Gay Rights

Award-Winning Theater Director

b. November 21, 1963

“Art is a great prism through which we can understand history and current events.”

Moisés Kaufman is an award-winning theater director and playwright. His work is known for its bold, perceptive portrayals of contemporary social issues, particularly those of sexuality and culture. His groundbreaking play, “The Laramie Project,” inspired by the brutal killing of a gay college student, Mathew Shepard, generated worldwide empathy and dialogue around LGBT hate crimes.

Born in Venezuela, Kaufman grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family. As a youth, he was exposed to avant-garde theater. While working toward a business degree in Caracas, he joined an experimental theater group and toured as an actor.

In 1987 Kaufman moved to Manhattan to study theater direction at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Recognizing the originality of Kaufman’s ideas, Arthur Bartow, the university’s dean, advised him at graduation, “No one will hire you. You should start your own theater company.”

In 1991 Kaufman and his husband, Jeffrey LaHoste, founded the experimental Tectonic Theater Project, dedicated to developing consciousness-raising, innovative works that push the boundaries of theatrical language and form. In its early years, the cash-strapped troupe rehearsed in the couple’s apartment. Under Kaufman’s artistic direction, Tectonic eventually flourished. The theater company has since created and staged more than 20 plays and musicals. Many, including the “The Laramie Project,” “Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde” and “33 Variations,” have garnered international acclaim.

Shortly after the murder of Mathew Shepard in 1998, Kaufman took his Manhattan-based theater company to Laramie, Wyoming, the small college town where the crime occurred. They conducted more than 400 hours of interviews with 200 local residents. Kaufman used the conversations to write and produce “The Laramie Project.” The play, which premiered in 2000, became one of the most-produced works of the decade. It has been performed worldwide in theaters and schools and used to educate people about homophobia. Kaufman also wrote and directed a screen adaptation that was released on HBO in 2002.

Kaufman has earned numerous accolades for his work, including an Obie Award for his Broadway directorial debut, “I Am My Own Wife”; two Tony Award nominations: one for “I Am My Own Wife” and one for “33 Variations”; the Outer Critics Award for “Gross Indecency”; and two Emmy nominations for “The Laramie Project.” In 2009 President Obama invited Kaufman and Techtonic to witness the signing of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. In 2016 President Obama presented Kauffman with the National Medal of Arts.

Russian Activist

b. December 23, 1977

“Without an ideal, nothing is possible.”

Nikolay Alexeyev is Russia’s best-known and most quoted LGBT activist and the founder of Moscow Pride. In 2010 he won the first case on LGBT rights violations in Russia at the European Court of Human Rights.

Alexeyev was born and raised in Moscow. He graduated with honors from Lomonosov Moscow State University, where he pursued postgraduate studies in constitutional law. In 2001 the university forced him out, refusing to except his thesis on the legal restrictions of LGBT Russians. Claiming discrimination, he filed an appeal, but the Moscow district court denied it.

In 2005, after publishing multiple books and legal reports on LGBT discrimination, Alexeyev fully dedicated himself to LGBT activism. He realized “that it wouldn’t be possible to change things in Russia just by writing” and that he should be involved in more direct activism.

Despite an official ban on LGBT events, Alexeyev founded and served as the chief organizer of Gay Pride in Moscow. Participants in the Gay Pride parades were attacked and bullied by anti-gay protesters. Police arrested Alexeyev and fellow activists multiple times.

Through both illegal public protests and legal appeals, Alexeyev’s uncompromising fight for the right to hold Moscow Pride drew international attention to the issue of LGBT rights in his country. In 2009, alongside Russian, French and Belarusian LGBT activists, Alexeyev organized a protest to denounce the inaction of the European Court in considering the legality of the Moscow Pride bans. In 2010 he finally won his battle. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia had violated Alexeyev’s right to protest and fined the government. The verdict marked the first international legal defeat of the Russian government on the issue of LGBT rights.

