Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has announced the city’s first director of LGBTQ Affairs, her office said Friday.
Lifelong Atlanta resident and LGBTQ advocate Malik Brown will take on the newly-created position, in which he’ll advise Mayor Bottoms, city officials and city departments on policies affecting the LGBTQ community, among other duties.
“Since taking office, our Administration has prioritized the well-being and advancement of Atlanta’s large and diverse LGBTQ community and municipal LGBTQ affairs,” Mayor Bottoms said in a statement.
“By creating a Director-level LGBTQ Affairs position in the Mayor’s Office and continuing the work of the Mayor’s LGBTQ Advisory Board, we are creating institutional support for LGBTQ Atlantans,” Bottoms said.
The mayor’s office said the full-time, director-level role would place Atlanta “among only a handful of cities in the country” to have such a position.
In a tweet, Brown said he was “honored to have been chosen to serve in this role.”
Brown previously served as Atlanta’s LGBTQ affairs coordinator. He’s also a member of the Human Rights Campaign’s National Board of Governors, which manages the advocacy organization’s outreach in local communities across the country.
He will also act as the city’s liaison to the LGBTQ Advisory Board, to which Bottoms appointed new members on Friday, “including trans and non-binary people, LGBTQ people of color, healthcare professionals, straight allies, Jewish residents, and more,” the statement said.
