Stratton Pollitzer is a nationally recognized LGBTQ leader, strategist, and nonprofit innovator who has spent nearly three decades at the forefront of the equality movement. As Co-Founder and incoming Executive Director of Equality Florida, Stratton has helped build and lead one of the nation’s largest LGBTQ state-based advocacy organizations, with nearly half a million members.

Stratton has served as Deputy Director since the organization’s founding in 1997, and his leadership has shaped many of Florida’s most consequential LGBTQ victories. He played a key role in ending Florida’s ban on gay and lesbian adoption, and he helped lead the campaign that brought marriage equality to Florida ahead of the U.S. Supreme Court’s nationwide decision. Stratton has guided Equality Florida’s rapid-response efforts against anti-LGBTQ legislation and helped redefine the national narrative around the so-called “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” law, mobilizing broad public opposition and bringing national attention to Florida’s resistance movement.

Stratton has also led some of the organization’s most impactful programs and campaigns. He spearheaded the creation of Equality Florida’s Safe and Healthy Schools Program, now the largest LGBTQ-inclusive education initiative in the country, which has trained over 40,000 education professionals statewide to create safer, more supportive learning environments for LGBTQ students. He also developed the Health Equity Project, which has partnered with major health systems including Jackson Health, Broward Health, and Orlando Health to improve access to affirming care and train thousands of providers and mental health professionals in trauma-informed LGBTQ care.

Stratton comes from a long line of educators and civil rights champions and his mother founded the first integrated private school in South Carolina in 1972. Before devoting his career to statewide advocacy, Stratton served as principal of a Montessori school, an experience that drew on his family’s legacy in education and has informed his work on inclusive learning environments. As a mark of his influence, Stratton is a recipient of the Harvey Milk Honors Medal for groundbreaking leadership in LGBTQ advocacy.

Stratton and his husband, Christopher, live in Miami and are the fathers of twins, Benjamin and Sarah, who are six months older than Equality Florida.