I have known about Urvashi Vaid since I was seventeen years old. That was when I started reading a lot of LGBT magazines like The Advocate, and looked for all kinds of books about gay and lesbian people. It was tough for me to appreciate her writing at seventeen, though. She always wrote about politics and I didn't have a grasp on the language or the concepts, so I wrote her off as boring and no fun. I knew she was Very Important because she always was given an entire page or more in The Advocate, other people quoted her often, she wrote book chapters for some of the first LGBT Studies-related works, and she was interviewed many times, but I wasn't ready to pay attention to what she had to say. I graduated from college, I entered the working world...and Urvashi Vaid continued her work, too. I knew she was doing Very Important work, but I still didn't read any of her articles or attend any of her lectures. I was focused on other causes and other people.
Then, at Saint Cloud State University of all places, she shows up one more time, in person, to give a talk. And now that I have heard her speak, I realize that I am now ready to go back and read everything that she has written, and everything that she will write in the future. I don't agree with everything that she says, but she made me think about things in a new way, and talked about building relationships in order to fight for social justice for all, not simply LGBT equality. And that is what makes her great...the fact that she sees that inequality is inherent in all areas of our society, and improvement for all is also improvement for the LGBT population.
