How this young Detroit activist found his voice—and is helping other LGBTQ+ people find theirs

Motivated by his brother’s death, a 23-year-old from Detroit has devoted his life to fighting hate and empowering others.

Luis Gutierrez was in 4th grade when he realized that he was gay. Fortunately, even at that young age, he knew what being gay was and that it wasn’t “a bad thing.” That’s because he had two older siblings who had already come out.

“So I wasn’t particularly scared to come out…but I was kind of scared to tell my mother just because opening up, that isn’t what people in our culture kind of do,” Gutierrez said. “We don’t talk too much about our feelings.”

Gutierrez is the grandson of a Mexican couple who came to Detroit with “literally nothing.” His grandfather was a butcher and his grandmother “didn’t have much schooling,” Gutierrez said in an interview with The ‘Gander. “But they worked very hard to get my aunts and uncles (and mom) a good life, good schooling and kind of the typical American Dream.”

In around the 6th grade, Gutierrez did finally come out to his mother—and she and his grandmother decided to send him to a private Catholic high school.

It was there that Gutierrez found his own voice, and where he discovered that his life’s calling was “to do everything I can to fight for people’s right to have a voice to speak.”

Now at age 23, as the Executive Assistant and Head of Operations at LGBT Detroit, Gutierrez works on that mission every day. He got his start as a volunteer, after he graduated from high school without a clear direction and pitched in to help organize one of LGBT Detroit’s signature events, “Hotter than July,” the longest-running Black PRIDE event that the nonprofit stages every year.

“I had such a small part but it made me want to do more,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez, second from left, and friends from LGBT Detroit. Photo Courtesy Luis Gutierrez

Volunteering led to a paid position with the nonprofit, as a Community Project Organizer, where he focused both on registering new voters and sharing information about how and where to vote.

“It felt really important to me, particularly for the year 2020. We all knew who was on the ballot then,” he said.

That project led to his current staff position, where he assists the executive director of the organization, Nzere Kwabena, and coordinates numerous programs that support and advocate for the city’s LGBTQ+ community—particularly its young people.

LGBT Detroit provides physical, sexual, mental, and nutritional health services to its community and stages special programs and events throughout the year. 

“There is an overabundance of hate in this world, and I think our organization does its very best to displace that in giving people a space and opportunity to be themselves, for a demographic that has been woefully neglected today and historically,” Gutierrez said.

His drive to speak out in the face of discrimination began when his mother and grandmother first sent him away, warning him to stay in the closet.

“I know now that it was just, ‘We want to protect you,'” he said.

But after about a week, Gutierrez announced: “I’m not doing this, I’m not hiding who I am anymore.”

Despite not knowing any other gay students in his school for the first couple of years, Gutierrez recalls that he was never bullied over his identity. Instead, his classmates appreciated him for being himself.

“And that’s a privilege,” he said. “It was kind of the opposite—I felt like I was more cool because I was gay.”

Gutierrez even pushed the boundaries of his personal style while a high school student. He remembers wearing light makeup for a day—but got pushback from school administrators.

It was that incident that set him off “into advocacy, fighting for what I believe in,” he said. He wrote a letter to the school’s Board of Directors championing his idea that anyone should be allowed to wear makeup.

While he wasn’t successful in winning that battle, he did accomplish something more meaningful: Forming a gay/straight alliance after-school group.

Forbidden from using the word gay in the group’s name, Gutierrez called it the “Safe, Brave Space.” It became such a successful discussion group that it continued to run after he graduated.

While Gutierrez was finding ways to be himself and advocate for kids like him in high school, his younger brother, Matthew, was struggling at home.

The 13-year-old was being bullied due to the family’s low income, “and there were partly racist comments because we’re Mexican,” Gutierrez said. “So he kept all his feelings of being…I guess…inadequate inside.”

When Gutierrez was 16, Matthew committed suicide.

“It is my main motivator to continue on,” Gutierrez said. “One of the biggest regrets I have is that my little brother wasn’t able to talk with me about what he was going through.”

“My little brother was the light of our family. He had the brightest smile. He was happy all the time. I’m glass half-empty, the world is falling apart. But him, it was like, everything is going to be okay. That was just his aura, his vibe every single day. And he’d make others feel the exact same way.”

Gutierrez speaks with deep regret that he and the rest of the family weren’t able to be there for Matthew.

“I think it definitely lit a fire under me, and that fire is still lit. I carry it with me every day.” 

Now, Gutierrez is channeling that fire into a mission of giving a voice to those who haven’t been able to use their own, through his work at LGBT Detroit.

He’s currently managing the group’s “Pride To Decide” voter registration and information program.

“Pride to Decide has reached over 600,000 people in southeast Michigan alone, telling them how to vote, where to vote, and registering them to vote,” Gutierrez said.

Enthusiasm for getting registered has been “amazing,” he says, ever since Vice President Kamala Harris took over the top of the presidential ticket. So much so that one of his team’s canvassers was chased down the street by a woman who wanted to be registered.

Next on his agenda will be marrying his fiancé, Adrian, and going back to his roots to address issues and give a voice to members of the Hispanic community.

As for advice he has for other young LGBTQ+ people who don’t feel like they have a voice yet, Gutierrez says: “Find your people. It’s not even people that look like you or people who think like you. It’s people who make you feel comfortable to be who you are. And I think you will become more of the person you want to be.”

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