Programs/Events

Richard L. Schlegel National Legion of Honor Awards

Previous Winners and Themes

 

2007 Anti-Violence

Patrick Lukingbeal (Emerging Activist): Patrick Lukingbeal is an openly gay master’s student in Student Public Affairs Administration and Higher Education, an LGBT activist, advocate, and educator at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. Lukingbeal’s anti-violence work was sparked by violence directed at international students as well as GLBT students on Texas A&M’s campus. He has worked with several student leaders, campus administrators, the university, the city council, and the police department in order to collaboratively work to begin and complete several action plans that have improved the physical safety of the area, including a campaign of non-violence and education on assault prevention, and has played an integral role in the creation and implementation of a new hate/bias reporting system online (hate.tamu.edu). It is due to these contributions to his campus community toward anti-violence against GLBT students and others that Patrick Lukingbeal is receiving the Richard L. Schlegel National Legion of Honor Award for Emerging Activists.

D.C. Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit (Visionary Leader): The Metropolitan Police Department’s Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit (GLLU) is staffed by openly gay, lesbian, and transgender members of the department and their allies. Since its inception in June 2000, the GLLU has dedicated itself to serving GLBT communities in the Washington Metropolitan area and the Metropolitan Police Department. The GLLU provides a multitude of services for the Metropolitan Area. Some of the services are, but not limited to, 24-hour police response to members of the GLBT community, advice to the Chief of Police on issues surrounding GLBT communities as well as support and assistance with law enforcement investigations that involve members of the GLBT community. The Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit’s commitment to working to address and prevent hate crimes, as well as provide education and outreach about anti-violence has been outstanding and is why it is receiving the Richard L. Schlegel National Legion of Honor Award for Visionary Leaders.

Dr. Franklin E. Kameny (Lifetime Achievement): Dr. Franklin E. Kameny is one of the major American gay rights activists. In 1957, he was dismissed from the Army Map Service in Washington, D.C. because of his sexual orientation. He then challenged his dishonorable discharge all the way to the Supreme Court, as well as helped Richard L. Schlegel on his court case. Four years later, he co-founded the Mattachine Society of Washington, an organization that pressed aggressively for gay and lesbian civil rights. Dr. Kameny’s work in this organization was integral in overturning sodomy laws in the U.S. as well as removing the categorization of ‘homosexuality’ as a mental disorder from the American Psychiatric Association’s manual in 1973. He is also a cofounder of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the oldest running national LGBT rights organization in the country. Dr. Kameny’s recent contribution to the public has been the donation to the Library of Congress of his personal archives of over 70,000 letters, government correspondence, testimonies, photographs, and other memorabilia that have recorded the history of the gay rights movement in the United States.

 

2006 Economic Justice, Poverty, and Homelessness

Gunner Scott (Visionary Leader): is the Director of Organizing and Education at The Network/La Red: Ending Abuse in Lesbian, Bisexual Women's and Transgender Communities and the treasurer for the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition. Through his work with these organizations as well as his other activist activities he advocates for equal access for affordable and safe housing and shelter, particularly for GLBTQ survivors of partner violence/abuse and low income transgender people. He is a trainer for law enforcement personnel, policy makers, healthcare workers, and service providers on GLBTQ issues. Gunner is also the creator of Gender Crash, an innovative open mic night for queer/transgender/genderqueer performers. Gunner's own experiences of homelessness and surviving partner abuse help inform and inspire his activism.

Jay Toole (Emerging Activist): is a fierce advocate for homeless LGBT people who has used her personal experience to help inform her work. She battled addiction for 37 years and was homeless for 25 of those years. After she became clean and sober she helped co-found Queers for Economic Justice (Q4EJ) with Joseph Nicholas DeFilippis in 2002. She was also the founder of the LGBT homeless group within the NYC shelter system. Currently Jay serves as Q4EJ's shelter organizer and, among other activities, volunteers as a Shelter Monitor for the Coalition for the Homeless.


2005 HIV/AIDS in the GLBT Community

James W. Dilley, M.D. (Visionary Leader): one of the Founders and has been the Executive Director of the AIDS Health Project at the University of California, San Francisco, since 1984. Dr. Dilley is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCSF and a pioneer in the development of responses to the mental health challenges of the AIDS epidemic. He began working with the AIDS crisis in San Francisco in 1982 providing psychiatric care to hospitalized patients at San Francisco General Hospital. He has published and lectured widely about the psychiatric and neuropsychological aspects of the HIV disease, earning a national reputation for his work. He has also championed HIV prevention services for gay men by promoting gay men's mental health.

Daniel L. Carlson (Emerging Activist): co-founded the HIV Forum, a grassroots initiative to raise awareness about rising HIV infection rates among gay men in New York City. The forum is sponsored by Callen-Lorde Community Health Center in New York City and has sponsored seven public forums on topics including the connection between HIV and crystal meth, online hookups, and bareback sex. He has worked with many gay leaders, including Harvey Fierstein, Larry Kramer and John Cameron Mitchell.


2004 GLBT Presence in the Independent Visual and Performing Arts

Joan Elizabeth Biren (Visionary Leader): a photographer, activist, and filmmaker that has been active in the GLBT community for more than thirty years. During the 1970s and 80s, JEB became active in the women's liberation movement and chose photography as a way to make lesbians more visible. Her work appeared in off our backs, The Washington Blade and Boston's Gay Community News. Later, she co-founded Moonforce Media and helped organize the first feminist film festival in Washington, D.C. Her most recent work, the documentary No Secret Anymore: The Times of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon (2002), chronicles the lives of two women who have been partners in love and political struggle for half a century.

Tom Shepard (Emerging Activist): a filmmaker, best known for his 2001 film, Scout's Honor, which explores the anti-gay policies of the Boy Scouts of America and the broad-based movement of its members to overturn them. Shepard was nominated for the award because of his role in presenting the intersection of heterosexual America with positive gay role models.


2003 Young People Making a Difference

Faisal Alam: the founder and director of Al-Fatiha, an international grassroots movement dedicated to Muslims who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and questioning (LGBTIQ). Al-Fatiha's mission is to support LGBTIQ Muslims and to promote the progressive Islamic notions of peace and justice. Under Faisal's leadership, Al-Fatiha has grown to include 8 chapters in the United States with another 7 affiliate chapters in Canada, the United Kingdom and South Africa.