Kathleen Joan DeBold, the longtime D.C. LGBTQ activist and editor of Out for Office: Campaigning in the Gay Nineties, died suddenly on October 9, 2022, in Ocean City, Maryland.
Born Kathleen Joan DeBold on November 16, 1955, in Brooklyn, New York, to Francis Charles and Joan Marie DeBold, she moved with her family to Maryland as a child. She earned a degree in agriculture and life sciences from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1977, and went on to work for the Entomological Society of America as the first female apiary inspector in the state of Maryland. In 1982 she joined the Peace Corps and spent three years in the Central African Republic teaching beekeeping, later returning there for four more years with Africare as an extension and training specialist. While in Africa she became fluent in Sango and French and edited a journal for beekeepers, BARCA: Bulletin Apicole de la Republique CentrAfricaine.
Out for Office: Campaigning in the Gay Nineties (1994), which DeBold edited for the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, is a how-to guide for LGBTQ candidates running for public office, from school boards to Congress, with contributions from Frank Kameny, Carole Migden, and other organizers and politicians.
DeBold returned to the United States in 1989 and began her career as an LGBTQ activist, working for the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund as deputy and political director and helping elect openly LGBTQ candidates, including Sen. Tammy Baldwin. In 1999 she became executive director of the Mautner Project, an organization serving lesbians with cancer, a role in which she expanded the group into a national and international leader on lesbian health issues; she remained at Mautner through 2007. While there, she co-edited, with Victoria Brownworth, Coming Out of Cancer: Writings from the Lesbian Cancer Epidemihttps://lesbianfunworld.com/books/coming-out-of-cancer-by-victoria-a-brownworth/c (Seal Press, 2000), an anthology of fiction and nonfiction by lesbian writers affected by cancer. She later served as interim director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which fought to overturn “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and as administrator of the Lambda Literary Awards during the 2010s.
Complete Bibliography
Edited: Out for Office: Campaigning in the Gay Nineties (1994); Coming Out of Cancer: Writings from the Lesbian Cancer Epidemic, with Victoria Brownworth (2000)
Beyond her organizational work, DeBold was a longtime volunteer in lesbian literary circles: from 1990 for three decades she reviewed books for Lambda Book Review and other publications, wrote jacket copy for Naiad Press (later Bella Books), and judged the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund grants in 2014. She created Wordgaymes, an LGBT-themed crossword syndicated in lesbian and gay newspapers nationally, and drew LGBT-themed cartoons for numerous publications. Her honors included the Washington Blade’s “Most Committed Female Activist” (2001) and “Local Hero” (2005), a place on Women’s eNews’ 21 Leaders of the 21st Century (2007), and recognition as a Community Pioneer by the Rainbow History Project (2015).
DeBold died on October 9, 2022, in Ocean City, Maryland, at age 66. She is survived by her longtime companion of 48 years and wife of nine, Barbara Johnson, of Burtonsville, Md.; her sister Bonnie DeBold (Scott Mann) of York, Pa.; her brother Daniel DeBold (Aldona) of Olney, Md.; and extended family.
Photograph from Kaczorowski Funeral Home, P.A.