Silver Spring woman to be honored at White House as 'Champion of Change'
WASHINGTON - A Silver Spring woman will be honored this Monday at the White House for her work in advocating for the LGBT community.
Fiona Dawson is the founder of TransMilitary, an organization that intimately shares the lives of U.S. transgender military personnel who served under the threat of discharge. She is originally from the United Kingdom, but recently settled in Silver Spring.
Dawson co-directed and produced a short opinion documentary commissioned by The New York Times called War and in Love.
The film profiled a transgender airman named Logan Ireland who recently completed a deployment serving as a male, the gender he knows himself to be. Dawson is now working on a full-length version of the film.
The White House will honor Dawson and eight others as "White House LGBT Artists Champions of Change." The event will include screenings of the upcoming drama The Danish Girl and Amazon's transgender series Transparent.
The program will also feature remarks by Senior Advisor to the President Valerie Jarrett and Secretary for the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro.
The event coincides with an important day for the LGBT community, Transgender Day of Remembrance, observed on November 20.