GO Proudly Presents: 100 Women We Love, Class Of 2020

Patrisse Cullors

Photo by Giovanni Solis.

Black Lives Matter (BLM) is at the center of the world’s stage right now, leading the movement for systemic change sparked by the killing of George Floyd and countless more Black lives at the hands of police brutality. Organizers like Patrisse Cullors, one of the Co-Founders of BLM, are at the forefront of change. Cullors is the New York Times bestselling author of “When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir” who writes and appears in the Freeform TV series, “Good Trouble.” She also created and currently heads the MFA program in Social and Environmental Arts at Arizona Prescott College. Criminal justice reform has been a constant part of Cullors’ career. She founded and chaired Reform LA Jails and led the organization’s “Yes on R” campaign — which passed by a 71% landslide victory in March. She also founded the grassroots, Los Angeles-based organization Dignity and Power Now and acts as a Senior Advisor for The Justice Collaborative. The fight for Black queer lives is vital to the movement and more essential than ever, and Cullors insists that that intersectionality deserves to be honored and celebrated. “The world teaches us these cisheteropatriarchal concepts of who we should be and how we should love,” she tells GO. “I am queer — in every sense of the word. And it is this queering of my identity, my romantic relationships, how I build community, and how I view the world that has also been my saving grace. At 15 [when I came out], I felt like the world, as I knew it, had ended. It did. And I am grateful that my queerness opened up new worlds where I could rebuild.” —GP


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