Paula Ettelbrick

Paula Louise Ettelbrick (born 1954/1955; died October 7, 2011) was an internationally acclaimed lawyer, educator, and pioneer of the LGBTQ equality movement.[1] She served as director for Lambda Legal, National Centre for Lesbian Rights, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, and led the Stonewall Community Foundation.[1]

In June 2019, Ettelbrick was one of the inaugural fifty American “pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes” inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument (SNM) in New York City’s Stonewall Inn.[2][3] The SNM is the first U.S. national monument dedicated to LGBTQ rights and history,[4] and the wall’s unveiling was timed to take place during the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.[5]

Early life and education

Paula Louise Ettelbrick was born in Stuttgart, Germany, on USAG Stuttgart, a U.S. Army base, to Robert and Judi Ettelbrick.[1]

She went to Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, graduating with an art history degree in 1978.[1] She then relocated to Detroit, Michigan to attend Wayne State University Law School, graduating with a law degree in 1984.[1]

Career

1980s–1990s

Ettelbrick first started as a staff lawyer for Lambda Legal, a civil rights organization focusing on LGBTQ communities and people living with HIV/AIDS (PWAs) through impact litigation, societal education, and public policy work, in 1986.[1] In the 1980s she fought for, and succeeded in legally broadening the definition of families to include those of gay and lesbian parents.[6] She later rose to be legal director from 1988 to 1993.[7] Lambda’s executive director Kevin Cathcart noted Ettelbrick’s work at the group, “she fought for the rights of lesbian and gay parents and lesbian and gay students, and helped to shape the strategy that eventually overturned sodomy laws.” In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that same-sex sexual activity was legal.[8] This set the stage to reconsider standing law, including the landmark case of Obergefell v. Hodges which recognized same-sex marriage as a fundamental right.[9]

She then worked as policy director for National Center for Lesbian Rights, the only organization in the U.S. dedicated to lesbian legal issues;[10] and as legislative counsel at the Empire State Pride Agenda, the leading gay political organization in the State of New York,[11] and the largest statewide lesbian and gay political advocacy and civil rights organization in the U.S.[12] In 1997 she was victorious in getting New York City’s “landmark” domestic partnership law, extending spousal rights to domestic partners, which laid the groundwork for same-sex marriage in New York.[7]

2000s

She also served as the family policy director of the National LGBTQ Task Force (The Task Force) from 1999-2001.[7] While there she also taught at New York University Law School and Barnard College.[7] In March 1999, she coordinated Equality Begins at Home, a 50-State campaign to demand “that state officials resist the right wing’s efforts to deny us our basic rights as citizens.”[13] The resulting grassroots lobbying had more than 350 events within one week.[13] In spring 2000, Ettelbrick led a national campaign to get LGBTQ couples to self-report their relationships on the 2000 United States Census.[13] The effort “reached 18 million newspaper readers and resulted in a 314 percent increase in the “unmarried partner” household tally from 1990, the first year that same-sex partner households could report. The 2000 census showed that same-sex couples lived in 99.3 percent of all counties in the United States; with a total of 601,209 households reporting”.[13] The Task Force’s Creating Change Conference director Sue Hyde shared, Paula Ettelbrick [had] “a deep grasp of conditions on the ground for LGBT people in countries outside our own. But Paula’s story is incomplete without calling forward her inspiring and visionary work as a community organizer par excellence. She led the first campaign to increase our visibility in the U.S. census, when to do so was regarded as quixotic. She was in the forefront of the movement to grow and strengthen state-level LGBT organizing when statewide organizations were embryonic. Paula brought to life more than 350 actions in states across the country because she believed that our equality must be secured in our state capitols.”[13]

In the late 1990s, Ettelbrick co-founded the Federation of Statewide LGBT Political Organizations, forerunner of the Equality Federation, to co-ordinate strategies and share best practices for gaining LGBTQ rights in the United States.[13] She did so understanding that LGBTQ rights needed to be won on the state level so coordinating all the nations equality groups was key to helping these goals.[13]

She then worked for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), later re-named OutRight Action International, as executive director from 2003 to 2009.[14] IGLHRC is a non-governmental organization that addresses human rights violations and abuses against LGBTIQ people worldwide,[15] and is accredited by the United Nations Economic and Social Council.[16][17] She was the groups’ third executive director who increased their capacity nearly doubling the budget, and expanded the reach in Africa and the Middle East .[18]

She also was a teacher on law and sexuality subjects at Barnard College, Columbia Law School, the University of Michigan Law School, New York University School of Law and Wayne State University Law School.[1] Ettelbrick was a “professor and widely cited author”, making “significant contribution to feminist and queer academia”.[14]

