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.

Amber Dawn
“I never set out to be an author,“ Amber Dawn confides. “Growing up an awkward poor girl in a small rural town, I never imagined I’d one day stand on a stage, or at the head of a classroom, or on the street with a megaphone chanting to a crowd. All I knew is I needed to find my voice.“ Lucky for us, she found it. Dawn is an acclaimed writer, filmmaker, teacher, activist and the Director of Programming for the Vancouver Queer Film Festival. Arsenal Pulp Press published her Lambda Award-winning novel Sub Rosa in 2010, after she edited Fist of the Spider Woman (2008) and co-edited With a Rough Tongue: Femmes Write Porn (2005). “I knew that if I didn’t tell my story, it would eat me up inside,“ Dawn says. “Telling stories has taken me to some extraordinary places. [Now] I have the opportunity to encourage other women to find their voices.” For the past 15 years, Dawn has focused her activism on women, queer youth, sex workers and survivors of childhood trauma. Her next book, “How Poetry Saved My Life,” is a collection of poems and essays that proposes creative writing as a tool for empowerment and healing.