2023 LGBTQ+ Power Players

Julie Fink is the managing partner at Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP. Julie leads an active commercial and public interest litigation practice and oversees all aspects of the firm’s management, growth, and strategic planning. As one of the youngest managing (and named) partners at a major law firm, Julie has been recognized for her “revolutionary” approach to firm operations, her strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, and her sizable contributions to the firm’s litigation practice.

Arthur Fitting, BSN, RN and LGBTQ+ program manager at home and community health nonprofit VNS Health, has dedicated his extensive career to addressing health care disparities within the LGBTQ+ community. Entering the community health field as a frontline nurse in NYC during the AIDS crisis, Arthur has remained committed to improving health care access and quality for all by promoting compassionate, patient-centered care through deeper integration of culturally sensitive practices in home health care.

Which LGBTQ+ icons do you look up to?
During the start of HIV/AIDS, many of us felt voiceless, but the bravery of Larry Kramer and ACT UP were the voices I needed to hear. They instilled momentous changes to the health care system that still stand today. Another hero for me is Marsha P. Johnson, for bringing public recognition to queer liberation, and ensuring Trans voices were part of the movement. Their courage gave me my voice, and the strength to be courageous too.

What actions do you hope to see the government taking to support the LGBTQ+ community?
One action I would like to see taken, is for the government to ensure that all of us are guaranteed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and that new laws cannot be passed that impede those basic rights. Within health care, I would like to see all levels of government work together more closely to create better pathways for LGBTQ+ people to have greater autonomy and control over their own healthcare and to be counted.

What do you wish people outside of the community knew about the LGBTQ+ community?
I would encourage people who identify as straight to try to imagine what it is like to be asked to not be your authentic self. If someone told you that you couldn’t “act” straight, what changes in your life would you have to make to carry on your life? Because when you must start making those changes and move away from your true self, that impacts all aspects of well-being, including health.

Can you recommend any top book, film, or TV shows that represent the LGBTQ+ experience?
These days, too often I find myself buried in medical and health journals reading about the latest developments in LGBTQ health! However, there are so many great accessible entry points for LGBTQ culture in books, music, film, and more. I’d be remiss if I didn’t encourage people to watch the play Angels in America, and to read Randy Shilts’ And the Band Played On, or Edmund White’s A Boy’s Own Story.

Amber Fogler-Tortora currently serves as vice president, east division, regional field marketing, for Spectrum Reach, the advertising sales business of Charter Communications. Ms. Fogler-Tortora has almost 30 years of television and digital ad sales and marketing experience.  In her current role, she leads a high-performing team of marketers that help local businesses achieve their advertising goals. A native New Yorker, she recently relocated to Tampa, FL with her wife Jennifer and daughter Riley. 

Which LGBTQ+ icons do you look up to?
Harvey Milk, I appreciate his story and experiences; Laverne Cox, so incredibly talented and such an advocate for our community

What actions do you hope to see the government taking to support the LGBTQ+ community?

• Equal treatment and access for all
• Protect our children

What do you wish people outside of the community knew about the LGBTQ+ community?
It is just as important to be an ally or advocate. Ask questions, never assume – most of us want to tell our story and then have you be able to tell our stories to others who don’t understand or accept

Can you recommend any top book, film, or TV shows that represent the LGBTQ+ experience?
The L Word past and present, although not representative of what the masses have or have access to….still great TV; the Stonewall documentary – learned a lot about our history and those who fought so that my wife and I could be who we are today; The Birdcage, to laugh and to cry at

Steven leads the Community and LGBTQ2+ Business Development Strategy for TD Bank in the Metro NY Market, with responsibilities not only for bringing the bank’s services to enterprises owned by members of the community but also working to ensure that TD is the top employer of LGBTQ+ professionals in the industry.

What actions do you hope to see the government taking to support the LGBTQ+ community?
I would like to see more allies speak against anti-LGBTQ legislation to put an end to it.

What do you wish people outside of the community knew about the LGBTQ+ community?
That we are not just one person – the intersections of the LGBTQ community are great and we want all members of the community to feel represented.

