Prominent LGBTQ rights attorney Mauro Montoya dies at 65
Mauro Walden-Montoya, a prominent LGBTQ rights attorney in D.C. who was among the first to represent people with HIV facing discrimination before he moved to New Mexico and became active in LGBTQ rights endeavors and operated several small businesses, died Dec.
18 from complications associated with cancer. He was 65. People from D.C. and Albuquerque, N.M., where Montoya lived and worked since the late 1990s, describe him as a selfless advocate and supporter of the LGBTQ and HIV communities for decades.
Amy Nelson, an official with D.C.’s Whitman-Walker Health, said Montoya became Whitman-Walker’s first director of legal services in 1986 as a gay man living with HIV.
Nelson said Montoya for at least two years assisted Whitman-Walker patients “who were facing unspeakable mistreatment and discrimination as they battled AIDS.” Montoya was born and raised in Albuquerque.
