Volunteer Benchmark Narratives

The LGBTQ+ community oftentimes grows up not knowing about its roots and how those roots gave rise to the LGBTQ+ rights movement. Our history is almost never taught in school. We as LGBTQ+ people are forced to seek out and create our own narratives that portray us accurately and without misrepresentation. When we are given control of our history, we are able to combat stereotypes and stigmas that are internalized within us at young ages through heterosexist and cisgender normatives. Sometimes integrating LGBTQ+ history that portrays us in a positive light is outright forbidden or even met with resistance or persecution. Therefore, it becomes imperative for us to learn about the trailblazers that fought for the rights of LGBTQ+ people. As volunteers gain more volunteer hours, they also gain the opportunity to earn badges for their achievements. Each badge is named after an LGBTQ+ pioneer who made significant contributions to social justice for LGBTQ+ people. Even in LGBTQ+ publications, some of these historical figures are omitted or their narratives are misrepresented. As we continue to grow as a movement, we must pay homage to our pioneers who established the foundation for us to build upon. We hope that our badge system will allow volunteers to learn more about our LGBTQ+ trailblazers and gain more of a comprehension about why the work we do matters.

 

Sylvia Rivera

A veteran of the Stonewall Uprising of 1969, Sylvia Rivera devoted her life fighting for the rights of trans people and fought back against the exclusion of trans rights as the gay rights movement gained more mainstream attention. Along with her friend Marsha P. Johnson, she co-founded Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries (STAR), a radical political collective that provided housing for homeless queer youth and sex workers. Both she and Johnson acted as mothers of the group, using funding they earned from sex work to keep their STAR family off the streets. She is also known for helping found the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance in the months following Stonewall. Today, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project upholds her legacy by advocating the importance of ending poverty, racism, and other issues LGBTQ+ people of color face.

 

Miss Major

Trans elder Miss Major has devoted more than 50 years to social justice for trans women of color. She led the uprising at Stonewall, survived Attica State Prison, and has served as the Executive Director of the Transgender Gender Variant Intersex Justice Project, an organization that provides support for incarcerated trans women. Even in retirement, she remains firmly invested in uplifting trans women of color, especially those who have experienced homelessness or incarceration as she has. As the mainstream LGBTQ+ rights movement has gained momentum, Miss Major has remained adamant that trans people should remain at the forefront of the movement despite growing backlash against the trans community. She is currently building the Griffin-Gracey Education Retreat and Historical Center, aka the House of GG, which will serve as an educational and historical center specifically for trans and gender-nonconforming people.

 

Marsha P. Johnson

Marsha “Pay it no mind” Johnson was a Stonewall veteran credited with instigating the uprising. Johnson, along with her friend Sylvia Rivera, co-founded Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries (STAR) which functioned as a shelter for homeless queer, trans, and gender non-conforming youth. She and Johnson provided food, clothing, and emotional support for their STAR family, acting as mothers for the household. Johnson was also a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front which advocated for sexual liberation of LGBTQ+ people as well as opposing intersecting inequalities imposed by racism, sexism, and heterosexism. Although eyewitness accounts vary, Johnson is often credit with throwing “the shot glass that was heard around the world.” The account goes that Johnson threw a shot glass at a mirror in the Stonewall Inn and shouted “I got my civil rights!” which supposedly resulted in instigation of the Stonewall Uprising. Regardless of whether this account is true, one cannot deny Marsha P. Johnson’s lasting legacy and contributions to the fight for LGBTQ+ social justice. Johnson devoted her time and energy after Stonewall to uplift trans people of color, particularly those that had gone through the same hardships she had lived through. 

