Kansas LGBTQ activist Stephanie Mott dies

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - Well-known Kansas LGBTQ rights activist Stephanie Mott has died.

Pastor Sarah Oglesby-Dunegan of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Topeka says Mott was hospitalized Sunday after apparently suffering a heart attack. She died Monday at the age of 61.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that Mott, a transgender woman, filed suit in 2016 seeking to change her Kansas birth certificate to identify her as female, but that case was dismissed in 2017. The New York City-based Lambda Legal Defense Education Fund then filed a lawsuit last October, which remains pending, challenging the refusal by Kansas government officials to correct gender identification on birth certificates for transgender individuals.

Mott also was a mental health clinician who led the Kansas Democratic Party’s LGBT caucus and managed the Topeka chapter of Equality Kansas.

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Information from: The Topeka (Kan.) Capital-Journal, http://www.cjonline.com