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.

Christa Holka
Christa Holka is an American artist who lives and works in London. Her work focuses on documenting and archiving the communities in which she exists. From portraits of friends and peers, to images of her everyday life and the high-energy club nights she and her friends frequent, to directed cinematic narratives, to film and television stills, she is particularly interested in how her work functions both on the gallery wall and on the Internet, and how her personal archive contributes to “the history making of our community.” Christa’s work is a living record engaged with exploring how new forms of archiving our daily lives have affected story-telling, personal narrative, memory, identity, self-representation and art practice. Her ongoing project, I WAS THERE, documents a particular time and place, a dance floor, an energy, capturing her subjects jubilantly engaged within a somber palette, revealing a sense of isolation amidst the crowd. Christa has exhibited work in galleries in the U.S., London, Berlin and Athens. Her work has also been featured on PBS.org’s Art:21 blog. She has also given artist talks about her work at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, the Tate Modern, London and at Union Docs in Brooklyn, New York.