Editor’s note: This story is part of a weeklong project recognizing LGBTQ+ people who have shaped Washington ahead of the 50th anniversary of Seattle Pride. Keep an eye out for more in-depth coverage of these changemakers through June 30.
Fifty years ago, the first Seattle Gay Pride Week drew about 200 people. This June, an estimated 300,000 people are expected to attend the Seattle Pride Parade — a reflection of the tireless work of Seattle’s LGBTQ+ community in making our world more welcoming, inclusive and just.
Today, the Seattle area has a reputation as one of America’s most LGBTQ+ friendly communities. Seattle and Washington state have established themselves as leaders in protecting LGBTQ+ people, enshrining their rights to access health care, housing, employment and more over the decades.
Ahead of the 50th anniversary of Pride festivities in Seattle, The Seattle Times asked for nominations of LGBTQ+ changemakers who have left lasting impacts on our region.
Among the nearly 400 responses: social activists, legal scholars, health advocates, local politicians, business owners small and large; world-class athletes, pioneering artists, inquisitive writers; keystones in the community who beat back oppression and erasure daily.
Some changemakers work across multiple disciplines — shaping local housing policy by day and strutting at a ball by night — or across intersecting identities, such as serving LGBTQ+ residents facing immigration challenges. In the spotlight or behind the scenes, they have broken down barriers and dragged the mainstream toward justice and equality, even when it has been hard — or outright dangerous.
Some can measure their impact in Seattle across not just years but decades — successfully rebuffing an 1978 ballot measure that would have stripped away housing and employment rights for LGBTQ+ residents in Seattle; delivering vital medical care and meals to vulnerable people during the AIDS epidemic of the late ’80s and early ’90s; ushering in the legalization of same-sex marriage in Washington in 2012.
In one way or another, they’ve created homes and safe places here, allowing people to gather and learn and laugh and love and dream.
Below, we’ve highlighted 50 people who have made significant, enduring impacts on our region. They are smart, kind, honest, complex, resilient, unapologetic, proud.
— Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks
Jump to:
Joel Aguirre | Danni Askini | George Bakan | Marsha Botzer | Charlie Brydon | Margarethe Cammermeyer | Ray Corona | De Aunte Damper | Gabriel Foster | Aleksa Manila | Taffy Maene-Johnson | Kenny Joe McMullen | Jill Mullins | David Neth | Monserrat Padilla | Beth Reis | Jaelynn Scott | Charlene Strong
Advocacy and community organizing
Joel Aguirre
Joel Aguirre’s spirited voice is well-known within the region’s Latino LGBTQ+ community. It’s partially because of his weekly radio show, “Mucho Gusto,” which brings music and health news to local Spanish speakers, but also due to his years of activism among Seattle’s LGBTQ+ people of color. A co-founder of nonprofit Entre Hermanos, Aguirre, 59, moved to the area from Mexico in 1998 and has since devoted himself to helping people navigate HIV and AIDS prevention and treatment, and access other types of health care. He’s an entertainer at heart, finding joy in brightening stages with drag performances.
— Elise Takahama
Danni Askini
Danni Askini is a staunch defender of the rights of two-spirit, trans and gender-diverse people. The co-founder and executive director of the Seattle-based Gender Justice League, Askini played a key role in ensuring Apple Health, the state’s low-income Medicaid program, covers transition-related health care. They have also helped thwart anti-trans legislation and ballot measures, ban conversion therapy in Washington state, create mutual aid programs for survivors of gender-based violence, and launch Trans Pride Seattle. In 2016, Askini became the first openly trans candidate to run for office in Washington.
— Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks
George Bakan
George Bakan (1941-2020) knew what he was getting into when he took over the Seattle Gay News in 1982. As editor of an LGBTQ+ newspaper, Bakan was immediately on the front lines of the HIV and AIDS epidemic. Despite living most of his life closeted, the Seattle-born, lifelong Washington resident became a passionate advocate for LGBTQ+ rights in his later adulthood. Whether lobbying in Olympia, marching on Washington, D.C., or rallying in Seattle, he fought for AIDS research funding, anti-discrimination laws, workplace protections and marriage equality. A passionate editor to the end, he died at his desk in the newspaper’s Capitol Hill office on June 7, 2020, at age 78.
