Kathy Flores changed laws and built spaces that serve northeast Wisconsin's LGBTQ+ residents

Kathy Flores is one of the nominees for USA TODAY’s Women of the Year program, a recognition of women who have made a significant impact in their communities and across the country. The program launched in 2022 as a continuation of Women of the Century, which commemorated the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote. Meet this year’s honorees at womenoftheyear.usatoday.com.

By the time Kathy Flores was 7, she had saved the most children in her town from total damnation.

As part of her Baptist upbringing, she dragged as many of her friends as she could down the aisle of her church to kneel before the altar because, well, that's what she was told got you into heaven. If she was going to the good place, she wanted all her friends there, too. Flores was, she admits, a bossy child.

"Soul-winner," the title she earned in Riverside, California, where she grew up, turned out to be an apt one for Flores, although she took it in a completely different direction later in life. Nearly 40 years after saving the most souls in her town, she and a local reverend were marrying as many same-sex couples as they could a year ahead of Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark civil rights ruling that made same-sex marriage a fundamental right in June 2015.

If she was going to marry her same-sex partner, Flores wanted her friends to marry theirs, too.

"I told my father, who did not appreciate the work I did at all, 'Dad, I'm preaching, too. It's just a different message,'" Flores said. "It's a message of inclusion, and I think it's closer to Jesus' words."

Flores, 57, has always gone against the grain. A California transplant who moved to Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1986 with her first husband, she has become a leading advocate for LGBTQ+ people in northeast Wisconsin, carving space for those experiencing violence of all kinds, whether that looks like intimate partner violence, sexual assault, hate violence, bullying or religious-, police- and state-sanctioned violence.

And she's done it all while overcoming significant medical challenges along the way, including cancer and an aneurysm. She lives every day with the daily impacts of multiple sclerosis and a host of other autoimmune issues that cause her immune system to mistakenly attack its own cells and tissues.

From her days as a teenage mother working in a mill to her years as Appleton's diversity and inclusion coordinator, she pushed the boundaries of what was expected of her. When she worked for Harbor House, a domestic violence shelter in Appleton, she noticed a troubling gap in the people reaching out for help.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer-identifying folks certainly endured intimate partner violence, but where could they go with their fears and pain, which often required a different approach to care? The question was a personal one for Flores, herself a survivor of domestic violence and sexual assault.

As she worked to answer this question, Flores kept herself busy by making the city of Appleton a better place for LGBTQ+ residents, especially transgender and nonbinary people. She helped change Appleton's fair housing laws, an effort so controversial "nobody wanted to touch it." She also learned about — and quickly organized to get rid of — an archaic dress code policy still in place in 2012 that gave restaurants, bars and other businesses the right to kick people out for not wearing clothing aligned with their perceived genders.

Flores helped put Appleton on the map as the first city in northeast Wisconsin — and just the third in the state — to institute employment and accommodation protections for trans and nonbinary individuals.

All these changes cleared the way for her partner, who's transgender, to live and work in the city with equal rights in place.

That work dovetailed with Flores' venture into full-time advocacy. She established a first-of-its-kind anti-violence center for LGBTQ+ residents living in northeast Wisconsin. But rather than start from scratch, the space served as an extension of Diverse & Resilient, a Milwaukee-based nonprofit focused on LGBTQ+ safety and well-being.

Through Diverse & Resilient, she opened A Room to Be Safe, which serves LGBTQ+ survivors of violence in northeast Wisconsin. The space was the answer to her earlier question of how to show up for LGBTQ+ folks experiencing domestic violence, sexual assault, oppression and so much more.

"I've always been most interested in working with marginalized or oppressed people … some of that is because I couldn't advocate for myself," Flores said. "I started doing all this advocacy work for other people. I told myself, then, that I was a 17-year-old girl who got pregnant, who didn't think she had a future. I've grown up so much since then."

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Who paved the way for you?

When I was doing (diversity, equity and inclusion) work in the '90s at Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Dr. Bola Delano-Oriaran and Dr. Sabrina Robins were huge influences who paved the way for me. They helped check me with compassion, because I was new to DEI work and I only knew my own lens. Years later when I was working at Harbor House Domestic Abuse Programs, Beth Schnorr, its director, was one of the first people I came out to — I came out later in life, in my 30s. She told me, "You know what? You don't have to worry about the label. Enjoy the journey."

Before I worked at Kimberly-Clark, I was working in a mill-type setting. I was a single mom with three kids under the age of 6. I was very stressed out and in my early 20s. I went to see an attorney because I'd had an accident at work. I don't even know if she'd remember me, but her name was Jane Kirkiede. I went to talk to her about a possible work lawsuit and she saw me as this young mom working at a mill with all these babies. She looked at me and said, "You were meant to do big things. Go back to school. You're bigger than what you're doing right now." I didn't believe in myself at all, but … within a matter of weeks, I signed up at Fox Valley Technical College to begin my secondary education.

