Vaid, Urvashi

Urvashi Vaid (1958-2022, age 64). Born in New Delhi, India, she migrated to the U.S. to join her family in New York, in 1966. She earned a B.A. from Vassar College in 1979 and a J.D. from Northeastern University in 1983.

At Vassar and in Boston, she was active in feminist, LGBTQ, and other social justice struggles. In Boston, Urvashi served on the boards of directors of the Boston Lesbian and Gay Political Alliance and Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders; she also was an active collective, board, and staff member at Gay Community News.

In 1983, she moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked as a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project (1983-86) and as the media director (1986-89), executive director (1989-92), and Policy Institute director (1997-2001) of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

She later worked at the Ford Foundation (2001-2005), the Arcus Foundation (2005-2010), and the Columbia University Center for Gender and Sexuality Law (2011-2015). In the last decade of her life she founded LPAC (a lesbian political action committee) and the Vaid Group LLC.

Her major publications include Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation (1995); Creating Change: Sexuality, Public Policy, and Civil Rights (2000, co-edited with John D’Emilio and William B. Turner); and Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics (2012).