 

Bayard Rustin

Although history tends to push his achievements to the confines of obscurity, Bayard Rustin made many contributions to social justice movements such as the Civil Rights Movement, the anti-war movement, and the gay rights movement. Rustin was a key adviser to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and organizer for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where Dr. MLK Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” to more than 250,000 people. He also helped organize Freedom Rides, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and later advocated for LGBTQ+ rights. Despite his many contributions to social justice, Rustin was often the subject of political scrutiny over his identity as a Black gay man with past communist affiliations. Today, his behind-the-scenes advisory and organizational skills are widely regarded for helping to spur the progression of the Civil Rights Movement and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

 

James Baldwin

Renowned novelist and essayist James Baldwin interwove narratives exploring racial, sexual, and class identities within his works. While growing up in Harlem, he developed a passion for writing that cultivated in him writing resounding classics like his collection of essays titled Notes of a Native Son, Go Tell It on the Mountain, and Giovanni’s Room. The latter tells the story of a man living in Paris navigating his sexuality despite societal expectations of masculinity. Published in 1956, it was met with backlash for its portrayals of same-gender erotic and romantic relationships during a time before the gay rights movement gained mainstream attention. Recently, his novel If Beale Street Could Talk was adapted into an Oscar-winning film.

  

Janet Mock

Writer, producer, director, and activist Janet Mock continues to break new ground with her artistry. She gained nationwide attention when she published her coming out story in a Marie Claire article in 2011. Since then, she’s worked at People magazine and Time Inc. In 2012, she founded #GirlsLikeMe on Twitter to empower trans women. Her 2014 memoir Redefining Realness about her coming-of-age story as a Black trans woman made her a New York Times bestseller. It was the first biography written by a trans person. Her follow-up memoir, Surpassing Certainty, has also become a bestseller since its release in 2017. In 2018, she made history again by becoming the first trans woman of color to write and direct an episode of television. Her directorial debut was for the groundbreaking television series Pose which showcases the 1980’s New York ballroom scene and features a cast composed predominantly of trans people of color.
 

Laverne Cox

Laverne Cox’s career as an actress, producer, and activist has paved the way for trans women of color in media and beyond. Before her groundbreaking role as Sophia Burset on Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black, she co-produced and co-hosted VH1’s TRANSform Me, the first openly trans woman to produce and star in her own television show. She rose to fame when Orange Is the New Black debuted in 2013 which takes place in a women’s prison and addresses the struggles imposed upon women of varying identities by the prison industrial complex. For her role as Sophia Burset, she became the first openly trans person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for acting. She eventually won a Daytime Emmy Award in Outstanding Special Class Special for executive producing Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word, making her the first openly trans woman to win such an award. In 2014, she donned the cover of Time magazine which featured an article titled “The Transgender Tipping Point” which made her the first openly trans person on the cover of Time. In 2017, she became the first openly trans person to play a trans series regular on CBS’s series Doubt. Laverne Cox is a trailblazer for the trans community and uses her platform in the entertainment industry to speak up for LGBTQ+ rights.

  

Stormé DeLarverie

Stonewall veteran Stormé DeLarverie worked as a singer with swing and jazz orchestras and as a drag king for the Jewel Box Revue, a touring drag cabaret. She is often credited with throwing the first punch which instigated the uprising at Stonewall. As police began rounding up patrons of the bar in the early hours of June 28, 1969, DeLarverie found herself in a scuffle with at least four cops. She fought against them for about ten minutes and was hit on the head by a baton causing her to bleed from her head. As the crowd looked on, she reportedly shouted, “Why don’t you guys do something?” before being shoved into the back of a paddy wagon. This spurred the onlookers into action as they began throwing coins, bottles, and bricks at police offers, eventually forcing the cops to barricade themselves in the Stonewall Inn. Eyewitness accounts vary as to whether DeLarverie was the butch lesbian who fought back against cops, but several accounts identify her as the person. After Stonewall, she worked as a bouncer for lesbian bars until she was 85. She was highly protective of her “baby girls” at the bars and was highly regarded as a superhero among her friends.

 

Audre Lorde

Self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” Audre Lorde incorporated narratives relating to racism, sexism, lesbianism, and classism into her work. She is credited with creating a new literary genre, “biomythography,” which combined elements of history, myth, and biography.  Her 1982 novel, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, paid homage to the women in her life while also addressing themes like racism, lesbianism, and McCarthyism. Lorde advocated that people, especially other Black lesbian women such as herself, lead multi-faceted lives interwoven with intersecting systems of oppression that cannot be addressed in a one-dimensional perspective. This concept would later be coined as “intersectionality” by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. Today, her collection of essays and other writings have become essential texts in Black studies, women’s studies, and queer theory.

