Liz Breadon, Boston City Councilor, Celebrates Pride Month

 BOSTON- On June 9th, 2021, Boston City Councilor

Liz Breadon filed a resolution recognizing June as Pride Month at Boston City Council where she received a standing ovation following a powerful speech in celebration of Pride Month.  Boston City Councilor At-Large Julia Mejia co-sponsored the resolution.

In pursuit of making Boston a more equitable city, Boston City Councilor Liz Breadon reaffirmed her support and commitment towards the rights, freedoms, dignity, equal treatment, health, and safety of the LGBTQIA+ community. “Let’s celebrate the wonderful community of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, and asexual or allied individuals,” said Breadon.

Recalling her first Pride March in 1996, Breadon shared her emotional experience as an Irish lesbian immigrant experiencing acceptance in Boston. “I went to the interfaith service at Old South and walked in, sat down and proceeded to cry for the next hour because I’d never been in a place of worship that actually saw me and recognized me as a member of the LGBT community” Breadon recounted.

Breadon noted that while we celebrate pride and our LGBTQIA+ community’s existence, resilience, and achievements to date, it is important to honor and uphold the true historic spirit and sentiment of the Stonewall Uprising. “We must remember how this all started. Pride started with a riot, a civil disturbance at the stonewall”, said Breadon. The demonstrators, led by Black and Brown transgender activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, who protested and rioted in June 1969 following a law enforcement raid of the Stonewall Inn, an LGBTQIA+ club in New York City, rose up and fought against constant police harassment and discriminatory laws that have since been declared unconstitutional, demonstrated bravery and resilience in what became known as the Stonewall Uprising.

While recognizing the gains made towards equality and justice in the LGBTQIA+ movement, Breadon noted that “many members of our community, especially black and brown brothers and sisters and transgender community are subject to violence and death in some cases because of who they are.” Members of the LGBTQIA+ community, in particular transgender and gender nonconforming individuals, and especially those who are people of color, face a disproportionately higher risk of becoming victims of violent hate crimes, and 2021 has seen at least 27 violent murders of transgender or gender non-conforming people less than halfway through the year. “I want to commit myself and ask you all to recommit yourselves to continuing this fight to recognize the humanity of our brothers and sisters and celebrate who they really are and ensure they have equal protection and are able to live, love, and thrive in this community,” pledged Breadon.

 

About Liz Breadon: City Councilor, District 9

Councilor Liz Breadon immigrated to the United States from Northern Ireland in 1995 and settled in Oak Square, Brighton, where she lives with her spouse Mary McCarthy.

Councilor Breadon is a physical therapist by profession. She began her career working in the National Health Service in the UK.  Upon coming to Boston she worked at Boston Medical Center, The Home for Little Wanderers and Perkins School for the Blind.

Liz has been an activist in Allston-Brighton for more than 20 years working with other community leaders to preserve the Presentation School Building as a community resource, and to save the Faneuil Branch Library from closure.  She served on the Board of the Brighton Allston Historical Society and the Presentation School Foundation.  As Allston Brighton experienced a wave of new development Liz was a vocal advocate for more affordable housing, preservation and restoration of green space, improvements to mass transportation and stronger public schools. As a life-long environmentalist the Councilor has worked to find big and small solutions to build a sustainable, diverse, inclusive and resilient urban community.

Councilor Breadon brings her experience as an immigrant, a health care professional and a community activist to her work on the City Council. She is a graduate of the University of Ulster, UK, and received a Doctor of Physical Therapy from Simmons College, Boston.