Jay Blotcher

Jay Blotcher (born Boston, June 9, 1960) is an American journalist, writer, publicist, film producer, and activist who documented the lives of gays and lesbians and protested for the rights of gays and lesbians and people with AIDS. Blotcher was given up soon after birth by his mother Valerie Paul, who was 19 at the time. His birth father, Baltimore Orioles pitcher Arnie Portocarrero, had not known of his conception. Valerie and Arnie had met through friends over drinks in Boston one evening. Blotcher was moved to a foster home in greater Boston where he lived until he was one year and three weeks old. Through a Boston-based Jewish adoption agency, he was brought home on June 30, 1961, by Malvin "Sonny" Blotcher and Elaine "Lolly" Blotcher to Randolph, Massachusetts, where he grew up. His parents also adopted his sister, Andrea, from a woman in Augusta, Maine. Both Jay and Andrea were raised in a Jewish household and attended Temple Beth Am Hebrew School. Lolly and Sonny Blotcher were deeply immersed in Temple activities and would eventually serve as presidents, respectively, of the Sisterhood and Brotherhood groups, as well as volunteers for numerous Temple events. Valerie Paul later married jazz musician Walter Bishop, Jr. She searched for her son for several years and they were finally reunited in the Spring of 1988. Jay Blotcher wrote about the experience of finding his roots and discovering his Puerto Rican lineage in an essay published in the 2007 anthology Identity Envy Wanting to Be Who We're Not: Creative Nonfiction by Queer Writers, edited by Jim Tushinski and James Van Buskirk. Blotcher has also created an audiovisual presentation of his personal history, which he has shared with audiences at Marist College and Queens College. Blotcher's interest in gay activism began early; in 1980, he profiled Syracuse University's Gay Student Association in a pair of articles for his college newspaper, The Daily Orange and college magazine Report. Blotcher moved to New