Our Leaders Are Self-Made

During the seven decades struggle for LGBT rights and equality, many of our more effective leaders were not office holders or heads of organizations but “ordinary” women or men who stood up for themselves and their community. As Equality Florida’s Nadine Smith once said, what our movement needs, and gets, is not one Martin Luther King, Jr. but thousands of Rosa Parks. Like the Civil Rights activists who integrated the schools in Little Rock and the lunch counters in Greensboro, many LGBT activists did what they did because their lives, and those of the ones they loved, depended on it.

Most LGBT leaders are self-made, not born into their job. From the beginning of our movement, many lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender people became activists as a result of an incident in their lives: an arrest, an act of violence, the loss of a job or of a family member, the impact of AIDS. The people who fought at Stonewall rebelled against police harassment. AIDS activists fought against an epidemic that killed their loves ones and threatened their lives and a government that did nothing. Lesbians, gay men and bisexual people in uniform – like Leonard Matlovich, Grethe Cammermeyer, Jose Zuniga and Dan Choi – just wanted to serve our country while the plaintiffs in celebrated marriage equality cases – like Edie Windsor and Jim Obergefell – valued their love relationships so much that they demanded (and eventually got) equal treatment under the law.

Like other activists, many of the women and men featured in South Florida Gay News’s “Out 50” issues were people who saw a wrong – done to themselves or to others – and did something to correct it. Attorney Miriam Richter (2014) became an activist because she needed health insurance: “My partner of 20 years worked for the City of Fort Lauderdale and I could not get coverage on her policy at that time. So I kept calling Mayor Jack Seiler until I got him on the phone. He asked me what was involved and what it would cost the City. I spent the next six months gathering information. I sent the report to the Mayor and he put it on the agenda for the next meeting. City Commissioners and the City Manager were in favor so they made it happen. It was very exciting to see how local government can be so responsive.” Richter later became Education Director and Trademark Counsel for the Harvey Milk Foundation.

In 2009 Jowharah Sanders (2014) founded National Voices for Equality, Education and Enlightenment (NVEEE) as a community-based, non-profit organization whose mission is to prevent bullying, violence, and suicide among youth, families and communities: “NVEEE came out my desire to help prevent bullying and suicide among our young people. After two suicide attempts of my own (as a teenager) I knew all too well that it could be prevented, and that perhaps by sharing my experiences it may help someone else. NVEEE’s goal is providing signature programs to schools and establishing bonds with youth and families in need of support dealing with bullying and suicide ideation.” Seven years later, Sanders continues to lead NVEEE and do the job she does so well.

Many gay and bisexual men, including some “Out 50” luminaries, became activists as a result of an AIDS diagnosis. Steve Stagon (2014) moved to South Florida shortly after he was diagnosed, where he joined support groups and worked on his recovery. He led the group POZitive Attitudes since 2006 and was a founder of the World AIDS Museum and Educational Center in Wilton Manors. Glen Weinzimer (2014) is another gay man who took the lemon of an AIDS diagnosis and made activist lemonade out of it. Weinzimer’s creation, the SMART Ride, a 165 mile bicycle ride from Miami to Key West, is one of our community’s most popular and successful AIDS fundraisers.

All these people did what they did not to win fame or fortune or because they were born to lead but because they faced a situation that needed to be solved. They could have walked away, as so many others did, or deal privately with their own personal issues. Instead, they took their challenge as an opportunity to do what needed to be done, not just for themselves but for their community. This earned them a spot in SFGN’s “Out 50” list, as well as our admiration and our gratitude.

Jesse’s Journal
by Jesse Monteagudo