LGBTQ+ Power Players

As chief corporate officer, Jeff Elgart (he/him) is responsible for the management and growth of BBBSNYC‘s corporate partner portfolio, expanding youth served by engaging teams of employees through corporate sponsored mentoring programs. In 1993, Jeff volunteered at BBBSNYC. Twenty-nine years later, he continues to share in the life of his “Little.” Jeff is an outspoken advocate of LGBTQ+ youth programming, working tirelessly to develop corporate programs that support DEI initiatives. Jeff is a long-time resident of the Upper West Side, where he lives with his husband and their dog, Milo.

What is your favorite Pride Month event or celebration?
I’m a huge fan of film and cinema and believe the global independent film festivals have the greatest impact and learning opportunities for our society. Many of these incredible pieces of work, these true representations of our community’s fights, struggles, wins, truths, and inequalities are an incredible lens to show who we are and how far we have to go to live freely as our authentic selves in a democracy that doesn’t entirely see it that way.

What LGBTQ+ icons or activists have inspired you?
I love this question because growing up I didn’t really have many icons or role models I could identify with — at least regarding this part of my life. Rather, the media and celebrities were more often confusing and not representing who I was. More questions were raised for me when I was really searching for answers. Today, however, I hold Sir Elton John in the highest regard for his talent and how he’s used his platform for good over the years. Imagine if all those with such a big “voice” did just a little bit of what he’s done?

What can people and corporations do to support the LGBTQ+ community year-round, not just during Pride Month?
Parades and corporate sponsorships are great, but unless you’re doing the work on the ground with a long term vision, you’re just putting your logo out there and hoping you’ll get some goodwill from the effort. Business leaders need to do more. Create mentorship programs within your company. Promote LGBTQ+ talent to the C suite. Put your company and business sector before High School students and start creating the next generation of your talent pipeline. Support small LGBTQ+ business owners so they grow! Talk about our community and how we’ve changed the landscape of your corporate culture for the better!

Sarah Kate Ellis (she/her) is the president and CEO of GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ+ media advocacy organization. A powerful communicator, Ellis has used GLAAD’s position to demand fair and accurate coverage of the LGBTQ community. Under her leadership, Ellis has evolved GLAAD from a media watchdog organization to one of the most powerful cultural change agents across industries. Prior to GLAAD, Ellis was a media executive. She and her wife Kristen Ellis-Henderson have two teenagers.

What is your favorite Pride Month event or celebration?
I love any Pride event I can celebrate with my wife and kids. LGBTQ representation has never been better, yet the world is becoming increasingly unsafe for our community. In that context, events that promote pride and acceptance among future generations are invaluable. One in five members of Gen Z identify as LGBTQ, so I love seeing families like mine, building a world where we can all live as ourselves and love who we love safely.

What LGBTQ+ icons or activists have inspired you?
It is vitally important to acknowledge that we would not have the robust movement we have today if not for the grassroots demonstrations of LGBTQ people of color who put their safety on the line during the Stonewall Uprising. Celebrating leaders like Marsha P. Johnson or Sylvia Rivera acts as a reminder that our LGBTQ icons should not and do not all look the same, and that LGBTQ advancement must exist at every intersection of class, race, and gender.

What can people and corporations do to support the LGBTQ+ community year-round, not just during Pride Month?
To fully support the LGBTQ+ community beyond Pride, corporations should:

Extend support to the political fight. True corporate allies don’t donate to candidates or elected officials who support anti-LBGTQ legislation.

Should use their leverage and resources, including social media, marketing, public relations, and government affairs, to speak out against anti-LGBTQ legislation, and engage other businesses to do the same.

Support the notion of Pride 365 and plan LGBTQ-inclusive campaigns for the community year-round.

Tell authentic stories, spotlighting LGBTQ people and issues year-round on external and internal communications, with consideration for how these stories enter into a cultural context and conversation.

How can businesses create more inclusive environments for their employees and patrons?
Businesses should:

Seek out DEIA training, including LGBTQ-specific workshops, for themselves and employees.

