Pioneering LGBTQ+ activist Ann Maguire has died at 80

Ann Maguire, a Massachusetts activist who cohosted a gay radio show in the 1970s, advocated for LGBTQ+ rights and breast cancer research, and worked for groundbreaking political candidates, has died at age 80.

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Maguire died December 29, having been in “failing health” for some time, The Boston Globe reports. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer twice.

She cohosted Gay Way, a call-in show on WBUR, Boston’s NPR affiliate, in the ’70s. She and her colleagues conversed with LGBTQ+ callers who were out and some who were not, with some of the latter calling after the show concluded.

“We would go off the air and the lights would just be lit up for calls coming in, for people to just ask a question, to just thank us,” Maguire, a lesbian, recalled in a video interview for the “Stonewall Portraits” online series.

She was a well-known political organizer. In 1974, she managed lesbian Elaine Noble’s first campaign for Massachusetts House, and Noble won, becoming the first out LGBTQ+ person elected to any state legislature in the U.S. She worked for straight allies as well, running Thomas Menino’s first campaign for Boston mayor in 1993. He also won and then put her in charge of the city’s health and human services.

“Being the trailblazer she was, she made it possible for a person like me to run, and to run successfully,” Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, one of the nation’s first two out lesbian governors, told the Globe. “I have a deep and profound appreciation for what Ann did. She was out there before many people, leading the fights.”

In the 1980s, she was Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn’s LGBTQ+ liaison. She also ran Boston’s Emergency Shelter Commission and spearheaded a census of people experiencing homelessness.

She was a cofounder of the Greater Boston Lesbian and Gay Political Alliance and had a leadership position in the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (now National LGBTQ Task Force). She cofounded the Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition and was its first board president. She was a leader of the National Breast Cancer Coalition as well. She was first diagnosed with the disease in 1989 and went on to push for research into its causes.

Maguire’s career also included managing two lesbian bars, Sisters in Provincetown and Somewhere in Boston. She did extensive volunteer work without fanfare too.

“She would walk out the door every day on some mission, things large and small,” her spouse, Harriet Gordon, told the Globe. “She just felt that the world needed to be fair and just and embrace some common sense. And that’s who she was.”

Maguire “was completely unashamed, unabashed, unfazed by the fact that she was a lesbian, and fearless about talking about that with people, and fearless about promoting the cause with straight people. It took a lot of courage,” added Tim McFeeley, a cofounder of the Greater Boston Lesbian and Gay Political Alliance and a former executive director of the Human Rights Campaign.

“Ann will go down in history as one the greatest activists of all time,” Cheryl Osimo, executive director of Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition, said on the group’s website. “Ann had the courage and commitment to change the world for future generations.”

Maguire and Gordon had been together since 1985 and married in 2004. Maguire’s survivors include Gordon, two daughters, and four grandchildren.