RIP Tom Gallagher

[topdog]

RIP Tom Gallagher, US Diplomat, Humanitarian

Tom Gallagher came out as gay in the US State Department in 1975 and was forced to leave. He was invited back by President Bill Clinton in 1994​

Tom Gallagher, who publicly called out his own agency - the US State Department - for excluding gay people from security clearances in 1975 and lost his own job, died this past week. In spite of the sad cirstances, it is always uplifting to talk about Mr. Gallagher and his spirit which was always focused on helping other people.

• His career began in the Peace Corps teaching at a school in Ethiopia, even as a the civil war broke out for an independent Eritrea. He remained devoted to the boys he taught in that school - and was in touch with many of them for the rest of his life.
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• When he returned he worked on President Johnson's war on poverty program. He also married, thinking that would fix his homosexual feelings.
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• He began working for the foreign service. He rose quickly with assignments in Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Ecuador, becoming at age 34 the youngest ever chief of a major U.S. diplomatic mission.
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• He divorced his wife in 1970 realizing that he wasn't going to change. He returned to the US and continued to rise at State Department headquarters.
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• In 1975 at a conference of gay activists he came out publicly and made front page news. After that he was snubbed at the State Department and his career was clearly derailed.
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• He resigned in 1976 and went back to school to get a degree in social work and moved to Los Angeles. He volunteered as the head of counseling programs for the LA Gay Community Center.
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• He moved to San Francisco and created a program to provide services for drug addicts and trans sex workers in the Tenderloin area.
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• When AIDS hit he helped coordinate programs first for San Francisco and then for the state.
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• In 1994 President Clinton eliminated all the restrictions based on sexual orientation in the federal government. He personally invited Tom to return to the Foreign Service and Tom took up a new assignment as American Consul at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, Spain. While holding that post Gallagher helped raise $3 million for the Spanish AIDS Foundation.
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• He followed up with assignments in Eritrea, Sudan, and Brussels.
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• His final tour at the State Department was with the Office of International Health, where he served as Regional Advisor for Europe and worked on an international AIDS program.
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• Even after he retired in 2005, he was often called on by the State Department to help with specific outreaches around the world, particularly dealing with health and AIDS.

“I don’t want any of you who are a lot younger ever to take for granted what it took for people like Tom Gallagher to pave the way for all of you... It’s not a moment to be nostalgic; it’s a moment for us to remember and to know that all of the employees who sacrificed their right to be who they are were really defending your rights and the rights and freedoms of others at home and abroad.” - Hillary Clinton honoring Tom in 2012

He is survived by his husband, Amin Dulgumoni, a senior software engineer at Goldman Sachs, and his former wife, the honorable Carolyn Worrell, who is now a judge in Nevada. And the many people all over the world that his life touched and the LGBT people he inspired.

You can find details in the obituary below, as well as articles in the Washington Blade and an extensive interview several years ago in Slate online magazine.

Tom Gallagher, Diplomat Who Became a Gay Activist, Dies at 77 - New York Times.

 

[sasarai]

RIP