Board of Directors

Perry Brass has published 19 books, including poetry, fiction, science fiction, and advice books. His work stems from a visionary attitude toward all human sexuality coming from a core involvement with human values and equality derived from his involvement with the Gay Liberation Front which he joined in Nov, 1969, a few months after his 22nd birthday. In 1972, with 2 friends, he co-founded the Gay Men’s Health Project Clinic, the first clinic specifically for gay men on the East Coast, still surviving as the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center.

Mark Segal is a Stonewall riot pioneer, as a GLF member founded Gay Youth.  He was a marshal at the first Gay Pride March in 1970.  In 1972 he created the campaign to end LGBT invisibility on television disrupting numerous live shows including the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.  He worked with Pennsylvania Gov. Milton Shapp in 1974-75 to create the nations first in the nation executive order outlawing discrimination in state government. That work also led to the first official Governmental cabinet level commission on LGBT affairs in the nation. In 1976 he founded Philadelphia Gay News and was President of the LGBT Press Association. As a producer of Philadelphia’s July 4th Concert with Elton John in 2005, he raised $1.2 million for HIV/AIDS awareness, and as President of the Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld Fund, he partnered with The Obama Administration to build the nation's first official LGBT-Friendly affordable senior apartment building. In 2011 he was appointed to the Comcast NBC/Universal Joint Diversity Council. In 2015 he published his memoir “And Then I Danced: Traveling the Road to LGBT Equality.” His papers and artifacts of the last 53 years are part of the Smithsonian Institute’s American History Museum’s LGBT Collection.

Ellen Broidy was an early member of the Gay Liberation Front and part of the original Come Out cell. She was “president” of the NYU Student Homophile League, a founder of Radicalesbians, and, in fall 1969, presented the resolution creating the Christopher Street Liberation Day March at the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations. Ellen moved to California in 1971 where she received an MA in Middle Eastern History at UCLA and completed her doctorate in U.S. Women’s History at the University of California, Irvine. While in California, she made her cinematic debut (and coincidently, her final film performance) in Jan Oxenberg’s iconic 1975 film Comedy in Six Unnatural Acts. Ellen has worked at several University of California campuses as a librarian, faculty member, and most recently, a Writing Specialist. She and her partner of over 40 years reside in Santa Barbara where they remain active in progressive causes, with a particular focus on immigration and gender justice.

Martha Shelley was the public spokesperson for NY Daughters of Bilitis from 1967-1969. Immediately after the Stonewall Riots she called for a protest march and helped organize it. One of the founders of Gay Liberation Front, she wrote for and typeset the GLF newspaper, Come Out!, and hawked it on the streets. She helped organize and participated in many other actions, including the occupation of NYU’s Weinstein Hall. From 1972-1974 she produced the world’s first lesbian radio show, Lesbian Nation, for WBAI-FM. In 1974 she moved to Oakland to work with the Women’s Press Collective. Her essays, poetry, and stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. She is the author of four books of poetry (Crossing the DMZ, Lovers and Mothers, Haggadah, and Released from the Wheel) and a trilogy about Jezebel, Queen of Israel and her lesbian physician. Her most recent work is available at EbisuPublications.com.

John Knoebel joined GLF in 1969 soon after moving to NYC to attend graduate school. Badly beaten-up in a Greenwich Village gay bashing, he still walked proudly two days later in the first Christopher Street Liberation Day March with stitches on his forehead. As a member of GLF’s 95th Street Men’s Collective, he participated in many GLF protests including the occupation of NYU’s Weinstein Hall and the militant August 1970 Village Riot. As a proponent of consciousness-raising, he co-authored the first manual for men’s CR, “On Our Own.” As part of GLF’s outreach to the Black Panthers, he met with Huey Newton in August 1970 and then attended both sessions of the Panthers’ Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Conventions in Philadelphia and Washington D.C. Subsequently, he co-authored the Effeminist Manifesto and was an editor of Double-F, a magazine for men committed to fighting against sexism.

Moving to California in 1978, he pursued a 33-year career with the publishing firm of The Advocate, the national gay and lesbian newsmagazine. Under six ownership changes he served as VP of Marketing, then President and sometimes as an owner, he greatly increased the readership of the companies eight magazines, launched several additional titles and other ancillary divisions and played a major role in the purchase of its chief competitor, OUT magazine.

After retiring in 2012, he helped launch the important online LGBTQ oral history project: www.outspoken-lgbtq.org. He has recently written his memoir: “55 Years from Stonewall: A Gay American Life in a Time of Change.”

Flavia Rando, PhD, is an art historian who teaches Lesbian, Women’s and Queer Studies. A longtime lesbian activist, she joined the Gay Liberation Front in 1969 and Radicalesbians in 1970. In 2019, she was happy to accept the OUT d’Or Award in Paris on behalf of the Gay Liberation Front, which will become part of the Archives’ collections.

Mark Horn joined GLF and Gay Youth in 1970. He was the second president/chair of Gay Youth from 1971-72. During that time he also co-founded his college LGBTQ group. He has been involved ln LGBT rights organizations ever since.

He worked as a volunteer counselor at Identity House and wrote their first Policies and Procedures Manual. He also served on the board. He served on the board of NewFest, New York’s LGBTQ Film Festival. And he was the editor/writer of the Stonewall Seder, a liturgy for a ritual dinner celebrating Jewish LGBTQ Pride.

Dajenya is a bisexual, biracial (African American & Ashkenazi Jewish), cisgender female, vegetarian, pacifist, activist, poet/writer, mother/grandmother, social worker, artist and psychotherapist. She has been active to varying degrees for multiple causes including civil rights and anti-war movements, the movement to end apartheid in Israel/Palestine, and movements for transgender and other LGBTIQ rights.

At 16 & 17 years old, Dajenya was the youngest member of the Gay Liberation Front in New York City in 1970-1971. She moved to San Francisco in 1973, and resides with her beloved wife Lois, in Richmond, CA, 15 miles from her son, daughter-in-law, step-son and two grandchildren in Oakland. In 2015, Dajenya, along with about eight others, co-founded Richmond Rainbow Pride and she was its first Board Secretary from 2015-2018. She is pleased to be able to serve now on the Board of the Gay Liberation Front Foundation.