Susan Cowell, a revered figure in the Rochester LGBTQ community, died Saturday after a long illness.
Cowell leaves behind a legacy marked by an unwavering commitment to social, economic, and political activism spanning more than 40 years.
With significant contributions, particularly during the AIDS crisis, Cowell's work covered diverse fields such as politics, arts, business, and medicine.
After receiving her master's degree in nursing, Cowell moved to Rochester in 1977 to work at the University of Rochester, and soon immersed herself in the city's LGBTQ milieu.
“She was behind a lot of the things that got done,” said Gerry Szymanksi, librarian at the Lilac Library at the Rochester Rainbow Union. “And she was really tireless.”
Notably, Cowell served as the president of the Gay Alliance — now the Rainbow Union — and was its executive director from 2009 to 2012. Her leadership extended to involvement in establishing the MOCHA Center in 1997, making influential strides in HIV prevention, and perhaps most notably, the co-founding of AIDS Rochester in 1983.
The first of its kind for Rochester, it was an organization providing community resources and health education. But the group soon evolved from a purely medical initiative to a social one, too — ensuring that those suffering had the support they needed.
Eventually, AIDS Rochester merged with another organization to form AIDS Care, later transforming into Trillium Health.
Szymanski said he hopes Cowell would be proud of what has come from her health initiatives.
“The fact that Trillium is now expanded to become a full- service health clinic offering both primary care to the entire community — not just LGBTQ folks — but still being able to specialize in taking care of folks with kind of special needs and are sensitive to trans folks,” he said. “Being able to ask the kinds of questions that other medical professionals might be hesitant to talk about.”
At the height of the epidemic, Cowell became an essential local figure in AIDS activism.
“Because what they were seeing is that people from larger places were coming back to Rochester to die,” Szymanski said. “And some of them did not have support from their families at all.”
Among her admirers and peers in the LGBTQ community in Rochester, there is a common sentiment that stands out: Cowell laid an enduring foundation for future generations in the fight for equality, freedom, and justice.
