Michael Chanak Jr.

Cincinnati · Organizer · Broadcaster · Volunteer

Michael Chanak Jr.

Cincinnati organizer, broadcaster and volunteer for LGBTQ+ communities since the early 1980s. While working at Procter & Gamble, he spent five years making the case that the company’s equal employment policy should protect gay and lesbian employees.

This site collects his story, a timeline of four decades of work, the films and press that document it, and his own essays.

Read his storyWatch the films
The Procter & Gamble Company
Equal Employment Opportunity Policy
September 15, 1992

The Company’s equal employment opportunity policy applies to all persons without regard to race, sex, color, religion, national origin, age, disabilities, or veterans status. sexual orientation,

Five years of proposals, board meetings and rejections came down to these two words. Typeset recreation of the policy sentence quoted in Grace Shields’s 2022 paper, “My Journey.”
  • Cincinnati Pride Marshal, 1993
  • International José Julio Sarria Civil Rights Award
  • Lydia Grant Humanitarian Award
  • Tri-State Leather Forbearer Award
  • Honored by the City of Cincinnati, 2018
  • HRC David C. Crowley Leadership Award
  • P&G’s Courageous Leadership award bears his name
Michael Chanak Jr., smiling and looking up, in a straw hat, glasses and a gray sweater with red sleeves, photographed from below against a tall building.
“It will change if you believe it will change and you work for it. That’s my philosophy.”Michael Chanak Jr.

Forty years, at a glance

See the full timeline
  1. Spring 1978

    Moves to Cincinnati

    Arrives in the Queen City from northeast Ohio.

  2. June 1986

    A televised kiss at Fountain Square

    At Cincinnati Pride, a local TV crew filmed him kissing the late Dr. Bob McNee of the University of Cincinnati. The footage aired three nights and outed him at P&G.

  3. September 15, 1992

    P&G adds “sexual orientation” to its equal employment policy

    After five years of recommendations, board meetings, and rejections, the company goes beyond federal requirements.

  4. April 12, 2018

    “The Words Matter” is released

    A 19-minute P&G and CNN Great Big Story film, made 25 years after the policy change, documents how the company came to include sexual orientation.

  5. March 2, 2019

    HRC Cincinnati David C. Crowley Leadership Award

    Recognizes a lifetime commitment to equality.

  6. October 22, 2023

    Ohio Lesbian Archives opens its permanent home

    The goal he joined the board to reach is met with the grand opening in Over-the-Rhine.

  7. May 8, 2026

    Credited in Jake Hogue’s Cincinnati Before Stonewall

    The author’s foreword names him among the resources for the book.

Where to start

  • 19 min

    The Words Matter

    The P&G and CNN film on how the 1992 policy change happened. Watch it with the other films.

  • 1986

    The kiss that outed him

    WCPO’s “Points of Pride” tells the Fountain Square story in his own words. Watch the interview.

  • 2025

    Kent State, May 4, 1970

    A personal essay on being gay on campus, the day of the shootings, and what it taught him. Read the essay.

  • 60+

    Press and references

    Articles, broadcasts, podcasts and documents, searchable by year and type. Browse the sources.