PORTLAND, Ore. — Kaathleen Saadat is a trailblazer, an advocate and an organizer. She would be the first to say that she does not claim sole credit for any of her contributions.
"I get an award, but that's 1,000 people in that award; that's not me," Kathleen said, pointing to The Annual Governor Barbara Roberts Legacy Award that she received in March 2024. "It's not me. It's that I'm (a) loud mouth (and) have longevity."
In her 83 years, Saadat has fought tirelessly for civil rights and the rights of LGBTQ+ communities. She moved to Oregon from St. Louis, Missouri. Saadat graduated from Reed College, and by the mid-70s, she had organized the first Pride March in Portland.
"We decided to march downtown in the street. Scared as hell, just scared but determined," Saadat said. "We could see gay people on the sidewalk watching us, and I'm sure they were frightened; that's why they didn't join us."
In the early 90s, Saadat spoke up against Oregon Ballot Measure 9.
"I think, well, all of us felt if you don't speak up, nothing changes," she said. "And it was worth the risk to me,"
Some people described the measure as the harshest anti-gay measure put to voters in U.S. history.
"The measure didn't just remove first class citizenship from people who are gay and lesbian. It also suggested you could not struggle to reinstate yourself — that it would be against the law for you to advocate for your own existence," she said.
Saadat remembers receiving threats at that time, including hearing the sound of someone cocking a gun over the phone.
"The question for me was, do you go home and hide, and they get you? Or do you stand up, and they might get you, they might not. But if you stand up, you're at least resisting," she said.
The measure failed by a close margin — what Saadat says meant there was still work to be done.
Saadat considers Pride Month a celebratory time to learn from past struggles for rights and to push for future freedoms.
"It's not a simple history. It didn't just happen," she said. "Discrimination has been there for a long time, off and on. People have regarded it differently and the big question is, why does it matter to you that those differences exist?"
KGW's Breaking Barriers series features Oregonians making a difference in the world of sports, arts, government, business and more. You'll see stories throughout June for Pride Month.