In Russia’s intensely homophobic political and social environment, few have risked as much as the publicly outspoken Alexeyev. He has campaigned against Russia’s “homosexual propaganda” and anti-LGBT hate speech; against the gay blood-donation ban; and for recognition of same-sex marriage. In 2008, in response to Alexeyev’s campaign, the Russian Ministry of Health eliminated a provision banning homosexuals from donating blood.

Alexeyev has received numerous international awards, including an honor from the International Gay and Lesbian Cultural Network (IGLCN) for “outstanding and courageous efforts in the face of unusually fierce homophobia.”

Indian Activist

b. April 6, 1985

“Loving another man does not make me a criminal.”

Keshav Suri is a prominent Indian activist and entrepreneur. He leads the The Lalit Suri Hospitality Group, which operates a chain of luxury hotels worldwide, and he founded India’s celebrated LGBTQ-friendly Kitty Su nightclub. In 2018 his petition of India’s Supreme Court ended in a landmark decision decriminalizing homosexuality.

Born in New Delhi, India, the son of a prominent hotelier and member of Parliament, Suri was bullied for being gay as a youth. As he matured, feeling the intense pressure imposed by a conservative, highly stratified society and his own family status, he considered marrying a lesbian to hide his sexual orientation. Ultimately unwilling to live a lie, he came out to his family and friends during graduate school in London.

At age 21, after his father died, Suri learned the hotel trade alongside his mother and sisters. As executive director of the family business, he has spearheaded various successful ventures across the hotel chain, including the Kitty Su nightclub. Kitty Su is the only nightclub in India to have been listed by GQ magazine among the top six nightclubs worldwide and by DJ Mag among the top 100 nightclubs in the world. Suri also founded The Lalit Food Truck Company and brought the first pop-up party concept to India.

Suri uses his position as an influential businessman to create opportunity and inclusion for LGBTQ+ and other marginalized people. In Indian cities, known for their exclusionary club scenes, Kitty Su has emerged as a welcoming nightspot for LGBT and disabled patrons and has helped introduce and grow drag culture in India. Kitty Su also welcomes acid burn survivors—the majority of whom are poor women—who Suri works to aid, both in their physical recovery and through job opportunities. Under Suri’s leadership, half of Kitty Su’s DJs are female and its resident DJ, Varun Khullar, a.k.a. DJ Aamish, is India’s first wheelchair-using DJ.

In June 2018 Suri married his partner of 10 years, Cyril Feuillebois, in Paris. At the time, the relationship alone—much less the marriage—was illegal in India. In 2017, as one of four other activists, Suri filed a petition in the Supreme Court of India to repeal Section 377 of the Penal Code, which banned gay sex. Three months after Suri wed, the high court unanimously struck down the law, decriminalizing homosexuality countrywide.

Suri and Feuillebois live in New Delhi.

Mongolian LGBT Activist

b. 1977

“… I do believe that in another 10 years, we will have a very, very beautiful society.”

A self-described queer transgender man, Anaraa Nyamdorj is a leading Mongolian LGBT civil rights activist. In 2007 he cofounded and served as executive director of the country’s first LGBT Center.
 
Born female in Ulan Bator, Mongolia’s capital city, Nyamdorj felt different early on. Growing up in a society without information about LGBT people left him unable to describe his identity as a boy in a girl’s body. By age 10, Nyamdorj had grown severely depressed and eventually attempted suicide. At 19 he summoned the courage to talk to his eldest sister. She rejected him and they never spoke again.

After the Soviet Union fell and Mongolia gained its independence, Nyamdorj received a scholarship to study at the National Law School of India University. There, he became part of a progressive feminist and queer student group. Though he began to identify as lesbian, it did not really fit. Even so, in 2003 he established Mongolia’s first lesbian organization.

