The Frank Kameny Award is presented to a member of the LGBTQ+ community who has paved the way for important legal victories without a United States Juris Doctorate. The award was created to honor the memory of Frank Kameny, a tireless advocate for the LGBTQ+ community and the only recipient of the LGBTQ+ Bar’s Dan Bradley Award who did not have a law degree.
Diego Miguel Sanchez is the Director of Advocacy, Policy & Partnerships at PFLAG National. A native of Augusta, GA and long-time Massachusetts resident, Diego was most recently Senior Policy Advisor to Congressman Barney Frank until the Representative’s retirement in 2013. Diego made history with that appointment, being the first openly transgender person to work as a senior legislative staff member on Capitol Hill. He also testified before Congress in the historic Transgender Discrimination Hearing in 2008 and that year was named as the first openly trans person ever appointed to the DNC Platform Committee.
Prior to his four years in DC, Diego spent five years as Director of Public Relations and External Affairs at the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, and AIDS Action Council, DC. Before to moving into the nonprofit sector, Diego worked for 20 award-winning years in global public relations, marketing, and diversity management at world headquarters of Fortune 500 companies including The Coca-Cola Company, Holiday Inn Worldwide, ITT Sheraton, and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide and began his career in 1980 at Burson-Marsteller/NY, then the world’s largest public relations firm. Diego was among The 100 Most Powerful Latino/s in Corporate America named by Hispanic Business Magazine, named an LGBT Latino Hero by the Mayor of Washington, DC, in the 100 most powerful Latino/s (Poderometro) in Massachusetts by El Planeta and in 2013, named to the Out 100 and in the Inaugural Trans 100, sponsored by GLAAD.
Accredited in Public Relations, Diego earned a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism with a major in Public Relations from the University of Georgia, where today he serves on the Journalism College’s Alumni Advisory Board and is a member of G-Club, the University’s Letterman Club as the only male who earned his letter on the women’s tennis team. Diego is a Senior Fellow of UMass Boston’s Emerging Leaders Program in the College of Management.
Winners:
2021
Jamison Green, Owner & President of Transgender Strategies Consulting
2020
GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality
2019
Judy Shepard, Founding President of the Matthew Shepard Foundation
2018
Presented in memoriam to Major Christopher “Tripp” Zanetis, associate at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP and Air National Guardsman
2016
Nadine Smith, co-founder and chief executive officer of Equality Florida
2014
Lieutenant Colonel Jennifer Pritzker, Chair and Founder of the Pritzker Military Museum & Library, President and Founder of the Tawani Foundation and President and CEO of Tawani Enterprises, Inc.
2012
Dr. Stephen Whittle, OBE, Ph.D, Professor of Equalities Law, Manchester Metropolitan University