POLITICAL ICON
Senator Stan Rosenberg was unanimously elected by his colleagues to be the 93rd President of the Massachusetts Senate on January 7, 2015. Since his first election, Senator Rosenberg has remained deeply committed to improving the lives of the people of Massachusetts, and to promoting inclusiveness and diversity in government. He is the first Jewish and first openly gay legislator to lead the Massachusetts Senate in its over-three-hundred year history, and is currently one of seven openly LGBTQ members of the Massachusetts General Court.
A 1977 graduate of UMass Amherst, Rosenberg began his work in public service as an aide to former State Senator and longtime Congressman John Olver. He was first elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1987, and was elected to the Senate in 1991, where he held several leadership positions before being elected as Senate President.
Senator Rosenberg has a strong and consistent record of championing LGBTQ rights, and played a key role in the passage of many groundbreaking bills guaranteeing equality before the law in the Commonwealth. He was a leader in the fight on Beacon Hill to preserve same-sex marriage in Massachusetts and to extend the state’s anti-discrimination laws to protect transgender people, and was a chief strategist behind a 2000 bill aimed at curtailing racial profiling.
Senator Rosenberg currently lives in Amherst, MA with his spouse, Bryon Hefner.
COMMUNITY ICON
BAGLY [Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth] is one of the country’s first and longest running youth-led, adult supported LGBTQ organizations BAGLY has added shape and definition (and flair!) to the field of youth work. In 1980 BAGLY’s youth and adults worked without a rulebook or roadmap; there were no best practices, No professional training for youth work, no coalitions, not even one other LGBTQ youth group in the state with whom to collaborate. As a result, BAGLY’s youth and adult leadership worked together to establish and develop institutional best practices regarding: youth/adult organizational power and collaboration, personal boundaries between youth and adults, and meaningful youth participation and leadership. Today we have come to understand many of these principles as among the core concepts of the Youth Development Approach.
SPECIAL RECOGNITION
The Lesbians of Color Symposium (LOCS) Collective, Inc is a non-profit community organization founded in 2012, dedicated to the service and support of the lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer (LBTQ) identified women of color and our allies. More specifically, we provide community and cultivate resources through advocacy, education, programming and networking. The LOCS Collective is the host of New England’s Annual Lesbians of Color Symposium (LOCS).
Beacons of Light 2017 