Activist, attorney and author Urvashi Vaid died of breast cancer on May 18, 2022.
Born in New Delhi, India, Vaid moved to the USA when she was a child. She attended Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, graduating with degrees in English and Political Science in 1979. A year later she enrolled in law school at Northeastern University in Boston, MA.
Vaid began her career as a staff lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union. She went on to hold a variety of positions in advocacy groups, academic institutions and philanthropic foundations, including the Los Angeles LGBT Center and the National LGBTQ Task Force (which she led at the height of the AIDS crisis).
Vaid was President of The Vaid Group LLC, a social innovation firm that works with global and domestic organizations to advance equity, justice and inclusion. Vaid was co-founder of the Donors of Color Network, the first cross-racial network connecting individuals of color to leverage their giving for racial equity; the National LGBT/HIV Criminal Justice Working Group, LPAC, the Equality Federation, the National Religious Leadership Roundtable, and the Creating Change Conference of the National LGBTQ Task Force.
She advocated extensively for LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, anti-war efforts, immigration justice and health care justice, among other social causes. As an author, she published many columns, reports and books including Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation, which won the Stonewall Book Award in 1996. Vaid also wrote Irresistible Revolution, and co-wrote Creating Change with John D’Emilio and William B. Turner.
She was lead researcher and co-author with Ashindi Maxton of The Apparitional Donor: Understanding & Engaging High Net Worth Donors of Color (Advancement Project & Donors of Color Network 2017); co-author, with Catherine Hanssens, Aisha-Moodie Mills, Andrea Ritchie, Dean Spade, of A Roadmap for Change: Federal Policy Recommendations Addressing the Criminalization of LGBT people and People living with HIV (Columbia Law School, 2014).
Vaid is survived by her wife comedian and author Kate Clinton, and her “nibling”, Alok Vaid-Menon.
Photograph from The American LGBTQ+ Museum.
