“Avery has been in the trenches fighting for LGBTQ rights – from working as an intern at Equality North Carolina to serving as Education Director at The Trevor Project – and we are delighted she will be leading our Dallas office,” Lambda Legal Interim CEO Richard Burns said. “Avery joins us at a challenging time and in a challenging region. With her dedication and drive, we look forward to tremendous growth in the eight states that comprise our South Central Region. Welcome aboard, Avery.”
Belyeu comes to Lambda Legal from the Education Development Center, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit where she has focused on suicide prevention strategy with the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention. In this role she has worked with senior leaders in the private and public sectors to advance suicide prevention strategy nationwide. Prior to that, Belyeu worked at The Trevor Project, the country’s leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ young people under 25, where she held several positions, including Education Director.
Belyeu’s expertise includes managing teams, developing strategic partnerships, and organizational planning and implementation. During her time at the Trevor Project, Belyeu led a network of volunteers that participated in fundraising and programming in cities across the country, and she helped to raise the organization’s visibility to create new opportunities for fundraising with major donors and large corporations. She is an in-demand speaker on the topic of LGBTQ rights especially around the intersections of LGBTQ people and faith and religious identities.
Belyeu attended Appalachian State University where she received a Bachelors in Science degree. She has pursued graduate work in higher education administration at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and she is currently completing a Master in Divinity Degree from Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth Texas. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Religious Institute, a multi-faith organization dedicated to advocating for sexual, gender, and reproductive health, education, and justice in faith communities and society, and on the Transgender Working Group of the National LGBT Task Force’s Practice Spirit Do Justice Initiative.
“I am so delighted to join Lambda Legal, an organization I’ve known and respected for years, and one whose passion for justice and willingness to fight the good fight no matter the odds has been an inspiration,” Belyeu said. “I can think of no place I’d rather be at this time than Lambda Legal, and I’m especially excited to be working with Lambda Legal to advance LGBTQ civil rights in the South."
Lambda Legal’s South Central Regional Office covers Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado and New Mexico.
