L.A. Gay Center Leader Takes National Post

A former director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, Lorri L. Jean, on Monday was named executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

She will be the first national director since the task force formed in 1973 who will not work out of Washington, D.C., or New York. Rather, she will be based in a new Los Angeles office scheduled to be completed this fall.

The group will continue to lobby in the nation’s capital, but “given the election of George W., it’s very unlikely that anything good for our movement will happen inside the beltway these days,” Jean said.

The future of gay and lesbian causes will be fought, at least in the short run, most intensely at the local level, she said.

“We’re going to work from the grass-roots up,” Jean said. “We’re going to help changes continue at local levels and force Washington to make changes. . . . California is pivotal to this movement. As California goes, the nation usually goes.”

Prior to joining the center, Jean, 44, was a regional director for the Federal Emergency Management Agency in San Francisco. She has long been active in gay and lesbian causes, serving on a number of organizations’ boards even as she worked for the federal government.

“Lorri represents the best of our movement,” said Rachel Rosen, co-chairwoman of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force board of directors. “[She has] a proven record of building local communities, a strong commitment to progressive political work and a demonstrated history of building nonprofit financial strength and stability.”

Under Jean, the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center’s annual budget grew from $8 million in 1993 to $32 million in 1999, the year she left.

Among her priorities, Jean said, will be gaining greater protection for gay and lesbian families as well as bolstering anti-discrimination laws. She said many communities recently have shown a willingness to enact ordinances that protect homosexual rights.