— Gregory Scruggs
Marsha Botzer
Marsha Botzer, 77, has been at the vanguard of LGBTQ+ (particularly transgender) rights for decades, but got her first dose of organizing with the labor movement, where she learned a lesson: “If it isn’t there, build it yourself.” In that spirit, she founded Ingersoll Gender Center in the late ’70s, trying to provide as many resources for the underserved trans community as possible: support networks, health care and political advocacy. Her awards and appointments are too numerous to list (from the ACLU to national co-chair of the Obama Pride Campaign) but her vision remains direct: “Let us live a human life. It’s pretty simple, actually. Everybody has wished for that.”
— Brendan Kiley
Charlie Brydon
Charlie Brydon (1939-2021) arrived in Seattle in 1974, and the city was never the same. He founded one of the city’s first gay organizations, the Dorian Group, which brought together gay and lesbian professionals for public luncheons, in part, to share experiences and ideas about how to make the city a better place for gay people. The group invited many local leaders to its luncheons, including Mayor Wes Uhlman who, at Brydon’s urging in 1977, declared Seattle’s first official Pride week. Brydon’s ability to create relationships later helped him aid in the defeat in 1978 of Initiative 13, which would have repealed ordinances prohibiting discrimination against gay and lesbian residents. In 1993, his work with Hands Off Washington helped repel a statewide campaign to restrict LGBTQ+ rights.
— Nicholas Deshais
Margarethe Cammermeyer
Col. Margarethe Cammermeyer, 82, was going to be a general. She’d worked hard, serving as an Army nurse during the Vietnam War. One security clearance question and four honest words derailed her plan. After saying, “I am a lesbian” in 1991, Cammermeyer was discharged. She appealed and was reinstated in 1994, becoming one of the few openly LGBTQ+ members of the military during the Clinton-era “don’t ask, don’t tell” period, a policy she vocally opposed. In 2011 at a ceremony by then-President Barack Obama revoking the policy, Cammermeyer recited the Pledge of Allegiance. “A situation occurred and I decided to take a stand, and the rest is history,” she says now.
— Nicholas Deshais
Ray Corona
The founder of Seattle Latinx Pride, Ray Corona, 32, has made it his mission to provide community for other LGBTQ+ undocumented Latinx people in Seattle. Originally from Mexico City, Corona moved with his family to Everett when he was 9. His experiences as a young, gay Mexican prompted him to found Somos Seattle, a Latinx LGBTQ+ organization which translates to “we are Seattle.” The DACA recipient also founded Culturally Travel, an organization that funds and hosts trips to Hispanic European and Latin American countries for other DACA recipients, who can only be authorized to leave and return to the U.S. for educational, humanitarian or work purposes.
For more on Ray Corona, click here.
— Lauren Girgis
De Aunte Damper
De Aunte Damper, 39, spent years searching for (and sharing) feelings of acceptance and affirmation. He looked specifically at the intersection of the Black and gay communities. Damper struggled to overcome addiction and adjust to living with HIV and now looks to empower others. He was the first person to serve as the NAACP’s LGBTQ+ chair and still sits as chair of the nonprofit’s state conference. He has worked with the nonprofit POCAAN (People of Color Against AIDS Network), launched the support group BROTHA, sits as vice president for the Therapy Fund Foundation, hosts Converge Media’s Black LGBTQ+ show “We Live in Color” and also works for Brothers United In Leadership Development and Vocal WA.
— Conrad Swanson
Gabriel Foster
Gabriel Foster, 44, is the co-founder and executive director of the Trans Justice Funding Project. Growing up queer, Black and trans in Federal Way in the mid- to late-’90s, he first found community at Lambert House, a Capitol Hill-based community center for LGBTQ+ youth, and purpose at the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization that advocates for peace and social justice. Foster has since made it his mission to uplift LGBTQ+ communities of color in the Seattle region and beyond. The Trans Justice Funding Project, a national philanthropic organization founded in 2012, has given nearly $12 million in direct, unrestricted funding to grassroots, trans justice centered organizations and groups.
— Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks
Aleksa Manila
Aleksa Manila, 49, is one of Seattle’s most popular drag queens. Crowned “Miss Gay Filipino” and “Miss Gay Seattle,” Manila has been recognized in the Seattle area for her work in the fields of LGBTQ+ Asian American activism, public health, harm reduction and voting accessibility. Manila founded Pride ASIA in 2012 to celebrate and empower Asian American and Pacific Islander members of the LGBTQ+ community. They have also emceed, hosted or performed at Seattle PrideFest and drag story times. In Manila’s daily life, they are a program manager at Public Health – Seattle & King County, focusing on HIV research and health disparities affecting marginalized communities.