Use meetings with your LGBTQ ERG (employee resource group) to identify issues arising where your company does business, and form strategic responses with support from external LGBTQ experts.

Commit to employee recruitment initiatives that include the LGBTQ community, including outreach to transgender people and LGBTQ people of color.

Involve LGBTQ employees in deciding the causes and organizations to support, and include state and local organizations.

Todd Evans (he/him) is president and CEO of Rivendell Media — America’s leading LGBTQ media placement firm — a unique media company that was founded in 1979 and represents 95% of all LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS media properties in the United States and Canada. Todd Evans is a partner of Q Syndicate, the leading content provider for LGBTQ media and is also publisher of Press Pass Q, the industry newsletter for the LGBTQ media professional. Todd graduated from Villanova University with a B.A. in Political Science.

He can be reached at todd@rivendellmedia.com

What is your favorite Pride Month event or celebration?
NYC Pride Parade of course! Nothing is bigger or better.

What LGBTQ+ icons or activists have inspired you?
Harvey Milk, Joseph DiSabato (founder of Rivendell), Mark Segal (publisher of PGN and Stonewall Vet), David Waggoner (publisher of A&U Magazine, first HIV/AIDS title in the US).

What can people and corporations do to support the LGBTQ+ community year-round, not just during Pride Month?
Support LGBTQ media. If you want a true win-win, advertise your product or service for the LGBTQ community in LGBTQ media.

How can businesses create more inclusive environments for their employees and patrons?
Be inclusive. By embracing the unique individuals at your company, you create an inclusive and expansive work community. It really is true that our diversity is our strength and that goes for your family, your community, your business, and our country.

Kyle Ferari-Muñoz (they/them) is a Millennial philanthropist and activist focused on creating a more equitable world for marginalized communities. Informed by their experience growing up as the only openly queer and nonbinary person in their rural Pennsylvania hometown, Kyle is passionate about political representation for marginalized communities. Kyle supports candidates for political office from local to federal races as a board member of Latino Victory Fund and LGBTQ Victory Institute. They serve on the Board of the Leslie-Lohman Museum in New York, the only LGBTQ art museum in the United States.

What is your favorite Pride Month event or celebration?
More broadly than specific events, Pride becoming more inclusive of the myriad non-cisgender identities: trans, non-binary, gender nonconforming, two-spirit, etc. We (I am trans-femme non-binary) clawed our way to visibility even within the LGBTQ community. We have been around, existing, like cisgender people forever. Our identities are not a decision; we are naturally occurring like cis people. The reason terms like non-binary and gender nonconforming seem new and novel are because our very identities have been erased for so long that we had to make up new words to describe ourselves!

What LGBTQ+ icons or activists have inspired you?
My favorite queer icon is Adela Vasquez. Adela isn’t as well known as other figures, which is really a shame. A marielita, she settled in San Francisco, depending on sex work for survival until she established herself as a hair dresser, eventually becoming an advocate for protecting trans Latinas from HIV/AIDS during the worst period of the crisis. She saved countless people, particularly trans Latinas, from contracting HIV by launching culturally relevant trans and Latina-centric HIV prevention programs at Proyecto ContraSIDA Por Vida and other organizations. Read more about Adela in the graphic novel Sexile by Jaime Cortez.

What can people and corporations do to support the LGBTQ+ community year-round, not just during Pride Month?
Corporations and individuals have social platforms and responsibilities: they need to highlight LGBTQ+ people and issues year round and sponsor organizations like LGBTQ Victory Institute (forgive the shameless plug) so we can build political power, which is the only real way to promote social equity. Allies with good intentions are not enough; empower the most marginalized people to have voices in political representation. No one else understands solutions to inequity like we, ourselves, can. Similar to white men having no right to tell women what to do with their bodies, LGBTQ people need to be stakeholders in LGBTQ+ issues.

