STONEWALL SPEAKERS
Educating the community, one story at a time.
STONEWALL SPEAKERS AT A GLANCE
LGBTQI Speakers Bureau
Stonewall Speakers, a program of the Connecticut Stonewall Foundation, Inc., is an all-volunteer speaker's bureau comprised of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, pansexual, queer people and their allies. Our speakers give their hearts, time and travel expenses to help eliminate hate and promote understanding. Speaking engagements generally include two or more panelists and combine personal life stories with a question and answer session. We speak to thousands of youth and adults annually. Stonewall Speakers is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization
ACTIVITIES
PUBLIC SCHOOL ENGAGEMENTS
Educating Students
WORK PLACE ENGAGEMENTS
Advocating Safe Work Environments
COMMUNITY FORUMS
Community Education
“The richness, beauty and depths of love can only be fully experienced in a climate of complete openness, honesty and vulnerability.”
Anthony Venn Brown
OUR STORY
Stonewall Speakers, a program of the Connecticut Stonewall Foundation, Inc., is an all volunteer speakers bureau comprised of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender people and their allies.
The organization was originally named ‘Speak! Out!’ and was the creation of the Anti-Violence Project (AVP) of 1988. AVP organized during the hearings for two Hartford area high school students who brutally beat and killed 33 year old, Richard Reihl, a gay man from Wethersfield who was employed by the Aetna Insurance Company.
The boys were sentenced to 30 and 40 years for enacting a murder due to unreasoned fear, hatred and non-acceptance of difference. For this the families and friends of Richard Reihl and the boys suffered needless loss.
AVP recognized the urgent need for a preventive educational program for schools: one that might help to dispel the myths and stereotypes that hurt LGBT people. This program would provide youth an opportunity to: meet LGBT people and their allies in person to hear personal accounts of their lives and obtain informed answers to any questions they might want to ask.
“Speak! Out!” later changed its name to “Stonewall Speakers.” The choice of “Stonewall” in the organization’s name is a tribute to the historical Stonewall Rebellion of June 1969 at the Stonewall Inn in New York City’s Greenwich Village, which is recognized as the start of the Gay Rights movement in the United States.