Champions of Pride

alabama

Kimberly McKeand helped topple Alabama’s same-sex marriage ban as a plaintiff in the state’s landmark 2015 ruling. Now, the activist is fighting to pass a nondiscrimination ordinance in Mobile and helping young people access HIV care at AIDS Alabama South. “It’s never been about inspiring others, because I’m doing what feels right in my soul.” —Daniel Reynolds

In Montgomery, Ala., Jose Vazquez feels like he’s “taken a master class from organizers that have been doing the work since the 1950s.” The young queer man is digital marketing manager at the Equal Justice Initiative, which works for racial justice and against mass incarceration. He is also president of the local LGBTQ rights group Montgomery Pride United.—Trudy Ring

alaska

Julie Schmidt (right) is the director of SAGE, a program for seniors at Identity, Inc., the Gay and Lesbian Center of Anchorage. Schmidt and her wife Gayle Schuh (left) were the plaintiffs behind a 2014 decision that ruled that the had state acted unconstitutionally by refusing to grant same-sex couples a special property tax exemption afforded senior citizens and disabled veterans living with their spouse in their home. She’s now inspiring the next generation with her activism. —David Artavia

“I take great pride in being an indigenous queer person,” says Will Kusiq Bean, who identifies as gay, nonbinary, and indigiqueer. Bean works for economic, environmental, and gender justice as a community organizer at Native Movement. Bean cofounded Aurora Pride, a private Facebook group for LGBTQ and two-spirit indigenous youth, among many other activist efforts. —TR

arizona

Karla Bautista, a transgender woman and descendent of the indigenous Cakchiquel women who survived the U.S.-backed Guatemalan genocide in the 1970s and ’80s, immigrated to the U.S. to escape rampant transphobic and homophobic violence. Today, she is a prominent advocate and activist, and is the liberation coordinator at Trans Queer Pueblo, where she organizes to free LGBTQ migrants from ICE detention. Bautista says she draws inspiration and power from her Cakchiquel ancestors’ resistance. —Desirée Guererro

Democratic State Representative Andrés Cano, 28, Arizona’s youngest LGBTQ lawmaker, recently made headlines when he called for his Republican colleague Anthony Kern to resign after the latter made offensive remarks about queer rights. “If Representative Kern is openly willing to suggest that LGBTQ rights are harmful to our state’s progress, then he is out of touch with Arizona’s business community, our civil rights leaders, and all Arizonans who seek equity and inclusion, rather than division, from our state lawmakers,” Cano stated.—DG

arkansas

Allen Thomas says he seeks “to do and be better.” He is academic director at one of the University of Central Arkansas’s residential colleges and advises UCA’s PRISM Alliance, a group for LGBTQ students, faculty, staff, and alumni. He’s also a board member at Lucie’s Place, which serves homeless LGBTQ youth. As a Black queer man, he adds, he sees beauty in intersections.—TR

William Campillo Terrazas is the co-founder of Latinx Revolucion LGBTQ in Arkansas, a queer- and trans-led, community-based organization in Little Rock focusing on the health and well-being of Latinx immigrants. The Mexicanborn Terrazas is currently attending the University of Texas at El Paso School of Pharmacy’s doctoral program.—DA

california

Political consultant Jasmyne Cannick, 42, was elected in March to the Democratic Party’s Los Angeles County Central Committee. This was after Cannick was credited with applying the public pressure needed to finally bring Ed Buck—who faces trial for his part in the drug-related deaths of two Black men at his home—to justice. “I’m looking forward to finishing my book…and of course seeing Ed Buck sent to prison for the rest of his life,” says the lesbian activist. —Neal Broverman

When Ditchi Manley and her wife Claire moved to Riverside County from San Diego’s Hillside gayborhood to accommodate their growing family, they noticed one thing lacking from their new suburban surroundings—any hint of an LGBTQ community. So, the already-busy Chinese-American mother of six (two adopted sets of three siblings) founded the first LGBTQ Center of Riverside County in the heavily rightwing Inland Empire.—DG

colorado

Colorado made history in February when it hired —the state’s first official curator of LGBTQ history, a two-year position funded in partnership with the Gill Foundation. “As a historian, I feel a responsibility to find and preserve the stories of all members of the LGBTQ+ community and make those stories—the successes, the failures, and everything in between—available for everyone to learn from,” he