In 2004, after moving to Japan, Nyamdorj met a transgender man and finally understood his feelings. He married a Mongolian woman in Canada, then one of the few countries where same-sex marriage was legal, and the two became pillars of Mongolia’s emerging LGBT community. About six years later, despite his wife’s repudiation, Nyamdorj acknowledged his male identity and his attraction to men. He underwent gender-confirmation surgery in Thailand.

Nyamdorj has dedicated his life to helping other Mongolians find self-knowledge and social acceptance. In 2007, along with a group of activists, he founded Mongolia’s first LGBT Center, which focuses on social awareness, community programming and legislative advocacy. Although discrimination remains pervasive in the country, the organization has pushed the government to adopt LGBT protections, including passage of a law preventing medical and police discrimination. Through its many initiatives, the organization has worked extensively to educate and train medical professionals, law enforcement officials and the community and is fighting LGBT employment discrimination.

In 2018, after three years as the executive director of the LGBT Center, Nyamdorj stepped down from his leadership role. He continues to serve in an advisory capacity.

Nyamdorj remains optimistic about the future and the organization he helped found. “We have another 50 years of work ahead of us,” he said, “but I do believe that in another 10 years, we will have a very, very beautiful society.”

Journalist

b. September 3, 1949

“You do it story by story … and try to get to the bottom of what’s really happening.”

Lou Chibbaro Jr. is an award-winning senior news writer for the Washington Blade, the oldest LGBT newspaper in the United States. He has been reporting on issues affecting the LGBT community for more than 40 years and is the first openly gay journalist to be inducted into the Society of Professional Journalists Washington Hall of Fame.

Chibbaro grew up in Long Island, New York. He studied political science and biology at the State University of New York and earned his graduate degree in journalism from American University. He came out to his parents in 1975. Though they were initially alarmed, they gradually accepted  his sexual orientation. A year later, he wrote his first article as a volunteer for the Washington Blade (then the Gay Blade).

Due to widespread homophobia, Chibbaro wrote for his first two years under a pseudonym. During that period, he worked at a publishing company and then for the electric utility trade group, the American Public Power Association.

In 1978 Chibbaro took a position as the publisher of a public utility newsletter. He continued his volunteer reporting for the Washington Blade until 1984, when he became a paid staff writer. He supplemented his small journalist’s salary by driving a taxi.

In his more than four decades at the publication, Chibbaro has chronicled the spectrum of LGBT civil rights issues and angles—from politics and major protests to the AIDS epidemic and hate crimes. He has reported on federal efforts to fire gay people from their government jobs and uncovered scandals involving politicians and male prostitutes. He has reported on issues like “change therapy,” favored a decade ago by some psychiatrists for transgender teens.
 
Between 1975 and 1991, Chibbaro corresponded with Frank Kameny, the father of the LGBT civil rights movement. The Frank Kameny Papers, housed at the U.S. Library of Congress, include the pair’s historically significant communications. When Kameny died in 2011, Chibbaro penned the Washington Blade’s article memorializing him.

Chibbaro has received numerous honors, including the Rainbow History Project’s Community Pioneers Award, the Gay and Lesbian Activist’s Alliance’s Distinguished Service Award and, for his coverage of gay bashings in D.C., the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Victims of Crime Award.

In 2011 Chibbaro made history as the first openly gay journalist inducted into the Society of Professional Journalists Washington Pro Chapter Hall of Fame. His extensive reporter’s notes from 1980 to 2001, detailing LGBT life, are stored in the Special Collections Research Center at George Washington University.

Pioneering Military Activist

b. August 20, 1948
d. March 17, 1996 

"For 16 years the Army said being homosexual wasn't detrimental to my job. Then, after the fact, they said it was. Logic is a lost art in the Army."

Perry J. Watkins was an African-American soldier who won a landmark lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of his military discharge due to his homosexuality.

Born in Joplin, Missouri, Watkins was raised by a single mother who always encouraged his honestly. He was open about his homosexuality in high school, at a time when both gay and black Americans were stigmatized.