Gilbert Baker

Gilbert Baker is the person who created the Rainbow Flag in 1978. After his military service, Baker channeled his efforts into working as a vexillographer (flag maker), creating anti-war and pro-gay banners for public protests and marches. The suggestion to create a new rallying symbol for the gay rights movement came from his friend Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the state of California. On June 25, 1978, Baker raised the first rainbow flags. The initial design featured 8 stripes; pink, red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, indigo, and purple. Each color represented sex, life, healing, sunlight, nature, magic/art, serenity, and spirit respectively, but the pink and turquoise stripes were later removed. Today, his rainbow flag design is still seen as a lasting symbol for the LGBTQ+ rights movement. 

 

Larry Kramer

Larry Kramer has used his platform as a playwright, author, and producer to advocate for HIV/AIDS awareness and LGBTQ+ rights. As the AIDS crisis came to light in the 1980’s, Kramer helped found the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) to help raise funds and provide medical services to people living with AIDS. He was eventually forced out of the GMHC because of his militant methods of addressing the government’s refusal to even mention the AIDS crisis. This inspired him to write The Normal Heart, a play set between 1981 and 1984 that focused on the emergence of the AIDS crisis in New York City from the perspective of a protagonist with similarities to Kramer’s experiences. The 2011 Broadway adaptation of The Normal Heart won multiple Tony Awards while the 2014 TV drama film adaptation won a Primetime Emmy Award. Kramer would also help found the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) which engaged in direct action protests and civil disobedience against the government and corporations for their lack of empathy for AIDS patients. ACT UP incorporated the tagline “Silence = Death” with the pink triangle used by the Nazis to brand gay men during the Holocaust to gain media attention and advocate for the necessity for direct action when the government failed to act. Larry Kramer’s activism and his body of work continue to resound within the LGBTQ+ community and are credited with helping bring greater attention to the worsening AIDS crisis.

 

Ray Hill

Houston-born activist Ray Hill devoted his energy advocating for gay rights and prison reform as well as fortifying the Houston LGBTQ+ community. Hill helped co-organize the Promethean Society, the first gay rights organization in Houston, and the first gay pride parade in June 1976. It was anti-gay activist Anita Bryant’s visit to Houston in 1977 that helped spark a rejuvenated gay rights movement in Houston. Hill and the Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus rallied some 6,000 to 12,000 protesters to disrupt Bryant’s visit. The following year, Hill and other organizers set up Town Hall Meeting 1 at the Astrodome where new Houston area LGBTQ+ organizations, like the Montrose Center, were founded. Ray Hill’s influence reached as high as the Supreme Court where he was involved in the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down sodomy laws in the U.S. in the Lawrence v. Texas case. He was also adamant about prison and law enforcement reform as LGBTQ+ people were routinely abused by both systems. His legacy continues to inspire new generations of activists not just in Houston but nationwide.

  

Charles Law

Charles Law was an integral figure in the Houston LGBTQ+ community. As the Houston LGBTQ+ rights movement gained momentum in the 1970’s, Law was at the forefront of change. In 1978, one year after the outpouring of protesters at Anita Bryant’s Houston visit, Law and several other leaders convened at Houston’s Town Meeting 1. As Co-Chair of the Executive Committee, Law helped establish 5 new LGBTQ+ organizations including the Montrose Counseling Center (now the Montrose Center). He also founded the Houston Committee, a Black gay men’s professional organization that was active during the late 1970’s. He gained national recognition when he delivered a powerful speech at the National March on Washington in 1979. In his speech, he challenged the growing LGBTQ+ movement to be about “integration, and not assimilation.” He feared that the LGBTQ+ rights movement would continue to prioritize the rights of privileged individuals who could easily assimilate into mainstream heterosexual society leaving marginalized LGBTQ+ people out of the equation. This would inherently create fractures within the LGBTQ+ rights movement where progress would be offered to a privileged few while the movement, which was spurred by the actions of LGBTQ+ people of color, as a whole would remain stagnant. To commemorate his contributions to the Houston LGBTQ+ community, the Law Harrington Senior Housing Center, which will function as the nation's 2nd largest LGBTQ-affirming housing center for low income seniors, will be named in his honor. 

