The City of West Hollywood and its LGBTQ+ Commission (formerly the LGBTQ+ Advisory Board) will host the City’s annual Rainbow Key Awards ceremony to recognize people and groups who have made outstanding contributions to the LGBTQ community.
This year’s Rainbow Key Awards, which will honor the nominees selected in 2023, will be held in person on Tuesday, January 30, 2024 at 7 p.m. at the West Hollywood City Council Chambers, located at 625 N. San Vicente Boulevard. Additional information for this free event, including registration details, is available by visiting the City’s website at www.weho.org/rainbowkey. For those unable to attend, the event will also be live streamed and recorded for viewing on the City’s WeHoTV channel at www.youtube.com/wehotv.
Every year, the City’s LGBTQ+ Commission selects nominees from a public process. This year’s Rainbow Key Awards honorees, though held in 2024, will honor the 2023 nominees who were selected by the former LGBTQ+ Advisory Board. These honorees are:
· Bert Champagne, a volunteer in the community who has worked for AIDS Walk LA for more than 32 years, served as a Board Member of the California Lesbian Project, and has volunteered for more than three decades at Project Angel Food. Bert currently is the Vice President of Sheryl Lee Ralph’s DIVA Foundation and has been part of DIVAS Simply Singing for more than three decades.
· Nahshon Dion a multi-talented artist, author, producer, and host of TRANSBRATIONS, a YouTube show.
· Reverend Stephen Pieters, a gay pastor in West Hollywood who became well-known for his extensive AIDS activism after his own AIDS diagnosis in the early 1980s. His soon-to-be-published memoir, Love is Greater than AIDS: A Memoir of Survival, Healing, and Hope, will chronicle his life story. Sadly, Rev. Pieters passed away in 2023, and this award will be presented to his family posthumously.
· Steven Reigns, West Hollywood’s inaugural Poet Laureate, whose writings focus on the gay experience and people with HIV. He has taught poetry workshops across the country to LGBTQ youth groups and people living with HIV.
· Brody Schaffer, a young, 8-year-old dancer who inspires other children to be themselves by fiercely dancing on his social media channels and other dance projects, including TV ads and Nickelodeon programming.
The City of West Hollywood has, since 1993, presented Rainbow Key Awards to people and organizations that have made outstanding contributions to the LGBTQ+ community, bestowing more than 170 awards since the event’s inception. Previous honorees have included activists, artists, civic leaders, educators, community organizations, and many others. Contributions, whether by an individual or a group, can be in many forms, including the arts, community action, humanitarian action, sports, medicine, armed services, leadership potential, benefit to the global LGBTQ+ community, and more.
Since its incorporation in 1984, the City of West Hollywood has become one of the most influential cities in the nation for its outspoken advocacy on LGBTQ+ issues. No other city of its size has had a more significant impact on the national public policy discourse on fairness and inclusiveness for LGBTQ+ people. More than 40 percent of residents in West Hollywood identify as LGBTQ+. The City has advocated for more than three decades for measures to support LGBTQ+ individuals and has been in the vanguard of efforts to gain and protect equality for all people on a state, national, and international level.
