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Urvashi Vaid

 

 
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Urvashi Vaid
 
 
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Urvashi Vaid (born 1958 in New Delhi
New Delhi

New Delhi is the capital city of India. With a total area of 42.7 km2, New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi and serves as the seat of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi ....
, India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
) is an American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 activist who has worked for over 25 years promoting civil rights
Civil rights

Civil and political rights are a class of rights ensuring things such as the protection of peoples' physical integrity; procedural fairness in law; protection from discrimination based on sexism, religious intolerance, Racism, Homophobia, etc; individual freedom of freedom of belief, freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom...
 for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender
LGBT

LGBT is an acronym and initialism referring collectively to Lesbian,Gay, Bisexuality, and Transgender people. In use since the 1990s, the term ?LGBT? is an adaptation of the initialism ?LGBT? which itself started replacing the phrase ?gay community? which many within LGBT communities felt did not represent accurately all those to which it...
 persons.

Political activism
Vaid was born in India and moved to the United States at age eight with her family. Vaid was politically active from an early age, participating in the anti-Vietnam war
Vietnam War

The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina Wars, the Vietnam Conflict, or often in Vietnam the American War occurred in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from 1959 to April 30, 1975....
 movement at 11 years old, then at Vassar College
Vassar College

Vassar College is a private, coeducational, Liberal arts colleges in the United States situated in the town of Poughkeepsie , New York, New York, United States....
, becoming active in a variety of feminist and human rights causes.






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Urvashi Vaid (born 1958 in New Delhi
New Delhi

New Delhi is the capital city of India. With a total area of 42.7 km2, New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi and serves as the seat of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi ....
, India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
) is an American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 activist who has worked for over 25 years promoting civil rights
Civil rights

Civil and political rights are a class of rights ensuring things such as the protection of peoples' physical integrity; procedural fairness in law; protection from discrimination based on sexism, religious intolerance, Racism, Homophobia, etc; individual freedom of freedom of belief, freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom...
 for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender
LGBT

LGBT is an acronym and initialism referring collectively to Lesbian,Gay, Bisexuality, and Transgender people. In use since the 1990s, the term ?LGBT? is an adaptation of the initialism ?LGBT? which itself started replacing the phrase ?gay community? which many within LGBT communities felt did not represent accurately all those to which it...
 persons.

Political activism


Vaid was born in India and moved to the United States at age eight with her family. Vaid was politically active from an early age, participating in the anti-Vietnam war
Vietnam War

The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina Wars, the Vietnam Conflict, or often in Vietnam the American War occurred in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from 1959 to April 30, 1975....
 movement at 11 years old, then at Vassar College
Vassar College

Vassar College is a private, coeducational, Liberal arts colleges in the United States situated in the town of Poughkeepsie , New York, New York, United States....
, becoming active in a variety of feminist and human rights causes. She received a law degree from Northeastern University School of Law
Northeastern University School of Law

Northeastern University School of Law is a law school in Boston, Massachusetts. From the time of its founding in 1898, the law school's mission has focused on addressing the needs of students and of society....
 in Boston in 1983, where she founded the Boston Lesbian/Gay Political Alliance, a non-partisan political organization that interviews and endorses candidates for political office and advocates for Boston's gay community.

Vaid believes that true liberation of lesbians and gays from injustice will only occur when the larger institutions of society and the family are transformed through lesbians and gays working within mainstream groups for inclusion and change. Her book, Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation (published in 1996), which won the Stonewall Book Award
Stonewall Book Award

Sponsored by the American Library Association's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Round Table, The Stonewall Book Awards are the first and most enduring awards for LGBT books....
,, addresses her beliefs regarding mainstreaming.

Vaid took over leadership of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's Policy Institute
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is an organization working for the civil rights of lesbian, gay, bisexuality and transgender people in the United States....
 in 1989, and quickly built the NGLTF into the nation's pre-eminent gay rights NGO. She pushed gay issues into the public eye through coordinated media manipulation and staged numerous protests on such subjects as abortion
Abortion

An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by the removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in or caused by its death....
 and the Persian Gulf War
Gulf War

"Persian Gulf War" and "First Gulf War" redirect here. For other uses, see Persian Gulf War .The Persian Gulf War was a United Nations-authorized military conflict between Iraq and a Coalition of Gulf War from 34 nations commissioned with expelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait after Iraq's Invasion of Kuwait of Kuwait in August 1990....
. Vaid went on hiatus from the NGLTF between 1992 and 1997 and wrote Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation during this time. She resumed working at the NGLTF, serving as the organization's executive director for three years.

Vaid worked for 5 years at the Ford Foundation
Ford Foundation

The Ford Foundation is a private foundation incorporated in Michigan and based in New York City created to fund programs that were chartered in 1936 by Edsel Ford and Henry Ford....
, and has been Executive Director of the Arcus Foundation since late 2005.

Vaid shares homes in Manhattan
Manhattan

Manhattan is one of the five borough of New York City, located primarily on Manhattan Island at the mouth of the Hudson River.With a United States Census of 1,620,867 living in a land area of 22.96 square miles , Manhattan, coextensive with New York County, is the most population density county in the United States, w...
 and Provincetown, Massachusetts
Provincetown, Massachusetts

Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 3,431 at the 2000 census....
, with her partner, comedian Kate Clinton
Kate Clinton

Kate Clinton has been an United States comedian for over 25 years, specializing in political commentary from a gay/lesbian point of view. She was born in Buffalo, New York....
.

Works