Three Lives, Lasting Impact

The LGBTQ+ community remembers a trailblazing jurist, a sports pioneer, and a political force

Barbara A. Lenk

Barbara A. Lenk, the first openly gay justice to serve on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, has died, the state's highest court said. She was 75. Lenk died May 19, surrounded by her family; the court's statement did not give a cause of death.

Lenk served 27 years on the bench. Republican Governor Bill Weld appointed her to the Superior Court in 1993 and the Appeals Court in 1995, and Governor Deval Patrick named her to the SJC in 2011 — making her the first openly gay member of the same court that, less than a decade earlier, had ruled that barring same-sex couples from marriage violated the Massachusetts Constitution. After Chief Justice Ralph Gants died in September 2020, Lenk, the senior justice, took up the duties of chief justice until her mandatory retirement that December.

Born in Queens, New York, in 1950 to a bookbinder and a housekeeper, Lenk grew up in a working-class household where Polish was her first language. She earned a bachelor's degree from Fordham and a Ph.D. in political philosophy from Yale, then graduated from Harvard Law School in 1979 and began her career at the Boston firm Brown Rudnick, where she became a partner and built a practice in First Amendment law.

Lenk authored hundreds of opinions, admired for their rigor and for references that ranged from Greek mythology to popular music. She carried a handwritten reminder of the principles that guided her: "Hear courteously; answer wisely; consider soberly; decide impartially." She treasured mentoring young associates and law clerks, many of whom stayed close to her for life. Away from the court, she was happiest outdoors — long walks with her dogs through the Carlisle Cranberry Bog and Estabrook Woods, and annual family trips to Acadia.

"It has been my lifelong goal," she said at her retirement, "to leave the world not less and worse, but greater and more beautiful than when it was given to us."

Lenk is survived by her spouse, Debra Krupp; her daughters, Katie and Julia; her son-in-law, Jake; and her grandchildren, Haleigh, Paxton, and Benson. The family asks that donations be made to Care Dimensions, Feeding America, or Boston's Pine Street Inn.

Jason Collins

Jason Collins, the first openly gay active player in NBA history, who went on to become a pioneer for inclusion and an ambassador for the league, has died after an eight-month battle with glioblastoma, his family announced through the NBA. He was 47.

Collins spent 13 seasons in the league across six franchises, including 32 games with the Celtics in 2012-13. He came out publicly in April 2013, in a first-person essay for Sports Illustrated — an announcement that arrived near the end of his playing career, while he was a free agent. The following season, he signed with Brooklyn and became the first openly gay player to appear in an NBA game.

"Jason changed lives in unexpected ways and was an inspiration to all who knew him and to those who admired him from afar," his family said in the statement released through the NBA.

Boston shaped that decision more than most fans realize. At Stanford, Collins's roommate was Joseph P. Kennedy III, who later spent eight years representing Massachusetts in Congress. Collins wrote that watching Kennedy march in Boston's 2012 Pride parade — while Collins himself stayed silent — was the moment he knew he had to raise his hand.

He wore No. 98 for Boston, Washington and Brooklyn, a quiet tribute to 1998, the year Matthew Shepard was murdered in Wyoming.

In June 2013, weeks after the essay, Collins returned to Boston for Pride Week, embraced by a city and a community that claimed him as one of its own. He had said he wanted to keep playing, and he did — 22 more games the following season with Brooklyn, quiet proof that an out player could simply be a player.

His on-court numbers were modest: 3.6 points and 3.7 rebounds a game. But the stat line was never the point. He set picks, protected teammates, and changed the league.

The Human Rights Campaign called him a legend for the LGBTQ+ community. Collins is survived by his husband, Brunson Green, and his twin brother, former NBA player Jarron Collins, who shortly before Jason's death accepted an award on his behalf, calling him "the bravest, strongest man I've ever known."

Barney Frank memorial set for Faneuil Hall on June 8

Family and friends will gather to celebrate the life of former Congressman Barney Frank at 10 a.m. on Monday, June 8, at Faneuil Hall in Boston. Frank's longtime friend Jim Segel confirmed the plans Thursday.

The setting carries its own history. Long before Washington, Frank was a young chief assistant to Boston Mayor Kevin White — part of the City Hall circle that saw the potential in the derelict Quincy Market buildings. During White's administration, the city worked with developer James Rouse and architect Benjamin Thompson to transform them into Faneuil Hall Marketplace, now one of Boston's best-known destinations.

Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat elected 16 times to represent the state's 4th Congressional District, was 86 when he died Tuesday evening, May 19, at his home in Ogunquit, Maine, where he was in hospice care with congestive heart failure.

In 1987, Frank became the first member of Congress to publicly come out as gay voluntarily, and he spent the following decades as one of the most visible LGBTQ+ leaders in national politics. He went on to coauthor the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.

In his final weeks, Frank gave a steady run of interviews urging Democrats toward pragmatism ahead of the 2028 elections. In a May 3 interview with the Boston Globe, he said he hoped Democrats would act on his warnings.