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Today, Mayor Annise Parker, President and CEO of the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, released the following statement regarding the passing of David Mixner, an LGBTQ+ civil rights activist and co-founder of the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund.
“Today we lost David Mixner, founder of the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund and our movement for equality.
At a time when our community faced widespread discrimination and an HIV/AIDS crisis ignored by the political class in Washington, D.C., David was a courageous, resilient, and unyielding force for social change. In 1987, David participated in his first HIV/AIDS protest outside President Reagan’s White House. There, police wore latex gloves because of stigma and misinformation about HIV/AIDS. He was arrested along with 64 others and made national headlines for being an outcast that could lead to harassment, violence, or worse. But David was undaunted.
Years later, after many protests, David and a group of fellow activists met to discuss solutions to government unresponsiveness to our causes, including the HIV/AIDS crisis. They decided that the lack of representation of LGBTQ+ people among elected leaders was the culprit, and that we needed to be in the halls of power to make real change. From that moment on, he made it his life’s work to transform our government.
In 1991, he joined other activists to start a new organization, the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, that supported only LGBTQ+ candidates. David co-chaired the founding board with Lynn Greer. As support for candidates grew, his vision of a representative government and democracy extended beyond elections and moved toward ensuring we were represented in political parties and presidential administrations. . He promoted the inclusion of gay people in Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign, becoming the first openly LGBTQ+ person to appear publicly in a presidential campaign, and was appointed to the campaign’s national executive committee. was requested to participate. After President Clinton won, David launched the Victory Presidential Appointments Program, urging the administration to appoint LGBTQ+ people to key political positions. That effort continues to this day.
David devoted his time, energy, and money to building a new political reality in America, and he had the foresight and dedication to see it through even in the most difficult of times. His legacy is the thousands of LGBTQ+ people who currently hold elected and appointed positions across the country, and tens of thousands more to come. David embodied a spirit of activism and resistance in everything he did, always with a sense of humor and a smile. He changed not only America, but the world.
We love David. And I’m grateful. ”
About the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund
The LGBTQ+ Victory Fund is committed to achieving and sustaining equality by increasing the number of LGBTQ+ elected officials at all levels of government and ensuring they reflect the diversity of the people they serve. Since 1991, Victory Fund has helped thousands of LGBTQ+ candidates win local, state, and federal elections.
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