Ettelbrick’s last job was leading the Stonewall Community Foundation, “an organization devoted to awarding grants to community LGBT organizations”,[7] she was the first woman to do so.[1] She started in July 2011 but retired a month later due to illness.[7] While there she launched Out In Front New York, a “comprehensive training initiative for LGBTQ non-profit leaders and board members”, and “laid the groundwork for the foundation's newest giving circle, Stonewall Professional Alliance”, combining monthly donations coupled with community service.[14]

Personal life

Ettelbrick had two children, Julia and Adam, both born during her long-term relationship with another lawyer, before gay marriages were legal, Suzanne Goldberg.[1] She is survived by her partner Marianne Haggerty.[1]

She died October 7, 2011, of primary peritoneal cancer (similar to ovarian cancer) at 56 years old.[1]

Honors and legacy

In March 2011, the Paula Ettelbrick Fellows and Interns Fund at OutRight Action International was established.[19]

The Paula Ettelbrick Community Service Award was established by Services & Advocacy for LGBT Elders (SAGE), America's oldest and largest non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of LGBTQ older adults, focusing on the issue of LGBTQ ageing.[20]

In 2012, the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, an organization founded in 1997 to “advance the hiring, retention and promotion of diverse attorneys in legal departments and the law firms that serve them”,[21] started the Paula L. Ettelbrick Award to “celebrate extraordinary achievements by an individual or organization in advancing” LGBTQ attorneys.[22]

In June 2019, Ettelbrick was one of the inaugural fifty American “pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes” inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument (SNM) in New York City’s Stonewall Inn.[2][3] The SNM is the first U.S. national monument dedicated to LGBTQ rights and history,[4] and the wall’s unveiling was timed to take place during the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.[5]

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References
  1. Bindel, Julie (November 3, 2011). "Paula Ettelbrick obituary". theguardian.com. Retrieved 2019-06-21.
  2. Glasses-Baker, Becca (June 27, 2019). "National LGBTQ Wall of Honor unveiled at Stonewall Inn". www.metro.us. Retrieved 2019-06-28.
  3. SDGLN, Timothy Rawles-Community Editor for (2019-06-19). "National LGBTQ Wall of Honor to be unveiled at historic Stonewall Inn". San Diego Gay and Lesbian News. Retrieved 2019-06-21.
  4. "Groups seek names for Stonewall 50 honor wall". The Bay Area Reporter / B.A.R. Inc. Retrieved 2019-05-24.
  5. "Stonewall 50". San Francisco Bay Times. 2019-04-03. Retrieved 2019-05-25.
  6. "Gay rights advocate Paula Ettelbrick dies at 56". The Mercury News. 2011-10-09. Retrieved 2019-07-01.
  7. Seager, Ilana (2011-10-07). "Longtime LGBT Activist Paula Ettelbrick Passes Away at 56". GLAAD. Retrieved 2019-07-01.
  8. Geidner, Chris (2019-06-19). "The Court Cases That Changed L.G.B.T.Q. Rights". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-07-02.
  9. Obergefell, slip op. at 28 ("The Court, in this decision, holds same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry in all States.").
  10. Zimmerman, Bonnie (2000). Lesbian histories and cultures: an encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. p. 219.
  11. Buchanan, Angela Marie and Bay Buchanan, The extreme makeover of Hillary (Rodham) Clinton, Regnery Publishing, 2007, ISBN 1-59698-507-0, ISBN 978-1-59698-507-0, page 145-6.
  12. Greg Hernandez, "Growing the Grass Roots", page 35-7, The Advocate, July 19, 2005.
  13. "National Gay and Lesbian Task Force mourns the passing of LGBT rights leader Paula L. Ettelbrick". National LGBTQ Task Force. 2011-10-07. Retrieved 2019-07-02.
  14. Staff, Stonewall Community Foundation | SDGLN (2011-10-07). "LGBT activist Paula Ettelbrick dies at age 56". San Diego Gay and Lesbian News. Retrieved 2019-07-02.
  15. Lavers, Michael K. (28 September 2015). "EXCLUSIVE: IGLHRC to change its name". Washington Blade.
  16. Edih M. Lederer, "US gay rights group gets UN accreditation", July 19, 2010
  17. U.S. Gay Rights Group Gets U.N. Accreditation
  18. Johnson, Cary Alan (2011-10-07). "IGLHRC Mourns the Loss of Paula Ettelbrick". Global LGBT Human Rights Organization | OutRight. Retrieved 2019-07-01.
  19. Mills, K. (2012-10-05). "Paula Ettelbrick Fellows and Interns Fund". Global LGBT Human Rights Organization | OutRight. Retrieved 2019-07-01.
  20. "SAGE honors leaders at NYC awards gala". Outalliance. 2016-10-19. Retrieved 2019-07-02.
  21. "MCCA's LMJ Scholarship Now Accepting Applications for 2017-18 Academic Year". PRWeb. Retrieved 2019-07-02.
  22. "MCCA Announces Winners of Paula Ettelbrick, George B. Vashon Awards". Minority Corporate Counsel Association. Retrieved 2019-07-02.
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