Deb Price
Deb Price | |
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National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association Hall of Fame (2009) |
Deborah Jane Price (February 27, 1958 – November 20, 2020) was an American journalist, author, and pioneering lesbian columnist.
Early life
Price was born in
Career
Price started her career with the Northern Virginia Sun and the news agency States News Service, which provided syndicated news coverage of Washington for papers across the country. She went on to join The Washington Post in 1984 as an editor with the national desk, where she would meet her future partner Joyce Murdoch.[3] She later joined the Washington bureau of The Detroit News.[3]
Her debut column in The Detroit News in 1992 was the first syndicated national column in mainstream media that spoke about gay life.[1][4] The column was syndicated by agencies including The Los Angeles Times Syndicate and Gannett. Through her columns, Price sought to demystify perceptions about gay life, trying to portray same-sex couples in everyday scenarios. In her career over 18 years, she would write over 900 columns and help shape cultural attitudes and perceptions. In addition to covering everyday topics, she also took on pointed issues including gay members in the military.[3] Writing about her contributions, The New York Times said that her efforts were key in reversal of cultural attitudes about gay life and culminated in 2015 with the legalization of same-sex marriage.[3]
Her first book, And Say Hi to Joyce: America's First Gay Column Comes Out (1995), co-written with her partner Joyce Murdoch, was a compilation of her columns. Her second book, Courting Justice: Gay Men and Lesbians v. the Supreme Court (2001), which she also co-wrote with Murdoch, won the
She went to
She was the recipient of the
Personal life
Price met her partner Joyce Murdoch, then a fellow editor at the national desk of The Washington Post, in 1984. While they became a couple in 1985, they were able to register as domestic partners only in 1993, in Takoma Park, Maryland. In 2000 they entered a civil union in Vermont and in 2003 married in Toronto. Theirs was the first same-sex wedding announcement on the Post's weddings page.[3] Until then, the paper had published its same-sex union messages in a page titled "Celebrations" instead of the weddings page. This publishing was one of the first same-sex wedding announcements in a major national newspaper.[4]
Price died on November 20, 2020, from
Selected works
- Price, Deb; Murdoch, Joyce (1995). And Say Hi to Joyce: America's First Gay Column Comes Out. New York: OCLC 31646321.
- Murdoch, Joyce; Price, Deb (2001). Courting Justice: Gay Men and Lesbians v. the Supreme Court. New York: OCLC 655054832.
References
- ^ The Advocate. Retrieved November 30, 2020.
- ^ Staver, Sari (November 27, 2020). "Award-winning journalist Deb Price dies". Bay Area Reporter. Retrieved November 30, 2020.
- ^ ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 11, 2020.
- ^ ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved December 11, 2020.
- ^ Hermann, Donald H. J. (2002). "Review of Courting Justice". DePaul Law Review. 51 (4): 1215โ1224.
External links
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