The Stonewall Award recognizes lawyers, members of the judiciary and legal academia who have effected real change to remove barriers on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in the legal profession, the world, state, state/or locale and championed diversity for the LGBT community.
Stonewall Awards 2021
ABA Virtual Midyear Meeting 2021
Video Interviews
Hon. Sabrina S. McKenna
Supreme Court of Hawai'i
Hon Martin J. Jenkins
Supreme Court of California
Video of 2021 Virtual Stonewall Awards Celebration below:
Stonewall Awards Celebration
February 20, 2021
ABA Virtual Midyear Meeting
Slideshow
View slideshow highlighting the 2021 Stonewall Award Honorees, our generous supporters, and photos from past reception programs here.
Biographies
HON. SABRINA S. MCKENNA
SUPREME COURT OF HAWAI'I
Upon her appointment to the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court in March 2011, Sabrina Shizue McKenna became the first openly LGBTQ Asian Pacific American (APA) to serve on a state court of last resort. She previously served as a Hawaiʻi state trial court judge for 17 years. Justice McKenna regularly addresses LGBTQ and civil rights issues in Hawaii, the continental U.S., and Asia, especially in Japan in her native Japanese language. In February 2020, she delivered a nationwide live stream presentation from Tokyo on the history and law of same sex marriage for Marriage for All Japan. In the Hawaiʻi judiciary, in recent years, she has been involved in the inclusion of gender identity and gender expression as protected categories in the judiciary's anti-bias and harassment policies and as additional categories for which judicial bias or prejudice is prohibited under Rule 2.3 of the Hawaiʻi Revised Code of Judicial Conduct. She has also rendered her written opinions non-binary.
HON. MARTIN J. JENKINS
SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA
Justice Martin J. Jenkins was confirmed as an Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court onNovember 10, 2020 following his appointment by Gov. Newsom. Previously, he served asSenior Judicial Appointments Advisor to Gov. Newsom. Preceding his work for Governor Newsom, he served as an Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal. Justice Jenkins’ judicial experience includes service as a federal district judge for the Northern District of California; he was appointed by Pres. William Clinton in May 1997 and confirmed by the United States Senate in November 1997. After graduating from Santa Clara University and before entering the University of San Francisco (USF) School of Law, Justice Jenkins was briefly employed as a player by the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks. He obtained his law degree from USF in May 1980, when he received the Judge Harold J. Haley Award for “exceptional distinction in scholarship, character, and activities.” After graduation, Justice Jenkins worked as a prosecutor for the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office. He subsequently served as a trial attorney for the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division-Criminal Section in Washington D.C., and later was an attorney in Pacific Bell’s Legal Department where he handled a wide variety of litigation matters. U.S.
SENATOR TAMMY BALDWIN
WISCONSIN
In 2012, Tammy became the first woman from Wisconsin and the first openly gay candidate to be elected to the U.S. Senate. In the House, Tammy was a champion of LGBTQ equality both at home and abroad. She helped lead the successful effort to enact the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and was the leading voice championing a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). Senator Baldwin has continued her commitment to fighting for fairness by leading the charge for the Equality Act—groundbreaking, comprehensive legislation that would add explicit protections for LGBTQIA+ Americans to the nation’s civil rights laws, ensuring that no American is evicted from their home or is denied a service based on their LGBTQ status. U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin has committed her life’s work to public service, fighting for fairness, equality and opportunity because she believes that with each passing year and each generation, our country must become more equal - not less.
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Your charitable sponsorship of the Stonewall Awards funds the annual projects and programs implemented by the ABA Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) that advance the policy, advocacy, and diversity initiatives for LGBT members of the legal profession and the greater LGBT Community.