— Lauren Girgis
Taffy Maene-Johnson
Taffy Maene-Johnson, 46, saw queer and trans Pacific Islanders move to the Pacific Northwest only to face discrimination and struggle to find safe work. She, too, had to search for her own community, so she eventually created one to serve others in the fa’afafine community, a Samoan gender identity that translates to “in the manner of a woman.” In 2009, Maene-Johnson founded and is now executive director of the United Territories of Pacific Islanders Alliance — Washington, or UTOPIA Washington. Today, the Kent-based nonprofit offers services for queer and trans Pacific Islanders in the region.
— Heidi Groover
Kenny Joe McMullen
When talking to people about Kenny Joe McMullen (1956-2021), you’ll hear a refrain: “There wasn’t a stray he wouldn’t take in.” Originally from Alabama, McMullen was a man of service with many organizations (Northwest Kidney Centers, SouthEast Seattle Senior Center, Mount Zion Baptist Church and especially the People of Color Against AIDS Network), but his great gift was person-to-person contact. An HIV street-outreach specialist (particularly among sex workers and drug users), a trusted point of contact for people coming out of prison and a prolific community connector, McMullen was a facilitator, a giver. “He could see you and love you for exactly who you were,” said longtime friend Marie Kidhe. “Even if you couldn’t see yourself.”
— Brendan Kiley
Jill Mullins
Jill Mullins, 46, didn’t go to Seattle’s first Dyke March in 1994. But when the “fun little radical Saturday afternoon” happened on June 29 this year — its 30th — it was largely thanks to her. A lawyer by trade who’s also involved in the Seattle Dyke Alliance and Seattle Lesbian Literature Meetup Book Club, Mullins said the march can be transcendent. “Being in this sea of queer women, of all shapes and colors and beliefs, for a moment is magical.” Still, it’s hard work. She’s helped organize the event since 2008. This year will be her last. It may be the last year for the march, too, if no one grabs the baton.
— Nicholas Deshais
David Neth
David Neth, 76, was the founding director of the Seattle Gay Community Center, which opened on Capitol Hill in 1974 to provide Seattle’s gay community with social services, including career and housing services, a 24-hour hotline, and food and clothing donations. It put out a newsletter that later became the LGBTQ+ newspaper of note the Seattle Gay News. The day after the center opened, Neth co-launched Seattle’s first Pride celebration on a shoestring budget. It drew about 200 attendees for six days of celebration. That first Pride set the stage for what is today a monthlong celebration that draws thousands of revelers. Neth has been a Seattle-area Realtor since 1978.
— Crystal Paul
Monserrat Padilla
Monserrat Padilla, 32, is an unapologetic advocate for the rights and dignity of immigrants and LGBTQ+ people. Growing up undocumented and trans, Padilla is intimately familiar with challenges her community faces, and has spent over 15 years cultivating spaces for grassroots power to flourish. Previously the co-executive director of the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network, Padilla helped bring hundreds of millions of dollars in economic relief, health care and legal aid to over 94,000 undocumented Washingtonians during the pandemic. She now serves as a program officer at the Satterberg Foundation and chairs the Washington Immigrant and Refugee Funders Collaborative.
— Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks
Beth Reis
Education stands at the forefront of Beth Reis’ work. As one of the founders of the Safe Schools Coalition, Reis, 72, worked to teach students about sexual orientation, gender expression and more. The Safe Schools Coalition greatly influenced schools in Washington and became a model for similar work around the country. She has also pushed for Washington schools to become more welcoming to LGBTQ+ students and to offer them support and resources that weren’t previously available. Reis also worked as a public health educator for Seattle and King County.
— Conrad Swanson
Jaelynn Scott
As executive director of the Lavender Rights Project, Jaelynn Scott, 48, is fighting to protect Black trans lives. The organization was first established in 2016 as a legal aid group to help low-income LGBTQ+ residents. Under Scott’s leadership, it has sharpened its mission to one explicitly protecting the health, housing and economic stability of Black trans people in Washington and beyond. The organization blends grassroots principles of mutual aid and direct support with political acumen to fight anti-trans and anti-Black policies and legislation. The nonprofit is set to start operating a new county-supported affordable housing development for Black, Indigenous and LGBTQ+ residents next year.
— Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks
Charlene Strong
When Charlene Strong’s partner, Kate Fleming, died in a flash flood in their home in 2006, Strong, 61, was consumed with anger. Anger over Fleming’s unexpected death and how little power and agency she had after the tragedy, due to their union not being lawfully recognized. So Strong got to work and was instrumental in the creation of the state’s domestic partnership law giving rights including hospital visitations to same-sex couples. Strong went on to defend marriage equality and domestic partnerships at the ballot box, served 10 years on the state’s Human Rights Commission, and met privately with then-President Barack Obama. Now, she’s married with two children, whose birth certificates have both their moms listed, which she calls her proudest moment.
For more on the fight for marriage equality in Washington, click here.
— Nicholas Deshais
Arts and Culture
Gary Atkins
The 100 years between 1893 and 1993 were science-fiction-level transformative for Seattle: politics, culture, economics, attitudes toward criminals and policing, you name it. “Gay Seattle: Stories of Exile and Belonging,” a hefty and immaculately researched history of that century, is not only required reading for understanding the evolution of LGBTQ+ life in Seattle, but for understanding the evolution of Seattle, period. Author Gary Atkins, 74, admits his 2003 book has gaps, particularly in race, class and trans issues. But with extensive interviews and archival spelunking, he has produced a foundational civic text that’s also a page-turning thriller, from legislative machinations to a fatal, daytime shootout between a vaudeville impresario and the chief of police.
— Brendan Kiley
Brandi Carlile
Ever since Washington’s in-demand Americana star Brandi Carlile, 43, got her “gay sequined boot” into the music industry’s top circles, she has worked to use her cultural capital for good. The 10-time Grammy winner has challenged country radio’s boys club, raised funds for numerous causes through her Looking Out Foundation and amplified other queer women and Black artists — often excluded from roots genres that originated in Black communities — to make her corner of Nashville a more inclusive place. Over the last two decades, Carlile’s visibility has served as crucial representation for a generation of fans in the same way Elton John, the Indigo Girls and Lilith Fair artists did for her.
— Michael Rietmulder
Dennis Coleman
Hired in 1981, just days after losing his church-music job after coming out as gay, conductor Dennis Coleman, 75, led the Seattle Men’s Chorus — and, starting in 2002, the Seattle Women’s Chorus — through years of remarkable change. What was a small community chorus became, on Coleman’s watch, a major Seattle arts presence and one of the world’s largest LGBTQ+-affiliated choruses. On Coleman’s insistence, the choir became one that reached out to everyone. After retiring from the choruses in 2016 — with the Seattle City Council and then-Mayor Ed Murray proclaiming a “Dennis Coleman Day” — Coleman is still making music, in the choir at Bellevue’s First Congregational Church.
— Moira Macdonald
Susan Finque
When Susan Finque, 66, co-founded Alice B. Theatre in 1985 with Eric Des O’del, she knew what she didn’t want: gay clichés, artistic mediocrity or the dreary realism of kitchen sink drama. “It was never about doing ‘gay plays’ or ‘straight plays’ with gay characters,” she said. “As queer people, our way of seeing the world, and thus making art, is different. And it is a gold mine, provided you know how to mine it.” Alice B. made a huge range of theater in a huge range of spaces (warehouses to Washington Hall) with intense focus on innovation and inclusivity, before its closure in 1997. Its legacy persists, from the talent it incubated (including Tony-winning designer David Zinn) to the point it proved: Audiences care about queer storytelling.
— Brendan Kiley
Pat Graney
Pat Graney, 68, a modern dance choreographer based in Seattle since 1979, has long created work that “challenged gender stereotypes and put dance with a lesbian sensibility on the map,” wrote Dance Magazine. The Pat Graney Company, incorporated in 1990, has toured worldwide, and its founder has received numerous honors, including multiple National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, a Bessie Award and a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. She is particularly known for “Keeping the Faith-The Prison Project,” an arts-based residency program (1992-2020) in which incarcerated women found identity through performance, video documentation and writing. Graney is still creating: Her new work, “Attic,” interrupted by the pandemic, will premiere next spring.