 

Bill Scott

When the Montrose Center, then the Montrose Counseling Center, first opened in 1978, Bill Scott was named Clinic Administrator. He was another integral Houston LGBTQ+ activist who channeled his energy into fighting for visibility and social justice for LGBTQ+ people and people living HIV/AIDS. His contribution in the founding of the Montrose Counseling Center was inspired by the lack of accessibility to mental health services for LGBTQ+ people in Houston. The Montrose Center has continued to flourish since then for over 40 years. His long list of accomplishments continued in the following years. In 1985, he was appointed to Houston’s city task force on AIDS and in 1988 he was named Social Worker of the Year. In April 1991, then-Governor Ann Richards appointed Scott to the Texas Board of Health, making him the first openly gay man and openly HIV+ person to hold a position on the board. Later that year, he co-founded the Houston Institute for the Protection of Youth (HIPY) which offered assistance to homeless or runaway gay and HIV+ youth. Bill Scott received numerous awards, glowing recognition, and high praise throughout his life for his contributions to the LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS communities. His accomplishments inspired other HIV+ people to realize their self-worth and potential despite growing hostility and misconceptions aimed at people living with HIV/AIDS.  

 

Gloria Anzaldúa

Gloria E. Anzaldúa was a native Texan who received her B.A in English, Art from the University of Texas-Pan America and went on to get her M.A in English and Education at the University of Texas at Austin, is known by her poetry, writing and as a feminist theorist. Her identification as a queer Chicana has inspired her poems and essays to carry themes of “anger and isolation and the margins of collective identity”. Her book Borderland/La Frontera: The New Mestiza and essay “La Prieta” are considered to be her most groundbreaking contributions in the cultural, feminist, and queer theorist. Anzaldúa accomplishments include being awarded the Lambda Lesbian Small Book Press Award (1991), Lesbian Rights Award (1991), a Sappho Award of Distinction (1992), NEA fiction Award (1991), and the American Studies Association Lifetime Achievement Award (2001). Her career as an independent scholar, labor as contingent faculty, and contributions to scholarship on women of color and to queer theory has made her a prominent and beloved figure within the LGBTQ+ community.

 

José Esteban Muñoz

José E. Muñoz was an influential and respected scholar in the field of queer politics. His focus was on constructing theories that included queers of color and other identities which are often ignored by academia. Muñoz was unique in his work by drawing inspiration from his own adolescence experience as being a punk queer in a Cuban-American community. He became the voice for the invisible identities. Before passing away he was a professor and former chair of the department of performance Studies at the New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.  He has contributed many pieces to the scholars of academia but his most influential piece is the publication of Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Politics of Performance, which influenced and “revolutionized the discussion of how queer artists of color employ and manipulate their hybrid identities”.

 

Lena Waithe

Lena Waithe is a groundbreaking LGBTQ+ comedian, television writer and actress, most famous for her Emmy-winning writing on Netflix's Master of None. After growing up watching notable female comedians Susan Fales-Hill and Yvette Lee Bowser with her mother and grandmother in Chicago, Waithe became inspired to pursue comedy writing herself, particularly in television writing. Moving to Los Angeles in 2006, Waithe worked as Gina Prince-Bythewood's assistant on Love and Basketball before becoming a writer on Fox's Bones and Nickelodeon's How to Rock. Later in 2014, Waithe would earn a writer's position on Dear White People on Netflix, setting the stage for her work on Master of None. Waithe also co-stars in Master of None as Denise, a lesbian confidant to the show's main character Dev. In the show's second season, Waithe co-wrote "Thanksgiving", a coming of age story following the upbringing and eventual coming out of Denise. The episode would earn Waithe her first Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series, making her the first African-American woman to ever receive the award. During her acceptance speech, she gave a special shoutout to her LGBTQ+ family and thanked everyone for accepting a “little queer Black girl from the South Side of Chicago.” Since then, Waithe has developed the autobiographical drama Showtime series The Chi. Waithe is also a fervent activist in her community, serving as the co-chair of the Committee of Black Writers for the Writers Guild where she is working on recruiting more queer artists and people of color for her future film and television projects.

