Capital Pride Alliance announces Heroes and other award winners
The Capital Pride Alliance has announced the recipients of its 2016 Capital Pride Heroes Awards, Engendered Spirits Awards and Bill Miles Award, which will be presented at the Capital Pride Heroes Gala on June 1 at the Carnegie Library.
The recipients for the Heroes Award are nominated each year by members of the local LGBT community for their work in advancing LGBT rights. Engendered Spirits honor those who have specifically advanced the cause of the transgender community, and the Bill Miles Award, named for a founding member of the Capital Pride Alliance, honors the volunteer who has made exemplary contributions to Capital Pride. Engendered Spirits will also be recognized as part of DC Trans Pride on Saturday, May 21.
“The Capital Pride Alliance is extraordinarily fortunate to have a community with so many individuals, leaders, and activists dedicated to fighting for and successfully defending LGBTA rights for all of us,” Bernie Delia, the president of the board of directors of the Capital Pride Alliance, said in a statement. “This year was a particularly difficult selection process, with so many outstanding individuals from whom to choose. We are truly grateful and honored to announce and celebrate these individuals.”
This year’s Heroes honorees are: Bishop Allyson Abrams, the presiding bishop of Pneuma Christian Fellowship, the founder of the Empowerment Liberation Cathedral, and a social justice advocate; congressional candidate Kathleen Matthews, the vice president of Global Communications at Marriott International, an LGBT advocate and human rights activist; Rayceen Pendarvis, a local HIV/AIDS activist, member of the inaugural DC Black Pride, and host of “The Ask Rayceen Show”; and local LGBT activist and a member of multiple nonprofit boards Peter Rosenstein.
This year’s Engendered Spirit Awards will be presented to Julius Agers, a local two-spirited, transgender activist, volunteer, and staff member at D.C.’s Fire and EMS Department; and Jeri Hughes, a longtime transgender activist and advocate for marriage equality and the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” among other causes.
The Bill Miles Award will be presented to Chelsea Bland, a labor union and LBGT rights activist, and a volunteer co-producer at Capital Pride, and Michael Creason, a volunteer sign language interpreter for Capital Pride, as well as several other LGBT events and organizations.
The Capital Pride Heroes Gala, hosted by the Historical Society of Washington, D.C., will be held on Wednesday, June 1 at 7p.m. at the Carnegie Library, 801 K St. NW. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit capitalpride.org.
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