Members of GLAAD’s Board of Directors and staff in Provincetown earlier this summer.
GLAAD announced that communications and diversity & inclusion specialist Maeve DuVally as well as content creator Samantha Lux have joined GLAAD’s National Board of Directors. Additionally, David Hornik is returning to the Board of Directors after previously completing a six year term.
Maeve DuVally is a professional in communications and diversity & inclusion and a passionate advocate for the LGBTQ community. She has spent most of her career as a journalist and corporate spokesperson. Maeve held a senior role in Goldman Sachs’ LGBTQ affinity network; mentors transgender people at and outside of Goldman Sachs; and is a frequent public speaker on transgender workplace issues. Prior to her 18-year career at Goldman, Maeve worked in media relations at Merrill Lynch. Before that, she was a financial journalist and editor at Bridge News for nearly 15 years with stints in Tokyo and Washington before moving to New York. She spent ten productive and enjoyable years in Japan in the 1980s and is fluent in Japanese.
In addition to the GLAAD board, Maeve serves on the boards for the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship, a journalism non-profit; Connecticut-based LGBTQ healthcare provider Anchor Health Initiative; and Trans New York. She earned a B.A. in English from Providence College in and was a Knight-Bagehot Fellow at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism School.
Samantha Lux is a social media influencer and YouTube content creator who has amassed over 600,000 subscribers and 60 million channel views. She uses her platform to promote social change, specifically aiming to reduce discrimination against the transgender community. By using a combination of commentary, storytelling videos, educational content, documentaries, and comedy, she is effectively winning over the hearts of people who may have never met a transgender person. In 2019, Samantha graduated from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, with a Bachelor’s degree in Communication and Political Science, and studied for years on the construction of gender and how people interpret media representation of marginalized groups. She now actively manages her business Samantha Lux Productions, and frequently speaks at corporations, events, and non-profit organizations to educate the world on her story and the transgender community.
David Hornik is returning to the GLAAD Board of Directors, having previously completed a six-year term. David is a founding partner at Lobby Capital. For the last 25 years he has worked closely with technology entrepreneurs to help them build transformative businesses. Prior to founding Lobby Capital, David was a partner at August Capital for 20 years. David invests in a broad range of software companies, including enterprise application, infrastructure, and SaaS businesses (e.g, Splunk, Fastly, GitLab), financial technology companies (e.g., Bill.com, WePay, PayNearMe), and consumer services (e.g., Evite, Ebates, TopHatter).
David started the first venture capital blog, VentureBlog, and the first venture capital podcast, VentureCast. He has served as the Tech Curator for the TED Conference in Vancouver and was the co-creator and host of TEDxStanford. David has received Deloitte’s Venture Capitalist of the Year award and has been honored by Forbes Magazine as a member of its Midas List of Top Venture Capitalists. David is a member of the board of the Stanford Alumni Association and is a commissioner of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. David received an BA from Stanford in Computer Music, an M.Phil in Criminology from Cambridge University, and a JD from Harvard Law School. He teaches courses in entrepreneurship and venture capital at Stanford Business School and Harvard Law School. He lives in Palo Alto, CA with his wife and their four children.
“The expansive knowledge of GLAAD’s new Board Members across social media, tech, and business will meaningfully advance our work to accelerate LGBTQ acceptance forward,” said Chair of GLAAD’s Board of Directors, Pamela Stewart. “Members of our talented Board of Directors are dedicated to supporting GLAAD at a time when this organization’s leadership in protecting LGBTQ people and growing LGBTQ representation is urgent and critical.”
GLAAD’s recent advocacy work includes:
- In response to the 2022 Texas directive which unfairly called for investigations of child abuse into parents of transgender youth, GLAAD announced the launch of a nationwide PSA which spotlights Amber Briggle, a Texas mother of a transgender son. She reminds viewers that her family is no different than theirs and that trans kids don’t have a political agenda, “They are just kids. They just want to be left alone.” Comcast NBCUniversal, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, and The Walt Disney Company are running the PSA nationwide across multiple platforms. Briggle calls on viewers to stand with trans youth and visit http://equality-now.org. The site features up to date information on LGBTQ youth and how to show support for them.
- GLAAD released the second annual Social Media Safety Index, a report on LGBTQ user safety across five major social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok. The 2022 SMSI introduced a Platform Scorecard, which utilizes twelve LGBTQ-specific indicators to generate numeric ratings with regard to LGBTQ safety, privacy, and expression. All platforms scored under a 50 out of a possible 100. GLAAD continues to share findings of the SMSI at tech conferences and in the media. GLAAD also meets with each platform to discuss recommendations and urgent needs regarding LGBTQ safety.
- GLAAD hosted the 33rd Annual GLAAD Media Awards in New York and Los Angeles in-person for the first time since 2019. The ceremonies were the most successful Awards to date and hosted culture-changing and life-saving messages delivered by Michaela Jae Rodriguez, Ariana DeBose, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Judith Light, Wilson Cruz, Kacey Musgraves, among others. Hosts included Bob the Drag Queen, Shangela, Eureka O’Hara, Cody Rigsby and Peppermint. The GLAAD Media Awards honor fair and accurate representation of LGBTQ people across 30 categories in English and Spanish-language media.
- In June, GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis attended the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity to advocate for more LGBTQ representation in advertising. Ellis called corporates to take action for LGBTQ lives via appearances on panels with brands and ad agencies including P&G, iHeartMedia, Sony Music Group, Dentsu, Female Quotient, The Ad Council, ADCOLOR, and the Association of National Advertisers.
- Ellis, alongside other world leaders in business, politics, and civil society, also attended the annual World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Ellis moderated a World Economic Forum panel on LGBTQ issues and how global businesses can advocate for change.
- This year, GLAAD announced the findings of the eighth annual Accelerating Acceptance Study, showing a sharp increase in LGBTQ Americans experiencing discrimination, particularly among queer people of color, transgender and nonbinary people and Gen Z LGBTQ Americans. Other findings from Accelerating Acceptance revealed a need for the Equality Act, where 79% of LGBTQ Americans strongly support federal legislative action to protect them. GLAAD continues to raise awareness for the Equality Act and to advocate for federal non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people.