Can you recommend any top book, film, or TV shows that represent the LGBTQ+ experience?
REFLECTIONS FROM BOTH SIDES OF THE GLASS CEILING: FINDING MY TRUE SELF IN CORPORATE AMERICA by Stephanie Battaglino

Cecilia Gentili started Transgender Equity Consulting in the beginning of 2019 after serving as the director of policy at GMHC, the world’s first and leading provider of HIV/AIDS prevention, care and advocacy. Since 2019, Cecilia has already collaborated extensively with organizations including the AIDS Institute, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Funders for LGBTQ Issues, Borealis Foundation and Cicatelli Associates Inc. Cecilia also serves as a board member of the Stonewall Community Foundation.

Bronx-born founder of NY public affairs firm Geto & de Milly along with fellow advocate Michele de Milly, Ethan has championed essential LGBTQ+ rights from the Stonewall era through the AIDS epidemic to today. Recently, his critical work helped establish the NYC AIDS Memorial as well as the American Museum of LGBTQ+ History & Culture, which will celebrate the evolving history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people nationwide.

Which LGBTQ+ icons do you look up to?
Harry Hay; Jeanne, Jules and Morty Manford; Amy and Dick Ashworth; Aaron Belkin; Frank Kameny; Urvashi Vaid; Jean Genet; Magnus Hirschfeld; Jean O’Leary; Marty Robinson; Quentin Crisp; James Baldwin; Michael Callen; Audre Lorde

What actions do you hope to see the government taking to support the LGBTQ+ community?
Banning so-called conversion therapy. Protecting the rights and liberties of transgender people. Providing affordable housing for low-income gay elders. Nationwide civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ people in housing, employment and places of public accommodation.

What do you wish people outside of the community knew about the LGBTQ+ community?
That we are part of every extended family in America. We are in every walk of life and every community. We are often more strategic and insightful about people and situations because of the necessity of learning to cope with the overt or subtle prejudice we encounter.  

Can you recommend any top book, film, or TV shows that represent the LGBTQ+ experience?
The historical novels of Mary Renault, Brokeback Mountain, Queer As Folk (British version), the films and art of Jean Cocteau and Cole Porter lyrics.

Emily, a senior partner at Bolton-St. Johns, has led its New York City and Albany offices to be among the top-ranked government relations firms in the state. As the lead lobbyist for LGBTQ rights coalitions, Emily was instrumental in the passage of New York’s Marriage Equality Act in 2011, and achieving the legalization of gestational surrogacy in 2020. Emily is a proud mom of her son, with whom she lives on the East End.

The first openly LGBTQIA+ member of the State legislature, Assembly Member Deborah Glick advocates for civil rights, reproductive freedom, environmental preservation, the arts, and tenants’ rights. Glick helped lead the fight on many bills supporting the rights of LGBTQIA+ New Yorkers, including marriage equality, the ban on conversion therapy, the Hospital Visitation Act, the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act, and the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act. She also sponsored the Reproductive Health Act, codifying the right to abortion.

Which LGBTQ+ icons do you look up to?
Jill Johnston, a writer and lesbian feminist, and a longtime columnist for the Village Voice; Bayard Rustin, an essential organizer in the Civil Rights movement who helped organize the March on Washington; and Barbara Gittings, an early activist viewed by many as mother of the modern LGBTQIA+ movement – she worked to get the American Psychiatric Association to declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder and founded Daughters of Bilitis, an organization for advancing lesbian identity.

What actions do you hope to see the government taking to support the LGBTQ+ community?
New York State continues to take actions to ensure that members of the community are protected from discrimination and  respond to attempts to marginalize us. Looking forward, we need to be proactively blocking the types of bigoted and harmful actions already taking place in other states, like banning books with LGBTQIA+ content.

What do you wish people outside of the community knew about the LGBTQ+ community?
First, I would want them to know we are part of every community; we are your neighbors, co-workers, teachers, health care providers, friends and family. Second, I would want them to know our struggles have made us stronger, and that we will  not be shoved back into a closet.

Can you recommend any top book, film, or TV shows that represent the LGBTQ+ experience?
We are not a monolithic community, but I think that the films Milk, Carol, Philadelphia and Desert Hearts are examples of art that capture various parts of the community well. 

