Actress Laverne Cox hosted Outright International’s annual Celebration of Courage awards dinner at Chelsea Piers on June 1 as the organization honored Brazilian democracy institute VoteLGBT (Felipa de Souza Award), Grammy-Award-winning artist Cyndi Lauper (Outspoken Award), and Levi Strauss & Co. (Outstanding Award).
“We all want to live in a global world where LGBTIQ people can be free to live our lives,” Outright International executive director Maria Sjödin said in an interview with Gay City News. “To get New Yorkers to also think about the rest of the world, I think that’s pretty cool.”
The awards dinner, held on the first day of Pride Month, marked one year since Outright International first launched their Funding Our Freedom campaign, which Sjödin said has since raised $6.8 million. This support is distributed as grants that help fund life-saving work across the globe, including the work of NGO VoteLGBT in Brazil.
Co-led by Bru Pereira and Gui Mohallem, VoteLGBT has created digital infrastructure and resources to mobilize voters, support legislation to protect LGBTIQ citizens, and bring more LGBTIQ voices into politics. In just 10 years, VoteLGBT has transformed Brazil’s political candidacies from three openly LGBTIQ candidates for government positions to more than 3,000, and has mobilized more than 3,000,000 voters.
“We are not fighting for queer rights. We are fighting for everyone,” VoteLGBT’s executive director Gui Mohallem told Gay City News. “We live in a world that was not meant for us, so we have to invent everything.”
In their remarks, Mohallem and other VoteLGBT members brought to light a recent win for workers in Brazil spearheaded by Erika Hilton, the first Black transgender woman elected to Brazil’s National Congress. Last week, Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies advanced Hilton’s campaign to enact a shorter work week, promising quality-of-life changes for more than 100 million workers.
Mohallem said this was the biggest victory for workers in nearly 40 years: “When queer people lead, everybody wins.”
The Felipa de Souza Award (established in 1994) is aptly named after a 16th-century Portuguese woman who was tried for “nefarious practices,” or lesbianism. De Souza is widely regarded as one of the first victims of homophobia in Brazil and a symbol of the country’s LGBTQ movement.
“Innovation means the same political systems that have been used to oppress us can be used to liberate us,” Mohallem said. “The same technologies that are used to target us can be reimagined in the service of democracy.”
Pereira added: “Innovation is not a buzzword; it’s survival.”
The gala was anchored by the host, Cox, who last month was recognized with a 2026 Elton John Impact Award through the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
“I know, for me, that I’m not myself when I live in fear, when I’m afraid to tell the truth,” Cox said to Gay City News. “A huge part of what I do is tell stories and use my platform, so I have to speak truth to power — and that makes me feel like myself.”
Outright International raised more than $45,000 during the live auction, which featured all-inclusive trips to Tuscany, Sonoma, or Tulum. By the end of the night, the total amount fundraised climbed to almost $1.5 million.
Lauper was honored with the Outspoken Award for her early and enduring support for LGBTQ+ rights. In 2022, Lauper founded the Girls Just Want To Have Fundamental Rights Fund, which distributes grants to organizations and programs supporting health and reproductive rights for women of all ages and the LGBTQ+ community.
“It’s unfortunate courage doesn’t come in, y’know, a vitamin pill,” Lauper said to Gay City News. “I wish it was […] a little contagious.
“There are a lot of people still working towards human rights,” she added. “And some places it’s worse than others. But I’m gonna keep fighting. And I think a lot of these people are gonna keep fighting.”
