The Brenda Howard Memorial Award is an award for activism created in 2005 by the Queens Chapter of PFLAG and named after Brenda Howard. [1] It was the first award by a major American LGBT organization to be named after an openly bisexual person. The award, which is given annually, recognizes an individual whose work on behalf of the bisexual community and the greater LGBT community best exemplifies the vision, principles, and community service exemplified by Howard, and who serves as a positive and visible role model for the entire LGBT community.
Recipients of the award have included a number of notable activists, including Tom Limoncelli, Wendy Curry, Micah Kellner, Robyn Ochs, and H. Sharif Williams.
Year | Recipient | Notes |
---|---|---|
2005 | Lawrence Nelson | Nelson is a long-time LGBT rights activist. He is a founding member and a current board member of PFLAG Queens as well as being an advisor to the student LGBT Group at Queensborough Community College. [2] |
2006 | Tom Limoncelli | Limoncelli, who identifies as bisexual, is a long-time LGBT rights activist. He was the New Jersey emeritus BiNet USA delegate, has worked with Garden State Equality, and is a noted SysAdmin, and author. |
2007 | Wendy Moscow | Moscow, who identifies as bisexual, is a long-time LGBT rights activist, focusing on her home borough of Queens NYC. In the early 1980s she helped found the Lesbian and Gay Political Action Club of Queens and was also one of the founders of Queens Pride, where she served as their March Committee co-chair from inception until 2001, and was a Grand Marshal of the 2006 parade. [3] |
2008 | Wendy Curry | Curry, who identifies as bisexual, is a long time LGBT rights activist. They are one of the creators of Bisexual Pride Day and are President emeritus of BiNet USA. [4] |
2009 | Micah Kellner | Kellner was the first openly bisexual person elected to the New York State Assembly. [5] [6] |
2010 | Lisa Jacobs | Jacobs, who identifies as bisexual, is a long time bisexual rights and gender non-conforming community rights activist. They are a founder and President emeritus of the Transcending Boundaries Conference and run the Gender Diverse Bisexuals group. |
2011 | Robyn Ochs | Ochs, who identifies as bisexual, is a bisexual rights activist, speaker, and author. [7] |
2012 | Donna Redd [8] | Redd, who identifies as a bisexual woman of color, is a longtime LGBT activist. She is the executive director of Sistahs in Search of Truth, Alliance, and Harmony (S.i.S.T.A.H.), a Brooklyn-based bisexual-led group founded in 1991, that serves all same gender loving (SGL) women. [9] |
2013 | Cliff Arnesen [10] | Arnesen is a bisexual army veteran (U.S. Army, Vietnam era), past president of the New England Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Veterans, and a founding member and former National Vice President of Legislative Affairs of the Lesbian & Bisexual Veterans of America, now known as the American Veterans for Equal Rights (AVER). [11] |
2014 | Estraven [12] | Estraven is a Board Member Emeritus of BiNet USA, a director of the New York Area Bisexual Network, and writer on the topic of bisexual history and mental health. In 2006 they founded the Bisexual Discussion and Activity Group [13] at NY state's Westchester County's The LOFT LGBT Community Center where they continue to act as a senior facilitator. [12] |
2015 | H. Sharif Williams | Williams, who identifies as bisexual, is an LGBT rights activist, playwright, poet, essayist, spiritual teacher, sexual healer, scholar, activist, and social entrepreneur. [14] |
2016 | Alexandra Bolles [15] | Bolles, who identifies as bisexual, spearheads GLAAD's bisexual-related advocacy and serves as Senior Strategist – Campaigns & External Engagement. In 2016, Bolles was instrumental in the publication of In Focus: Reporting on the Bisexual Community, [16] GLAAD's first media resource guide specifically about the bisexual community [17] |
2017 | Denarii Grace [18] | Grace is a writer, editor, singer-songwriter, and activist. [19] |
2018 | Lynnette McFadzen [20] | McFadzen, who identifies as bisexual, is the founder of The BiCast Podcast and is the President of BiNet USA. [21] |
2023 | Diane Anderson-Minshall | Anderson-Minshall is the editor-in-chief and chief operations officer at New York-based GO Magazine, former CEO and editorial director of Pride Media Inc, and vice-president of the board of directors for GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, which operates the Dorian Awards. [22] |
PFLAG is the United States' largest organization dedicated to supporting, educating, and advocating for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) people and those who love them. PFLAG National is the national organization, which provides support to the PFLAG network of local chapters. PFLAG has nearly 400 chapters across the United States, with more than 350,000 members and supporters.
The Advocate is an American LGBT magazine, printed bi-monthly and available by subscription. The Advocate brand also includes a website. Both magazine and website have an editorial focus on news, politics, opinion, and arts and entertainment of interest to lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender (LGBT) people. The magazine, established in 1967, is the oldest and largest LGBT publication in the United States and the only surviving one of its kind that was founded before the 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan, an uprising that was a major milestone in the LGBT rights movement. On June 9, 2022, Pride Media was acquired by Equal Entertainment LLC.
