Staff

AMBER HOLLIBAUGH
Co-Executive Director

Amber Hollibaugh is the Interim Executive Director of Queers for Economic Justice (QEJ). Formerly she was Chief Officer of Elder & LBTI Women’s Services at Howard Brown Health Center in Chicago. Previous to that she was Senior Strategist for the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce and before that she was the Director of National Initiatives at SAGE — Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders. Earlier in her tenure there she was their Director of Education, Advocacy and Community Building. Before joining the staff of SAGE, she spent seven years at Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) as Director of the Lesbian AIDS Project and subsequently as the National Director of Women’s Services. Prior to that, she had been the Director of Education for the New York City Commission on Human Rights, AIDS Division.

A well known activist, artist, public intellectual and community organizer, she was a founding member of Queers for Economic Justice and is currently on the boards of CLAGS (the Center for Lesbian & Gay Studies), LAIN (LGBT Aging Issues Network) of ASA and on the editorial board of GLQ, The Journal of Lesbian & Gay Studies.

She was a recipient of the Dr. Susan B. Love award for outstanding achievement in women’s health and is the author of MY DANGEROUS DESIRES – A Queer Girl Dreaming Her Way Home (Duke University Press, 2002), and the director and co-producer of THE HEART OF THE MATTER, a documentary film focusing on women’s sexuality, denial and risk for HIV and AIDS. The film won the 1994 Sundance Film Festival Freedom of Expression award and premiered on PBS’s prestigious POV film series. Email Amber at amber@q4ej.org.

BRANDON LACY CAMPOS

Co-Executive Director

Brandon Lacy Campos is a 33 year old Afro-Boricua, African-American, Ojibwe, Euro, poz, writer, blogger, performance poet, policy wonk,  organizer, and rabble rouser. His work has appeared in nearly a dozen anthologies ranging from collections of queer Latino poetry to Queer Twin Cities, an academic anthology exploring the queer history of Minneapolis and St. Paul. He has written articles for numerous online and print magazines and newspapers including, beginning Summer 2011, regular contributions to Gay.com and, in October 2011, The Advocate’s print edition. His blog, MyFeetOnlyWalkForward.com earned him the #2 spot on Queer Latino Bloggers to Watch at MyLatinoVoice.com, and he also blogs at TheBody.com. In 2006, the Minneapolis Star Tribune named him a “Young Wonk to Watch,” for his insane love of breaking down complex public policy issues into language non-Wonks can understand.

In addition, Brandon has guest lectured at half a dozen colleges and universities on the intersection of race, sexual orientation and art as a tool for social change. He recently performed Off Broadway as the opening act for Bebe Zahara Benet’s Queendom. He is a proud NOC (Nerd of Color), and combines his love of sex, politics, love, science fiction and fantasy, and queerness in his writing.  He is grateful for his Rebel Sartori Press community, and is looking forward to holding Eden Lost in his grubby little hands. His collection of poetry, It Ain’t Truth If It Doesn’t Hurt, will be available on July 19th from Rebel Satori Press. Email Brandon at brandon@q4ej.org.

JAY TOOLE
Director of the Shelter Project

Jay Toole is a 63 year-old butch identified lesbian who battled addiction for 37 years, during which time she was homeless for 25 years, and often lived on the streets and the NYC shelters.

That same year, 1999, at age 50, she completed her GED and began volunteering with The Coalition for the Homeless as a shelter Monitor. In November of 2000 she left the shelter system for her first ever apartment in her own name. Since 2001 she has graduated from The Resource Training Center to become a alcohol and substance abuse counselor with a award and prize for leadership in education, worked part-time as an out-reach worker to the shelter system on recovery issues at the LGBT Community Center.

In 2002, she became a founding member of Queers for Economic Justice. In 2004, she was hired as the Shelter Organizer for QEJ. In 2006 she received the Richard L. Schiegel National Legion of Honor Award for Emerging Activist. In that year, she also helped with other organizations get the city to write policy that ensures Transgender folks to self determine what shelter to enter. In 2011, Jay was honored for her service to the queer community by the Sylvia Rivera Law Project?Email Jay at jay@q4ej.org.

DOYIN OLA
Shelter Safety Campaign Coordinator

Doyin is a Brooklyn-based Nigerian queer transfag activist, feminist and gender liberationist of Edo and Yoruba decent. He organized with the Audre Lorde Project’s TransJusrtice and Immigrant Rights Work Groups for years. He has also worked as the project coordinator of the Welfare Organizing Project of Queers for Economic Justice; school/community organizer for Make the Road New York and Bushwick Community High School; and with Uhuru-Wazobia and Liberation for All Africans, two organizations focused on the human rights and social justice movements of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Africans, both in the diaspora and on the continent. As a published writer, his pieces have appeared in blogs like Black Public Media, the Trans Atlantic Times, and anthologies, such as Yellow Medicine Review: A Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art and Thought. Email Doyin at doyin@q4ej.org.

CARLOS BLANCO
QEJ Organizer

Carlos, a native of Houston, Texas, is a Chicano-Panamanian joto activist who began working at QEJ a year and a half ago. Studying Religion at Columbia University, he is deeply committed to working-class organizing in communities of color. He has previously worked in the Community Mobilization department at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, Planned Parenthood’s Youth Initiatives Programming and Raising Women’s Voices for the Health Care We Need as a research assistant.

In addition to serving on the Board of Directors, Carlos has helped develop the Leadership School curriculum, a 5-hour workshop for shelter residents focusing on the economy and community organizing. He has also helped organize Queer Quest 2011: QEJ’s Community Outreach Vision, a strategic plan to connect and organize with New York City’s low income queers by identifying places for QEJ to visit.

Para información en español, Email Carlos at carlos1@q4ej.org