AOC outrages LGBTQ advocates over suggested post office renaming

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U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., outraged LGBTQ advocates in her Queens district last week after she suggested renaming a local post office that honors a woman who co-founded the first organization for parents of gay and lesbian children in 1973 and her husband, according to reports. 

"Is it that she doesn’t know our history?" former New York City Council member Daniel Dromm said to the New York Daily News. "Did they not check to see who the post office is named after right now? Does she not know who Jeanne Manford was?" 

Dromm, who helped get the post office named for Jeanne and Jules Manford five years ago, before Ocasio-Cortez was elected, said a name change would "erase our history."

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks at a rally for Democratic congressional candidates Jessica Cisneros and Greg Casar, Saturday, Feb. 12, 2022, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

The congresswoman had first proposed the name change after some members of the community suggested honoring the late LGBTQ advocate Lorena Borjas, Ocasio-Cortez spokesperson Lauren Hitt told the Daily News. Borjas died in 2020. Her office has started taking suggestions for a potential name change. Hitt said it’s normal for members of Congress to consider new names for post offices.  

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"It seemed like a small but interesting way to engage our community in the legislative process," she said, adding that the congresswoman would take all community suggestions into account and was "very open" to keeping the Manfords’ names. 

The Jeanne and Jules Manford Post Office in Queens, New York. (USPS)

"You don’t take one pioneer of the LGBT movement and pit them against another person," Dromm told the newspaper.

He said he generally supports Ocasio-Cortez’s policies, but this was "typical of her not being connected to the community."

Allen Roskoff, an LGBTQ activist and leader of the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, said the organization is "outraged."

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"How dare she put our community’s heritage up for a popularity contest or a vote," he said, according to the Daily News. 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks to the media before a Green New Deal For Public Housing Town Hall on Dec. 14, 2019, in Queens. (Yana Paskova/Getty Images)