Pride Month | The Fifth District’s Extraordinary LGBTQ+ Leaders
Minnesota has a vibrant community of LGBTQ+ leaders working to build communities where all our neighbors can exist as their full, authentic selves. This year, for Pride Month, I wanted to highlight the incredible work of a few of these changemakers who are building a better future for the next generation!
Giiwedin Indizhinikaaz
Giiwedin Inidizhinikaaz is a two spirit Anishinaabe activist and birch bark biting artist living in Minneapolis. Giiwedin works to amplify and advocate for indigenous, environmental, and queer rights on social media.
What has been your proudest accomplishment?
My proudest accomplishment has been making my family proud. Hearing my grandparents, mom, and dad say they were proud of the impact I have on others is what I would call my proudest accomplishment and I don’t need any other accolades. Just knowing the person I am today, shaped and loved by my grandparents and my mom, has helped people accept themselves, is an accomplishment I share with and owe to my family.
What advice do you have for young people who may be fearful of the backlash we’re seeing against LGBTQ2SIA+ inclusion?
Advice I have for young people who may be fearful of the backlash we’re seeing against LGBTQ2SIA+ inclusion (and attacks on our community as a whole) is to continue to hold onto joy and be proud of who you are. I also have found it is helpful to remember that homophobia and transphobia are new. Prior to colonization here and across the world, queerness was accepted and celebrated in many cultures, and there are people out there, like me, trying to decolonize hatefulness from our communities.
What is your favorite way to celebrate Pride in the Fifth District?
My favorite way to celebrate Pride in the Fifth District is going to People’s Pride at Powderhorn Park, it is one of the gatherings that made me want to move down to Minneapolis from Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota.
Juventino Meza
Juventino Meza is a formerly undocumented, queer immigrant who became one of Minnesota’s first undocumented law school graduates and is now a licensed civil rights attorney, nationally recognized speaker, and advocate for justice, democracy, and belonging. As a founding member of NAVIGATE MN, he helped build Minnesota’s first immigrant-led effort to support undocumented youth through leadership, higher education, and policy change. He played a key role in the movement that led to President Obama’s creation of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) in 2012 and the passage of the Minnesota Prosperity (Dream) Act in 2013.
What has been your proudest accomplishment?
Graduating from Mitchell Hamline School of Law in 2023 and passing the bar in 2025. Attending law school was financially devastating. I stopped twice. It took me seven years to finish. As an undocumented Minnesotan and DACA-holder, I had to work consistently throughout and in 2024, I failed the bar exam, in part because I could not afford the time to study the way I needed to. I truly did not think I would make it. Many times. But I did.
I became one of very few undocumented people and DACA-holders to graduate law school in the United States. And in the week before my swearing in, I obtained my permanent residency, so on the day I raised my hand, I was no longer undocumented. I graduated law school and became a licensed attorney through some of the most difficult moments in our nation’s history. That is something no one can take from me.
What advice do you have for young people who may be fearful of the backlash we’re seeing against LGBTQ2SIA+ inclusion?
The fear is real. Let yourself feel it. I remember being bullied in high school for being gay. I remember not knowing whether, as an undocumented student, I would even be allowed to graduate, to go to college, to build a future. Fear was the water I swam in for years.
What changed everything was other people. Talking to them. Being seen by them. Realizing I was not alone, that I did not have to be invisible. That people loved me and fought for me even when I couldn’t fight for myself. Find those people. They exist. They are looking for you too.
This is not the first time our communities have faced this. We have been here before, and we have moved the needle every single time. The constitution is clear. Our rights are not negotiable. Stay engaged. Keep organizing. And know that the pendulum always swings back (by us), and when it does, we will be stronger, louder, and more united than before. And do not forget to dance throughout it all.
What is your favorite way to celebrate Pride in the Fifth District?
My gay agenda this year is as full as ever. Professionally, it means doing what I do every day: defending the civil rights of my clients wherever and whenever I can. Personally, it means continuing to be an absolutely insufferable spouse — a role I take very seriously. As for Pride Weekend itself: I am in my 30s, which means my celebration has evolved. Gone are the days of doing everything at once. Now I curate. Friday evening, I’ll be at my neighbors’ Pride Celebration. Saturday, I’ll be volunteering as a board member with the Latino Affairs Council at the Pride Festival in Loring Park from 1–4pm. And Sunday, I’ll close it out at the block party on Hennepin Ave and 12th in downtown Minneapolis. And Monday, for the first time ever, I am supposed to take the day off to rest (but it is highly likely that I will do what I often do with my PTO and work on something last minute for a client or with some legal colleague). Celebrating Pride in the 5th District means showing up in the streets, in the law, and in the life you build every day. Happy Pride!
Roxanne Anderson
Roxanne Anderson is an activist, artist, entrepreneur and organizer working at the intersections of Race, Gender and Sexuality to dismantle systems of oppression. Roxanne is a Co-Founder and Executive Director of OUR Space Minnesota, Director of the Minnesota Transgender Health Coalition, and Co-Founder/Director of RARE Productions, the organizer of the Power to the People Area at Twin Cities Pride.
What has been your proudest accomplishment?
I think my proudest accomplishment so far is the Power to the People Production. It is a space that we created to celebrate the culture, lives and artistry of 2SGBTQIA+ people of color. This year marks 25 years at Twin Cities Pride and many events outside of the Twin Cities Pride festival ground to empower and honor queers of color.
What advice do you have for young people who may be fearful of the backlash we’re seeing against LGBTQ2SIA+ inclusion?
Be Brave! Our ancestors and transcestors endured so much so that we can be out and fabulous. They did it analog, they did it with no human rights or protections, no grant money, and with no organizations rooting for them. We can and must push back against fascism and those that want to hate and discriminate. Since colonization, and probably before, there have always been those who are not for 2SLGBTQIA people and there might always be. Be bold, be innovative, be brave.
What is your favorite way to celebrate Pride in the Fifth District?
Producing the Power to the People is definitely my favorite, but we have a lot of great Pride celebrations in the 5th district, from Columbia Heights to Richfield. I love to visit booths, sample foods, and sit by a stage and enjoy the talent when I am not at Twin Cities Pride.
