Melanie Nathan
Her peers call her “a force of nature.” Melanie Nathan, a South Africa-born attorney, used her law school experience to assist African workers who were victims of apartheid in the 1980s. After immigrating to the U.S., she founded Private Courts, Inc., a mediation and human rights advocacy firm in Marin County, California. She is also a prolific blogger and journalist who uses her writing “as a platform for my advocacy work…to get results such as helping LGBT asylum seekers.” It’s taken her to some controversial places: regular communication with the author of Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” bill, an investigation of “corrective rape” of lesbians in South Africa, which led to a Parliamentary Task team. In addition to her blog, O-Blog-Dee-O-Blog-Da, she contributes to The Advocate, LGBTQ Nation and others. Nathan is co-producer of GAY U.S.A. the Movie, a documentary debunking the myths that impact gay rights. “No American, least of all our own community, should sit back and allow prejudice and discrimination to continue. This is the final frontier of the civil rights movement in America,” Nathan argues. “Each and every one of us has a duty to tell our stories, and not one ear should be spared.”
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