Tony Awards to Honor Judith Light for HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ Activism

Transparent actress Judith Light is being honored for her LGBTQ activism.

The Isabelle Stevenson Award is a humanitarian honor given to a member of the theater community each year as part of the Tony Awards. Light is receiving the award for her longtime advocacy in both the fight to end HIV/AIDS and to push forward LGBTQ rights.

“To be so generously acknowledged by The American Theatre Wing, The Broadway League and the Tony Awards, and to be included with these outstanding individuals who have received this honor before me, has been one of the most extraordinary gifts I have ever received in my life,” she said in a statement.

Light has been a vocal supporter of the LGBTQ community for decades, dating as far back as speaking at the 1993 LGBT March in Washington, D.C. She has also worked with GLAAD, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, the Elton John AIDS Foundation, and many other related activism groups and charities.

“The HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ+ communities are inspirations and demonstrations of how to be and live in the world; courageous, honorable and uplifting,” she said. “They inspire me and it is my privilege to be of service to them. I am humbled by this recognition from my theater family, whom I so respect, honor and love.”

While Light is currently in the public eye for her role as the ex-wife of a transgender woman on Transparent, her list of notable credits is, of course, impressively lengthy, but one LGBTQ highlight was her participation in the TV movie The Ryan White Story.

In the film, she played the mother of Ryan White, a real life teenager who got AIDS from a blood transfusion. It was after that role that her commitment to LGBTQ activism settled in.

“I felt I had a responsibility,” Light told The Advocate back in 2015. “I was doing One Life to Live, and I thought, What difference is my life making? I told [my manager], ‘If I ever get any notoriety, I need to make a difference.’”