At age 19, Watkins was drafted during the Vietnam War. He did not hide his sexuality on his pre-induction paperwork and served openly, even though U.S. policy barred homosexuals from the military. 

In the 1970s, while serving in Korea, Watkins volunteered to entertain the troops. He performed in drag, using the stage name Simone. Off duty, he took his show to Army clubs in Europe.

The Army accepted Watkins’s reenlistment three times following honorable discharges. Each time he responded candidly to inquiries about his “homosexual tendencies.” Several times the military conducted investigations into Watkins’s sexual conduct. All of them ended due to insufficient evidence.

In 1975 the military sought to discharge Watkins for being gay, despite his excellent record. His commanding officer testified that Watkins did "a fantastic job" and insisted his homosexuality had no impact on his performance. Watkins retained his enlistment and in 1977 was granted a security clearance. It was revoked two years later, due again to his sexual orientation. Represented by the ACLU, Watkins filed a lawsuit to challenge the revocation. In response, the army filed discharge proceedings. 

After a protracted legal battle, the Army dismissed Watkins permanently in 1984, at the end of his enlistment period. Thereafter, Watkins worked for the Social Security Administration while he fought the discharge.

In 1988 a federal court of appeals ruled in Watkins’s favor. It was the first time an appellate court ruled against the military ban on homosexual servicemembers. The Bush Administration appealed the decision.

In 1990 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s decision and ordered Watkins’s reinstatement. He settled for a retroactive promotion, an honorable discharge, back pay and full retirement benefits.  

In 1993 Watkins served as grand marshal of the New York City Pride Parade. The documentary “SIS: The Perry Watkins Story” was released in 1994. The University of Michigan Law School awards an annual fellowship in his memory.
 
At age 47 Watkins died of AIDS-related complications. The New York Times published his obituary.

Prime Minister of Ireland

b. January 18, 1979

“Our democracy is vibrant and robust and can survive divisive debates and make difficult decisions.”

Leo Eric Varadkar is the first openly gay Taoiseach (prime minister) of the Republic of Ireland. He is also Ireland’s youngest prime minister and the first of Indian extraction.

Varadkar was born in Dublin, the nation’s capital, and raised Catholic. His father, a Hindu, was born in Mumbai, India, and immigrated to the United Kingdom to work as a doctor. His mother, a Catholic, worked as a nurse in Slough, England. The couple moved to Dublin six years before Varadkar was born.

Varadkar attended secondary school at The King’s Hospital, a boarding school administered by the Church of England. He joined Young Fine Gael, the youth wing of Fine Gael, the Irish liberal-conservative and Christian democratic political party. Varadkar maintained his party affiliation. 

Varadkar studied medicine at Trinity College in Dublin and worked as a non-consultant hospital doctor before qualifying as a general practitioner. He earned his first significant political post in 2004 as a member of the Fingal County Council, located north of Dublin City, before serving as deputy mayor. 

As a longtime statesman, Varadkar has held important and diverse roles within the Irish government. In 2007 he was elected to the Teachta Dála, the lower house of Ireland’s parliament. He has since served consecutively as minister for transport, tourism, and sport; minister for health; and minister for social protection.

Varadkar came out in 2015 during the referendum that legalized same-sex marriage in Ireland. In June 2017, when the country formed its 31st government, he became Ireland’s prime minister and minister for defence at the age of 38.

In becoming Ireland’s first gay prime minister, Varadkar also became the world’s fourth openly gay head of government. As Taoiseach, he also leads his political party, which promotes their support of LGBT rights and families by displaying ads in the Gay Community News (GCN). 

By January 2018 Varadkar’s approval rating had reached 60%—the highest of any Irish prime minister in 10 years. A few months later, TIME magazine named Varadkar to its list of the 100 Most Influential People of the year. In May the predominantly Catholic country voted to legalize abortion. Varadkar described it as “the culmination of a quiet revolution.”  

