LGBTQ+ Power Players

Chi Ossé (he/him) is a third-generation Brooklynite and the youngest serving member of the New York City Council. Black and queer, his lifetime experiences inform his leadership and approach to governance. Ossé is called to politics for its potential to combine the institutional power of government with the tidal strength of movements to effect progressive outcomes in our shared city. Diversity is our strength, and Chi Ossé is devoted to diversity’s bravest manifestation: democracy.

What is your favorite Pride Month event or celebration?
The Brooklyn Pride 5k run in Prospect Park.

What LGBTQ+ icons or activists have inspired you?
I am inspired by the LGBTQ musical pioneer and icon, Sylvester.

What can people and corporations do to support the LGBTQ+ community year-round, not just during Pride Month?
Stop giving campaign contributions to political candidates who promote anti-LGBTQ causes and legislation.

How can businesses create more inclusive environments for their employees and patrons?
Respect pronouns and stop giving campaign contributions to anti-LGBTQ political candidates, organizations, and parties.

Amit Paley (he/him) is CEO and executive director of The Trevor Project. He began as a counselor on TrevorLifeline and is the first volunteer counselor to become the CEO of the organization. Before The Trevor Project, Amit was an associate partner at McKinsey & Company, where he served nonprofits, Fortune 500 companies, and governments. Amit is a graduate of Harvard College with an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School and a master’s from Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism.

What is your favorite Pride Month event or celebration?
I’m a huge fan of Pride parades. I love that in areas big and small, communities throw parades that take on their local culture and showcase the true diversity of the LGBTQ community. They serve as a physical manifestation of our joy and a time for our community to gather as one in celebration and affirmation. However, we also know too many LGBTQ young people don’t have access to these celebrations, and Pride can be an isolating time for them. The Trevor Project aims to provide support and affirmation 24/7 for all those who can’t celebrate in person this Pride.

What LGBTQ+ icons or activists have inspired you?
I am constantly inspired by LGBTQ young people, who are doing amazing things in the face of so many challenges. Whenever I worry about all the darkness and pain in society today, I remember all the incredible young people who are making the world a better place.

What can people and corporations do to support the LGBTQ+ community year-round, not just during Pride Month?
Addressing the disparities faced by LGBTQ youth happens at the macro and micro levels, and everyone can play a part. Our research found that having at least one accepting adult can reduce the risk of a suicide attempt among LGBTQ youth by 40%. Be that accepting adult. Openly love, support, and advocate for LGBTQ young people in your communities. It’s important that people educate themselves on these issues and pay attention to what is happening in their own backyard: learn more about your state legislature and what your representatives are doing — and if you don’t agree, speak out.

How can businesses create more inclusive environments for their employees and patrons?
Ensure that your policies and environments reflect the communities you serve. Do you have trans-inclusive policies? Does your facility have gender-inclusive restrooms? Do your benefits take into consideration the needs of LGBTQ employees? Support your internal LGBTQ Employee Resource Groups and listen to their perspectives.

Businesses can play a role in raising awareness and fostering acceptance. As organizations, you have powerful platforms to advocate on behalf of your community — use that voice.

Court Passant (he/him) is a marketing and news executive and now leads Creative Services at Nexstar Media Group serving WPIX-TV New York. Court is a veteran journalist with communications and marketing expertise, and serves as creative services director at PIX11 and holds storied tenure at CBS News and the CBS Corporation. Court is a relationship builder, content creator and producer, technology evangelist, and a strong and well-respected leader.

What is your favorite Pride Month event or celebration?
My favorite event has always been the Pride March. A wonderful day that shows the strength, diversity and inclusion of the LGBTQ+ community. A day to come together, reflect, and be strong. Our communities face many challenges; it’s important we all unite in making our lives stronger and safer.

What LGBTQ+ icons or activists have inspired you?
Harvey Milk
Elton John
Billie Jean King
Edith Windsor
Anderson Cooper
Elliot Page

What can people or corporations do to support the LGBTQ+ community year-round, not just during Pride Month?
Here at Nexstar, I have taken the lead in establishing the company’s first Employee Resource Groups. We’re known as the Nexstar Nation and it’s a proud moment to be leading PrideNation, the LGBTQ+ ERG here at Nexstar. We are an asset to the company and we’re a resource to not only our employees but our colleagues in more than 100 newsrooms across the country. We’re working internally to make the work-life balance better and stronger.

How can businesses create more inclusive environments for their employees and patrons?
It’s important for businesses to listen to their employees and provide opportunities to address work-life issues. Employee Resource Groups are extremely important. Not only do we sit at the table, but our voices need to be heard.

Born in New York and raised in the Bronx, Sandra Pérez (she/her) brings over 25 years of experience in the social sector to her role as executive director. Her leadership career began at AHA! Latino Arts, Inc., where she led the Latinx arts and culture organization for over 10 years. Sandra also served in multiple roles at the Ms. Foundation for Women and has successfully led her own consultancy. She is honored to bring all of her lived experiences to the work of NYC Pride and the LGBTQ+ community.

