San Diego LGBT Pride Official Souvenir Guide 2014 | Page 23

CHAMPION OF PRIDE

LISA MATA
Lisa Mata says her work with the LGBT community
has been extremely rewarding, and she is so
proud of how much progress the community has
made since she came out at 17 years old. Lucky
to have a supportive family, Lisa grew up in Texas
and never imagined finding such a large LGBT
community until moving to San Diego almost 15
years ago.  
The San Diego Pride Parade and Festival was
Lisa’s first experience with the community,
where she recalls being in shock seeing such a
wonderfully diverse community. At that Pride
festival, Lisa became a member of the Human
Rights Campaign (HRC), and a few years later,
started inquiring about having an HRC presence
in San Diego. She credits her friends and mentors
Brian Lacklen and Stampp Corbin for helping her
build the HRC community locally. Lisa says that
HRC is important to her because she wants to
help people in places in the country that are not
as openly diverse as California. 
She also became active in the Lambda Archives,
the GSDBA Charitable Foundation, and the No on Prop 8 campaign. Lisa says her work has led her
to cross paths with some of the most wonderful human beings, who have since become like family.
She urges anyone who wants to make a change to get involved in any of the groups working toward
equality for the LGBT community. 
Finally, Lisa says she is extremely lucky to have had the greatest support in this journey from her son
Bryant.

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