Marsha C. Botzer

Marsha C. Botzer is a Seattle based activist and non-profit administrator who has been working in the Transgender rights movement since the mid-1970s. Botzer is a trans woman herself. Botzer was also an early member of Hands Off Washington and a founding member of Equality Washington, as well as Out in Front Leadership Project.

Career

Foundation and Development of Ingersoll Gender Center

Botzer has cited a problem of joblessness and underemployment of transgender people as being the reasons for founding Ingersoll Gender Center. Getting the word out about the organization to a marginalized group before the internet posed a challenge. Botzer has said that in the face of this she would tuck Ingersoll Center business cards between the pages of books in the Seattle Public Library's small collection of books on the subject of gender. Over the course of the late-20th century, Botzer made over 100 trips accompanying transgender residents of Seattle to Trinidad, Colorado where they sought gender reassignment surgery. Botzer even introduced Dr. Biber, to Dr. Marci Bowers who succeeded him at his practice in Trinidad after he retired.

Involvement with Public Policy In a 2018 interview with the South Seattle Emerald, Botzer said that just over a decade after founding Ingersoll Gender Center, she felt the community she had worked to build had reached a solid foundation and she had the confidence to focus her efforts more on political and social change. The first phase of this political activism, according to Botzer, was to reach out to organizations focusing on gay, lesbian, and bisexual issues to advocate that transgender issues should be discussed in the same spaces as issues of sexuality. In 2008 she served as a national co-chair of the Barack Obama Pride Campaign.

Having already worked on a national and international level, Botzer first gained a formalized role in local Seattle politics in 2015 when she was appointed to a task force under Mayor Ed Murray centered on LGBTQ issues. This task force got a law passed that requires all single-occupancy restrooms to be gender-neutral. In January 2020, Washington state created the LGBTQ Commission via legislation. codifying the state task force that had existed in prior years. Botzer was an inaugural commissioner, and was selected as a co-chair at the commission's first meeting. After the election of Bruce Harrell as Mayor of Seattle, Botzer was appointed to his administration's transition team; Botzer was a member of the group dedicated to "labor and workforce".

Education and Outreach Work Throughout the 1990s and early 21st Century Botzer has served on the boards of many organizations working in the space of human rights related to gender identity and sexuality. She has also founded several such organizations. Since 2011 Botzer has been on the faculty of the.Los Angeles LGBT Center's Emerging Leaders Project.

In 2003, shortly following the Supreme Court of the United States made the decision to strike down anti-sodomy laws, Botzer worked via the Pride Foundation advocating on behalf of employees of Walmart to include discrimination on the basis of homosexuality to the company's anti-discrimination policy.

In 2019 Botzer was one of the group of people to decide who the first 50 honorees for the new Stonewall Inn Wall of Honor.

Controversies

Racism allegations at Ingersoll Gender Center In 2021, an issue of racist bias and discrimination within Ingersoll Gender Center was raised by a group of past and present employees of the organization, calling themselves Ingersoll Collective Action. Marsha Botzer had become more removed from the day to day of the center's operations over the decades but was still on the board of directors at the time. When the press sought her for comment on the story she declined to give a personal statement and stood by the statements provided by the organization and its board instead.

Support of Israel

In 2015, Tel Aviv celebrated its 40th Pride in an event organized by A Wider Bridge, an American LGBTQ organization that works to bridge the gap between North American and Israeli LGBTQ communities. The drew figures to attend from more than a dozen countries, and among them was Marsha Botzer and then Mayor of Seattle Ed Murray, an openly gay man. Botzer gave a talk of personal testimony during this hearing. She told the press afterward that this presentation was different than the times she had spoken before any U.S. legislature; the difference was the reception and open emotion of the legislators. Distinguished Scholar Award, 2015, from Antioch University Seattle Dr. Robert Deisher Founders Award from Seattle Counseling Service, 2019