As a critical care nurse practitioner on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kevin Cho Tipton fulfilled what he called, "an overwhelming desire to find purpose."

“The intent was always to save as many lives as possible, but when challenged by everything those years brought us, we simply couldn't do enough. I wish we could have," said Tipton, adding a lesson he hopes the nation learned was that we must focus more on human experiences rather than headlines or statistics.

Born in South Korea, Tipton was adopted by an American family and raised Catholic. He enlisted in the Army during the era of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” but didn’t come out publicly until last year during testimony on the “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Tallahassee. 

“I felt it was the least I could do,” he said. “To try to put a face on what we look like and that we are everywhere. Being gay is not an identity, but part of who we are – a part that cannot be divorced from the rest of us.”

A vocal advocate for Medicaid expansion, Tipton, 34, serves as a Captain in the National Guard and adjunct nursing instructor for Miami Dade College. He lives in downtown Miami with his partner Bruno, an animator for Netflix.

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