When San Francisco’s South of Market district (known for its working-class gay leather community) was at risk of being labeled a blight and forcibly restructured in the 1980s, lesbian activist Kathleen Connell helped found the Folsom Street Fair to bring the community together in protest. Although she retired from the organizing committee only a few years in, the fair, as she recounts in an article on its website, flourished into a world famous celebration of all things queer and BDSM.
Outside of queer activism Connell has helped found multiple environmental organizations; at the time of this writing she runs at least one and teaches college courses on the side. Her environmentalism, as she describes here, is tied to her identity as a lesbian. While she ran an environmentalist blog, it has not updated since 2011.
We Were There 