— Moira Macdonald
Patrick Haggerty
Patrick Haggerty (1944-2022), a self-described “loudmouth, queer, Marxist activist,” gained a new generation of listeners when record collectors plucked his band Lavender Country’s 1973 debut from history’s dustbin decades later. Widely considered the first recorded gay-themed country album, the self-titled album is now archived in the Country Music Hall of Fame. Haggerty’s act of protest and artistic expression in the conservative country music industry arrived at a time when being openly gay was physically dangerous. The delayed success seemed to make it even sweeter for the country-waltzing firecracker, who left an indelible mark on local music and politics.
— Michael Rietmulder
Kabby Mitchell III
The first Black company member with Pacific Northwest Ballet, Kabby Mitchell III (1956-2017) lived a remarkable life in dance. A proud gay man, he performed with PNB from 1979 to 1984, Nederlands Dans Theater and Dance Theatre of Harlem, among other companies. He was a choreographer, longtime faculty member at The Evergreen State College and mentor. He received the 2016 Cultural Ambassador award from the Seattle mayor’s office. His final project, the nonprofit Tacoma Urban Performing Arts Center, opened two months after his death in 2017. TUPAC continues Mitchell’s legacy and has welcomed nearly a thousand young local dancers since its opening, many from underserved communities.
— Moira Macdonald
Northwest Lesbian and Gay History Project
The Northwest Lesbian and Gay History Project focuses on collecting oral histories about LGBTQ+ life in the Seattle area. Founded in 1994 by Lisa Dady, Jody Doherty, Mikala Woodward and Angie McCarrell, the organization interviews LGBTQ+ elders; locates photographs and ephemera; and works with archives to preserve historical material publicly. Ruth Pettis, a longtime volunteer historian with the project, said the people interviewed “had persevered creatively through the years of discrimination and survived to cheer on the changes.” Their work resulted in a 2002 book, “Mosaic 1: Life Stories,” and a map of Seattle’s LGBTQ+ historical geography.
— Lauren Girgis
Riz Rollins
Black, gay, Christian and a luminous supernova of love, Riz Rollins, 70, is a leader without an organization, an exemplar without an apparatus. Whether he’s drifting over the airwaves of KEXP, spinning at an open-armed dance night or greeting people on the street, Rollins (who spent five young, closeted years in Bible college) radiates an affirming gospel, inviting people into their authenticity. “Nothing makes God sadder than self-denigration,” he said. “God doesn’t like you to puff yourself up and God does not like you tearing yourself down. You got to stop doing that ‘I’m-no-good.’ Because that’s the devil’s biggest lie: To make you feel like you’re not worth anything.”
— Brendan Kiley
Dan Savage
Dan Savage, 59, has been writing about sex for decades. He has been taking readers’ questions about sex toys, monogamy and politics since he started his column, “Savage Love,” for The Stranger in 1991. Now, that column is nationally syndicated and the self-proclaimed longest-running sex advice column in America. Savage has published seven books, hosts a weekly podcast, created a film festival to celebrate sex-positive short films and founded the It Gets Better Project with his husband, Terry Miller, to empower LGBTQ+ youth. In 2012, Savage helped coordinate 140 marriages for same-sex couples the day it was legalized in Seattle. Savage and Miller were among the couples married that day.
— Lauren Rosenblatt
dani tirrell
Movement-based artist dani tirrell, 50, has had an indelible impact on Seattle’s dance community. tirrell, who is now artistic director at the Central District Forum for Arts and Ideas, arrived on the scene in 2009 and has worked with Northwest Tap Connection, Seattle Theatre Group and the University of Washington. Over almost two decades, tirrell has forged a more unified dance scene across a city that has not always given support, resources or opportunities to Black artists. The creator of “Black Bois” and “Leviticus or Love and to walk amongst HUMANS,” tirrell prioritizes uplifting Black, brown, queer and trans artists.
— Lauren Girgis
Storme Webber
Tourists may leave an underground tour of Pioneer Square thinking they know something about early Seattle history, but for a truly deep dive they should consult the work of two-spirit Sugpiaq/Black/Choctaw interdisciplinary artist and poet Storme Webber, 64. Her 2017 exhibition “Casino: A Palimpsest” at the Frye Art Museum unearthed the story of Pioneer Square’s Casino, one of the oldest gay bars on the West Coast until it closed in the ’60s, where Webber’s family once took refuge. Later that year, she began a quilting circle at Washington Hall that made squares recounting local African American history. The resulting quilt was recently donated to the Douglass-Truth Branch of the Seattle Public Library.