Varadkar lives with his boyfriend, Dr. Matt Barrett, a cardiologist. In 2018 the couple marched hand-in-hand in the New York City St. Patrick’s Day parade.

Gay Pioneer

b. October 17, 1917
d. May 11, 2000

“I was one of the founders of the first homosexual organizations in U.S. history. …Our basic argument was that changes in sex laws would not benefit us alone but everyone.”

William Dale Jennings was a gay pioneer who cofounded two early gay organizations and one of the first gay magazines in America. He was dubbed the Rosa Parks of the gay rights movement when he successfully challenged his arrest on homosexuality charges.

Jennings grew up in Denver, Colorado, where he studied piano and dance. He was performing by the age of 12 and traveled with the Lester Horton Dance Group. He moved to Los Angeles in his early 20s, after training in theater direction. Jennings established his own theater company and wrote and produced more than 50 short plays. 

Jennings served in World War II and received several military honors, including a Victory Medal. After an honorable discharge in 1946, he studied cinema for two years at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. 

In 1950 the U.S. Senate declared homosexuals a national threat. That year, Harry Hay, Jennings and four other gay activists cofounded the Mattachine Society—an underground gay community network and one of the first gay civil liberties organizations in the United States. 

During this time, vice detectives posing as homosexuals commonly entrapped gay men and charged them with solicitation. Most men pled guilty for fear of public exposure. When Jennings was arrested for soliciting in 1950, he fought back. He was the first openly gay man known to have done so. During his 10-day trial in 1952, Jennings disclosed his homosexuality but denied the charge. The jury deadlocked one vote shy of acquittal, and the judge dismissed the case. Publicity surrounding the trial exposed the issue of entrapment and made Jennings an gay hero.

Later the same year, with a group Mattachine members, Jennings cofounded ONE, Inc., to develop a publication specifically for homosexuals. With Jennings as its editor, the first issue of ONE Magazine was published in 1953. It became the first widely distributed gay magazine in the United States. 

In 1954 the Los Angeles postmaster cited the publication for obscenity and refused to deliver it. A legal battle ensued, and after several lower court rulings in favor of the post office, the United States Supreme Court ruled for the magazine. A first-of-its-kind victory, the decision in ONE vs. Olesen is celebrated as a legal landmark, making the mail circulation of gay periodicals possible.

In addition to ONE Magazine, Jennings wrote for other publications and published three novels. His California gold-rush-era coming-of-age story, “The Cowboys,” was made into a movie, starring the Academy Award-winning actor John Wayne. Jennings co-wrote the screenplay. 

Jennings died in Los Angeles at the age of 82. The New York Times published his obituary.

Taiwanese Gay Pioneer

b. October 12, 1958

“This should certainly offer some encouragement to different societies to consider following in Taiwan’s footsteps and giving gays and lesbians the right to marry.”

Chi Chia-wei is a pioneering Taiwanese gay rights activist and marriage equality champion. He helped make Taiwan the first nation in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage. 

Chi was raised by open-minded parents who were supportive of his homosexuality. He came out in high school and his classmates were overwhelmingly accepting. 

Chi began his LGBT activism in his 20s, when there were virtually no other visible gay rights activists. Today, hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese support or have joined the LGBT rights movement. 

For some time, Chi was Taiwan’s only AIDS activist. He operated a halfway house for HIV/AIDS patients and created awareness campaigns to promote safe sex among the country’s LGBT citizens. 

In 1986 the 28-year-old Chi organized an international press conference to announce his sexual orientation and bring attention to the HIV/AIDS crisis. In doing so, he became the first person in Taiwan to come out on national television. Media outlets such as the Associated Press and Reuters covered the event. 

