Them’s 2023 Now Awards Celebrates LGBTQ+ Trailblazers

Time and time again, this very sense of resilience has been put to the test. In a recent survey conducted by the Trevor Project, nearly 1 in 3 LGBTQ+ young people attributed poor mental health to anti-LGBTQ+ policies. Earlier this month, Texas became the largest state to restrict gender-affirming care for minors, while the number of bills targeting queer communities this year has doubled since 2022 alone. Now more than ever, recognition, celebration, and protection of these voices – in and out of queer spaces – continues to be so deeply necessary.

“If we allow for this moment to pass without there really being a riot, without there being a shaking, a disruption that wakes up the entire city, that wakes up the entire country, the consensus is that trans rights will never be up for debate,” said costume designer and founder of Black Trans Liberation Qween Jean, before she presented the vanguard award to Jenkins. As award-presenters and awardees spoke, both a sense of accomplishment for how far LGBTQ+ visibility has come and deep-rooted urgency for all that still must be done to build toward an equitable future permeated the space. “I just want my fellow trans family, particularly trans youth, to be able to feel that they deserve fullness in their lives, the fullness to dream,” said model and activist Geena Rocero in her acceptance speech for the literature award. Released in May, Rocero’s memoir Horse Barbie navigates her career participating in beauty pageants in the Philippines to modeling in New York, commending her transgender predecessors along the way.

“You can’t take away this moment from any of us as we pay tribute to our own history,” said Burton Bridges, who is a board member and resident queen of the non-profit Friends of George’s. Bridges and fellow performers Robert Phillips and Sandy Kozik accepted the art award on behalf of the LGBTQ+ theater troupe, which recently successfully filed a lawsuit against Tennessee for a law that would have made it the first state to ban public drag performances.

The real-life change brought about by Friends of George’s is proof of how community and conversation are integral first steps to enacting transformation. And with an evening centered on queer visibility, agency, and the ability to reclaim and reintroduce queerness to areas it may have been overlooked, the 2023 Now Awards only further reaffirmed this.

“Now that I found myself, I don’t want to go back,” said Mulvaney, who received the internet influence award. “I’m still scared. I think we all are, but I feel less afraid when I’m with all of you.”

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