UPDATE: On September 28, 2022, Boston friends of Urvashi gathered in her memory. A recording of the gathering is available on Youtube.

BOSTON, MA (MAY 17, 2022) The History Project joins countless organizations and individuals in mourning the passing of Urvashi Vaid, the legendary LGBTQ+ activist, award-winning author, and fierce advocate for the most marginalized in our community. Although she lived for many years in New York City, Vaid spent some of her most formative time in Boston, and never lost touch with her friends here and the city’s LGBTQ+ community. 

As a law student at Northeastern University in the early 1980s, Vaid found time to write for and serve on the board of Gay Community News and to create the Boston Lesbian and Gay Political Task Force. After graduation, Vaid moved to Washington DC to become a staff attorney at the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. She was then hired by the National LGBTQ Task Force, where she served as media director and later, executive director. 

There would be many more boards, organizations, and causes. After Vaid’s passing, author Sarah Schulman wrote: “Urvashi created so many structures of support and resistance behind the scenes it would be impossible to map her full impact.”

Vaid’s book, Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation, published in 1995, criticized what had become of the LGBTQ+ movement. She argued that its leaders had left many vulnerable segments of the community behind, including trans people, queer women, and low-income people. Urvashi never stopped fighting for all of us.

Very few people have an entire community listed among those who survive her, but Vaid is one of them. In remembering her this week, Fenway Health wrote on their website: 

“Vaid is survived by her longtime partner, political humorist Kate Clinton; her nibling, activist and performance artist Alok Vaid-Menon; other family, friends, and colleagues; and the entire LGBTQIA+ community.” 

Header image: Urvashi Vaid, front right, honored at the Boston Lesbian and Gay Political Alliance Community Recognition Evening on November 18, 1983. From left: Larry Kessler, AIDS Action Committee; Jane Pincus and Wendy Sanford (rear) of the Boston Women's Healthbook Collective; Urvashi Vaid; David Peterson. Gay Community News Photograph Collection.