 

Harvey Milk

Harvey Milk became the first openly gay elected official in the United States political system after being elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. Born in New York in 1930, Milk served in the U.S. Navy for four years and taught high school in New York before moving to San Francisco, specifically Castro Street, in 1972. Milk first entered the political arena in 1973, initiating his first campaign for City Supervisor. Despite losing this election, Milk would later become the first openly gay commissioner in the U.S. after being appointed by Mayor George Moscone to San Francisco's Board of Permit Appeals. In 1977, San Francisco transitioned from city-wide elections to district specific elections, and Milk finally won the election for City Supervisor. Using this platform, Milk urged the city council to pass the Gay Rights Ordinance in 1978 which protects LGBTQ+ individuals from job discrimination and also promoted initiatives that would protect individuals from corporate abuse. Unfortunately, Milk's openness about his sexuality placed him in a particularly vulnerable position, and throughout his one year of service, he frequently received hate mail and death threats. In 1978, former police officer Dan White, a vocal opponent of Milk's policies, assassinated Milk as well as Mayor Moscone. Despite being found guilty for voluntary manslaughter, White was only sentenced to 7 years and 8 months in jail, leading to riots and demonstrations protesting his light sentence. While Milk only served in office for one year, his election remains a symbol of slow and painful progress toward equal representation in American politics. 

 

Kate Bornstein

Kate Bornstein is a prominent trans activist, identifying as non-binary. Bornstein is most famous for her scholarship and literary work, including Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us and My New Gender Workshop: A Step-by-Step Guide to Achieving World Peace Through Gender Anarchy and Sex Positivity. Her work is taught in over 300 schools around the world and in five different languages. Bornstein has also emerged into the acting scene, starring in the film Sunday Church, and she is also the subject of the 2014 documentary Kate Bornstein is a Queer and Pleasant Danger. Bornstein has been recognized by the New York City Council on two citations for her work on suicide-prevention and with at-risk youth. Currently, Bornstein is on the road on various lecture tours and is also working on completing her new book, Trans! Just for the Fun of It: Compassionate Gender Strategies for Divisive Times.

  

Alok Vaid-Menon

Alok Vaid-Menon is best known for their spoken word poetry and performance art, exploring themes of gender, sexuality and the South-Asian experience in the United States. Vaid-Menon describes growing up gender non-conforming and South-Asian in a primarily white and Evangelical town in Texas as extremely difficult and often times traumatizing. Vaid-Menon discovered poetry at the age of 13 as a means of release and coping with harassment. Vaid-Menon attended Stanford University, where they performed their poetry as a spoken art, and they now have performed at over 400 venues in 40 countries. Identifying as gender non-conforming, Vaid-Menon rejects the idea that there only exist two gender identities and is an active educator and activist for the social acceptance of all sexualities and gender identities. They released their first book of poems, Femme in Public, in 2017 and were recently the youngest recipient of the Live Works Performance Act Award, which is given annually to 10 performers around the world. 

 

Janelle Monáe

Janelle Monáe is an award-winning musician and actress. Born into a middle-class working family, Monáe distinguished herself as an artistically talented child in her early years, regularly performing in local musicals and in the choir at her church. Monáe received a scholarship to the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City, where she was the only African American female in her class, but ultimately dropped out because she felt creatively stifled. Monáe moved to Atlanta where she self-recorded music and promoted it around universities, but her breakthrough came when Big Boi, a member of the iconic hip hop duo Outkast, witnessed her performing and featured her on two tracks on their album Idlewild. Her 2007 debut EP, Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase) ¸introduced listeners to her alter-ego, Cindi Mayweather, an android who navigates a future society unaccommodating for her. She caught the attention of Sean "P-Diddy" Combs, who would go on to sign her to his record label Bad Boy Records. In the following years, Monáe released her second and third studio albums, The ArchAndroid (2010) and The Electric Lady (2013) which continued the ArchAndroid saga started with Metropolis: Suite I. In 2018, she released her most recent album, Dirty Computer, which would receive a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. That same year, Monáe came out as pansexual. Even before her coming out, she has on many occasions spoken against LGBTQ+ inequity in the entertainment industry. Monáe has also ventured into acting in more recent years, acting in critically-acclaimed and groundbreaking films such as Hidden Figures and Best Picture Oscar-winner Moonlight.