Search form

Scroll To Top
Mendoza-rotator
2014

OUT100: Kalaya'an Mendoza

Activist

Photography by JUCO | Retouching by Anna Glen at Wet Noodle

The Moment: March 24, 1987: The first ACT UP demonstration, on Wall Street in New York

Kalaya'an Mendoza has rebellion in his blood. Now a senior organizer with Amnesty International USA, he's directed his fury into nonviolent protest efforts, like the one that brought him to Ferguson, Mo., this August, to monitor police tactics after the killing of unarmed teen Michael Brown. But Mendoza is as much a lover as he is a fighter. "Aside from supporting movements worldwide," he says, "I'm trying to find a revolutionary who knows how to tenderly flush tear gas from my eyes and make out with me in front of a police line as a form of civil resistance."

Photographed at Milk Studio, New York on September 19, 2014

Styling by Michael Cook. Hair and makeup: Angela Dicarlo.

SLIDESHOW: See the Complete Out100 List

Out.com Editors

See All 2024's Most Impactful and Influential LGBTQ+ People
Artists
Disruptors
Educators
Groundbreakers
Innovators
Storytellers
Quinto-suit-cr
None

Out.com Editors

2014

OUT100 2014 Honorees Speak Out about HIV

Watch Zachary Quinto, Andrew Rannells, Elvis Duran, Tyler Oakley, and others discuss why it's important to 'make some noise'

See All 2024's Most Impactful and Influential LGBTQ+ People
Artists
Disruptors
Educators
Groundbreakers
Innovators
Storytellers