HONOREE
KEN KIDD
CO-FOUNDER & STEERING COMMITTEE MEMBER, GAYS AGAINST GUNS
Ken Kidd, director of special projects and events at NYU’s College
of Arts and Science, has been a loud and proud rabble-rouser in the
LGBTQ and HIV/ AIDS communities for more than 30 years.
At NYU, Ken conceived and spearheaded the university’s wildly
successful NYU Stonewall#50, with more than 100 special events at
the school’s sites across the globe — including three art exhibits and the publication of three books marking the 50th
anniversary of the Stonewall Riots and the roles played by NYU community members in the movement up to 2019.
Ken’s activism has spanned the leading LGBTQ civil rights and health advocacy efforts of the past several decades. He
has helped organize and participated in major protest actions of ACT UP, Queer Nation, the Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence
Project, Gays Against Guns (GAG), which was launched in the immediate aftermath of the Pulse nightclub massacre in
Orlando in June 2016, and Rise and Resist, which emerged in response to the Russian-backed overthrow of our country’s
democracy by Donald Trump.
Notably, in 1991 Ken helped conceive and organize ACT UP’s “Day of Desperation” that shut down Grand Central and
42nd Street during a weeknight rush hour, and he was an original member of Queer Nation from its fi rst meeting through
its actions against Vladimir Putin’s Anti-Gay Propaganda Laws in 2013 and 2014 and its successful 2015 efforts to kill
the fatally fl awed Employment Nondiscrimination Act. He assisted in crafting the wording for and the successful launch of
ENDA’s stronger and more comprehensive successor, the Equality Act, currently languishing under the Trump regime and
the intransigence of GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
As a GAG member since its inception, Ken has served on its steering committee since 2016. He has proudly worked with
GAG’s Human Beings (silent veiled fi gures cloaked in white who represent those whose voices were lost to gun violence),
helped to spearhead successful Gays Against Guns action strategies against gun stock investments via BlackRock holdings,
strategically went into battle with — and won against — the National Rifl e Association’s Business Alliance, a group of
more than 100 national and international corporations such as Hertz and FedEx that had lavished huge discounts to NRA
members but have since broken ties.
Ken conceived and created an ad/ zap/ action campaign to focus on NRA-sponsored bills introduced in Congress to
legalize Nationwide Concealed Carry Reciprocity and most recently began a campaign of action and education about
Wells Fargo, the NRA’s principal bank that has offered the gun lobby and assault weapons manufacturers at least $470
million in loans and bond fi nancings since the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting and that continues to support those interests
despite mounting opposition.
Of GAG’s efforts, Ken says, “Stay tuned because we’re not done yet!”
Gay City News Impact Awards 2020 31