Meet Dave Montez: One Colorado’s next executive director is returning home to Colorado

In December, One Colorado announced the vacancy would be filled by Dave Montez, who has been the acting president for the national Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) since last March, and will soon return home to Colorado to step into the new role beginning in February.

It’s a big role to fill in one of the most highly-visible political LGBT organizations in the state — the organization has worked, among other things, to lead the lobbying effort for the Colorado Civil Union Act, to promote Gay-Straight Alliances and anti-bullying policies in schools, push with other groups to eliminate the tuition penalty that in-state college students face if they are undocumented immigrants, and lead an effort for transgender-friendly healthcare policies.

Montez is a Colorado native who grew up in Gardner, a small town situated 60 miles southwest of Pueblo. “It’s a very small town. No sidewalks. No stop lights. My elementary school had about 50 kids in it,” he said.

It was in this small community that Montez struggled to come out to his family, an effort made more difficult by his feelings of isolation as a gay Latino kid growing up in such a sparsely-populated area.

“There weren’t a lot of LGBT people that I knew of,” Montez said. “Many of the representations that I saw were on the television, and that’s was how I learned, and how my family learned, about gay people.”

Montez said that watching how those positive portrayals of LGBT people in the media often paved the way for progress piqued his interest in advocacy regarding public education and stereotypes.

“As many LGBT Latino Catholics can attest, sometimes it takes a little bit of conversation about the realities of being LGBT,” said Montez, whose family came to accept him when he came out. “I know there are families who don’t come to the same place that mine did, and that’s part of One Colorado’s work as well.”

He said his grandparents are his greatest source of strength, inspiring him to this day. “They instilled early on the value of fighting for what you believe in and never backing down from your beliefs — treating everyone the way you ought to be treated.”

After graduating from high school, Montez moved to Denver where he pursued a degree in journalism and public relations at Metropolitan State University (formerly Metropolitan State College of Denver).

In 2007, Montez began work as the senior program officer at the Gill Foundation, a Colorado-based philanthropic organization that has contributed more than $106 million to LGBT advocacy groups around the state, including One Colorado. “I learned quite a bit about coalition building, about building a base,” Montez said, “so I’m really excited to take a lot of what I’ve learned and bring it back to Colorado.”

In December of 2012, Montez took on his biggest challenge yet, moving to New York City as the chief of staff for GLAAD, a national organization to improve portrayals of LGBT people in media and culture. He became its acting president in March 2013, overseeing (among other initiatives) the work with other advocacy groups to overturn the Boy Scout’s ban on
gay youth.

“That campaign was really about telling the story of LGBT scouts and LGBT den mothers,” Montez said. “By telling those stories, we humanize LGBT people. When you know us, it’s really hard to discriminate against us.”

Last October, Montez was honored by the Latino GLBT History Project, receiving the José Ramirez Leadership Award for his work on immigration reform in Colorado and New York.

“I think one of the things that’s important to understand is that LGBT people are also immigrants,” said Montez. “They’re women. They’re people of color. They’re voters and students.”

“We care about immigration reform,” he continued. “We care about women having the freedom to make their own health choices. We care about learning and voting without barriers. We care about schools being adequately resourced. We care about low-income families having the resources and health coverage they need to make ends meet. When I take the helm of One Colorado, we’ll continue to be a steadfast partner in all of these efforts.”

Montez reiterated that One Colorado will continue its work to secure marriage equality for all Coloradans and fight to protect LGBT allies in state government in upcoming elections. He said this work cannot be accomplished without strong partnerships.

“LGBT people are such a small percentage of the overall population, and so it’s going to require that we work in coalition with other people. To be good partners, we’ve got to work on issues they care about as well.”

Montez said complacency is one of the biggest challenges facing the LGBT community moving forward. “People see the advancements that we’re making in marriage, they see the public becoming more supportive, they see the laws that are being passed, but equality under the law is really just the starting point.”

Underpinning One Colorado’s goals, Montez said, is not just the work to transform public policy, but also the work to transform public perception.

“There’s a difference between having a civil union and being able to put a picture of your partner on your desk at work. We have a state-nondiscrimination law that protects transgender people, but I wonder how many transgender people are invited out for drinks after work with their colleagues.”

Montez sees this cultural paradigm shift as the next frontier in One Colorado’s work. “If we don’t keep changing the way people see and treat LGBT people, we could easily see the legal protections that we’ve achieved overturned down the road.”