Elizabeth Birch
A former Apple litigation chief, she built the Human Rights Campaign into the largest LGBT organisation in the US – and was the first LGBT leader to address a national party convention.
Elizabeth Birch was born at an air force base in Ohio, the daughter of a Canadian air force officer, and grew up on bases in Canada. She studied in Hawaii and law at Santa Clara University and became a lawyer. In 1989 she joined Apple, where she was worldwide director of litigation and general counsel of its software subsidiary Claris.
Alongside her career she was active in LGBT politics, first in San Jose and from 1992 to 1994 as co-chair of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. In 1995 she became executive director of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Over the next nine years she made it the largest LGBT organisation in the United States, multiplying its membership and budget and opening its headquarters in Washington. Critics accused her of setting the movement’s agenda through money and of compromises, such as the HRC’s endorsement of a Republican senator in 1998.
In 2000 she became the first leader of an LGBT organisation to speak at a national party convention, with a prime-time speech at the Democratic National Convention. Under her leadership the HRC added transgender people to its mission in 2001, though it continued for some years to support a version of the anti-discrimination law ENDA without protection for trans people.
In 2004 she left the HRC to spend more time with her then partner, Hilary Rosen, and their twins, and founded a consulting firm. An annual award of the Black Tie Dinner in Dallas, the largest LGBT fundraising dinner in the US, bears her name.