homosexuality. He then worked for the German courts. In 1771 the Prince of Hollenzollern-Hechingen named him a baron.

Struggling financially in 1775, von Steuben tried unsuccessfully to join the French, Austrian and other foreign armies. When he learned that Benjamin Franklin was in France, he traveled there to offer his service to the American army fighting the British. He impressed Franklin with his knowledge of military order and discipline.

Von Steuben was eventually assigned to George Washington’s winter quarters in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Valley Forge functioned as the third of eight military encampments for the main body of the Continental Army.

With the help of translators, von Steuben taught the troops crucial military structure and tactics. Borrowing from his own strict Prussian Army training, he shaped the ragtag recruits and militiamen into organized, efficient fighters and boosted morale under the difficult conditions at Valley Forge. George Washington was so impressed, he extended von Steuben’s training to his entire command. He appointed von Steuben the first inspector general of the Army.

From January to October 1781, von Steuben served as a divisional commander under Washington in Yorktown, Virginia. The Yorktown campaign resulted in a decisive Franco-American victory and the start of peace negotiations. Many historians regard von Steuben as second only to Washington himself.

Although gay sex was a crime in the 1700s, same-sex romantic liaisons were tolerated. Von Steuben formed serious relationships with William North and Benjamin Walker. When the Revolutionary War ended, the U.S. granted von Steuben citizenship. He moved to New York, where he legally adopted both men, a practice commonplace among homosexuals, centuries before gay marriage.

When von Steuben died, North and Walker inherited his estate. The baron’s secretary, John Mulligan, with whom he was also believed to have had a relationship, inherited his library.

Von Steuben’s burial place became the Steuben Memorial, a state historic site in Steuben, New York.

U.S. Chief Technology Officer

b. October 21, 1964

“You have to iterate before you’re successful, you’re always learning with each step.”

Megan Smith is an award-winning technology expert, entrepreneur and activist who served as the nation’s chief technology officer in the Obama administration. She is the first female and the first lesbian to hold the position.

Smith grew up in Buffalo, New York, and Fort Erie, Ontario. She spent several childhood summers at the Chautauqua Institution, a nonprofit educational resort. Her mother was the director of the Chautauqua Children’s School.

Smith earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She completed her thesis at the MIT Media Lab and helped build a solar race car that competed in the first cross-continental solar car race.

Smith went on to work for General Magic in California, where she was the product design lead on emerging smartphone technologies, and at Apple in Tokyo. In 1995 she helped launch PlanetOut, an early leading LGBT website community, becoming its COO in 1996 and CEO in 1998. She was instrumental in forming partnerships between PlanetOut and AOL, Yahoo!, MSN and other industry innovators. Smith helped oversee PlanetOut’s successful merger with Gay.com, an LGBT dating and social media site.

In 2003 Smith joined Google, where she advanced to vice president of business development across the organization’s global partnership teams. She led important acquisitions of platforms such as Google Earth and Google Maps and created Google’s “Women Techmakers,” an initiative to promote women and diversity in the tech field.

Smith joined the Obama administration in 2017, becoming the third U.S. chief technology officer and assistant to the president. Smith and her team focused on leveraging policy and innovation to advance the technological capabilities of the White House.

After her White House tenure, Smith helped established Tech Jobs Tour to promote female and multicultural diversity in the American technology sector. In March 2018 she founded and became CEO of shift7, a company that uses technology to help tackle social, environmental and economic problems.

Smith serves on the boards of MIT, the MIT Media Lab, and Technology Review and is a member of the selection committee for the prestigious Caroll L. Wilson Award at MIT. The World Economic Forum named her a Technology Pioneer in 2001 and 2002, and Out magazine named her among its 50 most powerful LGBT people in the USA in 2012 and 2013.

Smith and her longtime partner, Kara Swisher, a technology journalist, married in 2008 and divorced in 2018. They have two sons.

Co-Owner of the Chicago Cubs

b. December 15, 1967

“I think the Cubs have come quite a long way … I'd like to see it expand for the LGBT community.”

Laura Ricketts is a lawyer, a philanthropist, a businesswoman and the first openly LGBT co-owner of an American major-league sports franchise. She is also an activist who supports LGBT and Democratic causes.

