PHILADELPHIA—Equality Forum, an international GLBT civil rights organization, is coordinating the launch of GLBT History Month. Thirty-one Leaders will be honored during October with a video, biography, and bibliography celebrating their achievements. GLBT History Month is modeled after Black and Women's History Months.

"We want people not only to celebrate Walt Whitman, Elton John, and Ellen DeGeneres but to learn about Alan Turing, who broke the German Enigma Code and helped the Allies win World War II; Lupe Valdez, the first Latina and lesbian Sheriff of Dallas County, TX; and Bayard Rustin, an African American colleague of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who organized the 1963 demonstration at the Lincoln Memorial," stated Malcolm Lazin, Executive Director of Equality Forum.

Leaders were nominated by executive directors of statewide, national, and international GLBT organizations. The criteria for nominees are: national or international GLBT persons, living or deceased, distinguished within their field of endeavor, as national heroes, or in the GLBT civil rights movement. The nominees were selected by GLBT History Month Co-Chairs Rev. Nancy Wilson, international Moderator of the Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC) and Professor Kenji Yoshino, Yale Law School.

Equality Forum has produced for each Leader a video which will be streamed daily on the four largest gay web portals and broadcast on the two largest gay television channels. Equality Forum has created a Web site (www.glbtHistoryMonth.com) with Leader videos, bios, bibliography, and other educational resources.

Leaders are:

James Baldwin
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Volker Beck
John Boswell
Ellen DeGeneres
Barney Frank
David Geffen
Tim Gill
Barbara Gittings
Keith Haring
James Hormel
Elton John
Barbara Jordan
Father Mychal Judge
James Kolbe
Larry Kramer
Leonard Matlovich
Ian McKellen
Harvey Milk
Martina Navratilova
Adrienne Rich
Sylvia Rivera
Bayard Rustin
Lowell Selvin
Andrew Sullivan
Sheryl Swoopes
Alan Turing
Lupe Valdez
Walt Whitman
Oscar Wilde
Phill Wilson

ABOUT EQUALITY FORUM

Equality Forum is a non-profit 501(c)(3) national and international GLBT civil rights organization. Equality Forum (www.equalityforum.com) undertakes high impact initiatives, produces documentary films, highlights gay history and presents annually the largest national and international GLBT civil rights forum.