City of West Hollywood to Host Rainbow Key Awards to Honor 2025 Awardees

The City of West Hollywood and its LGBTQ+ Commission will host the annual Rainbow Key Awards ceremony to recognize people and groups who have made outstanding contributions to the LGBTQ+ community.

This year's Rainbow Key Awards honor those selected in 2025, and will be held on Saturday, April 11, 2026, at Pacific Design Center's Silver Screen Theatre, located at 8687 Melrose Avenue. The event will begin at 4 p.m. with a reception featuring light bites, followed by the awards ceremony at 5 p.m. While the reception and ceremony are open to the public and free to attend, RSVPs are strongly encouraged. Additional information for the event and the RSVP link can be found by visiting the City's website at https://www.weho.org/rainbowkey.

Every year, the City's LGBTQ+ Commission selects awardees for the Rainbow Key Awards from a public nomination process. This year's Rainbow Key Awards ceremony, though held in 2026, will honor the following 2025 awardees:

• Cake and Art - Founded in 1976, Cake and Art, is a bakery older than the City of West Hollywood itself. The bakery has made cakes for celebrities, visiting dignitaries, and, in the years before the legalization of same-sex marriage, Cake and Art baked hundreds of same-sex commitment ceremony cakes for the growing LGBTQ+ population in West Hollywood and beyond. When same-sex marriage was legalized in 2015, Cake and Art sold cupcakes to go for couples rushing to West Hollywood Park to be married by the City's satellite marriage license office.

• Fan Girl Cafe (Betsy Martinez and Cynthia Temblador) - Betsy and Cynthia's Fan Girl Cafe has quickly become a haven for the queer community. A place to sit and gather in community, it offers the LGBTQ+ community (especially the lesbian and sapphic community) a place to gather, participate in community events, and pick up some music merch, while partaking of an excellent selection of food and drinks. Fan Girl Cafe routinely hosts poetry readings, stand-up comedy, and even sing-alongs for popular albums.

• Abdullah "Abby" Hall - Abby Hall serves as the Artistic Director of the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles which performs at many LGBTQ+ events in West Hollywood and beyond showcasing the immense talent in the trans community. Through Abby's leadership, the Chorus gives trans and gender-expansive people the ability to be seen, felt, and heard.

• Tristan Schukraft - Tristan has built a life and career dedicated to advancing, celebrating, and protecting the LGBTQ+ community, beginning in West Hollywood and expanding globally. As owner of The Abbey Food & Bar and The Chapel, he has safeguarded two of the most iconic queer spaces in the world. Through Tryst Hotels and his growing portfolio of LGBTQ+ hospitality destinations, he is redefining luxury travel and nightlife for the community. As founder and CEO of MISTR, the nation's largest telemedicine platform for HIV prevention and long-term care, Tristan has transformed access to sexual healthcare by providing free PrEP, DoxyPEP, and HIV treatment to more than 700,000 patients across all 50 states.

• Trudging Buddies - Trudging Buddies is a grassroots, predominantly LGBTQ+-led nonprofit organization that builds community, resilience, and purpose for queer people in recovery from addiction through participation in athletic and service-based experiences. Trudging Buddies reaches more than 300 local LGBTQ+ individuals annually through a combination of training, events, and peer-led recovery initiatives. Each year, they train and support more than 150 participants - including cyclists and volunteer crew members - to take part in AIDS/LifeCycle, one of the largest and most visible fundraising events for HIV/AIDS, raising more than $4.3 million since 2013.

Additionally, this year, the Rainbow Key Awards Ceremony will include two other awards: The Melissa Etheridge Award, to honor an individual who has impacted, supported, and fostered visibility of the lesbian and queer women community through creative methods including arts, culture, entertainment, music, and film; and the Audre Lorde Activist Award, to honor a community activist who has made a significant impact within and for the lesbian and queer woman community. This year's awardees are:

• Angela Brinskele - Angela is a long-time activist for women's rights and lesbian visibility, and a professional photographer who has documented the LGBTQ+ community for decades. She is currently the head of Marketing and Donor Engagement at the Mazer Archives. Angela will receive this year's Melissa Etheridge Award.

• Jaymes Black - Jaymes is the first black, nonbinary CEO of The Trevor Project. Under their leadership, The Trevor Project - which was founded in West Hollywood in 1998 - has expanded its free 24/7 crisis services for LGBTQ+ youth and has led new research initiatives, public education efforts, and strategic advocacy work. Jaymes will receive this year's Audre Lorde Activist Award.

The City of West Hollywood's Rainbow Key Awards are especially important at this moment in time, in 2026, because the awards stand at the intersection of visibility, civic leadership, and community affirmation at a time when LGBTQ+ communities across the nation are facing renewed political attacks and cultural erasure efforts at the federal level.

When national rhetoric or policy proposals seek to minimize, restrict, or redefine LGBTQ+ identities, particularly those of transgender and nonbinary people, public recognition becomes more than symbolic. In this context, the City's Rainbow Key Awards are a clear statement: in West Hollywood, LGBTQ+ people are valued, visible, and integral to the fabric of our community. Recognition is not just celebration; it is a commitment to live loud and proud and a refusal to be erased.

The City of West Hollywood has, since 1993, presented Rainbow Key Awards to people and organizations that have made outstanding contributions to the LGBTQ+ community. Previous awardees have included activists, artists, civic leaders, educators, community organizations, and many others. Contributions, whether by an individual or a group, may be in many forms, including the arts, community action, humanitarian action, sports, medicine, armed services, leadership potential, benefit to the global LGBTQ+ community, or in other ways. More than 180 Rainbow Key Awards have been presented since the award's inception.

Since incorporation in 1984, the City of West Hollywood has become one of the most influential cities in the nation for its outspoken advocacy on LGBTQ+ issues. No other city of its size has had a greater impact on the national public policy discourse on fairness and inclusiveness for LGBTQ+ people. More than 40 percent of residents in West Hollywood identify as LGBTQ+. The City has advocated for more than three decades for measures to support LGBTQ+ individuals and has been in the vanguard on efforts to gain and protect equality for all people on a state, national, and international level. The Rainbow Key Awards, along with the Melissa Etheridge Award and Audre Lorde Activist Award, carry the City of West Hollywood's LGBTQ+ advocacy traditions forward. The awards affirm that the City of West Hollywood remains steadfast in recognizing, uplifting, and defending the people who move equality forward.

For additional information about the Rainbow Key Awards, please contact Moya Márquez at (323) 848-6574 or at [email protected] or visit https://www.weho.org/rainbowkey. For people who are Deaf or hard of hearing dial 711 or 1-800-735-2929 (TTY) or 1-800-735-2922 (voice) for California Relay Service (CRS) assistance.

For up-to-date information about City of West Hollywood news and events, follow @wehocity on social media, sign-up for news updates at www.weho.org/email, and visit the City's calendar of meetings and events at www.weho.org/calendar. West Hollywood City Hall is open for walk-in services at public counters or by appointment by visiting www.weho.org/appointments. City Hall services are accessible by phone at (323) 848-6400 and via website at www.weho.org. Receive text updates by texting "WeHo" to (323) 848-5000.

For reporters and members of the media seeking additional information about the City of West Hollywood, please contact the City of West Hollywood's Public Information Officer, Sheri A. Lunn, at (323) 848-6391 or [email protected].