Distinguished Service Award for Margie Hunter

Presented by GLAA President Craig Howell

GLAA 28th Anniversary Reception
Charles Sumner School
Thursday, April 22, 1999

Nothing means more to most of us in the gay and lesbian community than our relationships with our own families, most especially our own parents. Breaking free from the deep-rooted homophobic prejudices that choke so much of our current culture and achieving full love and acceptance is a challenge for any parent, no matter how liberated you might have thought you were before learning the truth about your own son or daughter. How much more daunting a challenge it must be to stand up to social pressure when your child is transgendered.

Margie Hunter rose to meet that challenge — rose and embraced it with a love and with a commitment that can only leave us breathless. Margie Hunter does not just know the real meaning of family values — she has lived them. She has endured far, far more than any mother should ever have to put up with — tragedies and insults and contempt beyond measure that provide a new meaning for obscenity. Through each succeeding trial she has perservered, steadfast and indomitable.

Her story deserves to be told by our finest authors, our most accomplished playwrights, our most talented composers.

Her abiding love for Tyra, her child, has seen her through the ordeal. Her passion for justice has sustained her strength. And her faith in our system of law and order has — all the cynics notwithstanding — been vindicated by a jury of her peers.

To paraphrase another American hero, the world will little note nor long remember what we may say here. But we must never forget what she has done here. We do not honor her; she honors us with her presence here tonight. I am humbled to present the GLAA Distinguished Service Award to Margie Hunter.