President, Kierra Johnson, joined the Task Force in 2018 as Deputy Executive Director but was already engaged with the organization, previously serving on the National LGBTQ Task Force’s board of directors and its National Action Council.
Johnson came to the Task Force after serving as URGE’s Executive Director with a wealth of experience in organizational leadership and management, program development, youth leadership and reproductive justice. As a bisexual Black woman, Johnson will become one of few out queer-identified women of color at the helm of a national LGBTQ organization.
She is recognized as a national expert on queer and reproductive rights issues and has testified in front of the U.S. House of Representatives and has appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times, Fox News, Feministing.com and National Public Radio. Johnson also serves on the boards of directors of the General Service Foundation, Groundswell Fund, and Guttmacher Institute.
Throughout her career, she has also served on the boards of Center for Community Change and the Women’s Information Network (WIN). Johnson has been recognized for her leadership with awards, including the Young Women of Achievement Award for WIN in 2002, the Women of Vision Award for the Ms. Foundation for Women in 2013, and Washingtonian Magazine’s Most Influential Washingtonians Under 40 in 2009.
When announced as the next Executive Director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, Kierra Johnson said, “Dignity, liberation, joy, freedom, love and resistance are just a few of the words that I associate with the National LGBTQ Task Force. As a bisexual/pansexual woman, I am no stranger to being made invisible, advised to tone down, or trained in the art of the code switch. As a queer southern mom, it is no surprise why I would be drawn to an organization that touts the tagline ‘Be You.’ In these cultural and political times, it is an act of resistance to live out loud and to lead and love with our full identities. I am excited and honored to be named the next Executive Director of the LGBTQ Task Force! I welcome the opportunity to think strategically with a powerful team of leaders and be in service to those working to ensure that LGBTQ people—especially the most targeted among us—not only survive but thrive. I can’t wait to roll up my sleeves and dive in to continue the ongoing and creative work of the Task Force to change hearts and minds, behavior and policies so that justice is no longer a vision but a reality for all!”
