Jay Blotcher

Jay Blotcher (born 1960) is an American activist, journalist, and editor. He was active in the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) in its early years, serving as chair of the media committee, and was a founding member of Queer Nation.

Blotcher later worked as a publicist for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR) and the Culinary Institute of America, as well as co-founding a public relations firm that specialized in representing progressive groups and individuals.

Adoption and early life

Blotcher was born to nineteen-year-old Valerie Paul in June 1960, although his birth remained unknown to his biological father, Baltimore Orioles pitcher Arnie Portocarrero. Paul and Portocarrero had met through friends over drinks in Boston one evening, Blotcher says his mother later told him. After his birth, Paul surrendered custody to a foster home in greater Boston, where Blotcher lived until June 30, 1961, when he was adopted by Malvin "Sonny" Blotcher and Elaine "Lolly" Blotcher through a Jewish adoption agency.

Blotcher grew up in Randolph, Massachusetts, with his sister, Andrea, also adopted, and attended Temple Beth Am Hebrew School. Blotcher's parents were active at temple, both serving in leadership roles and volunteering at temple events. Blotcher graduated from Randolph High School (Massachusetts) in 1978. Because the pay was inadequate, Russo suggested Blotcher get a night job at the Saint Marks Baths located on Manhattan's Lower East Side, where Russo had worked while writing his book The Celluloid Closet.

Blotcher attended the first meeting of ACT UP's media committee, convened in the living room of Vito Russo's West Twenty-Fourth Street apartment. The committee's challenge was getting journalists to write about AIDS in spite of the apathy of the unaffected and the stigma of the affected. among others. Blotcher represented the group at the International AIDS Conferences in Montreal (1989), Amsterdam (1992), and Yokohama (1994).

Blotcher also participated in other demonstrations, including the protests of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1988, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1990. On one occasion a photo of Blotcher being arrested appeared in USA Today, and his mother, although displeased, clipped out the photograph and mounted it on the refrigerator. The couple had also entered into a civil union in Vermont in 2000.

Blotcher and Garrett traveled to California in 2008, where they were among the 18,000 same-sex couples who were legally wed before the passage of Proposition 8 banned same-sex marriages, and the state grandfathered them in.

The day after the New York state legislature voted to make same-sex marriage legal in 2011, Blotcher said, "I'm dancing in the streets about what happened last night, but I'm very mindful of what work has not yet been done." Blotcher was referring to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and other remaining legal federal obstacles.

Blotcher is the co-founder of the Hudson Valley LGBTQ Center, and volunteers for the New Paltz LGBTQ Pride March and Festival.

Journalism and book editing

After moving upstate, Blotcher turned to journalism full-time, and found work as a stringer for The New York Times, writing four stories, and contributing to three others between 2001 and 2003. During a 2004 review of the newspaper's part-time staffers, Blotcher's past work as a spokesperson for ACT UP and AMFAR came to the attention of editor Susan Edgerley, who Blotcher said "blindsided" him when she dismissed him in February 2004, "...to protect against any appearance of conflict of interest." After the dismissal was reported by The Washington Post, activists Larry Kramer and Michael Petrelis criticized the decision, citing the apparent conflicts of interest of other Times''' reporters. Blotcher said the work was the fulfillment of a promise he had made to Baker in 1997.

Blotcher also edited Queer in America: Sex, the Media, and the Closets of Power by Michelangelo Signorile, Animal Factory by David Kirby, and Impresario of Castro Street: An Intimate Showbiz Memoir'' by Marc Huestis, among others.

As of June 2025, Blotcher had edited more than 100 literary projects, including memoirs, fiction, nonfiction, history, and plays.