— Gregory Scruggs
Business
Louise Chernin
Louise Chernin has spent her career making sure people in the LGBTQ+ community have a seat at the table. Chernin, 78, began working with the Greater Seattle Business Association in the 1990s, taking over as president and CEO in 2002, a role she held until retiring in 2020. After years of Chernin’s leadership, the association became the largest LGBTQ+ chamber on the continent. She cultivated the association’s Scholarship & Education Fund, which has issued more than $5 million to LGBTQ+ and allied students. Chernin also serves on the board of Outright International and as a trustee for Seattle Colleges board of trustees.
— Conrad Swanson
Laura Clise
Spend like it matters. That mantra has guided Laura Clise, 45, ever since she started the small business index Intentionalist in 2018. Initially covering the Seattle area, Intentionalist allows users to easily search for restaurants, bars, gyms and shops owned by LGBTQ+ people, women, veterans, people of color and people with disabilities. Today the website includes entries for thousands of businesses across 35 states, plus London, Paris and Vancouver, B.C. Clise came out in high school at Lakeside, where she started an LGBTQ+ student group in 1997. In 2021, the Greater Seattle Business Association named her business leader of the year.
— Gregory Scruggs
Martha Manning and Shelley Brothers
As longtime co-owners of Wildrose, Seattle’s pioneering lesbian bar, Martha Manning and Shelley Brothers have worked to keep the 40-year-old institution true to its roots while also changing with the times. Since becoming owners of the Capitol Hill bar — Manning in 2000 and Brothers in 2002 — the duo has helped the Wildrose survive as one of just a few dozen lesbian bars left around the U.S. “There’s always going to be a need for a place where people can get together and feel safe, and that’s what we try to offer,” Brothers said in 2014 ahead of the bar’s 30th anniversary.
— Paul Roberts
Marcus Wilson
When Marcus Wilson, 51, arrived in Seattle in 1996, most gay bars were bland establishments that mimicked straight bars — think beer signs rather than posters of nude men. Wilson shook up a staid nightlife scene with avant-garde drag performances and eclectic DJ nights. In 2007, he opened Pony, a self-described “very gay bar” on Capitol Hill. Pony eschews gay bar stereotypes of voluptuous drag queens lip syncing to divas like Cher and Madonna in favor of wider-ranging music tastes like punk, new wave, synth-pop and electro. Wilson stepped away from Pony in 2015 but continues to make collage art, play in his dark disco band Ononos and perform as his drag personae Ursula Android (semiretired) and Connie Merlot.
For more on Marcus Wilson, click here.
— Gregory Scruggs
Health
Bailey-Boushay House
Bailey-Boushay House in Seattle became the first facility in the country to offer end-of-life care to people with HIV and AIDS in 1992. It helped start the first HIV outpatient program in the region and still runs a long-term nursing facility, homeless shelter and programs that offer counseling sessions, medication assistance and meals. Bailey-Boushay, named for community organizer Thatcher Bailey and his partner, Frank Boushay, who died from AIDS in 1989, now cares for anyone with a complex health condition. Because medical treatments now allow people with HIV to live with the virus, Bailey-Boushay leaders this year are excited to, for the first time, develop aging-related programs for those living with HIV.
— Elise Takahama
Chicken Soup Brigade
Chicken Soup Brigade, founded in 1983 by Tim Burak, emerged as a community network to support those who were gravely ill from AIDS by helping with day-to-day tasks — eventually growing into an organization of hundreds of volunteers and becoming a haven for those with HIV. Under the leadership of longtime Executive Director Carol Sterling, volunteers took people to medical appointments, brought food, cleaned apartments and more. The organization has since merged with Northwest AIDS Foundation and Evergreen Wellness Advocates to create Lifelong, and still provides meals, groceries and nutrition education to those with serious illnesses.
— Elise Takahama
Karen Fredriksen Goldsen
Experiences in the 1980s prompted Karen Fredriksen Goldsen, 67, to reckon with the lack of support and need for policy change for aging and midlife LGBTQ+ people. The death of her partner and the AIDS epidemic, in part, led the UW social work professor to develop Aging with Pride, the first national study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, to examine LGBTQ+ aging. She also conducted the first Washington study of aging among LGBTQ+ and gender-diverse people. Fredriksen Goldsen’s scholarship has focused on health inequities among LGBTQ+ people, including older adults with Alzheimer’s and HIV. She is the director of UW’s Goldsen Institute.
