Voeller was born in Minneapolis and raised in Oregon. When he was at school, he was assured by a school counselor that he was not homosexual, even though he had felt such feelings very early on. Voeller graduated with a bachelor's degree from Reed College in 1956. He was awarded a five-year fellowship to the Rockefeller Institute, and earned a Ph.D. in biology in 1961.
Career
Voeller became an associate professor at the Rockefeller Institute in 1966. Hiss research interest was in the fields of phytocytology and plant physiology. He wrote four books while there, as well as editing others' work, and writing numerous papers and articles. He married Kytja Scott Voeller, whom he met at graduate school, and they had three children. He came out at the age of 29, and divorced from his wife in 1971. After becoming president of the New YorkGay Activists Alliance, he decided it was not wide enough in its coverage. Therefore, with some friends, he founded the National Gay Task Force in October 1973, and was its director until 1978. The Task Force established affiliations with more than 2000 gay groups, and by 1978 had over 10,000 members. In 1977, the National Gay Task Force successfully initiated the first-ever meeting between the White House and more than a dozen gay and lesbian leaders. President Jimmy Carter’s assistant, Midge Costanza, met with Task Force co-chairs and board members as well as representatives of gay and lesbian organizations for a briefing on critical policy issues affecting this constituency. The meeting marked the first time openly gay and lesbian leaders were welcomed at the White House and the first official discussion of gay and lesbian rights in the White House. Attendees at the White House meeting included: Frank Kameny, Myra Keddell, Charles Brydon, Ray Hartman, Betty Powell, William Kelley, Troy Perry, Jean O'Leary, Elaine Noble, George Raya and Pokey Anderson. He also founded the Mariposa Foundation, which specializes in sex research, and sexually transmitted diseases. In the early 1980s, AIDS was known by various names, including GRIDD. Because this term was inaccurate, Voeller coined the term acquired immune deficiency syndrome. His partner was Richard Lucik, who was also his associate at Mariposa. Voeller died in 1994 of an AIDS related illness in California, at the age of 59. In June 2019, Voeller was one of the inaugural fifty American “pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes” inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument in New York City’s Stonewall Inn. The SNM is the first U.S. national monument dedicated to LGBTQ rights and history, while The Wall's unveiling was timed to take place during the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.
