John Laird moved to Santa Cruz in 1968 from Vallejo, and attended University of California Santa Cruz, just 3 years after the university’s founding. He majored in politics and took part in early LGBTQ+ organizations on campus and graduated in 1972. In the late 1970’s, he joined the gay men’s group, which regularly met at the London Nelson Center and then helped to found the Gay Men’s beach volleyball group. He was part of the early LGBTQ+ organizations in Santa Cruz and served as the Executive Director of the Santa Cruz AIDs Project in 1991.  He was elected to the Santa Cruz City Council in 1980 and later, became the first openly gay mayor of Santa Cruz in 1983. He would later be elected as a Cabrillo College trustee, State Assembly member, and State senator, a position he has held since 2020. He also served as California Secretary for Natural Resources.  John lives in Santa Cruz with his spouse, John Flores, who is a photographer. In this podcast, he talks about the many obstacles he faced from a heteronormative political and social climate, and how he worked to change this.