[1] Pettit was born in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands where her father worked as a banker for an international banking corporation.
[2] She went to Phillips Exeter Academy and then earned a bachelor's degree at Yale University, in Comparative Literature in French and German[3] in 1988.
Pettit's activism began while at Yale, where she was instrumental in successful student efforts to add sexual orientation to the university's nondiscrimination clause.
[4][5] After a brief stint working for Michael Denneny at St. Martin's Press, Pettit's publishing career ramped up in 1989 when she became the arts editor for OutWeek a controversial weekly gay and lesbian magazine that stirred national debates for its tactics around gay rights activism and “outing” public figures.
As a journalist during a critical point in U.S. queer history, Pettit quickly earned a reputation for unabashedly -- and often forcefully -- confronting political and social controversy, including radical AIDS activism, outing, the politics of safe sex, and lesbians and the medical establishment.”[4] Pettit died on January 22, 2003, in New York City, due complications with lymphoma diagnosed less than a year before.