LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
SPONSORED BY
Lee Zevy Identity
Lee Zevy is co-founder of Identity
House, where she has spent five
decades helping to lead the allvolunteer
community non-profit in its work
to provide counseling to LGBTQ adults.
Lee has served as an administrator, clinical
director, and director of training at Identity
House, in addition to her ongoing roles as
therapist and supervisor.
Lee has been involved in activism for most
of her life — which she attributes to her
mother’s teachings and the circumstances
of her upbringing during the fifties. She
snuck in to watch longtime LGBTQ activist
Randy Wicker deliver a speech at her college
campus, and she went on to join the Congress
of Racial Equality (CORE). She participated
in the March on Washington, emboldening
her activist spirit.
Lee attended Gay Activists Alliance
meetings and became deeply involved in
women’s rights initiatives, but subsequently
focused more on a career path in social work
to provide counseling to gay people, leading
to the emergence of Identity House.
Lee pursued a master’s degree in social
work from Fordham University and trained
gestalt psychotherapy at the New York
House
Institute for Gestalt Therapy, where, as a
fellow, she now teaches and supervises. In
1979, Lee left her job in social work with
the City of New York and went into fulltime
private practice as an out lesbian
therapist.
Lee continued to expand her expertise in
2001 when she became certified in integral
coaching to assist clients working to build
their careers.
Lee married her longtime partner, Lucy
Ianniciello, in 2013 — 46 years after they met
at Chelsea’s old French Hospital. Lucy passed
away in 2017.
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