Russell Alexander-Orozco
United States
He/Him
Russell is a multidisciplinary artist of Latinx and Native American heritage: performer, writer, filmmaker, storyteller, community organizer and an advocate for social justice. He is the recipient of the Guardian Award for extraordinary leadership and years of service to the Los Angeles community. Russell is a contributing author to the following anthologies: Covidology: Sharing Life Lessons from Behind the Mask (2022), Defiant Moments: Unyielding queer voices. Unstoppable change (2024), and Crossing Paths: Queer Moments That Changed Everything (2026). He can be heard sharing his stories in Los Angeles, as well as throughout the Portland, Oregon area.
Steps to Liberation
Weathering the Storms before the Rainbow: A Personal Reflection
Russell Alexander-Orozco begins in the present, standing beneath the Rainbow Pride Flag at the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles. Against the church’s Gothic architecture, the flag represents hope, unity, and empowerment. But across the street, protesters carry signs declaring that “God Hates Pride.”
The confrontation brings back painful memories of the AIDS epidemic and the loss of Russell’s partner and many friends.
His memories take him back to San Francisco in the early years of gay liberation. As a young college student, Russell attended a “Spiritual Renewal Day” led by Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church. There, he discovered a faith community where gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people were welcomed rather than judged. He was home.
At nineteen, Russell became deeply involved in MCC and the emerging Gay Liberation movement, helping organize its growing community of young gay men. Through older members, he also learned that the freedoms of the 1970s had been built on earlier struggles. He heard firsthand about the Lavender Scare of the 1950s and the discrimination gay federal employees had endured.
As San Francisco became increasingly politically engaged, Russell joined the growing movement for LGBTQ+ rights. He participated in statewide organizing against the Briggs Initiative, which sought to ban gay men and lesbians from working in California schools. He also witnessed both the power and the challenges of coalition-building, including the need to connect the LGBTQ+ movement with the struggle for racial justice.
Then came the Rainbow Flag.
On June 25, 1978, Russell witnessed its debut at San Francisco’s Gay Freedom Day Parade. Surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people, he was overcome with emotion. He could not get close enough to touch the flag, but he knew immediately what it meant: “That’s us, that’s me.”
The flag represented a new kind of symbol for a movement that had endured years of stigma and resistance. Later that year, Proposition 6 was defeated, another defining moment in the struggle for LGBTQ+ rights.
Decades later, Russell finds himself beneath that same symbol in Los Angeles. When a Central American family approaches the church and asks why it is flying “the enemy’s flag,” Russell answers: “That’s no enemy; it represents belonging.” He explains that the church welcomes people, embraces love, and rejects hate.
That moment brings Russell’s story full circle. He has weathered decades of storms—repression, AIDS, political attacks, grief, and personal trauma—and yet the Rainbow Flag is still flying.
For Russell, it has become an invitation: not a symbol of exclusion, but of belonging.
