FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 21, 2023
PRESS CONTACT: Clare Lefebure
press@nlgja.org
WASHINGTON, DC (August 21, 2023) – Today, NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+Journalists announced that award-winning journalist and TransLash Media founder Imara Jones is the 2023 recipient of the Lisa Ben Award for Achievement in Features Coverage.
“Imara’s sustained commitment to covering the lives of trans and gender nonconforming people, particularly trans women of color, is vital,” said Executive Director Adam Pawlus. “Her work at TransLash Media is urgent and necessary, and NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists is proud to recognize her for it.”
The Lisa Ben Award for Achievement in Features Coverage is designed to honor a journalist whose body of work is distinguished by insight and impact through engaging features on LGBTQ+ individuals, the LGBTQ+ community or LGBTQ+ issues. The award is named for the pseudonym Edythe Eyde used for her pioneering publication, Vice Versa, which she had to hand deliver to avoid running afoul of laws that made it illegal to send material about lesbians through the mail. In the 1950s, she wrote under the pen name Lisa Ben for The Ladder, the first nationally distributed lesbian magazine.
Imara Jones, whose work has won Emmy and Peabody Awards, is the creator of TransLash Media, a cross-platform, non-profit journalism and narrative organization, which produces content to shift the current culture of hostility towards transgender people in the US. She was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People on the planet in 2023. As part of her work at TransLash, Jones hosts the TransLash Podcast with Imara Jones, which received the 2023 Outstanding Podcast Award from GLAAD; as well as the investigative, limited series, The Anti-Trans Hate Machine: A Plot Against Equality which received the Excellence in Podcasting Award from NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists.
In 2022, Politico named her as one of the 40 power players at the intersection of race, politics, and policy in the United States. In 2020, Jones was featured on the cover of Time Magazine as part of its New American Revolution special edition. In 2019, she chaired the first-ever UN High Level Meeting on Gender Diversity with over 600 participants. Jones has been featured regularly in The Guardian, The Nation, MSNBC, CNBC, NPR, Fast Company and GQ. She is a 2021 Nathan Cummings Foundation Fellow and a 2019 Soros Equality Fellow. She serves on the New York City Commission on Gender Equity. She also serves as Chair of the Board for the Transgender Law Center, the nation’s largest transgender non-profit organization, and as Co-Chair of the New Pride Agenda. She is also on the boards of the GLSEN, and the LGBTQ+ Museum. Imara is also part of the Move to End Violence.
To learn more about NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists’ yearly awards, visit nlgja.org.
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About NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists:
NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists is a journalist-led association working within the news media to advance fair and accurate coverage of LGBTQ+ communities and issues. We promote diverse and inclusive workplaces by holding the industry accountable and providing education, professional development and mentoring. For more information, visit www.nlgja.org.