From Fox Valley Technical College, I got the job at Kimberly-Clark, which got me involved in diversity, equity and inclusion, which made me realize I'm not meant for corporate life, I'm meant for community work.

What is your proudest moment?

The thing that I am most proud of in my career has been the passage of laws to protect transgender people in my community. This is something you'd expect from cities like Madison and Milwaukee. Being able to do that (in Appleton) was my proudest moment. And now, having a transgender partner who works for the city and benefits from those laws, that's the gift that keeps on giving.

On a personal level, I'm most proud of my daughters and the women they are today. I'm proud that they are strong women, and I'm so honored that they still come to me for advice on life and love.

Can you talk about a time you overcame challenges?

I've struggled with imposter syndrome my whole life, which is why I have spent so much time telling everyone all my business. I want to make sure people know who I am. I was what many from my generation would have called a "welfare queen": I was raising kids on food stamps, single, poor. I remember being so intimidated walking into a room because I didn't have the education, I didn't have the skills, I didn't have the background. But once I start, I'm somebody who absorbs knowledge and advocates for other people. Many times over the years, I've thought, "Who am I to do this? Who am I to serve on the governor's council for domestic violence?" I talk through those voices all the time.

How did you find your courage?

The first time I acted with courage was at Kimberly-Clark. I had a friend in marketing and he was in a room full of white men. Somebody exploded at him and threw a tissue box at his head. He came to me afterwards, obviously very upset about it, and with his permission, I went with him to the vice president and I lodged a complaint. I was a secretary at the time, he the next person in line to be CEO. I'm Mexican and white-passing, and I had a lot of people help me learn how to use my privilege. A lot of people thought I had a lot of audacity, but I said, "No, this is wrong. We're going to address it." When it came to people being marginalized, I easily pushed through the bureaucracy to get to the person who needed to hear it.

What does inclusion mean to you, and how has it changed?

Diversity, equity and inclusion is a tricky box at this point. I became disillusioned with it because, in so many areas, it was really just organizations wanting to check a box. People would call the diversity and inclusion coordinator, have a training, and that would be that. But true inclusion, to me, is not speaking for somebody, it's passing the mic to them. True inclusion is also showing up and doing the work in your personal life as well as your professional life. Even if you're a person of color and/or LGBTQ+, there are all sorts of ways of learning about different people and how to include them.

For me, inclusion is the action part of diversity. Diversity happens naturally. It's growing around us. I have lived here long enough to witness when we were 1% other than white in this community and as of 2020, it's something like 20%. Organizations have to build relationships outside of their comfort zones and outside of their circles. That's how we change our structures, that's how we change our organizations and our communities.

How have you overcome adversity?

In layers. There were times it wounded me so much more deeply, and it still does when I see it happening toward youth or somebody who's defenseless and doesn't have the privilege and power to speak up. First and foremost, if (adversity is) coming at me, it's not coming at the most marginalized person in the room, so I can take it a bit differently. But there was a time, when I was with the city of Appleton, I proposed a very softball idea to brand Appleton as welcoming and inclusive. We had this whole campaign prepared, and the city council ate me alive. I wasn't prepared for the pushback and, in that moment, I felt so harmed that I started crying in front of folks. I was never going to let that happen again.

I would say I'm a very resilient person, but for a lot of years I didn't have my tears. I spent so long building a shell, but it also felt like a wall. I was a teenage mom who became a single mom after living through abuse, then having cancer, having an aneurysm, having all the health issues I've had. The resiliency is what helped me deal with that type of oppression. Now that I've retired, I've found my tears again.

Who are your queer heroes?

Well, one of my favorite queer elders is someone I met in 2016, because I got to be her car escort when she spoke at the (Appleton) MLK event — and that's Dr. Angela Davis. She's been a queer hero of mine forever. I grew up with a very different idea of who she was because the lens came through my parents. Years later, I was working for the city when we brought her in and, wow, that was controversial. But she is one of my heroes.

Molly Herrmann is a friend of mine who I met when she was doing early intimate partner violence research for lesbians. We started doing research together in 2002, 2003, she was the researcher and I was the advocate. Elle Halo in Milwaukee is on the board of directors at Diverse & Resilient. She's a trans woman who has done amazing work. Tanya Atkinson from Planned Parenthood Wisconsin.

There are a lot of unnamed heroes in the domestic violence movement, particularly women, who helped train me up as an advocate, who still don't feel safe enough to come out today. But these women helped shape the work I do for LGBTQ+ folks in anti-violence work.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Trust your gut. Where you are right now is temporary. This is temporary. When I think of myself at 18, I'm a young mother who has already survived sexual and physical abuse. That's temporary. This isn't going to be your whole life.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Wisconsin LGBTQ+ advocate Kathy Flores nominated for Woman of the Year