How can businesses create more inclusive environments for their employees and patrons?
Businesses need to be intolerant of intolerance. In fact, they need to embrace and uplift the contributions of LGBTQ+ employees, promote them to c-suite positions with equal pay, refuse to do business with entities promoting discriminatory policies, and bar patrons and clients who harm us. I’ve never liked the term “tolerance.” Marginalized people deserve more than to be “tolerated,” we deserve the same type of acceptance straight white people enjoy.

Tyme Ferris (he/him) is co-founder, along with Thomas Kupiec, and CEO of Pantheon Collective. After over a decade of leadership roles in the cannabis industries of California, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Vermont, Ferris comes back to hometown Boonville to show New York what a conscientious cannabis business looks like. Pre-licensing, Ferris and Pantheon continue working with Sen. Cooney to educate others on Senate bills s7603 and s7515 to ensure the LGBTQ+ community is finally recognized for the suffering that LGBTQ+ people endured through the AIDS epidemic due to cannabis prohibition, as well as their role in cannabis legalization.

What is your favorite Pride Month event or celebration?
I’ve experienced being both the tourist and the local in the same cities for Pride celebrations across the U.S. and I have to say that nothing beats celebrating with your home community — wherever home may be at that time — interacting with folks that you will see and may know in your day to day (good, bad and indifferent), and remembering that we are a community. We are not alone. And we are better when we are together.

What LGBTQ+ icons or activists have inspired you?
Dennis Peron, Bronx native, father of medical marijuana, a gay rights leader, and a cannabis activist. Peron fought for cannabis legalization to help people dying from AIDS. In San Francisco, the crisis unfolded around him and eventually the virus took Peron’s partner Johnathan West. Peron threw himself into cannabis activism. He founded the Cannabis Buyers’ Club, a medical dispensary that became a hub for AIDS and terminally ill patients alike. He co-authored and secured the passage of the Compassionate Use Act of 1996 in California, the first successful medical marijuana referendum measure in the United States.

What can people or corporations do to support the LGBTQ+ community year-round, not just during Pride Month?
Start by becoming active within your local LGBTQ+ community centers and organizations. If you don’t have time or money to commit, just be there to support the endeavors of these groups and magnify their voices however you can. Next, be a smarter consumer. Corporations can only take advantage of us if we let them. Support and shop local when and wherever you can.

Corporations should nurture diversity and inclusion, from the top down, in your boardroom and executive teams. If you aren’t making the changes you preach on your website, then you aren’t actually an ally.

How can businesses create more inclusive environments for their employees and patrons?
Listen. Listen to your consumers to ensure that your vision and execution of that vision corresponds to them. Listen to your team, give them the time that they are deserved, hear their concerns and be prepared to act as necessary.

Acknowledge that unconscious bias exists in all of us, like it or not, it’s there. Don’t be afraid to check in on your own actions and own your mistakes. We all can be and do better, always.

Arthur Fitting (he/him) was working in home health as a nurse in New York when he found himself on the frontlines of the AIDS crisis, and decided he was going to use his health care experience to support others. Fitting realized there was a desperate need for informed care in the LGBTQ community, leading to his role today as the VNS Health LGBTQ+ program manager. Fitting’s VNS Health team is dedicated to working with community-based organizations to identify gaps in care and develop better community access to home health.

What is your favorite Pride Month event or celebration?
It’s always great seeing the community at large and meeting so many old and new friends who are there making a statement together. I feel, when I march, I am representing my friends and loved ones who passed during the AIDS pandemic and are no longer with us.

What LGBTQ+ icons or activists have inspired you?
Peter Ungvarski, clinical director of AIDS Service and director quality assurance and regulatory compliance at VNS Health during the AIDS crisis. He led collaborations on developing and integrating nursing care models to educate the staff and meet the needs of the AIDS community as the pandemic was unfolding before our eyes. In addition, I am inspired by the dedicated groups at ACT UP and GMHC who fought with their lives and answered the call to action for recognition of an entire population and were not afraid to report the lack of humanity, and dearth of healthcare for the community.