— Lauren Girgis
Bill Hall
Bill Hall, 71, has outlived four of his HIV and AIDS support groups. A Tlingit elder from Southeast Alaska, Hall moved to Seattle shortly after testing positive and has spent the last 40 years trying to reduce stigma and shame around the virus, particularly within Native communities. His local and national work has spanned organizations like the Seattle Indian Health Board, Urban Indian Health Institute, National Minority AIDS Council, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and other equity-in-research programs. The HIV epidemic is not over, Hall tells younger generations. They fill him with hope.
— Elise Takahama
Mattie Mooney
Mattie Mooney, 39, is a longtime champion of equitable health care and housing access for trans people of color across Washington. One of the architects of the state’s Gender-Affirming Treatment Act in 2021, Mooney is now the senior program coordinator for transgender health at Swedish, helping people navigate their care options and connect with other local LGBTQ+ groups. Mooney is also a co-founder of Trans Women of Color Solidarity Network, a Washington-based organization that seeks to provide financial support and transitional housing to trans women of color, and co-founder of Taking Black Pride, one of the nation’s longest-running trans-centered Pride events for Black and brown people.
— Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks
Bob Wood
Dr. Bob Wood, 81, remembers many of his patients from the early 1980s. He was one of the first physicians in Seattle to treat people with AIDS, devoting more than 25 years to battling a disease that has infected tens of millions of people, including himself, and killed tens of millions more. As Public Health – Seattle & King County’s HIV and AIDS program director until 2010, Wood was pivotal in pushing widespread testing and treatment efforts, safer sex campaigns and needle exchange programs. To this day, he volunteers with efforts to fight for the rights of terminally ill patients to end their lives. He understands the desire to die with dignity.
— Elise Takahama
Politics and public service
Cal Anderson
Before Cal Anderson (1948-1995) went to Olympia, he went to Vietnam. Out of fear he would be outed for admitting to “homosexual tendencies,” he lied to the Army about his sexual orientation. But by the time he was elected to the state House of Representatives in 1987, he was out and proud, becoming Washington’s first openly gay state legislator. His constituents sent him back to the Capitol repeatedly. In February 1995, he revealed he was being treated for AIDS-related cancer. He died that August. His legacy is commemorated by a Capitol Hill park, and in an LGBTQ+ civil rights bill he introduced 18 times that eventually passed in 2006.
For more about Cal Anderson’s legacy to Washington state, click here.
— Nicholas Deshais
Cheryl Chow
A lifelong educator and civic leader, Cheryl Chow (1946-2013) spent her life as an advocate for kids and families. She worked to create safe spaces in a variety of positions: as principal of Garfield and Franklin high schools; Seattle City Council member; Seattle School Board president; and longtime coach of girls basketball and the Seattle Chinese Community Girls Drill Team. Just months before her death from cancer at 66, she publicly came out as gay, saying, “If I can save one child from feeling bad or even committing suicide because they felt terrible because they were gay, then I would have succeeded in my last crusade.”
— Moira Macdonald
Marko Liias
State Sen. Marko Liias, 42, is one of seven openly gay legislators who form the Washington State Democrats’ LGBTQ Caucus, which he co-chairs. He has led legislative efforts to protect LGBTQ+ youth and communities. Liias represents southwest Snohomish County, including parts of Everett, Edmonds, Lynnwood and Mukilteo. Since 2008, he won reelection three times to the state House of Representatives and is currently serving his third term in the Senate. He has championed bills that increase access to HIV medication, ban the scientifically discredited practice of “conversion therapy,” and require schools to protect transgender students from bullying. Liias helped pass 2021 legislation prohibiting health insurers from limiting coverage for gender-affirming treatment.
— Dominic Gates
Anne Levinson
As one of Washington’s first openly LGBTQ+ public officials, Anne Levinson, 66, has been at the forefront of many of the state’s gay-rights movements. She began her public-service career in then–Seattle Mayor Charles Royer’s office in the 1980s. She later served as deputy mayor in former Mayor Norm Rice’s administration and helped direct the city’s response to the AIDS crisis. In 2008, Levinson was one of four women who purchased the WNBA’s Seattle Storm franchise. A former Seattle judge, Levinson has founded, chaired and coordinated organizations and campaigns for LGBTQ+ rights, including the 2012 campaign to legalize same-sex marriage in Washington. After voters approved the measure, she organized marriage license events and ceremonies.
