First Person of Colour to Lead Largest LGBT+ Rights Group in US
June 27, 2019Civil rights lawyer Alphonso David has been chosen as the new head the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the largest LGBT+ rights group in the United States.
David has previously led New York state’s civil rights division and was an attorney at the LGBT+ advocacy group Lamba Legal. He will also be the first person of colour to lead HRC in its 40-year history.
“I became a civil rights lawyer defending LGBTQ people from discrimination, and over the last decade, I’ve worked to defend and protect the civil rights of millions of people across the state of New York,” he said.
“As the head of New York’s Office of Civil Rights, I helped lead the fight to win marriage equality in the Empire State; three years before the Supreme Court guaranteed that right to every American. We banned the abusive practice of ‘conversion therapy’ on minors, we protected transgender New Yorkers from discrimination, and enacted the nation’s most progressive policies to combat HIV and AIDS.”
Taking about his journey with his own sexual orientation he said: “Eventually, I came to understand I wasn’t just a Black man, an immigrant and a child of refugees. I was also gay.
“It took me years to get to the point where I felt that I could look myself in the mirror and see a friend, and see value.
“I told my father on the telephone I was gay, and he got very, very angry, disowned me, and said, ‘I wish you were never born.’ [It] took him years to get there.”
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