She’s the first Black person and first openly gay person to be the White House press secretary.

For that distinction and much more, Karine Jean-Pierre is Out South Florida’s National Person of the Year for 2023.

Jean-Pierre has held the position since May 2022, essentially serving as the Biden administration’s first line of defense. In her role as chief question-taker, Jean-Pierre dresses her petite 5-foot-2 frame in bright, bold colors, her hair perfectly permed in order to look good doing daily battles with sometimes rude reporters.

It’s a role, the 49-year-old was made for, said Valerie Jarrett, CEO of the Obama Foundation.

“She’s prepared her entire career for the moment she’s in now,” Jarrett told Vogue in a feature story for the magazine’s October 2023 issue.

Horacio Sierra met Jean-Pierre at the White House as part of his service on the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.

“Karine is the perfect embodiment of what a 21st century White House press secretary should be: intelligent, poised, thoughtful, witty, charming and compassionate,” said Sierra, President of the Cuban American Democrats. “To see someone of Haitian descent who also happens to be a lesbian in that role demonstrates that the American Dream is alive and well.”

While groundbreaking, Jean-Pierre’s road to the White House was hardly a smooth ride. Born on the tiny French island of Martinique in the Caribbean, she immigrated to the United States with her parents, landing in the New York City borough of Queens.

Sadly, at a young age, she suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a cousin.

“He always smelled like mildewed towels,” Jean-Pierre wrote in her 2019 book, Moving Forward. “Even now the smell of musty clothing is a trigger for me.”

Poor scores on her medical college admissions test kept Jean-Pierre out of medical school, ending her chances to become a doctor.

“I felt like an idiot,” she wrote. “Thanks in large part to my inability to confront my sexuality. I was so afraid of who I really was that I invested absolutely everything into who my parents and siblings thought I was and wanted me to be.”

The shame from failing to get into medical school prompted Jean-Pierre to attempt to take her own life. Fortunately, an older sister foiled the suicide plan.

Changing career tracks, Jean-Pierre earned her bachelor’s degree from the New York Institute of Technology and a Master of Public Affairs from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). At SIPA, Jean-Pierre was presented with the opportunity to visit her parents’ homeland of Haiti.

Of the 2003 trip, Jean-Pierre wrote: “There seemed to be no real middle class in Haiti; you were either poor or wealthy. The divide was stark.”

That income inequality was the driving force behind Jean-Pierre’s political entrée. She first worked on the presidential campaign of former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards then went on to serve as battleground states director on former President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.

“Karine Jean-Pierre stands as the voice of people of goodwill across the country, tirelessly championing the causes and amplifying the voices of marginalized people with compassion and strength,” said former South Florida Congressman Kendrick Meek.

Stints at the progressive advocacy group MoveOn.org, the ACLU and NBC News preceded Jean-Pierre’s duties as chief of staff for incoming Vice President Kamala Harris and eventual elevation to White House press secretary.

As far as her identity is concerned, Jean-Pierre knew from an early age she was different. She came out to her mother after being confronted for staying out late with her friends in high school.

“I’m not drinking or doing drugs,” she said. “And I’m definitely not having sex with boys. I’m a lesbian!”

The news shocked her mother, a hard-working home health aide and regular churchgoer. It would be decades before they broached the subject again.

Nowadays, Jean-Pierre is a mother herself, raising a daughter, Soleil, with her former partner Suzanne Malveaux, a former journalist with CNN. The couple separated this year after a decade together.

Perhaps foreshadowing the breakup, Jean-Pierre delivered a very vulnerable speech at the 2023 Greater New York Human Rights Campaign dinner, where she asked the audience to “acknowledge the heaviness of this moment.” Her words reflected both the pride and the pain that comes with being a part of the LGBTQ community during these turbulent times.

“I want us to see one another and the different struggles we’re all going through,” she said. “I want you to see all of me.”