PFLAG Mourns Past National President Paulette Goodman

PFLAG (Parents, Friends and Family of Lesbians and Gays)—the first and largest organization for LGBTQ people, their families, and allies—announced that Paulette Goodman, who served as the PFLAG national president from 1988 until 1992, has died.

Goodman was Jewish and grew up in Nazi-occupied Paris until she and her family moved to the U.S. in 1949. She got involved in PFLAG after her daughter came out to her in 1981, and she eventually helped found PFLAG Metro DC in 1983, where she served as its first president.

Goodman recalled her initial aims in getting involved with PFLAG in a 2019 interview with The Atlantic: “When I found out about my gay child, I realized it was the same situation. You’re guarded about who you are because you don’t know who’s going to be supportive … I didn’t want my child to go through what I went through; being in the closet is stifling.”

Following her success working with PFLAG Metro DC, she was voted as the new president of the national organization in 1988. As president, Goodman made national news with her letter to then First Lady Barbara Bush in the heights of the AIDS crisis. She asked Mrs. Bush to “… speak kind words to some 24 million gay Americans and their families, to help heal the wounds, and to keep these families in loving relationships,” to which Bush responded with a letter saying, “I firmly believe that we cannot tolerate discrimination against any individuals or groups in our country. Such treatment always brings with it pain and perpetuates intolerance.”

The letter was inadvertently given to the Associated Press, and her comments resulted in an abundance of political strife, though they were likely some of the first LGBTQ-positive comments to come from the White House.

Goodman retired years later, but remained an advocate. One prominent example was her work creating the first chapter of PFLAG in a retirement community with another PFLAG parent.

PFLAG National Executive Director Brian K. Bond spoke on Goodman’s impact, in that she showed the world what it means to be a loving parent and ally to LGBTQ children:

“Her experiences as a Jewish girl growing up under Nazi occupation informed the work she did throughout her life, and she brought that experience, that empathy, that drive to her work with LGBTQ+ kids and their families. PFLAGers everywhere can look to her as a role model, for once she went through her experience with her own child and got the support she needed, she used that experience to educate others and then advocate for the wellbeing and equality of all LGBTQ+ people. She was the embodiment of what we tell PFLAG members: ‘Once you no longer need PFLAG, PFLAG needs you.’ PFLAG needed—and was so lucky to have—Paulette Goodman. Our hearts are with her family and all who knew and loved her.

Since her time as president, Goodman was honored a number of times for her work by a handful of LGBTQ organizations: the Human Rights Campaign in 1990, the Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists and the Greater New York Bar Association for Human Rights in 1991, and Dignity-Washington and Pride of Washington D.C. in 1993.

OFM thanks Paulette Goodman for her invaluable work at PFLAG and beyond, her undeniable impact on the LGBTQ community, and wishes her friends, family, and community healing as we collectively mourn her loss.

Photo courtesy of Washing Blade/Doug Hinckle and PFLAG