Longtime LGBTQ Activist and 50-year County Committee Member Renée Vera Cafiero Loses Her Seat in the Democratic Party Following Party Leadership’s Hostile Takeover of the 44th AD.

Renée Vera Cafiero (she/her), longtime LID officer, LGBTQ activist, and local political icon, has lost her seat on the Brooklyn Democratic Party County Committee, of which she had been a member since 1972, following Party leadership’s move to consolidate its power and root out progressive reformers from having a place in the party.

Renée is a veteran of the LGBTQ civil rights movement, with a history of activism stretching back to a little-known picket outside of the U.S. Army Terminal in 1964—believed to be the first planned gay rights demonstration in U.S. history, 5 years before the better-known 1969 Stonewall Riots. She was a member of the Mattachine Society, one of the earliest active LGBTQ rights organizations. Renée has also been a trailblazer for the Democratic Party nationwide. In 1972 she was an alternate delegate for George McGovern at the Democratic Convention, one of five openly LGBT delegates nationwide, who lobbied unsuccessfully for a gay rights plank in the convention platform. Here in Brooklyn, she was one of the founders of the Gay Alliance of Brooklyn in 1971, which at its peak claimed to have 300 members.

Most important to us LID members young and old, she has been a dedicated member of our club for some 40 years, serving as a member of our Board and Executive Committee for more than 30 years, never shying away from offering her advice to generations of LGBTQ leaders.

Renée represents all that the LGBTQ civil rights movement has to offer, and the Brooklyn Democratic Party was all the better for having her at the table. While there are still queer County Committee members, the party establishment has allowed its blinding interest in consolidating power to exclude someone who is among the best of our movement.

By way of background, every two years, the county party is required by state law to hold its Organizational Meeting, at which County Committee members who have gathered petition signatures and been elected officially take their seats, officers are elected, rules are adopted, and additional members are appointed to fill vacant seats.

This process should ensure that the multitude of voices across Brooklyn are heard and given a voice in our party, one of the largest local Democratic Party organizations in the nation. It should be a forum for discussion and building consensus. This body has over 4,000 seats, and there are more than enough seats for everyone who wants to participate; there are often hundreds of vacancies. Such vacancies are traditionally filled by a “slate” nominated by the district leaders in each Assembly District. Renée was on a slate along with 82 others that was put together by the 44th Assembly District Committee (ADC), an organization composed of all the County Committee members in that district. According to Tony Melone, the ADC Chair, they “held an open process for requesting nominations after the primary, reaching out to all current and former County Committee members, district leaders, elected officials, and Rep Your Block. Everyone gave consent to be appointed and no one who asked was denied a spot on our slate, as long as we could confirm their address was in the district. Many were longtime County Committee members who fell a few signatures short this year, due to delays in receiving the new district maps."

Yet, in an unprecedented move, county party leadership ran a slate in opposition to the one submitted by the 44th ADC. This happened at a previously unplanned meeting held at noon on a workday, the continuation of a prior four-hour meeting where nothing was accomplished due to alleged technical difficulties. Fewer members were able to attend the continued meeting, and they were outvoted by proxy votes from absent members held by party leaders, including County Committee Chair Arleny Alvarado-McCalla, who held more than 200 votes. These proxy votes allowed leaders to vote down proposals that were supported by a clear majority of the attendees in the room. They were able to overwhelm many longtime members from the 44th, including Renée, and elect the county-backed slate. Some members of this slate did not even know they were being appointed, a move beyond the ethical pale. When the Chair asked for someone to speak on behalf of this slate, no one stood up: none of the slate’s appointees were in attendance, unlike Renée and many others from the 44th ADC’s slate who attended both meetings.

The 44th Assembly District (parts of Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Windsor Terrace, Kensington, Borough Park, Ditmas Park, and Midwood) includes many dedicated reformers who have long pushed for transparency and access. Additionally, the neighborhood of Park Slope, which Renée has resided in since 1989, is a historically LGBT neighborhood. Lovingly referred to as Dyke Slope, the neighborhood includes 3 LGBT historic sites (Brooklyn Women’s Martial Arts, Transy House, and the Lesbian Herstory Archives) and is the home of the Brooklyn Pride Parade. Given the strength gathered by reformers and progressives in this district, it is no surprise that the party establishment would target this district, among others. And by doing so, they have lost an important voice from the LGBTQ community.

Local party politics may not seem like an obvious place of action for LGBTQ activism. But by joining County Committee out and proud in 1972, Renée undertook a revolutionary act and paved the way for LGBTQ Brooklynites to participate at all levels of government. Brooklyn didn’t have any out LGBTQ district leaders until 2001, elected its first out LGBTQ judge in 1998, but didn’t have any out elected public officials until 2014; in 2020 a century-old rule that barred TGNCNB Brooklynites from participating in County Committee was finally changed.

Even though she doesn’t hold the title of County Committee Member this term, Renée will not stop showing up to fight for a more inclusive and transparent local party.

Regardless, LID takes this time to thank Renée for her continuous 50 years of service to the Kings County Democratic County Committee, and we recommit to fighting for reforms that allow all Brooklynites to participate.

“Every resident of Brooklyn should aspire to be as dedicated to their neighborhood as Renée,” said LID Co-President Derek Gaskill, who attended both meetings. “The LGBTQ community has so few elders that by putting politics over people, the party lost a critical voice.”

“County’s actions aren’t about me, really,” said Renée. "I don’t believe the county party singled me out—they’re likely unaware of LGBTQ activists’ names—but it is a tragedy that long-time, committed Democratic Party workers were dissed in favor of stacking the party leadership’s deck of power. The leadership spends little time, effort, and money working for Democratic candidates (except ones it endorses in primaries, another breach of ethics) and all its resources consolidating control.”

LID is a part of the Rep Your Block coalition, a movement committed to widening access and transparency to the county party. Over the last four years, the movement has gained considerable strength. Party leadership, instead of welcoming the voices of hundreds of newcomers excited about getting involved in local politics, has pushed back and fought to exclude voices, disproportionately impacting LGBTQ people, especially transgender and gender-nonbinary/nonconforming persons and queer people of color.