Michael Williams served on former Philadelphia Mayor John Street’s LGBT Advisory Board in 2002 when he began drafting recommended legislation to protect people from discrimination based on gender identity. He’d earned his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1996.
“When people were looking at LGBT issues, it was really the ‘G,’ for gay men, for a long time,” said Williams, who will receive a Justice in Action Award from the Mazzoni Center next week. “There’s still a lot of work to do for women and transgender people.”
After Philadelphia added protections for gender identity, groups in New Hope got in touch with OutFront!, an LGBT-advocacy organization which Williams helmed as president. The Bucks County borough enacted language in 2002 that included gender identity in its nondiscrimination ordinance.
Kevin Cathcart, executive director of Lambda Legal, will also be honored at the seventh-annual Justice in Action luncheon.
The event takes place from noon-1:30 p.m. Feb. 26 at Loews Philadelphia Hotel, 1200 Market St. It costs $75 for general admission, $60 for public-interest lawyers and $50 for law students. The money benefits Mazzoni’s legal assistance to low-income LGBT individuals.
“There’s a persistent myth of LGBT affluence,” said Thomas Ude Jr., legal and public policy director at Mazzoni. “Hundreds of people each year really would have difficulty accessing legal supports in order to realize some of the rights that have been gained through hard fights over the years.”
Preceding the lunch, lawyers are invited to attend a Continuing Legal Education session from 9:30-11:30 a.m. It covers developments in transgender rights and explores how they fit with poverty and discrimination law. An expert panel will lead the session, including local lawyers and representatives from Lambda Legal and Mazzoni. It costs $89 for private-practice attorneys or $45 for those who work in the public sector.
Ude praised Cathcart for increasing the Lambda Legal staff to more than 100, about five times the number of people the organization employed when Cathcart started. Ude said Cathcart was attuned to emerging needs in the LGBT community, starting an HIV project when the disease was “decimating the gay community,” and a project for transgender rights.
“He’s led the organization through decades when the economy was strong and when it was not strong,” Ude said. “He kept it not only afloat but growing.”
“It’s important to note that organizations like Lambda Legal have really been arguing for decades — and having success in recent years — that prohibitions against sex discrimination already protect transgender people and those who are gay and lesbian,” he continued. “You can’t discriminate based on gender identity or sexual orientation without considering their sex.”
Ude commended Williams for his community activism that led to more inclusive antidiscrimination laws.
“In his work and community involvement, he’s been instrumental,” Ude said.
In addition to his advocacy, Williams said he feels proud of building a strong family over nearly 32 years with his husband, Tony Rodriguez, and their two sons and granddaughter.
“I want to help make the world a better place for everyone,” Williams said. “That’s kind of lofty. I don’t want to sound like Jesus. I just want to sound like a guy who tried to do the right thing and make other people want to pick up wherever I leave off.”