Virginia Apuzzo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Virginia Apuzzo | |
|---|---|
| Born | June 26, 1941 The Bronx in New York City, US |
| Education | |
| Known for | Gay rights and AIDS activism |
Virginia "Ginny" Apuzzo (born June 26, 1941) is an American gay rights and AIDS activist. She is a former executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force. She served as executive deputy of the New York State Consumer Protection Board and as the vice chair of the New York State AIDS Advisory Council. She was also President of the New York State Civil Service Commission and Commissioner of the New York State Department of Civil Service. In 1996, she became the Associate Deputy Secretary of Labor at the United States Department of Labor, and in 1997 she became the Assistant to the President for Management and Administration under the Clinton administration. In 2007, she began serving on the Commission on Public Integrity, where she worked until her retirement.
Virginia Apuzzo was born in the Bronx in New York City on June 26, 1941. Her parents were both working-class Italians; her father owned a gas station and her mother worked at various times as a waitress, factory worker, and salesperson.[1]
Apuzzo attended Catholic high school. She enrolled at the State University of New York at New Paltz, and graduated in 1963 with a Bachelor of Science in History and Education. In the 1960s, she became a teacher and chair of the Social Studies Department at the Marlboro Central School District in Marlboro, New York.[1]
When Apuzzo was 26, she became a nun at the Sisters of Charity, a convent in the Bronx.[2] By this time, she knew she was a lesbian. She later recounted her experience, saying "I tried to play by the rules. I thought I'd have to live my life with this deep dark secret."[3] She also said, "I stayed [at the convent for] three years searching for answers to fundamental questions... I thought of my religious life as temporary. I didn't know whether it would take one year or twenty years to explore the morality of my homosexual identity."[1] She continued to teach during her time at the convent, both at Cathedral High School in Manhattan and at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx. Apuzzo left the convent in 1969, days after the Stonewall riots.[2][3] She began teaching education at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. She was later awarded tenure, and continued teaching there until 1986.[1]
