ABA to honor 2027 Stonewall Award recipients for LGBTQ+ advancements in legal profession

November 05, 2026

ABA to honor 2027 Stonewall Award recipients for LGBTQ+ advancements in legal profession

CHICAGO, Nov. 5, 2026 - Recipients of the American Bar Association Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity's 2027 ABA Stonewall Award will be recognized Jan 29, 2027, at the ABA Midyear Meeting in Chicago.

The Stonewall Award is named for the New York City Stonewall Inn police raid and riot of June 28, 1969, which was a turning point in the gay rights movement. It recognizes lawyers who have considerably advanced lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals in the legal profession and successfully championed LGBTQ+ legal causes. 

The 2027 recipients are:

• Judge Jodi B. Levine is a retired federal administrative law judge in the Social Security Administration Office of Hearings Operations in Oklahoma City. Judge Levine was honored by the ABA in 2010 with the ABA Grassroots Advocacy Award for her advocacy work including the development and presentation of Mock Social Security Disability Hearings on Capitol Hill and around the country. She served on the ABA Board of Governors and is a past chair of the ABA Judicial Division and past chair of the National Conference of the Administrative Law Judiciary (NCALJ). She served as a member of the ABA Civil Rights and Social Justice Section and the ABA Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section and continues to be active in NCALJ and leadership in both sections. She also was a member of the ABA Standing Committee on Governmental Affairs, a member of the ABA Standing Committee on Public Education and a commissioner on the ABA Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. She is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation and NCALJ's Judicial Division.
• Judi O'Kelley has served since 2017 as the chief program officer for the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association and Foundation. She has over 30 years of legal and political experience within the LGBTQ+ community. During law school she worked against anti-gay ballot initiatives in Oregon. After graduating and entering private practice, she moved to Georgia and worked on behalf of local and national LGBTQ+ groups as a pro bono attorney, drafting and lobbying for successful non-discrimination protections and domestic partnership benefit programs for several Georgia municipalities, including Atlanta and Athens. In 2004, she served as president and campaign chair for the Athens, Georgia, area campaign in opposition to Georgia's constitutional amendment banning same-sex unions, work which continued after the campaign. She was the lead plaintiff from 2004-2006 in the case of O'Kelley v. Perdue, in which Lambda Legal, the Georgia ACLU and the law firm of Alston & Bird sought to strike down Georgia's anti-marriage amendment. She then spent nearly 12 years on the staff and in senior management of Lambda Legal. O'Kelley's work at the bar includes building the annual Lavender Law Conference program, supporting the bar's state and local bar affiliate program and directing the bar's law school and law student work, managing its Workplace Inclusion Program, directing the New Lawyers Division of the bar, supporting the work of the bar's and NCLR's Family Law Institute and managing the bar's policy work. She is a 2002 recipient of the Stonewall Bar Association of Georgia's Conspicuous Service award, a 2020 recipient of the International Association of LGBTQ+ Judges' President's Award and a 2025 recipient of that organization's Accomplice Award.

• Kylar W. Broadus, a transgender man, has been a pioneer in the LGBT and trans movements as an attorney, activist, public speaker, author and professor. He is a member of the Robert and Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Foundation. In 2010, he founded the Trans People of Color Coalition (TPOCC) to fill a gap in the private and non-profit sectors. In 2012, he became the first openly transgender person to testify before the U.S. Senate in support of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). He also was one of 13 transgender delegates and the first Black transgender delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 2012, where he served on the Rules Committee. Broadus was named to the "Out 100" by Out Magazine in 2013. The Advocate recognized him as one of "25 Legal Advocates Fighting for Trans Rights" in 2017. In 2023, he was awarded the President's Award by the International Association of Official Human Rights Agencies for his advocacy in civil rights and racial justice work outside and inside the LGBTQ movement. Broadus is on the board of the National Black Justice Coalition, where for three years he was board chair. He currently serves on the board of directors of Freedom for All Americans. He's worked as operations officer at the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund. He was director of the transgender civil rights project and senior counsel at the National LGBTQ Task Force. Broadus previously served as division director in the ABA Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, now the ABA Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice, and as a commissioner on the ABA Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Commission, where he continues to serve as an adviser. He is a member of the National LGBT Bar Association.

For more information, contact Shanda Ivory at [email protected].