Lee Zevy

Identity House

Lee Zevy is co-founder of Identity House, where she has spent five decades helping to lead the all-volunteer community non-profit in its work to provide counseling to LGBTQ adults.

Lee has served as an administrator, clinical director, and director of training at Identity House, in addition to her ongoing roles as therapist and supervisor.   

Lee has been involved in activism for most of her life — which she attributes to her mother’s teachings and the circumstances of her upbringing during the fifties. She snuck in to watch longtime LGBTQ activist Randy Wicker deliver a speech at her college campus, and she went on to join the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). She participated in the March on Washington, emboldening her activist spirit. 

Lee attended Gay Activists Alliance meetings and became deeply involved in women’s rights initiatives, but subsequently focused more on a career path in social work to provide counseling to gay people, leading to the emergence of Identity House. 

Lee pursued a master’s degree in social work from Fordham University and trained gestalt psychotherapy at the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy, where, as a fellow, she now teaches and supervises. In 1979, Lee left her job in social work with the City of New York and went into full-time private practice as an out lesbian therapist.

Lee continued to expand her expertise in 2001 when she became certified in integral coaching to assist clients working to build their careers.

Lee married her longtime partner, Lucy Ianniciello, in 2013 — 46 years after they met at Chelsea’s old French Hospital. Lucy passed away in 2017.