22/05/2022
Tributes have been pouring in to Urvashi Vaid, who has passed on to the realm of LGBTQIA+ ancestors at the age of sixty four. Ms Vaid’s achievements, noted the newswire LGBTQ Nation, were considerable, and included working for Boston’s “Gay Community News” paper in the seventies, the HIV and AIDS project of the American Civil Liberties Union and three years as the Executive Director of the National Lesbian and Gay Taskforce. In 2012, she founded LPAC, the first lesbian political action committee that donated millions of dollars to candidates who promote social justice through legislation. She was the author of numerous reports and books. Doctor Warren J Blumenfeld, who worked with Urvashi Vaid in the seventies, said that she maintained a vision of LGBTQIA+ liberation that went beyond the reformist aims of many centrist gay groups, such as campaigning for marriage equality. “We were, instead”, he remarked “calling for a restructuring of society by demolishing the patriarchal white supremacist systems that marginalized so many and privileged so few”. In a statement, the US LGBTQ+ Taskforce, said that Ms Vaid also campaigned on women’s rights, immigration justice and anti-war organising. Kierra Johnson, current Executive Director of the National LGBTQ Task Force said , “She was also a beloved colleague, friend, partner and someone we all looked up to – a brilliant, outspoken and deeply committed activist who wanted full justice and equality for all people.” Vaid was the aunt of activist and performance artist Alok Vaid-Menon. She is survived by Alok Vaid-Menon as well as her longtime partner, political humorist Kate Clinton.
