Connie Kurtz at a Pulse Orlando vigil in 2016 (Photo: YouTube)
Pioneering American LGBTI activist Connie Kurtz has died at the age of 83.
Kurtz passed away following a battle with cancer on Sunday 27 May. Throughout decades of activism on behalf of the LGBTI community, she is most recently famous for working to create the 2017 LGBT Elder Americans act, alongside her wife, Ruth Berman.
The act served as an extension to the Older Americans Act, classifying older LGBT people as vulnerable in order for the US government to better serve their needs.
Kurtz and Berman lived together at Century Village in West Palm Beach, Florida, and were affectionately known as Ruthie and Commie within their community.
They were the subject of an award-winning documentary in 2002 entitled Ruthie and Connie: Every Room in the House.
The couple married in New York on 26 July 2011, two days after the state legalized same-sex marriage, and enjoyed 44 years together.
‘Connie and I have been through it all and she has remained my fulfilled love,’ said Berman.
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A history of activism
They won rights for all New York City employees in 1994 after successfully suing the New York City Board of Education for domestic partner benefits, and facilitated several LGBT rights organizations, including branches of Parents, Friends and Family of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) and NOW Lesbian Rights Task Force.
Described by the Miami Herald as America’s ‘best known senior lesbian couple’, they received the SAGE (Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders) Pioneer award in 2016 for their services.
‘Connie and her soulmate Ruth have been iconic leaders of our community for decades, which is why the federal legislation SAGE has introduced in Congress on behalf of LGBT elders is named after them,’ said CEO of SAGE, Michael Adams.
‘Words can’t explain how sad we are that Connie has passed. We send our love and condolences to Ruth. And we celebrate and honour Connie’s fierce and passionate legacy, which has made the world a better place for so many of us.’
Meredith Ockman, board member of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council, and long-term friend of the couple, said: ‘Aside from the fact that they are pioneers, the fact is that this is a classic love story that transcended the prejudices and idiosyncrasies of their own time to be able to move us forward — something no one else could do.
‘Every success we have had in the community rests on the shoulders of these women. They have affected everyone in life, whether they knew it or not.’