New York State Assembly Member Jessica González-Rojas represents the 34th Assembly District, which includes the diverse communities of Astoria, Corona, East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, and Woodside in Queens county. She has dedicated her life to fighting for immigrant rights, racial justice, LGBTQ liberation, health care access, labor power, and gender equity while forging connections between various progressive movements. Jessica is a progressive champion and brings her advocacy and organizing expertise to her work as an assembly member.

Which LGBTQ+ icons do you look up to?
I am inspired by Frida Kahlo and Audre Lorde. Frida Kahlo was a queer, disabled Mexican artist who expressed her pain and passion in vibrant depictions of women’s bodies and self-portraits. She was fiercely political and aligned herself with the revolutionary communist movement at the time. Audre Lorde was a self-described “black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, mother, warrior, poet,” who was committed to giving voice to intersectional oppressions such as racism, sexism, and homophobia.

What actions do you hope to see the government taking to support the LGBTQ+ community?
Here in New York, I am committed to passing legislation that protects young people with the Safe Haven for Trans Youth and Families bill, our trans siblings who are incarcerated with the Gender, Identity, Respect and Safety Act, and our family, friends, and neighbors in sex work against unjust raids. We also need to pass legislation that requires comprehensive, age-appropriate, medically-accurate, and queer-affirming sex education in our schools.

What do you wish people outside of the community knew about the LGBTQ+ community?
‘Coming out’ looks different for each person. As I shared in an op-ed on National Coming Out Day in 2022: “For many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people, the coming out process is a deeply personal, nuanced, and fluid process… It is an ongoing and lifelong process of understanding yourself, others, and the world around you. It’s a range of identities, feelings, and relationships that change over one’s life.” 

Can you recommend any top book, film, or TV shows that represent the LGBTQ+ experience?
I really enjoyed shows like Showtime’s Vida (2018-2020) in which the Latinx queer experience was well integrated into the characters’ storylines. For documentaries, I think the Netflix original documentary Disclosure was a very powerful inquiry into transgender depictions in popular media and would highly recommend it.

Jack Halberstam is David Feinson professor of the humanities at Columbia University. Halberstam is the author of seven books including: Female Masculinity (1998), The Queer Art of Failure (2011), Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variance (2018).  and Wild Things: The Disorder of Desire (2020). Places Journal awarded Halberstam its Arcus Places Prize in 2018 for innovative public scholarship on the relationship between gender, sexuality and the built environment.  

Which LGBTQ+ icons do you look up to?
Paul Preciado- artist/philosopher; Judith Butler- philosopher; Tosh Bascara, AKA boychild, performer; Cassils- performer/artist;  Leslie Feinberg- novelist, RIP, 1949-2014; Esther Newton- academic/anthropologist; Storme DeLarverie, RIP, 1920-2014; Anohni – that voice; Max Feldman- singer,  RIP, 1947-2007; Sylvia Rivera- activist, 1951-2002; James Baldwin- writer, RIP, 1924-1987; Dame Edna Everage- 1956-2012

What actions do you hope to see the government taking to support the LGBTQ+ community?
I hope that we can recognize the current war on trans people as it is being waged in Florida and Texas as a war on young people who are exploring their sexual and gender identities outside of the current classification systems. I would like to stop conservative legislators from determining what we can read, what we can study, how we identify, and what we can teach.

What do you wish people outside of the community knew about the LGBTQ+ community?
That this is not exactly a community so much as an assemblage of people who are poorly served at present by health care systems and other systems that favor married people and families. I want people to know that there are queer and trans abolitionists fighting for an end to prisons, an end to private property and new modes of sociality and intimacy.

Can you recommend any top book, film, or TV shows that represent the LGBTQ+ experience?
I liked Years and Years on BBC a few seasons ago for the way it folded queer and trans issues into a whole set of dystopian/utopian possibilities. I continue to adore Isaac Julien’s majestic film Looking for Langston (1989), Recent favorite books: Confessions of the Fox by Jordy Rosenberg; Detransition Baby by Torrey Peters; The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin; The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin; Cleanness by Garth Greenwell