LGBTQ

LGBTQ ‘NOBODY COULD TIE HIM DOWN’

In memory of Dan Mauney, LGBTQ advocate, business owner, ‘Queen of Charlotte’

BY CRISTINA BOLLING

PEOPLE THROUGHOUT CHARLOTTE knew Dan Mauney best as “Dan the Shoe Man,” a Gaston County native who turned his passion for selling beautiful women’s shoes into his livelihood. It took him from Belk to the former Via Veneto shoe boutique in Phillips Place to the former Step by Sloan in Dilworth. In 2013, he opened side-by-side boutiques in South End—SHU shoe store and men’s underwear store Brief, then closed both about three years later.

But his business ventures were only part of Mauney’s life. He was one of Charlotte’s most fervent advocates for LGBTQ rights, a man who, as a child, prayed he wasn’t gay who went on to lead prominent LGBTQ organizations. Throughout, his erce sense of humor, unrelenting work ethic, and passion for connecting people fueled his leadership in the city’s LGBTQ scene at a time when the ght for marriage equality and equal rights for gays and lesbians peaked.

“He knew everybody in Charlotte. I jokingly called him ‘Queen of Charlotte,’” said Louis Kemp, a member of the HRC National Board of Governors, who knew Mauney for 18 years. “You could tell deep down that his passion and his seriousness about the cause was there, but he always had this overlying joking nature. He would just prod at you about things, but he did it in the nicest way.”

His friends and family remember Mauney, who died July 12 of meningitis and a stroke at 49, for his compassion and energy, which infused whatever he did. “Dan was so kind-hearted, and he was such an advocate for other people. He was all about equality and making people’s lives easier and accepted. He always thought of everyone else,” says Ann Davis, one of his two sisters. “He had the most beautiful smile. The most beautiful smile.”

Mauney volunteered for 20 years with the Human Rights Campaign and spent seven of them representing HRC Charlotte on the organization’s National Board of Governors. He twice co-chaired Charlotte’s annual HRC dinner, including the 2007 dinner which still holds a national record for attendance. Mauney was also heavily involved in Regional AIDS Interfaith Network, or RAIN, and was a xture at the organization’s Gay Bingo fundraising events, where he famously entertained the crowds as a “Bingo Verifying Diva,” or “BVD.”

“Nobody could tie him down,” says Rodney Tucker, former director of Time Out Youth and one of Mauney’s closest friends. “He was so kind … He had an energy that is unmatched by many people.”

Dan Mauney represented Charlotte on the Human Rights Campaign’s national board. (Bottom left) Mauney owned a pair of side-by-side boutiques in South End: the shoe store SHU and the men’s underwear store Brief.