Meet the Honorees for the Bronx LGBTQ Pride Awards Dinner

On July 14, Bronx LGBTQ Pride will be honoring the Bronx Council of the Arts Longwood Art Gallery at Hostos as well as six Bronxites who have been activists in the LGBT community.

The honorees for the Bronx LGBTQ Pride Awards Dinner are:

Bronx Pride Brunch James Palacio (Empress Fiona St. James) is receiving The Rev. Magora E. Kennedy Stonewall Courage Award. James is a Bronx-based female impersonator and actor who played Fiona, the cross-dressing inmate on the HBO television series Oz, from season two until the show’s sixth and final season. Other television credits include Sex and the City, Law & Order, New York Undercover and Mike Nichols’s Angels in America for HBO. Palacio’s film credits include Flawless, Bringing Out the Dead, Summer of Sam, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, and Stonewall.

Bronx Pride brunch Sean Coleman is receiving The Christine Jorgensen Trailblazer Award. Sean describes himself as a, “male of trans experience” and is founder of the Bronx LGBT group, Destination Tomorrow. He currently sits on the New York State Planning and Prevention Group representing the transgender community and the National House and Ballroom Coalition. Sean is a 2014 fellow with the We Are the Bronx Fellowship, sits on the Bronx Borough President’s Saving Pride in the Bronx coalition, and is a contributor to GBM News. He offers transgender sensitivity workshops and courses geared toward companies and agencies that wish to make their workplace more culturally competent for transgender people of color.

TyraARoss Tyra A. Ross is receiving The Brenda Howard Community Spirit of Pride Award. Tyra is a model, statuesque beauty, crowned pageant winner, a writer, and a strong advocate for transgender youth. She has written a book entitled, ‘The Transsexual from Tobago”. Describing her childhood in Tobago, “I struggled secretly but constantly with my sexual identification, always trying my very best to hide my feminine nature. By the age of fifteen I had attempted suicide over a dozen times. I constantly heard people speaking of what they did to people who identified differently from the norm and feeling the way I felt I began to fear that one day I would not be just yelled at or beaten but killed horrifically. I faced some very traumatic situations growing up but did not realize what I had faced until I finally decided to face my own reality. All I knew was that parts of my childhood were haunting me and causing me lots of turmoil mentally.”

Lewis Goldstein, Liaison to LGBT community leading BDCC in Heritage of Pride Parade Lewis H. Goldstein is receiving The Storme DeLarverie Memorial Award. Lewis is a proud gay Bronxite born and raised in the Bronx. He is a strong advocate for the LGBT community and other groups which are often objects of hate and discrimination. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Stonewall Democratic Club of NYC, Vice Chair of the Bronx Democratic County Committee and is its liaison to the LGBT Community.

 

fblogo The DJ Frankie Knuckles Pride in the Arts Award will be given to The Bronx Council of the Arts’ Longwood Art Gallery @ Hostos. Located on the campus of Hostos Community College, the gallery is BCA’s contemporary visual art center supporting artists and their work, especially those from underrepresented groups such as women, the LGBT community and artists of color through exhibitions and public programming. It is one of NYC’s oldest and longest running alternative spaces, presenting solo and group art exhibitions in various media and interdisciplinary projects that connect artists, communities and ideas within and beyond the Bronx.

Lisette Marrero, Bronx Pride Honoree The Luis Freddy Molano-Polanco Advocacy in Health Award will be given to Lissette Marrero, Deputy Director/ Administrator of Adolescent AIDS Program Children’s Hospital at Montefiore. Lissette Marrero started her career as the School Health Project Associate at SIECUS (The Sexuality, Information and Education Council of the United States) where she published “SHOP Talk”, a bi-weekly newsletter related to the sexual health of youth and the advocacy of national comprehensive sexuality education. As Lissette’s passion for promoting sexual health grew, she felt a pull to work directly in her Bronx community which lead her to the Adolescent AIDS Program (AAP) at Montefiore Medical Center.

il_570xN.465805153_46di Peter Frank said the following about the Swish Bronx Ally Award Recipient, “We are extremely excited and honored that this particular honoree has agreed to accept the award. The person most definitely will be present at Tuesday’s awards ceremony. Due to numerous issues and concerns the name of this great Bronxite — who is a very strong ally of the LGBTQ community — is being withheld until the award presentation and cannot be released until then. In consideration of this wonderful honoree, I ask that the person simply be referred to as the 2015 Swish Bronx Ally Award recipient until then.”

The 2015 Bronx LGBTQ Pride & Health Fair returns this year on on Saturday, July 18th from 12-6 p.m. at the amphitheater in Crotona Park, which is located just south of Indian Lake in the park. Five community-based awards recognizing important members of our community will also be presented at the pride and health fair. Attendance at this year’s pride event is expected to exceed last year’s estimated crowd count of 3,000.

To register for the dinner please click here.

For more information on the Pride & Health Fair, please click here.

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