It is with a great sense of duty, respect, and pride that qFLIX Philadelphia: The LGBTQ+ Film Festival announces the presentation of the 2021 Marsha P. Johnson Image Award to Dr. Rachel L. Levine, Assistant Secretary of Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Dr. Levine has been selected as the first recipient of this award. It will be presented to her on the opening night of qFLIX Philadelphia 2021, September 26, 7:00 PM, at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre, on the Avenue of the Arts, Philadelphia.

The Marsha P. Johnson Image Award was created to acknowledge and honor a nationally or internationally recognized transgender individual who has exhibited a profound and deep commitment to the issues that face the LGBTQ+ community through their leadership, words, and actions.  With this award we give respect and honor to the vanguard and mother of our modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, while recognizing those who today have personified her legacy.

Marsha “Pay it No Mind” Johnson (1945-1992) was a Black transgender woman who was a force behind the Stonewall Riots and surrounding activism that sparked a new phase of the LGBTQ+ movement in 1969.  Marsha P. Johnson is now one of the most venerated icons in LGBTQ+ history, and her actions and words continue to inspire transgender activism and resistance and will continue to do so well into the future.

We believe that Dr. Levine personifies the courage, dedication, insight, and strength that Marsha P. Johnson showed by stand strong in the face criticism and opposition while unwaveringly advocating and fighting for the equality and well-being of our LGBTQ+ community.

In 2015, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf nominated Dr. Levine to be Pennsylvania’s Physician General and she was subsequently unanimously confirmed by Pennsylvania’s state Senate. She became the Pennsylvania’s Acting Secretary of Health in July 2017, and in March of 2018 Dr. Levine was unanimously confirmed by the state Senate to become Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Health.

In January 2021 President Joe Biden nominated Dr. Levine to be as the 17th Assistant Secretary for Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  In March she became the first openly transgender individual to be confirmed by the United States Senate.