What is your favorite Pride Month event or celebration?
This year I want to say every one of our events is my favorite but, if forced to choose, I will say that I am looking forward to seeing thousands of people lined up along Fifth Avenue, showing their support for our community. The magnitude of that moment is pretty moving.

What LGBTQ+ icons or activists have inspired you?
There are too many to choose from, but my earliest icons were people like Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, and Gloria Anzaldúa; people of color who spoke truth to power through their words. Today, I am in awe of the activists who are doing the work in real time and leveraging their platforms to advance and advocate for change. I’m inspired by our Grand Marshals, people like influencer Ts Madison, comedian Punkie Johnson, educator/author Schuyler Bailar, artist Dominique Morgan and litigator/advocate Chase Strangio. These are people who are opening new spaces for LGBTQ+ leadership and creativity; they create change, every day.

What can people and corporations do to support the LGBTQ+ community year-round, not just during Pride Month?
At a time when our basic human rights are being challenged legislatively and physical violence is an ever present reality, it’s imperative that people and corporations ask the LGBTQ+ community how they can be better allies. For NYC Pride, that means looking at how our partners behave toward our community throughout the year, not just in June. We must be at the table when the issues impacting our community are being discussed, be they social justice issues, economic development, medical care, etc. We must be at every table, just as we are found in every walk of life.

How can businesses create more inclusive environments for their employees and patrons?
I would suggest that they speak directly to their employees and listen for those things that can improve the workplace and create authentic opportunities for inclusion. This can be everything from working with LGBTQ+ organizations to helping educate people on the community to establishing clear metrics for diversifying their workforce so that it best reflects the inclusion they are aiming for. It all counts and it matters!

Desmond Picotte (they/them) is a photographer and art director based in New York City. They have worked as a freelance director and photographer for the better part of a decade, and recently joined Saks as an art director of editorial photography. As a non-binary creative, their work has centered around uplifting the LGBTQ+ community. Their work was recently included in an exhibition by the city of Lyon in France on the legacy of feminist activism in art.

What is your favorite Pride Month event or celebration?
Honestly, I’m pretty introverted and I’m not the biggest fan of parades. My favorite way to celebrate Pride is to rest and make sure I’m taking care of myself and those immediately in my community. Spending quality time with my queer friends and ensuring we’re feeling balanced and nourished sounds like the perfect day.

What LGBTQ+ icons or activists have inspired you?
While I am endlessly grateful and inspired by the queer icons of our past who have made Pride what it is today, I think it’s very important to honor the living members of our community who are pushing the boundaries. From using artistic endeavors to communicate liberating ideas, to politically organizing to protect Black and Brown trans lives, these community members use their skills to dismantle white supremacist homophobic culture in New York and beyond: Ericka Hart, Alok, Ceyenne Doroshow, Indya Moore, Raquel Willis, and Adam Eli, to name a few.

What can people and corporations do to support the LGBTQ+ community year-round, not just during Pride Month?
Hire us! It’s always so frustrating, especially when I was a freelancer, how June would be the busiest month of the year for me, and then my work would sharply drop off as brands no longer thought to hire queer talent. Please think of us as more than just diversity hires, we bring so much to the workplace. Queerness goes way beyond Pride month, and is deeply rooted in questioning all the systems we take for granted. This is invaluable, and to a large extent, why the queer community is often the source of profound innovation and cultural shifts.

How can businesses create more inclusive environments for their employees and patrons?
I would ask all companies to examine how many queer people get to make big decisions. Importantly too, take a risk on emerging queer talent. Often we are overlooked for bigger opportunities, so our resumes may not fully reflect our potential. Be willing to take risks on marginalized talent, examine gatekeeping behaviors, and share resources to help empower the career of someone who is easily overlooked.

Ron Poole-Dayan is the founder and executive director of Men Having Babies. The nonprofit was founded in 2012 out of a preexisting program at the NYC LGBT Center, and began as a peer support network for biological gay fathers and fathers to be. The organization has since expanded to include thousands of couples and singles from across the globe. Poole-Dayan and his husband, Greg Poole-Dayan, were one of the first same-sex couples in the nation to father children through gestational surgery. Prior to becoming executive director, Mr. Poole-Dayan served as the Men Having Babies program coordinator for the NYC LGBT Center since 2005.

Antonious Porch (he/him) is the general counsel and chief diversity officer at SoundCloud, a leading music entertainment company. In his role as general counsel, Porch is responsible for the company’s business affairs, legal affairs, and public policy strategy, and the management of its global team of legal experts in content licensing, copyright, data protection and privacy, and corporate matters. As SoundCloud’s chief diversity officer, Porch leads efforts to ensure the company consistently delivers on an integrated diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy that is globally relevant and cross-functionally aligned to business outcomes.