Ricketts and her three brothers grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. She is the daughter of John Joseph Ricketts, the multibillionaire founder and former CEO of TD Ameritrade. Ricketts’s brother Pete is the governor of Nebraska. Her brother Tom is chairman of the Chicago Cubs.

Raised in a conservative Catholic family, Ricketts worried about coming out. In the early 1990s she told her family, and to her relief, they were immediately supportive.

Ricketts earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago in 1994 and her Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1998. She became a corporate attorney practicing with Schiff, Hardin & Waite, a Chicago law firm.

Ricketts left the practice to cofound Ecotravel, LLC—a company dedicated to promoting ecotourism worldwide—that operated Ecotravel.com, an online magazine. The Wall Street Journal named Ecotravel.com one of the top websites of its kind in 2002.

Ricketts has generously supported organizations such as Lambda Legal, GayCo Productions, Opportunity Education and the Democratic Party. She serves on the boards of Lambda Legal and Housing Opportunities for Women (HOW), Inc., an organization supporting homeless women and children in Chicago.

Although her parents and siblings are Republicans, Ricketts champions Democratic politics. She co-chaired the Democratic National Committee’s LGBT Leadership Council and became the cofounder and chairwoman of LPAC, the first lesbian political action committee. She was a prominent fundraiser for President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign and for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. At the 2016 Democratic National Convention, Ricketts served as an Illinois superdelegate.

In October 2009, with her brother as board chairman, the Ricketts family paid $845 million for 95% ownership of the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field. Ricketts and her brothers are board members of the Cubs.

In 2013 the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame inducted Ricketts. In June 2015 she married Brooke Skinner, an executive at Cars.com. They live in Chicago with their daughter.

Pulitzer-Winning Poet

b. September 10, 1935
d. January 17, 2019

"I want to say: all my life / I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms."

Mary Oliver was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet who wrote with reverence and poignancy about the natural world. She published 15 collections of poetry during her more than 50-year career.

Oliver was born and raised in Maple Heights, Ohio, outside of Cleveland. She was sexually abused as a small child. In her early teens, she wrote her first poems in the neighboring woods, where she sought refuge from a difficult homelife.

Oliver attended Ohio State University and Vassar College, but never completed her degree. Profoundly inspired by the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay, she lived for a time during the 1950s in Millay’s home, helping the poet’s sister organize papers after Millay’s death. There, Oliver met her life partner, Molly Malone Cook, a photographer.

In the 1960s Oliver moved to Provincetown, Massachusetts, to be with Cook, where the couple remained for more than 40 years. Though Oliver was open about her sexuality, she fiercely protected her privacy.

In 1963 Oliver published her first collection, “No Voyage and Other Poems.” Known for the accessibility of her writing, she intentionally avoided “fancy” words. Her blank verse is rich with earthy themes stemming from her observations of nature and the excesses of modern civilization. Many of her poems are based on memories of Ohio and Provincetown.

Oliver earned prestigious fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her list of honors includes an American Academy of Arts & Letters Award and the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial Prize. In 1984 Oliver won a Pulitzer Prize for “American Primitive,” her fifth collection of poetry. In 1990 her collection “House of Light” won the Christopher Award and the L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award. In 1992 her “New and Selected Poems” won the National Book Award.

Oliver held the Catharine Osgood Foster Chair for Distinguished Teaching at Bennington College in Vermont. She was a Poet in Residence at Bucknell University and the Margaret Banister Writer in Residence at Sweet Briar College. In 2003 Harvard University made her an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa. Dartmouth conferred her with an honorary doctorate in 2007.

Oliver died in Florida of lymphoma. She was 83. The New York Times published her obituary.

National Democratic Strategist

b. June 9, 1973

“Every single day we are witnessing unprecedented activism and excitement across our nation.”

Jess O’Connell is a national political strategist who works to advance progressive candidates, policies and organizations. She was the executive director of Emily’s list and the first openly LGBT CEO of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

O’Connell grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder and graduated with an MBA from the University of Denver, Daniels College of Business. When she was in high school in the 1980s, O’Connell lost a family friend to AIDS. Her first job was in HIV/AIDS activism, where she dealt with issues of LGBT health and poverty. In 2000 she became the first female director of AIDS Walk Colorado, a program of the Colorado AIDS Project.