For more on the fight for marriage equality in Washington, click here.
— Paige Cornwell
Zachary Pullin
Advocating for — and achieving — better inclusivity and visibility rank high among Zachary Pullin’s achievements. Pullin, 38, served as the first out LGBTQ+ and Native American president of the Seattle School Board. He belongs to the Chippewa Cree Tribe. During his tenure, the board added an LGBTQ+ curriculum, required new buildings to include multistall, gender-neutral restrooms and created a trans- and gender-expansive students rights policy. He pushed for LGBTQ+ rights as a commissioner for the Seattle Housing Authority, and now works toward an inclusive environmental movement at Washington Conservation Action.
— Conrad Swanson
Mary Yu
Mary Yu, 67, has spent her career bringing families together. The Washington Supreme Court justice is the first Asian, first Latina and first LGBTQ+ person on the court and is known for presiding over thousands of same-sex marriages and adoptions over two decades. Yu, a lesbian originally from Chicago’s South Side, moved to Seattle in the 1980s and worked for the King County prosecutor and in the county’s criminal and civil divisions. She was appointed a King County Superior Court judge in 2000 and to the state Supreme Court in 2014. Yu is known for her warmth and empathy and as a mentor to many others in the field.
For more on Mary Yu, click here.
— Conrad Swanson
Sports
Sue Bird
Sue Bird, 43, who spent 21 years with the Storm, is one of the greatest players in basketball history. Days before the 2017 WNBA All-Star Game in Seattle, she stunned the sports world, announcing: “I’m gay and I’m dating Megan Rapinoe.” Later, she told The Seattle Times: “There’s a misconception that if you’re not coming out publicly, then you must be struggling. And that wasn’t the case.” Since retiring from the WNBA in 2022 as the league’s all-time assists leader, Bird co-founded Togethxr, a media company to showcase women’s sports, launched the production company A Touch More with fiancée Rapinoe and became a minority investor in the National Women’s Soccer League’s club NJ/NY Gotham FC. In April, Bird joined the Storm’s ownership group. She and Rapinoe were named grand marshals for the Seattle Pride Parade on June 30.
— Percy Allen
David Kopay
The All-American running back who led the Washington Huskies to the 1964 Rose Bowl broke barriers in 1975 — three years after his nine-year NFL career — when he became the first U.S. professional team athlete to come out as gay. Admittedly, David Kopay, 81, had no interest in advocacy at the time. In his autobiography, he talks about his hopes of coaching after retirement and believes coming out blackballed him from the sport and strained his relationship with his parents and siblings. Kopay has spoken publicly the past several years for LGBTQ+ rights. “It took me a long time, too long, to accept myself as I really was,” Kopay said in a 2008 interview.
— Percy Allen
Megan Rapinoe
Soccer icon Megan Rapinoe, 38, has been a trailblazer and outspoken LGBTQ+ advocate since coming out in 2012, just prior to leading Team USA to a gold medal in the London Olympic Games. Rapinoe retired in 2023, ending her brilliant 14-year playing career, which included 10 seasons with the Reign. Rapinoe has helped raise awareness on myriad issues. She was among the first athletes to join former NFL player Colin Kaepernick’s protest against police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem. Rapinoe publicly feuded with then–President Donald Trump when she fought for pay equity for the U.S. Women’s National Team. In 2022, Rapinoe became the first soccer player to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Along with her fiancée, Sue Bird, Rapinoe was named a grand marshal of the Seattle Pride Parade on June 30.
— Percy Allen
Storm ownership group
With the Storm set to head out of town with the Sonics in 2008, four fans stepped up and saved the club. Lisa Brummel, a senior vice president of human resources at Microsoft, knew Dawn Trudeau, a former Microsoft executive, during their days at the tech giant. They partnered with former Seattle Deputy Mayor Anne Levinson. Trudeau and Ginny Gilder, an Olympic silver medalist in rowing and an investment CEO, worked together on nonprofit boards. The quartet came together to purchase the Storm for $10 million on Jan. 8, 2008. From the start, the Storm found a home in the LGBTQ+ community and vice versa.
— Percy Allen
