PFLAG Queens Chapter
Parents, Families and Friends
of Lesbians and Gays
16th Annual Morty Manford Awardee
Marriage Equality New York is an all-inclusive organization whose mission is to educate the public by raising awareness of the important right
of all persons to enter into legally recognized gender neutral civil marriage with all the benefits and responsibilities that entails.
Without marriage, committed same-sex couples are denied over 1,138 federal rights and obligations including social security, hospital
visitation, co-parenting rights, estate tax, and immigration, just to name a few.
12th Annual Carmel Tavadia Memorial Awardee
Laura Cadorette grew up in Cedar Grove, NJ and is a graduate of Rhode Island College in Providence, RI. In college, Laura was the first woman to
be appointed RIC Programming Coordinator of Student Activities, where she was responsible for booking and producing student activities, lectures,
concerts and campus-wide special events. After graduation, Laura was spending a quiet summer on Block Island, RI, when Robert Bork was nominated
to the United States Supreme Court. This propelled Laura to marshal her event organizing skills into political action for the first time. She
organized college friends, island residents and concerned tourists in a letter writing campaign to then Senator John Chafee (R-RI) and Senate
Judiciary Chair Joe Biden (D-DE), protesting Bork’s nomination.
In 1988, Laura moved to New York City where she had the good fortune of meeting Tom Duane, eventually working on Tom’s city council campaigns.
Laura was a member of ACT UP! and Queer Nation. A demonstration against Julio Rivera’s murder brought her to Jackson Heights for the first time.
Professionally, Laura spent most of her career in publishing, first with Bantam Doubleday Dell, then with Prentice Hall, before launching Profiles
Publications, a specialty publisher of information for real estate professionals. Currently, Laura is Director of Constituent Services for NYS
Assemblyman Jose Peralta.
Laura is a former board member of the Jackson Heights Beautification Group. Currently, she serves on the Executive Board of the John F. Kennedy
Democratic Club, the Executive Board of the Lesbian and Gay Democratic Club of Queens and is a member of the Queens Pride Committee. She lives
in Jackson Heights, Queens with her partner of 17 years, Jessica Davis and their beloved dog Elroy. The couple also maintains a home in South
Beach, Florida where they are members of the Miami Design Preservation League and are active in community causes.
4rd Annual Brenda Howard Memorial Awardee
Wendy Curry (born September 7, 1966) is a software engineer, speaker, retriever rescue volunteer, and bisexual activist.
Curry (nee Dufresne) is the oldest of 4 children. She was born in Worcester, MA, moved to midcoast Maine when she was 7, and finally to
New Hampshire in 1996. She holds a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science from the University of Maine at Orono. Her graduate research
focused on "Computer Modeling as a Teaching Tool."
An embedded software engineer since 1998, her specialty is in the area of embedded tools. She has been a leader on different debuggers, as well
as the noted CodeTEST product.
She is currently a Customer Engineer at Freescale Semiconductor, where she is responsible to ensuring a successful integration of a new cellular
phone computer processor info the customer's environment.
Curry started her activism career in 1991 upon discovering Lorraine Hutchins & Lani Ka'ahumanu's "Bi Any other Name". Her roots are founded in
internet based Bisexual communities, in particular Bifem-l and the other Brown University based listservs. While involved with Bifem-l, she
worked to bring the remote members together for weekend retreats.
While in Maine, she belonged to Wilde-Stein, UMaine's GLBT student organization. In 1996, she was a volunteer for the first "Maine Won't
Discriminate" campaign.
Her national activism began in 1997, mainly through BiNet USA. While a national coordinator, she edited the BiNet USA newsletter for 2 years, spoke
at several regional and national GLBT conferences, and managed the regional organizer team.
Noted actions included her "Biphobia makes me Blue" 3 state tour, where she visited 3 state capitols in 1 day to pass out leaflets in
"Blue-face." Along with Michael Page and Gigi Raven Wilbur, Curry was also one of the creators of Celebrate Bisexuality Day (Sept 23).
She started the Manchester, NH Bisexual support group. As a volunteer for the Boston Bisexual Woman's Network, she managed their web
site from 1998 - 2000.
Curry had articles published in several periodicals, including Anything that Moves, the BBWN newsletter, and BiNet USA newsletter.
After a 5 year break from Bisexual activism (when she ran NEARR, the North East all Retriever Rescue), she returned after reading about
the flawed Bailey Study.
Currently, Curry is a Board member of BiNet USA, where she works to organize American Bisexual activists. She leads workshops in several areas
associated with GLBT activism, including the Bisexual-Transgender-Intersex commonalities, Bisexuals & Monogamy, Organizing local Bisexual groups, and
Internet based queer communities
Other Information
We also have an ad journal and YOUR AD DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
For more information regarding our celebration ad journal, see our ad journal webpage at
http://www.pflag-queens.org/journal.html
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Last updated 1/13/09 by LDN