Lauren McGaughy Named the Recipient of the 2024 Randy Shilts Award for LGBTQ+ Coverage

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 7, 2024
PRESS CONTACT: Clare Lefebure
press@nlgja.org

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists announced that reporter and editor Lauren McGaughy is the recipient of the 2024 Randy Shilts Award for LGBTQ+ Coverage, which honors journalists who consistently bring stories of the LGBTQ+ community to life in mainstream media outlets.

The award is named in memory of Randy Shilts, a member of the LGBTQ+ Journalists Hall of Fame, who is widely credited with being the first reporter to cover the “gay beat” for a major metropolitan newspaper. His writing in the San Francisco Chronicle brought the stories of gays and lesbians – whether they were living with AIDS or serving in the military – to the attention of millions of Americans.

“Throughout her career, Lauren has worked tirelessly to cover LGBTQ+ issues and communities. She has followed in Randy’s trailblazing footsteps, even going so far as to bring the gender, sexuality and politics beat to The Dallas Morning News,” said NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists Executive Director Adam Pawlus. “Her work has spanned multiple mediums and she has brought her incisive and empathetic approach to every outlet she has worked for. It is an honor to recognize her contributions to the industry.”

McGaughy is an investigative reporter and editor for The Texas Newsroom, a collaboration of NPR member stations in Texas. Her specialty areas include criminal justice, governmental ethics and queer issues. Previous to joining the Texas Newsroom, McGaughy worked for The Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle and New Orleans Times-Picayune.

McGaughy has covered the LGBTQ+ community for more than a dozen years, first as a politics reporter in Louisiana and later as a statehouse and investigative reporter in Texas. In 2022, she began covering the issue full-time as the gender, sexuality and politics reporter at The Dallas Morning News. In that role, which she conceived and pitched to her superiors, she covered the targeting of drag queens, bills outlawing gender-affirming care for transgender minors and lawsuits attacking bisexual rights in the workplace. As an openly queer woman in Texas, she sought to cover these issues with the nuance they deserve, with an eye toward empathy and honesty. 

She published a three-part series about a black trans man fighting the Texas bathroom bill in 2017. She profiled the largest gathering of black trans Americans and explained why it actually makes sense that it happens in Dallas. She wrote about transgender kids and their parents years before their stories regularly made their way to other mainstream media outlets. In 2019, she exposed that Texas has the highest number of murders of transgender people by far, even when compared with other big states like California and Florida. She was nominated for a GLAAD award for this coverage. From an accountability angle, she revealed the anti-LGBTQ underpinnings of state legislation and that the Texas lawyer behind the state’s abortion ban was turning his eye to queer rights. She then covered his cases, including those against gay marriage, bisexual rights and access to HIV prevention drugs. She wrote about the state’s botched roll out of its decision to investigate parents who provide their children with gender-affirming care. She has profiled drag queens and politicians and inmates and patients. She is grateful to each of them for their stories.


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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.