In 2003 O’Connell joined Emily’s List as deputy director of major gifts and events. Emily’s List is the largest organization in the United States working to elect pro-choice Democratic women. She subsequently worked as development director of the Children’s Defense Fund and on Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign.

In 2007 O’Connell became the national director of operations for Senator Hillary Clinton’s first presidential campaign. She grew the staff from a handful of workers to 1,500 at more that 400 offices across the country.

In 2011, after holding senior positions at the ONE Campaign and the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, O’Connell became the chief of staff and senior vice president of the Center for American Progress (CAP), the preeminent organization that researches and implements progressive ideas and policies. Three years later, she returned to Emily’s List as executive director.

Following the 2106 elections, O’Connell became the first openly LGBT CEO of the DNC, where she oversaw a significant reorganization and revitalization effort. During her tenure, Democrats won 36 state legislature flips from red to blue and record-breaking victories in New Jersey, Virginia and Alabama. After less than a year, she announced her departure, saying, “I’m proud to have helped to rebuild our party.” DNC Chairman Tom Perez told the Washington Post that O’Connell took the position when the Democrats “needed her most.” He said, “Her leadership brought a laser-like focus on winning elections.”

O’Connell went on to serve as senior advisor to Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign. She led the early states strategy, resulting in Buttigieg’s history-making first-place finish in Iowa and second-place finish in New Hampshire during the 2020 primaries. Thereafter, she became the cofounder and partner at NEWCO Strategies, a majority women/majority LGBT-owned consulting firm. Most recently, she was the lead organizer of the National COVID-19 Remembrance, October 4, 2020, at the Ellipse, a park between the National Mall and the White House.

O'Connell has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, NPR and other media outlets. She lives in Maryland with her wife, Holly, and their son.

Writer & Producer

b. July 22, 1982

“There are so many more queer stories being told on television, but often we’re still presented with overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly male.”

Lauren Morelli is an American screenwriter, producer and director. Her work often depicts lesbian relationships and issues. She is best known for two Netflix series, “Orange Is the New Black” and “Tales of the City.”

Morelli grew up in McCandless, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh. At Marymount Manhattan College in New York City, she followed her passion for dance until a back injury forced her to reconsider her career path. She pursued writing but graduated with a BFA in Modern Dance.

After graduation, Morelli moved to Los Angeles. She wrote short stories and blog posts before securing a position as the lead writer for “Orange Is the New Black.” Premiering on Netflix in 2013, the series is an adaptation of Piper Kerman's memoir, “Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison” (2010). The show features lesbian relationships in a low-security women’s federal prison.

Ranked by The Guardian as one of the 100 best TV shows of the 21^st century, “Orange” earned praise for humanizing prisoners and showcasing diversity in body types, racial backgrounds and sexualities. Nominated for 17 Emmys, six Golden Globes and six Writers Guild Awards, it remained the best-watched series on Netflix, three years after it ended.

Morelli worked on the series for five of its seven seasons. Writing for lesbian characters awakened her own latent sexuality. A year into the show, she came out as a lesbian and divorced her husband.

Following the success of “Orange Is the New Black,” Morelli continued to work on lesbian-themed material at Netflix, becoming the executive producer and writer of “Tales of the City” (2019). An adaption of Armistead Maupin’s 1978 books on LGBT romance in San Francisco, the series starred Oscar winners Ellen Page and Laura Linney.

Morelli’s work extends to playwriting. Her short play “Roach & Rat” was produced in 2013 by Lesser America, a theater company in New York City.

In 2017 Morelli married Samira Wiley. The couple has been together since shortly after Morelli came out. In 2019 Diva Magazine, Europe’s leading publication for lesbian and bisexual women, featured Morelli on its cover.

Political Activist

b. August 16, 1946

“Issues come and go; values and principles never come and go. They are the core of your essence and who you are.”

David Mixner is a human rights activist, a political operative and a best-selling author. Newsweek once named him the most powerful gay man in America.

Mixner was born in New Jersey to a family of moderate means. His father worked on a corporate farm. His mother was a bookkeeper. In high school, Mixner supported Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and demonstrated for civil rights.

