Frank Kameny Award

The Frank Kameny Award is presented to a member of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community who has paved the way for important legal victories without a United States Juris Doctorate. The award was created to honor the memory of Frank Kameny, a tireless advocate for the LGBT community and the only recipient of the LGBT Bar’s Dan Bradley Award who did not have a law degree.

This year, the National LGBT Bar Association is proud to present Dr. Stephen Whittle, OBE, Ph.D. with the inaugural Frank Kameny Award.

Stephen Whittle is a Professor of Equalities Law at Manchester Metropolitan University where he has taught for almost 20 years. He transitioned from female to male in 1975 at age 19 and began decades of activism on behalf of the transgender community. Dr. Whittle set up the Manchester TV/TS group, the first local and mixed trans group in England. He also co-founded Press For Change, the UK’s transgender lobbying group which fought numerous cases through the national and European Courts. In 2005, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list. He has also received the Sylvia Rivera Award in 2002 for ‘Respect and Equality: Transsexual and Transgender Rights.’