What can people and corporations do to support the LGBTQ+ community year-round, not just during Pride Month?
I believe much of the work needed involves inclusion, collaboration, and education. We need collaboration to be sure we are creating the building blocks of true resilience for all in the community. Resilience does not happen by itself or separate from the resources to sustain a community. To have healthy neighborhoods, communities, and cities we need to have healthy people. The first step is to understand cultural humility and recognize no matter how good the intention is, we first must ask the people we want to help and support, “What do you need help with?”

How can businesses create more inclusive environments for their employees and patrons?
The actions senior leadership have taken at VNS Health have been positive. One thing we did was create an LGBTQ+ employee resource group called Out@VNSHEALTH, providing a safe space where LGBTQ+ employees and allies talk freely about ensuring cultural integration across the company. Separately, the term “LGBTQ+” is used often, however within the community itself we still need to learn much more from each of the different groups each of those letters and symbols represent.

John Gallagher (he/him) is a media strategist who specializes in crisis management and communications for a diverse group of clients. Over the last decade, he has managed issues for clients in tech, litigation, finance, real estate, and construction. Gallagher joined Mercury in 2012 as a managing director, became a partner in 2017 and was named president of the company earlier this year. Prior to Mercury, Gallagher was head of public affairs for Tishman Realty and had spent more than a decade in politics and government, including working in the press office of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Steven Garibell (he/him) is a TD Bank vice president who heads up the business development efforts for our diverse segments, including the LGBTQ2+ community, 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. In addition to this role, he is also helping develop our community business development officer team with a goal of helping them to be a trusted advisor for diverse business communities.

What is your favorite Pride Month event or celebration?
I love watching all of the Pride marches and how they bring together all of the intersections of our community.

What LGBTQ+ icons or activists have inspired you?
The work being done in the community is so great that I have been inspired by so many. If I had to pick one I would have to say Marsha P. Johnson.

What can people or corporations do to support the LGBTQ+ community year-round, not just during Pride Month?
Don’t just write a check — identify what the needs are in your local community and organize your employees to get out and volunteer to help build our communities!

How can businesses create more inclusive environments for their employees and patrons?
It really starts with your employees. Create a safe space for them where they can be their authentic selves. Encourage pronoun usage, put up safe space logos on your doors, and ask them what they need to feel included.

Derek Gaskill (he/him) became the first out transgender co-president of Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn in January 2022. His advocacy in Brooklyn politics began in 2020 when he was barred from running for a seat in the Brooklyn Democratic Party for not declaring his gender as male or female. Following a successful overturning of the “gender parity rule,” Derek has stewarded the club’s efforts to elect reform-minded district leaders.

What is your favorite Pride Month event or celebration?
Brooklyn Pride is the highlight of Pride month! LID tables during the daytime festival, where we inform our neighbors about our endorsed candidates, LGBTQ policy issues, and register people to vote. In the evening we march in the twilight parade (the only twilight parade in the Northeast) where we proudly display our banner, which is over 20 years old! It’s a great time to mingle with elected officials, candidates, neighbors, and LID members.

What LGBTQ+ icons or activists have inspired you?
LID was founded in 1978 and many of our members have been involved with LGBTQ politics since way before then. Our members inspire me to stay local, stay grounded, and to stand up for the LGBTQ Brooklyn community.

What can people and corporations do to support the LGBTQ+ community year-round, not just during Pride Month?
Pride month should be every month! The best allies and corporations know when to sit back and listen to the needs of the community. Often the best support is financial, so setting up reoccurring donations to organizations working to eliminate discrimination, advocate for equality, provide access to health care and social support, and protect basic rights for the LGBTQIA+ community. It is important to understand intersectionality and that trans women, particularly Black and Brown trans women, are the most marginalized in our community and to amplify their voices.

How can businesses create more inclusive environments for their employees and patrons?
Many people are willing to step up, but not many people are willing to step back. If a business truly wants to be inclusive, listen to LGBTQ employees and patrons. Better than that, hire a consultant from the LGBTQ community to do workshops and training on LGBTQ competency.