Scott Long (human rights activist)

Scott Long (born June 5, 1963 in Radford, Virginia) is an American activist in the human rights movement working for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. He is now a Visiting Fellow in the Human Rights Program of Harvard Law School. He was until recently Executive Director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch.

Biography

Scott Long was born June 5, 1963 in Radford, Virginia. He graduated from Radford University at the age of 17, and received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1989 at the age of 25. In the same year he moved to Hungary, and taught at the Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest. He became involved with the nascent lesbian and gay movement in Hungary as it emerged during the democratic transition. He organized the first course on sexuality and gender at the Eotvos Lorand University, attended by hundreds of students. He was a founding member of Hattér, a Hungarian LGBT support and advocacy organization.

Career activities

In 1992 he accepted a Fulbright professorship at the University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania. There, together with a few underground Romanian activists, he became deeply involved in campaigning against Article 200 of the Romanian penal code, a law dating from the Ceauşescu dictatorship that criminalized consensual homosexual acts with five years' imprisonment. Working independently from any...
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