Katy Perry and America Ferrera to receive prestigious LGBT awards alongside Tim Kaine and Troye Sivan
Katy Perry will be awarded with the most prestigious LGBT advocacy award in the US, it has been announced.
The global megastar will be presented with the National Equality Award at the Human Rights Campaign’s gala on March 18.
The 32-year-old Roar singer has undergone somewhat of a transformation, repeatedly speaking out for LGBT rights and taking to the campaign trail with Hillary Clinton last year.
She ripped into former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott for his stance against same-sex marriage in 2013, and dedicated her song Firework to the It Gets Better project for LGBT youth.
A week after Trump’s inauguration, she tweeted that becoming woke had forced her to come to terms with how asleep she had been previously.
Sometimes it's scary opening up to consciousness… makes you realize how asleep you were, and how ok you were with it…
— KATY PERRY (@katyperry) January 27, 2017
The award shows how far the US singer has come from stoking controversy with Ur So Gay on her debut album One of the Boys.
In the song, she bemoaned how “gay” her boyfriend was, linking homosexuality to impotence, effeminacy and generally being a bad partner.
And when she first achieved widespread fame with the song I Kissed A Girl, Beth Ditto, frontwoman of The Gossip, criticised her for being “offensive to gay culture.”
HRC President Chad Griffin said his organisation was “thrilled to honour Katy Perry for using her powerful voice and international platform to speak out for LGBTQ equality.
“Her compelling advocacy, from the stage to the campaign trail, has had a profound effect on the lives of LGBTQ people – and, in particular, young people.”
Ugly Betty star and Golden Globe winner America Ferrera will also be recognised for her LGBT advocacy with the Ally for Equality Award, which she will receive from her friend and long-time advocate Lena Dunham.
The star and creator of Girls produced a documentary last year called Suited, about bespoke tailors who specialise in creating custom suits for trans and gender-nonconforming clients.
She also pledged not to marry until same-sex marriage was legal across the US, echoing couples like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, as well as Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard.
Griffin praised Ferrera’s “unwavering commitment to advancing equality for all people,” adding that the actress “sets a stirring example for others to follow.”
Ferrera and Dunham were “both fierce and outspoken champions of equality,” he said.
Former vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine will be the featured speaker, while Australian singer-songwriter Troye Sivan, 21, will perform for the crowd at the glitzy Ritz-Carlton/JW Marriott venue in Los Angeles.
Sivan is an outspoken activist who has become the LGBT role model the likes of which, as he said in December, he never had while growing up.
