PHOTOS: Orlando intersex activist Juleigh Mayfield remembered with celebration of life

(Photo by Azlyn Cato)

ORLANDO | Friends, chosen family and community members gathered at Savoy on Aug. 12 to celebrate the life of intersex activist and former Come Out With Pride Board Member Juleigh Mayfield.

Mayfield was a pioneering voice for the intersex community known for her LGBTQ+ advocacy in Central Florida. She was 51 when she died.

“The reason we’re here is because she was such a huge advocate for the community, for the intersex community, and she really wanted to leave a legacy,” shares Irene Pons, Mayfield’s lawyer and UCF lecturer. “The most important gift that she had was the ability to speak for anybody who had no voice, and to actually uplift those and create a seat at the table for people who didn’t have a seat.”

Mayfield’s advocacy, leadership and unwavering commitment to justice helped the LGBTQ+ community. Over the past 10 years, she used her voice to educate people on what it means to be intersex and has fought for intersex rights and equal treatment, both socially and legally.

Amongst the hugs, drinks and laughter, a game of drag Bingo was played in Mayfield’s honor, a Savoy weekly tradition Pons said Juleigh loved.

“Savoy was her favorite place,” Pons says. “She would come here to do karaoke. She would come here to do bingo. Her drag mom, Chantal Roche, was one of her biggest mentors, and her drag sisters as well, so this is her family. This is her chosen family that she absolutely loved, and this was her second home.”

Mayfield spoke to Watermark Out News in 2024 about how she felt that the job as an advocate for the intersex community can never be done; regardless of how small or large the impact is, it must continue one small change at a time.

“I know I’m creating ripples that long term might make a difference. That’s important to me,” Mayfield said. “Nobody said advocacy was easy … but once it finds you, you feel like you need to keep doing it for the people behind you.”

Watermark Out News attended the celebration of life. View our photos below.

Photos by Azlyn Cato.