Faces of the LGBT Center: Dara Strickland

Faces of the LGBT Center is a new feature where we interview friends, members and volunteers of the Center to get the insiders' perspective.  If you want to be interviewed or want to nominate someone, you can email me at andy.teh.nerd@gmail.com.

A little about Dara...

I'm a bisexual woman who just turned 31. I'm originally from outside Nashville, TN, and I moved to St. Louis almost 10 years ago to attend Washington University's School of Law. I loved life in St. Louis so much that I decided to stay after my three years of school were up. I opened my law firm with a good friend in 2010 and have loved (and sometimes hated) being my own boss ever since. At work, half of my practice is helping families work through the legal system in relation to marriage, divorce, child custody and visitation and half is helping them plan for the future with wills, trust, and powers of attorney so someone else can make decisions when they aren't able to. My favorite thing to do at work is writing up the agreements that will let everyone's rights be protected when a couple that can't have biological children together needs to use the sperm, egg, or surrogacy of another person to grow their family. I keep a file of baby pictures of the kids I "make". At home, I have been with my partner, Seth Hicks, for more than three years. We live in University City, so we spend a lot of time walking in Forest Park, people watching on The Loop, playing games with friends, and providing the necessary lap space for our sweet and social cat, Nebula.

What do you do at the LGBT Center? 

I've been on the Board of Directors at The Center since January 2011. I started off as Co-Vice President with Colin Lovett due to a tie vote - rather than do a run-off, we determined that the Center's by-laws allowed for more than one VP, and that we were stronger as a team. That's what I love about The Center's Board. More than any other non-profit Board I've served on, we focus on working out compromises that are better solutions than whatever positions were initially proposed. When Colin became President, I stayed on as VP alone, and when he realized last October that work obligations were going to seriously curtail the amount of time he spent on The Center's work, I moved into the role as President. The only real difference between being President and being VP is that I get to set the agenda for our monthly Board meetings, call additional meetings if we need them, and, in the event of a tie vote, break the tie for the solution I want. As long as I've been on the Board, no President has ever had to break a tie.

Outside of the Board of Directors, I also provide legal advice and review and make contracts for The Center. I am generally the one who answers legal questions and addresses media requests for interviews or comments about things The Center is doing or larger political or social questions about LGBT people directed at The Center. I also have had a regular weekly volunteer shift at The Center since we moved to our current location on Manchester. It's important to me as a member of the Board of Directors to spend time as a desk volunteer. One of the most important things The Center provides is hospitality, and I'm proud to have the opportunity to offer it with so many intelligent, generous volunteers.

How have the people at the LGBT Center influenced you?

Before my involvement with The Center, I saw my role in advancing the civil rights of LGBT people as a sort of case-by-case improvement for the people I worked for. Where marriage equality wasn't extended, for example, I could care out some rights for one couple at a time with the right legal documents. Now, I see that there's a larger, subtler civil right in the ability to just walk into a place and watch TV, read a book, use the internet, or ask a question, all as your true and authentic self, without fear. That right (I think of it as "the right to be left alone") isn't available to everyone in our community everywhere we go. As a bisexual woman partnered with a man, I get the privilege of being left alone in this way when I go a lot of places. Nobody stares at me in the grocery store when I'm with my partner; nobody makes their children wait to go into a restaurant bathroom until after I come out. My work with The Center has shown me just how precious and fleeting that privilege can be, and how fundamentally unfair it is that not everyone can share it. My goal for The Center is for it to always be a place that can provide that right and privilege, even if nowhere else does.

Random question 1:  Whats the longest you've ever grown your hair?

My hair's really, really thick, so I don't like having it too long. When I was a little kid my mother made me grow it about halfway down my back - until she got tired of dealing with it, too!

Random question 2:  Do you often have a tune in your head you can't name?

It's not so much that I can't name the tune as that I think the lyrics are something completely different than what they really are.

Random question 3:  Whats your favorite food?

The one food I can never turn down for any reason is Vietnamese pho.