Lorri L. Jean, who will be the keynote speaker at this Friday night’s Spirit of Stonewall Rally, has an impressive record of achievements. After receiving a law degree from Georgetown University, Jean took a job with a Washington law firm, which led her to a post with FEMA (the government agency in charge of disaster management), where she was eventually promoted to associate director of FEMA’s largest area, San Francisco. Jean left FEMA to take over the helm of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center from 1993-99. She then moved back to the East Coast, started a business and was recruited to serve as executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) for two years before returning to the L.A. Center, where she is once again serving as executive director.

“I left the LA Center in the first place because I’d been here for six years and I was tired,” Jean told the Gay and Lesbian Times. “I’d worked six years of 80-hour weeks and my dad was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. I really didn’t know what was going to happen to him, so I thought it was time to leave and spend some significant time with him.

After taking her dad on a trip around the world and starting and selling a business, Jean started at NGLTF as a board member, as was later recruited to serve as executive director. Jean said she agreed to take the position for two years, with specific goals in mind.

When asked what she feels were her most significant accomplishments with NGLTF, Jean lists pulling the organization out of debt and helping it achieve financial stability, as well as refocusing the organization in a way that quadrupled its size and turned the tide on anti-gay ballot measures.

A few months before her contract expired, Jean was approached by the LA Center board and asked to return when her term with NGLTF ended.

“I thought about it very seriously,” said Jean. “I had never lost my passion for the work of the Center and I had done most of what the board at [NGLTF] had hired me to do and I was tired of traveling. So I decided it was time to return to the Center.”

Jean noted that the world and the GLBT movement have both changed dramatically since she left the LA Center in 1999 — for better and for worse. The prosperity of the ’90s is gone and the combination of a market downturn and flagging economy has been challenging nonprofits nationwide. At the same time, since George W. Bush’s election the U.S. has lived with an administration that has — in many respects — proven itself to be anti-gay. Locally, the first gay men have been elected to the California legislature and a GLBT legislative caucus has been established.

“Nationwide, society as a whole has moved enormous distances in its support of our equal rights,” said Jean. “If you just look at the last month, we have the U.S. Supreme Court sodomy decision…. I think in some respects these times are actually more challenging because of those changes.”

When Matt Foreman was chosen to take over for Jean as executive director of NGLTF, there was a great deal of attention paid to the fact that he would become the first man to head the organization in 10 years. Jean has little patience for the discussion and finds it irrelevant.

“I think that when those types of questions are raised they are born of sexism and misogyny,” she said. “When you really look, no one ever [questions] any of the positions that have only been held by men for years and years and years; no one ever says anything about that. But people sure went after the Task Force when, for 10 years, it had women at the helm — as though it couldn’t be possible that five times in a row … a woman could be the best qualified person. And that’s just totally untrue. What national GLBT organization is in the news more than any other right now? Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a fabulous organization, has achieved on our community’s behalf the most significant civil rights victory in our history. It has been run for more than a decade by Kevin Cathcart, and before that was run by man after man after man. No one has ever said anything about that — nor should they. We have to have some presumption that our boards of directors are choosing the best-qualified people who come before them.”

Jean pointed out that if you look at GLBT center executives, AIDS service organizations and other GLBT organizations across the country there is a predominance of men in the top positions. There has been a long history in the GLBT movement of having only men at the top.

“I have a theory that the instant women, or any underrepresented group, [comprise] 50 percent, they’re viewed as dominating,” said Jean.

Jean is happy with the choice of Foreman to take her place, and feels that he will be a driving force for the organization.

“I like the idea of making these religious fanatics a lot more accountable for the ridiculousness they spew out into our society,” she said. “If Matt is going to take them on with a firm hand, I say more power to him.”

Since Jean is the keynote speaker at this year’s Pride rally, it seemed only natural to ask whether she thinks Pride is still important to the GLBT community.

“When people start suggesting that Pride isn’t really necessary anymore, they need to take a step back,” she responded. “All they have to do is wander down Santa Monica Blvd. here in Los Angeles on any night of the week and they will see hundreds of homeless GLBT youth. Or go to a place that’s not Los Angeles; go to other places around the country that don’t have the kind of infrastructure that we have in San Diego or Los Angeles or San Francisco or any other major metropolitan area. There are plenty of reasons why it is still important to celebrate our wellness as a community and our pride. We still live in a society that treats us as second-class citizens.

“For many people, they may not feel a need to celebrate Pride anymore, and many things in this society become commercial, but I still love Pride; I still think it’s important,” she continued. “Just because some of us are comfortable and have made our way in the world doesn’t mean there aren’t generations coming behind us or people coming out in their later years who still can benefit from Pride.… I think it’s still a good thing. It’s gotten much, much bigger and more diverse, and more and more people are out now. And of course now … half the vendors these days are straight and have no interest in anything except for dollars — and that’s both a reflection of our progress and in some ways a sad statement. Some of those more rinky dink Prides of the early days had a different kind of spirit and close energy to them.”

Jean encouraged lesbian, bisexual and transgender women to attend the 3rd Annual San Diego Women’s Pride Brunch on Saturday, July 26, from 9:30-11:00 a.m. at Terra Restaurant in the Uptown District. Besides Jean, other featured guests include: Decatur, Georgia, City Commissioner Kecia Cunningham; California Assemblymember Christine Kehoe; San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis; and San Diego City Councilmember Toni Atkins. For more information on the breakfast, call Pam Wilson at (619) 233-1888.