John Heilman Hall Of Fame Honor From Victory Institute

West Hollywood Vice Mayor John Heilman Hall of Fame honor from the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute became official when he was inducted this week at the group’s International LGBTQ+ Leaders Conference in Washington, D.C., putting one of West Hollywood’s original councilmembers alongside some of the most influential LGBTQ+ elected officials in the world. Past inductees include queer icons and trailblazers like Harvey Milk, U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Ireland’s Leo Varadkar, and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown to name a few. The Hall of Fame list is still relatively new and select; the fact Vice Mayor Heilman has been inducted is a statement in itself.  His induction into the LGBTQ+ Political Hall of Fame (alongside California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara) is one more chapter in a story that has tracked almost one to one with West Hollywood’s life as a city.

In his remarks, Heilman started with gratitude. He acknowledged City Staff, his current and former colleagues, and the residents who have sent him back to the council for nearly four decades. “I also want to thank the people of West Hollywood who have been passionate advocates for LGBTQ plus equality, and also have given me the opportunity to serve for nearly 40 years in my community,” he said. He also acknowledged councilmember Danny Hang and Mayor Chelsea Byers who were also at the conference. 

Heilman reminded the room how unusual West Hollywood looked when it first showed up on the map. “West Hollywood became a city in 1984. We received global recognition because we were the first city with an open LGBT majority,” he said, noting that the first council included a lesbian mayor and two gay men who did not always see eye to eye but still managed to move major policy.

He referred back to early actions that set the tone and the path for this new city, from a nondiscrimination ordinance and domestic partnership registry, to protections for people living with HIV and AIDS and a decision to divest city funds from companies doing business with apartheid South Africa. West Hollywood later created a Transgender Advisory Board and passed gender identity protections, work he said is still ongoing.

One of the most personal parts of his speech came when he talked about what really was nothing more than an informal network of openly queer officials that began meeting in West Hollywood in 1984, way before there was ever a Victory Fund or Institute. “We established and invited people to the city of West Hollywood for the first meeting of openly gay and lesbian elected officials,” he said. “At that time, we had not yet expanded to the entire alphabet. So we were 10 of us at the time.”

That small circle functioned “more as a support group,” trading ordinances, ideas and eventually hosting conferences in one another’s cities. Eventually, those early efforts merged into what is now the Victory Fund and Victory Institute network, with hundreds of out officials and an annual conference that fills hotels rather than just small city meeting rooms.

Heilman also used his speech to zoom out. As a board member of Outright International, he talked about LGBTQ activists in Uganda, Ukraine and the Caribbean, many of whom have never known a government that supported them. He urged people to remember that while the situation here in the United States is serious, even bleak at times and in many areas, there is also a responsibility to keep backing organizers in countries where being out can also be a death sentence.

Then he turned back to the current regime at home, saying bluntly that “government is under attack” and “democracy is under attack,” and running through a list of federal rollbacks and hostile policies aimed at LGBTQ people, especially transgender Americans. He criticized efforts to erase LGBTQ people from federal reports and websites, strip out Pride recognitions, cut back on HIV and LGBTQ health programs, and blame trans people for violence while they are disproportionately the victims of it.

He framed those moves not as random or sloppy, but deliberate. “It is not an accident. It is intentional. They want to dismantle our government, the entirety of our government,” he said, arguing that would-be oligarchs “look at Russia with envy” and are trying to move the United States in that direction.

His speech ended with a call to action directed at the people in the room. Heilman said he wants the Victory gathering to return to a tradition of issuing a collective statement at the end of the conference, and he pushed for something more direct next year.

“We are all here together as LGBTQ+ elected representatives. We should be using our power. We should be using our voice. We should be speaking out,” he said, urging colleagues not to just talk to one another inside the hotel. He pledged to come back when his term ends and organize a press conference at the White House during next year’s conference. “Our community needs us to speak out against these hateful policies,” he said.

Term limits will require Heilman to leave office at the end of next year, after roughly 40 years helping to build and guide West Hollywood. His message in Washington made clear he does not plan to stop showing up for West Hollywood, or for LGBTQ communities anytime soon. 

The Victory Fund is a national political action committee that raises money and support to help LGBTQ+ candidates win office at every level of government. The Victory Institute is its sister nonprofit, focused on training and developing LGBTQ+ leaders through campaign bootcamps, leadership programs and fellowships in the U.S. and abroad.

You can catch Heilman’s full remarks below.