Leaders of the Pack 2013

Red hot entrepreneurs of 2013

MEG TEN EYCK
Founder, Equal Dialogues

Meg Ten Eyck has had a journey through some of the nations largest LGBTQ youth organizations started when she was a youth herself, experiencing the kind of tragedies that have become all-too-familiar to the community. “While I was in college, I lost three people in my life to anti-gay violence,” Ten Eyck says. “Within a two-year period, I had fully come out and experienced intense tragedy.” Ten Eyck knew she wanted to do something to change the status quo, but was not sure how to make it happen. In college she became president of the Gay-Straight Alliance and began volunteering with local LGBTQ organizations. “It was at that point I realized there were people who did this work for a living, and that I could be one of them,” Ten Eyck explains. After becoming National Education Manager at the Trevor Project and working at the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, she founded Equal Dialogues, a Brooklyn organization that provides speakers and trainings on working with LGBTQ youth, many of whom are trying to make a difference like she wanted to at their age. Ten Eyck says, “The brave students who host Day of Silence without the support of their teachers, young people who call the Trevor Project suicide lifeline looking for help… young people trying to change the world inspire me.”


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