Stratton Pollitzer

Stratton Pollitzer is Co-Founder and Executive Director of Equality Florida, one of the nation’s largest LGBTQ state-based advocacy organizations, with nearly half a million members. A nationally recognized LGBTQ leader, strategist, and nonprofit innovator, Stratton has spent nearly three decades helping to build one of the most powerful state equality movements in the country.

Since co-founding Equality Florida in 1997, Stratton has played a central role in shaping Florida’s modern LGBTQ movement. After serving as Deputy Director from the organization’s founding through its most formative years, his leadership helped secure some of Florida’s most consequential LGBTQ victories — including helping to end Florida’s ban on gay and lesbian adoption and leading the campaign that secured marriage equality in Florida before any other Southern state.

Stratton leads Equality Florida with a clear, value-driven focus on building power and protecting the most vulnerable. He has guided the organization’s rapid-response efforts against extremist legislation and helped redefine the national narrative around Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” law — mobilizing broad public opposition and elevating Florida’s resistance movement on the national stage. Under his leadership, Equality Florida is grounded in an unwavering commitment to racial justice, reproductive freedom, and full transgender inclusion — especially at a time when transgender Floridians are facing unprecedented attacks.

Throughout his career, Stratton has built and led innovative, nationally recognized programs. He spearheaded Equality Florida’s Safe and Healthy Schools Program, now the largest LGBTQ-inclusive education initiative in the country, which has trained more than 40,000 education professionals to create safer, more supportive learning environments for LGBTQ students. He also founded the organization’s Health Equity Project, partnering with major health systems to expand access to affirming care and train thousands of healthcare providers in trauma-informed LGBTQ care.

Stratton comes from a long line of educators and social justice activists. In 1972, the year Stratton started kindergarten, his mother founded the first fully integrated private school in South Carolina. Before devoting his career to statewide advocacy, Stratton served as principal of a Montessori school, an experience that drew on his family’s legacy.

In recognition of his leadership and impact, Stratton is a recipient of the Harvey Milk Honors Medal for groundbreaking LGBTQ advocacy.

Stratton and his husband, Christopher, live in Miami and are the fathers of twins, Benjamin and Sarah, who are six months older than Equality Florida.