100 Women We Love, Queer Women We Love, Wonder Women

100 Women We Love 2012

June 15, 2012 Destiny Dejesus

“Knowing that my election showed Charlotteans and the world that we are not bound by discrimination wakes me every morning with pride,” proclaims LaWana Mayfield, the City Council representative for District 3 in Charlotte, NC, and the city’s first openly gay elected official. Last November, she trounced her Republican opponent in the council election with 78 percent of the vote, replacing an eight-year incumbent. Now, continuously building on her 15 years of activism, her other leadership posts include the Charlotte Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee, Mecklenburg County Development Corp. Board, Smart Start Board and the Charlotte Lesbian and Gay Fund Board of Advisors. Prior to the election, Mayfield took an active role in LGBT activism as the Human Rights Campaign’s Diversity Co-Chair. “I believe that my role, along with growing the City of Charlotte, is to open the door for LGBTQ dialogue and to create pathways to service. I have this amazing opportunity to help direct the growth of the City of Charlotte through my vote,” Mayfield says. “I am right where I am supposed to be, and I love my job!”

Drum roll, please! We’re excited to present this year’s 100 Women We Love—our most diverse group of out entertainers, artists, athletes, activists, business principals and elected officials yet. Each of these women is a superstar in her own right. Their achievements and contributions shape our lives —and elevate us in the eyes of the world . They’re working to raise LGBT awareness, increase our visibility and quicken our progress toward a just society.

We are extremely proud to present the class of 2012. There are no rankings or numbers. They are all leaders.

Beth Greenfield
A polymath journalist with an insider’s view of LGBT culture, Beth Greenfield has written about gay mores, real estate, entertainmedjnt, kids, health and travel for prominent publications including The New York Times, Esquire, Budget Travel, Parenting and Better Homes & Gardens. A self-described “representative voice for lesbians and queer people on mostly straight editorial staffs,” Greenfield was a features editor at Time Out New York and then managed its Gay & Lesbian section for seven years. “Being an out lesbian has allowed my career to flourish in ways I would have never thought possible: it’s allowed me to write about LGBT issues from a place of firsthand knowledge for mainstream publications,” says Greenfield. Now splitting her time between New York City and family life in Provincetown with her wife and young daughter, Greenfield published a memoir, Ten Minutes from Home, which was chosen as a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Authors title in 2010. She also continues to blog about travel and lesbian mommyhood on her eponymous website and freelances for several publications. Her latest project? Working on a semi-autobiographical novel about a 25-year-old lesbian gossip columnist living in early ‘90s NYC. We can’t wait to read it.