What is your favorite Pride Month event or celebration?
I love the Pride Parade — the energy in the streets, especially in the West Village along Christopher Street (where I used to live), is so phenomenal. It’s also one of the few opportunities to see the true diversity and intersectionality in the LGBTQ+. I cannot imagine a successful Pride without watching the parade.

What LGBTQ+ icons or activists have inspired you?
Dixon Osburn and Michelle Beneke, who co-founded Servicemembers Legal Defense Network in 1994 as a legal service agency to support LGBTQ service members discharged under the U.S. military’s anti-gay “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. For many years, SLDN was the leading national advocacy organization fighting the ban on gays in the military. I had the honor of serving on the Board of SLDN for many years working with Dixon and alongside many talented activists.

What can people and corporations do to support the LGBTQ+ community year-round, not just during Pride Month?
I think we should move away from the Instagram and Twitter ‘echo chamber’ — meaning instead of continually preaching to the choir of people who look like you and live like you, volunteer with a nonprofit, mentor someone who needs career or life advice, and generally show up for people in the LGBTQ+ community who don’t look like you or live like you.

How can businesses create more inclusive environments for their employees and patrons?
First, articulate a mission, values and corporate behaviors with DEI woven in. Then, recruit, retain, and promote people from historically marginalized communities at all levels of the organization. Third, invest in DEI-focused learning and development programs to give employees the same tools and language to maintain an inclusive work environment. Finally, invest in external partnerships to amplify the social impact of a business’ DEI efforts and build an employer brand and diverse pipeline of talent.

Dedicated to bringing positive changes to disenfranchised populations, Joe Pressley (he/him) is CEO of the Hetrick-Martin Institute, the nation’s oldest LGBTQIA+ youth services agency. Joe has worked with the HIV/AIDS, African American and LGBTQIA+ communities, ensuring that needs are heard and acted upon. He believes that we should live at intersections, not in silos and brings communities together to foster change. A lifelong native of Brooklyn, Joe lives in Fort Greene with his husband Steve. They were married on July 29th, 2011, by the late Mayor David Dinkins.

What is your favorite Pride Month event or celebration?
My favorite Pride month event is the annual Pride March that takes place on the last Sunday of every June. For me, it remains a march and less of a parade until all of us are free from discrimination and stigma.

What LGBTQ+ icons or activists have inspired you?
Audre Lorde
Pat Parker
James Baldwin
Urvashi Vaid
Craig Harris

What can people and corporations do to support the LGBTQ+ community year-round, not just during Pride Month?
Engaging with the LGBTQIA+ community and organizations through volunteerism and advocacy is a year-round need! People and corporations can push out social media and engage their networks in the work of organizations like HMI. Attending events, becoming a donor, joining a Board, and volunteering are things that people and corporations can lend their support to.

How can businesses create more inclusive environments for their employees and patrons?
Businesses must hire diverse members of the community and make sure that their teams are trained in offering ongoing support. While it is paramount that respecting personal pronouns is employed, inclusive and affirming policies must also be created. Investing in personal and professional development of employees with pathways to leadership is a must. We hail from various communities and live at the intersections of so much. Environments must be created to celebrate and acknowledge this.

Founded on the East Coast by Leo Preziosi, Jr., (he/him) Live Out Loud is a nonprofit organization built on a singular premise — to inspire lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning+ youth to live proud. Twenty-one years later and still counting, Live Out Loud continues to bring innovative programming throughout the tri-state area, and to inspire and lead by example. Since its inception, Live Out Loud has had the opportunity to bring countless LGBTQ+ role models to high schools and universities, involving renowned panelists from every walk of life.

What is your favorite Pride Month event or celebration?
The Pride Parade is my favorite event. It gives the queer community the opportunity to come out and celebrate. It’s particularly important for LGBTQ+ students to see the expansive community they are a part of.

What LGBTQ+ icons or activists have inspired you?
Author, Eric Marcus, my personal role model. Eric has a deep knowledge of LGBTQ+ history and is an exceptional storyteller. His books and podcasts weaves a beautiful narrative of the queer experience. I could watch and listen to him for hours.

What can people and corporations do to support the LGBTQ+ community year-round, not just during Pride Month?
There is an opportunity for LGBTQ+ corporations to partner with LGBTQ+ nonprofits on a deeper level, so it helps them sustain the organization’s mission and programs throughout the year. The CEOs of these companies can come together to create an ongoing educational campaign that brings real life stories to the world stage, so there is a better understanding of the LGBTQ+ community and the vital role it plays.

How can businesses create more inclusive environments for their employees and patrons?
It’s important for businesses to talk with their employees and with their patrons. Create focus groups to ask their constituents what’s important to them. These are their marching orders throughout the year.