Stonewall 50 Community Forum

This year, Boston Pride’s annual public policy forum will take the form of an open Community Forum celebrating the history and legacy of the Stonewall Uprising of 1969. Keynote speakers, providing their reflections on the monumental event that shaped the LGBTQ equality movement, include Raffi Freedman-Gurspan, a former White House Aide in the Obama administration and currently the Director of External Relations for the National Center for Transgender Equality, and Amy Hoffman, Author of An Army of Ex-Lovers: My Life at the Gay Community News and veteran of the early LGBTQ rights movement in Boston. The keynotes will be followed by a panel discussion featuring 2019 Boston Pride Grand Marshal Dale Mitchell, who is a veteran of the Stonewall Riots; Gary Daffin, who has, for close to three decades, co-chaired the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, the group which originated the LGB civil rights bills in the Commonwealth in the 1970s; and Elijah Oyenuga, Senior Peer Leader at Boston GLASS, who will offer an LGBTQ youth point of view. The panel will be moderated by Sue O’Connell, host of The Take on necn and longtime co-publisher of Bay Windows.

The Community Forum program will pose questions for keynoters, panelists, and observers, focused on personal understandings of the events of 50 years ago: How has life changed for LGBTQ people since 1969? How do you place Stonewall in the context of the times? What are the goals we should pursue as a continuing movement? •