Chi’s quest to bring same-sex unions to Taiwan also began in 1986, when he applied for a marriage license. His request was denied by the Taipei District Court Notary Office as well as the Legislative Appeals Court. Later that year, he was detained by police and served a 162-day sentence. Such imprisonment was common during Taiwan’s White Terror, a period of oppression during which the government imprisoned political dissidents. 

Chi unsuccessfully applied for a same-sex marriage license again in 1994, 1998 and 2000. In 2013, when he applied and was denied once more, Chi appealed the decision to the Taipei city government’s Department of Civil Affairs, who referred the issue to the Constitutional Court. 

Chi and the Taipei city government petitioned the court to examine the constitutionality of the same-sex marriage prohibition. On May 24, 2017, Taiwan’s Constitutional Court struck down the previous classification of marriage and ruled that same-sex couples could marry, beginning in May 2019. A celebration erupted outside the court and Chi announced, “Today’s victory is for everybody!” The decision marked the culmination of Chi’s 30 years of activism. 

In October 2016, Queermosa, a leading Taiwanese LGBT organization, presented Chi with its first Queer Pioneer Award. Chi has a longtime romantic partner whose identity he keeps private.

Puerto Rican Activist

b. January 18, 1986

“Being different should not be a reason to hate or discriminate against a person. There are more reasons to respect sexual diversity than stars in the universe.”

Francisco J. “El Jimagua” Cartagena Méndez is a Puerto Rican writer and well-known human rights activist. 

Cartagena was born an identical twin in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. His mother died from complications of diabetes when he was 11. He adopted the pseudonym El Jimagua at age 14, when he began to share his poetry on social media. The name derives from the word “twins” (jimagua) in Arahuac, the language of the island’s indigenous Taíno people. 

At age 18,  Cartagena came out to his father, who accepted the news unconditionally. Cartagena began his human rights activism soon thereafter. 

Cartagena was one of the principal promoters of “Boicot La Comay,” the boycott of a Puerto Rican television program that promoted homophobia and violence against gays. It resulted in the show’s cancellation. On the news outlet Univisión Puerto Rico, he denounced a religious group who had taken photos at a Gay Pride celebration in San Juan and posted them to a homophobic website with derogatory comments. 

Cartagena became a published author at the age of 22, when his book of gay-oriented poetry, “Vuelo en Liberta” (Flight in Freedom), was released. At the time, gay literature was rarely seen in Puerto Rico. The same year, the island’s lead newspaper, El Nuevo Día, hired him as its LGBTT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Transsexual) columnist. 

Cartagena writes for newspapers and blogs in Puerto Rico, the United States, Latin America and Europe. His numerous columns address topics such as sexual diversity, LGBTT suicide prevention and the effect of religious fundamentalism on LGBTT health.

In 2013 Cartagena and his partner, José Santiago, cofounded the nonprofit organization Fundación ASI (Inclusive Social Action Foundation) to advocate for socially disadvantaged communities, including LGBTT people, the elderly, children, and single mothers and fathers. The same year, he produced and directed a “El Fénix Erótico” (The Erotic Phoenix) in which he debuted as an actor. The sold-out show featured comedy, parodies and recitation of his poetry.

Cartagena won an international poetry contest in Argentina for his poem “A Free Land to Love” in 2014. In 2016 he organized Talk About Prevention, an awareness campaign aimed at averting pedophilia. He was also named the ambassador of an international project of ONG LGBT Spain, #PorUnFututoSinViolencia, designed to address bullying, homophobia and gender violence. 

In September 2017, Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico causing massive power failures and economic disaster. Although Cartagena faced his own hardship, he traveled to three heavily hit towns to provide humanitarian aid. At the end of October, Cartagena’s apartment remained without power. An intruder broke in, robbed him and stabbed him brutally three times.

Having survived the near-fatal attack, Cartagena continues his activism. His latest book, "Fundamentos de la Equidad y el Discrimen" (Fundamentals of Equity and Discrimination), was published in the fall of 2018.