LGBTQ+ Movement Leader Tony Hoang to Receive 2025 Spirit of Justice Award

LGBTQ+ Movement Leader Tony Hoang to Receive 2025 Spirit of Justice Award

As executive director of Equality California, Hoang is leading urgent, successful efforts to protect and expand LGBTQ+ rights in a hostile climate

New England-based GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law), one of the nation's leading LGBTQ+ legal rights organizations, will present its 2025 Spirit of Justice Award to Tony Hoang, executive director of Equality California (EQCA), for his visionary, influential, and intersectional leadership in the movement for LGBTQ+ equality. Hoang will receive the award at the Annual Spirit of Justice Award Dinner in Boston on November 6.

"Local leaders like Tony Hoang power the LGBTQ+ movement-working on the ground to identify needs in their communities, marshalling the resources to meet them through innovative programs and policy, and contributing to the playbook to expand protections and support for LGBTQ+ people around the country," said Ricardo Martinez, GLAD Law's Executive Director. "As leader of the country's largest LGBTQ+ statewide civil rights organization, Tony brings the strategic leadership needed to fight the relentless attacks on our community, especially transgender and nonbinary youth. In a period of increasing political opposition to LGBTQ+ equality, Equality California has steadfastly worked to safeguard important civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ Californians. Tony's leadership to proactively secure fairness, safety, and dignity for LGBTQ+ people shows us we can create opportunities to advance justice even in a hostile climate. We're proud to honor him with this year's Spirit of Justice Award."

The Spirit of Justice Award recognizes individuals whose courage, vision, and impact embody the fight for justice.

Hoang has dedicated his career to advancing LGBTQ+ rights and has served as executive director of Equality California since 2021. His tenure with the organization dates to 2009, when he began as a field intern. He then held multiple roles including database and volunteer manager, director of operations, chief of staff, and managing director to his current position. The son of Vietnam War refugees, Hoang is the first Asian American person to lead ECQA, bringing with him an understanding of the marginalized intersections of sexuality, gender, race, and immigration status in the U.S. Under his leadership, ECQA has significantly boosted its budget, staff, and programming-particularly its advocacy and racial justice initiatives.

California has long been a leader in protecting LGBTQ+ rights and contributing to the national conversation on equality. In recent years, as anti-LGBTQ+ extremists across the country-and now with the full support of the Trump administration-have worked to undermine supportive policies-particularly for transgender and nonbinary youth, EQCA has prioritized efforts to shore up protections for LGBTQ+ Californians. They have worked to pass laws strengthening protections for LGBTQ+ students, protecting access to transgender and reproductive health care, ensuring safe and equitable access to homeless services, expediting the legal process for transgender people to obtain appropriate identity documents, and supporting LGBTQ families.

"It's an honor to receive this recognition from GLAD Law, an organization that has spearheaded some of the boldest strategies and most significant advances in our movement to date, despite ever-present and powerful opposition," said Tony Hoang. "With our democracy under strain and hard-won rights increasingly under attack, LGBTQ+ advocates across the country must continue to safeguard the gains we've made, model ways to make progress, and speak directly to the majority of Americans who believe everyone deserves equal opportunity, without discrimination, and who can help us expand protections for LGBTQ+ people regardless of the state where they live."

In addition to leading EQCA, Hoang also serves on the board of the California Community Foundation.

Now in its 26th year, the Spirit of Justice Award Dinner is GLAD Law's flagship event. Past Spirit of Justice Award recipients include Jennifer Finney Boylan, Kylar Broadus, Chai Feldblum, the plaintiffs in GLAD Law's landmark Goodridge v. MA DPH marriage lawsuit, the Honorable Eric H. Holder Jr, Tony Kushner, Massachusetts Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and his family, Bishop Gene Robinson, Nadine Smith, Urvashi Vaid, and Phill Wilson. The 2024 honorees were Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights; and Jennifer Levi, GLAD Law's senior director of transgender and queer rights, two of the country's foremost LGBTQ+ civil rights attorneys and experts on transgender rights litigation.