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Meet some of the incredible individuals who helped break down boundaries, demanded equal rights and changed policies and laws in order to make sure everyone gets the care and treatment they deserve.
Marsha P. Johnson
It seems particularly appropriate during these times to kick it off with one of the strongest Black voices from the LGBTQ community: Marsha P. Johnson.
Marsha P. Johnson, a Black trans woman, is credited with starting the Stonewall Riots in 1969 as an uprising against police raids that terrorized gatherings of the LGBTQ community across the United States. These uprisings ignited organized protests which eventually became the Gay Rights Movement and the Pride marches we know today. Marsha went on to be a powerful voice for the queer community and did invaluable organizing work with ACT UP, (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), an international grassroots political group dedicated to helping people who live with AIDS through medical research, treatment, advocacy and policy change. Without direct action and advocacy from people like Johnson during the AIDS crisis, Carbon Health may not be able to offer life-saving treatments, such as PrEP, like we do today.
Storme DeLarverie
Storme DeLarverie, an early leader in the Gay Rights Movement, was a well-known butch lesbian singer, drag performer, and protector of the queer community. She claimed to have thrown the first punch at the Stonewall Inn on the infamous night in 1969. Police attempted to arrest Storme, hitting her on the head with a baton. With her wound still bleeding, she yelled into the gathering crowd “Why don’t you guys do something?” at which point the crowd turned into a mob and went “berserk.” The Gay Rights Movement had begun.
As a child, DeLarverie faced bullying and harassment for being mixed race. Before the movement, she was already a pioneer for LGBT rights as the MC (and only drag king) of the Jewel Box Revue, North America’s first racially integrated drag revue. She was a prominent figure in the queer community and worked as a bouncer, patrolling the streets of downtown Manhattan checking in on lesbian bars to make sure there was no “ugliness.” She was dedicated to organizing in service to battered women and children, saying the care she received from people around her and her Black mother growing up, inspired her loyalty to the cause. Storme is remembered as “The Rosa Parks of the Gay Community.”
“She literally walked the streets of downtown Manhattan like a gay superhero,” a friend of hers once said. “She was not to be messed with by any stretch of the imagination.”
Dr. Alan L. Hart
Dr. Alan L. Hart was an American physician, radiologist, and tuberculosis researcher. He used x-rays to detect tuberculosis and helped develop screening protocols for TB, which saved thousands of lives. He was a writer and his short stories and novels exposed bribery in the medical profession in the early 20th century.
Dr. Hart was also the first documented transgendered man to have a hysterectomy in the United States. When he obtained his medical degree from Oregon University, the institution refused to use his preferred name. He was finally able to legally change his name and work and live as Dr. Alan Hart for the remainder of his life. Dr. Hart spent his later years lecturing and raising funds for tuberculosis research and in support of patients with advanced TB.
Phill Wilson
Phill Wilson’s career in activism started when he and his partner, Chris Brownlie, were both diagnosed with HIV in the early 1980s. After Brownlie died from complications from the disease, Wilson took action. As the epidemic spread across the United States, he saw how it was affecting Black populations at a more rapid rate and went on to establish the Black AIDS Institute in 1999. In 2010, he was appointed to President Obama’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, becoming the co-chair of the disparities subcommittee.
Kious Kelly
“Can’t talk because I choke and can’t breathe. I love you. Going back to sleep.” — Kious Kelly’s last text to his sister before passing away from COVID-19
Like many nurses on the frontlines of COVID-19 pandemic, Kious Kelly wanted to make sure he was doing everything he could for his patients. Sadly his own life was cut short at age 48 by the very thing he was helping to fight.
Once an aspiring dancer, Kelly moved to New York from Michigan in the mid-90s and graduated from New York University’s nursing program in 2012. His death shed light on the shortage of protective gear in hospitals across the country.
In a statement from a former colleague, he was described as “a compassionate colleague, friend, and selfless caregiver…Today, we lost another hero.”
Dr. Sara Josephine Baker
Dr. Sara Josephine Baker was the first director of New York’s Bureau of Child Hygiene and an instrumental force in pediatric health in the United States. A lesbian and feminist, Baker was also a suffragist and a member of the Heterodoxy Club, where she was known as “Dr Joe.” To succeed in the male-dominated world of public health administration, she minimized her femininity by wearing masculine-tailored suits to blend in.
Dr. Baker is most known for her contributions to public health and helping immigrant communities. She spent much of her career focused on preventive health measures and diseases in urban areas and is known for tracking down Mary ‘Typhoid Mary’ Mallon, twice.
Carter Brown
Carter Brown is the founder of Black Transmen, Inc., the first national nonprofit organization founded for the empowerment, advocacy, and equality for Black trans men.
Brown was inspired to start his organization when he realized it was hard to find the support and information he needed. With his organization, Brown hopes to diminish “stereotypes by exposing the world to another face of the Black man.”
Brown recently testified before the U.S. Congress in support of the Equality Act, an amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include protections for transgender people.
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