BiNet USA was an American national nonprofit bisexual community whose mission was to "facilitate the development of a cohesive network of bisexual communities, promote bisexual visibility, and collect and distribute educational information regarding bisexuality. Until 2020, BiNet USA provided a national network for bisexual organizations and individuals across the United States, and encouraged participation and organizing on local and national levels." They claimed to be the oldest national bisexuality organization in the United States. In 2020, all of the content on BiNet USA's website was replaced with a statement that the BiNet USA president, Faith Cheltenham, now identified as Christian conservative and was walking away from progressive politics entirely.
Brenda Howard was an American bisexual rights activist and sex-positive feminist. The Brenda Howard Memorial Award is named for her.
New York Area Bisexual Network (NYABN) is a central communications network for bisexual and bi-friendly groups and resources in the five boroughs of New York City and the surrounding Tri-State area. The mission of the New York Area Bisexual Network is to facilitate the development of a cohesive bisexual community in the New York Area. The network promotes bisexual visibility, works to protect the bisexual community from discrimination and biphobia and assists and empowers the individual community members, their families and friends to live full, rich, safe and happy lives.
Tom Limoncelli is an American system administrator, author, and speaker. A system administrator and network engineer since 1987, he speaks at conferences around the world on topics ranging from firewall security to time management. He is the author of Time Management for System Administrators from O'Reilly; along with Christine Hogan, co-author of the book The Practice of System and Network Administration from Addison-Wesley, which won the 2005 SAGE Outstanding Achievement Award, and in 2007 with Peter H. Salus he has published a compilation of the best April Fools jokes created by the IETF entitled The Complete April Fools' Day RFCs.
The bisexual community, also known as the bi+, m-spec, bisexual/pansexual, or bi/pan/fluid community, includes members of the LGBT community who identify as bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, polysexual and sexually fluid. As opposed to hetero- or homosexual people, people in the bisexual community experience attraction to more than one gender.
Wendy Curry is an American bisexual rights activist and animal rescue advocate.
Robyn Ochs is an American bisexual activist, professional speaker, and workshop leader. Her primary fields of interest are gender, sexuality, identity, and coalition building. She is the editor of the Bisexual Resource Guide, Bi Women Quarterly, and the anthology Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World. Ochs, along with Professor Herukhuti, co-edited the anthology Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men.
Celebrate Bisexuality Day is observed annually on September 23 to recognize and celebrate bisexual people, the bisexual community, and the history of bisexuality.
Bialogue, a portmanteau of the words bisexual and dialogue, is an American activist group that started in New York City, working on issues of local, national, and international interest to the bisexual, fluid, pansexual, queer-identified communities and their allies. Bialogue's mission is to dispel myths and stereotypes about bisexuality, address biphobia and bisexual erasure, educate the public on the facts and realities of bisexuality and advocate for the bisexual community. Its slogan is "Taking Action not just Offense".
Diane Anderson-Minshall is an American journalist and author best known for writing about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender subjects. She is the first female CEO of Pride Media. She is also the editorial director of The Advocate and Chill magazines, the editor-in-chief of HIV Plus magazine, while still contributing editor to OutTraveler. Diane co-authored the 2014 memoir Queerly Beloved about her relationship with her husband Jacob Anderson-Minshall throughout his gender transition.
PFLAG Canada is a national non-profit organization which brings together family and friends of LGBTQ people in Canada. It was begun separately and without knowledge of the American PFLAG which performs the same functions in the United States. As of November 2014 PFLAG Canada has over 70 chapters and/or contacts in nine Canadian provinces. The board of directors is responsible for six regions across Canada, and includes a president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer among others.
American Veterans for Equal Rights (AVER) is the oldest Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Veterans Service Organization (VSO) in the United States. Founded in 1990, AVER is a non-profit VSO that supports and advocates for the rights of LGBT military veterans, active duty service members, and their families.
The first English-language use of the word "bisexual" to refer to sexual orientation occurred in 1892.
New York has a long history of LGBT community building, activism, and culture which extends to the early history of the city.
The Bisexual Awareness Week, also known as #BiWeek, is an annual celebration held from September 16–23. It is an extension of Celebrate Bisexuality Day, held annually on September 23. The celebration promotes cultural acceptance of the bisexual community, as well as attempts to create a platform for advocating bisexual rights.
The portrayals of pansexuality in the media reflect existing societal attitudes towards pansexuality and current media portrayals. Although pansexual characters are not often characters in mass media, they have appeared in various films, TV series, literature, video games, graphic art, and webcomics, sometimes embodying certain tropes in cinema and fantasy. Musicians, actors, and other public personalities have also, in recent years, come out as pansexual, and are focused on with this page.
The history of bisexuality concerns the history of the bisexual sexual orientation. Ancient and medieval history of bisexuality, when the term did not exist as such, consists of anecdotes of sexual behaviour and relationships between people of the same and different sexes. A modern definition of bisexuality began to take shape in the mid-19th century within three interconnected domains of knowledge: biology, psychology and sexuality. In modern Western culture, the term bisexual was first defined in a binary approach as a person with romantic or sexual attraction to both men and women. The term bisexual is defined later in the 20th century as a person who is sexually and/or romantically attracted to both males and females, or as a person who is sexually and/or romantically attracted to people regardless of sex or gender identity, which is sometimes termed pansexuality.