In 1964 Mixner enrolled at Arizona State University, where, in addition to civil rights, he engaged in antiwar activism. He entered his first same-sex relationship with a man he refers to as “Kit.” When Kit died in an automobile accident, the heartbroken Mixner could only attend the funeral as a friend, fearing Kit’s parents would learn their son was gay.

After Kit’s death, Mixner transferred to the University of Maryland to be closer to the political action in Washington. His activism soon took precedence, and he dropped out of college. He became a grassroots organizer for the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, which coordinated the 1967 March on the Pentagon, a defining moment in the antiwar movement.

During the height of the AIDS epidemic, Mixner became an organizer and a fundraiser, lobbying for the government to proactively address the crisis. He lost hundreds of friends to the virus, including the love of his life, Peter Scott. He worked on AIDS prevention and treatment projects in the U.S. and abroad, including in Russia and Africa.

Mixner has raised tens of millions for charitable causes and political candidates. He worked on more than 75 elections as a campaign manager, fundraiser or strategist. He was instrumental in Bill Clinton’s 1992 election and served as President Clinton’s unofficial advisor on LGBT issues.

Mixner helped found the Municipal Elections Committee of Los Angeles (MECLA), a group of donor-class LGBT individuals who became involved in local politics. He served as the national co-chair of the Victory Fund, whose mission is to elect LGBT politicians and allies. He is a former member of the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Party Delegate Selection Committee.

Mixner is the author of three best sellers, including his critically acclaimed memoir, “Stranger Among Friends” (1997). In 2014 he premiered in “Oh, Hell No!,” the first of his three autobiographical one-man shows known as the “Mixner trilogy.”

In 2005 Yale University Library established the David Benjamin Mixner collection, which houses his personal books, papers, photos and other media. In 2019 he announced his retirement after 60 years of activism.

Actor

b. October 19, 1945
d. March 7, 1988

“They can call me whatever they want … I don't care. You always change your name when you're in the show business.”

Harris Glenn Milstead was an American actor and musical performer best known as Divine. A muse of the gay independent filmmaker John Waters, Milstead, as Divine, played female characters in the director’s often shocking comedies, including the cult classics "Pink Flamingos" (1972), "Female Trouble" (1974) and "Polyester" (1981).

Milstead was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the only child of a middle-class, conservative Baptist couple. His parents met at the diner where his mother worked.

A high school outcast, Milstead was severely bullied by his classmates. Troubled by their son’s attraction to both women and men, Milstead’s parents sent him to a psychiatrist when he was 17. At 18, Milstead enrolled at Marinella Beauty School, then worked for a time as a hairdresser. He threw extravagant parties and began performing in drag.

Milstead and John Waters, a fellow high school outsider, began a lifelong friendship and professional collaboration as teenagers. Waters helped launch Milstead’s career, dubbing him "Divine," and designating him "the most beautiful woman in the world, almost."

Milstead appeared in roughly 20 films, most of which were made by Waters. In the majority of his roles, Milstead starred as bawdy, outrageous women. Between films, he performed live drag shows. He had a successful cabaret career in Europe and recorded several disco singles in the 1980s that hit the Billboard U.S. Dance Club charts.

A few weeks before he died, Milstead reached the apex of his career with the release of Waters’s first PG-rated movie, "Hairspray" (1988). In the beloved comedy-drama, Milstead played a more sympathetic and realistic female character, Edna Turnblad, opposite Ricki Lake as Turnblad’s daughter. In 2002 "Hairspray" was adapted into a Tony-winning musical. A 2007 remake of the film starred John Travolta in the role Milstead originated.

Both lauded and reviled as a "drag queen," Milstead saw his career differently. As early as 1976, he told The New York Times, "I'm not a female impersonator; I'm an actor." Later in life, he landed a few male roles, including a gangster in "Trouble in Mind" (1985), starring Kris Kristofferson. In addition to his part as Edna Turnblad, he also played a man in "Hairspray."

Milstead died at 42 of an enlarged heart. The New York Times published his obituary. A 12-foot statue of Divine, created by acclaimed sculptor Andrew Logan, stands on permanent display in Baltimore's American Visionary Art Museum. "I Am Divine" (2013), a documentary about Milstead, received widespread critical acclaim.