Cece Cox
Compiled by Dallas Voice staff
As we mark the first Friday in 2025 — and the 2,115th issue of Dallas Voice — we wanted to take one more chance to look back at the 12 months just behind us and honor the people who were true heroes of the LGBTG community in 2024.
And if we’re going to call out the heroes, then, of course, we have to mention those who have been the biggest villains, as well.
THE HEROES
(Remember, these are just a few of the heroes of 2024. Dallas Voice honors all those who contribute, every day in ways big and small, to make our community better.)
Cece Cox
The 84-unit property known as Oak Lawn Place and situated on Sadler Place, just off the intersection of Denton Drive Cutoff and Inwood Road, started accepting applications for residents last July, and within its first month, the complex, a program of Resource Center, already had a waiting list.
Resource Center also renovated the building just in front of Oak Lawn Place, facing Inwood Road, to consolidate the services of the Nelson-Tebedo Clinic, the food pantry, the primary healthcare clinic, mental health counseling, the hot meals program, case management and more.
And the visionary behind all of it is Cece Cox, Resource Center CEO, who put the ambitious project together by assembling a team of some of Texas’ best and most experienced affordable housing experts.
But Oak Lawn Place is only the latest in the long list of Cox’s contributions to the LGBTQ community. She has been advocating on behalf of the LGBTQ and HIV communities for some 30 years.
Cox joined Resource Center as associate executive director in 2007 after several years spent practicing commercial law and providing pro bono legal services to individuals with HIV. Three years later, in July 2010, she stepped into the role of CEO of Resource Center, one of the oldest and largest organizations in North Texas providing services to the HIV and LGBTQ communities.
Since then Cox has been a leading voice in some of the community’s biggest projects and most important victories. She was instrumental in the passage of the city of Dallas’ sexual orientation nondiscrimination policy and the Dallas Independent School District’s first anti-harassment policy as well as its subsequent anti-bullying policy.
Thanks to Resource Center’s advocacy — and Cox’s leadership — since June 2010, more than 50,000 public sector employees and 250,000 students in the Dallas area have new or expanded LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections.
Oak Lawn Place is not the first Resource Center building project Cox has led. She also led the way in the center’s long-term project that culminated in May 2016 in the opening of the $8.7 million LGBT Community Center at 5750 Cedar Springs Road.
Cox is a member of the Dallas Bar Association and has been a member of SMU’s Simmons School of Education and Human Development executive committee, board co-chair of the national organization CenterLink and a board member of the Dallas Women’s Foundation.
In 2016, the same year that the Community Center opened and Dallas Voice named her LGBTQ Texan of the Year, Cox was recognized as a distinguished alumna of SMU’s Dedman School of Law. In 2017, she was selected as a winner of the Dallas Business Journal’s Women in Business Awards.
In addition to her degree from SMU’s Dedman School of Law, Cox has a degree in journalism from Northwestern University and previously worked as a professional photographer. She is co-author of the photo book One Million Strong: The 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights.
And if all that weren’t enough, Cox is parent to a now-college-age son and wife of attorney Shelly Skeen, director of Lambda Legal’s South Central Regional office. In other words, Cece Cox isn’t just a 2024 hero in the LGBTQ community, she is a hero for the decades.
Jon and Justin Culpepper
Jon and Justin Culpepper created Pride Frisco to bring LGBTQ services to one of the Dallas area’s most conservative suburbs.
A number of Pride organizations have launched successfully around the DFW area over the past few years. Organizations like Arlington Pride have attracted thousands of people to their June events. And the Culpeppers and Pride Frisco staged a hugely successful Pride event in October in Frisco’s Toyota Stadium.
But they have also brought services to Frisco’s LGBTQ community year-round, with even bigger plans for the future.
In April, Pride Frisco hosted its first name and gender marker clinic, partnering with the Dallas LGBT Bar Association to present the event. Volunteer attorneys and law students walked participants through the process.
While the same services are available in Dallas, Jon Culpepper said part of the idea was to bring the services closer to Collin County’s nearly 1 million residents. To his surprise, he said, they helped participants from five North Texas counties.
Pride Frisco co-sponsored an event called Reality Check with Tarrant County. And Lambda Legal’s Southwest Regional Director Shelly Skeen hosted a clinic about what to expect in the next session of the Texas Legislature.
In May, Pride Frisco hosted an LGBTQ mental health forum for clinical and non-clinical participants to discuss various aspects of affirmative care. Among the partners was the Yale LGBTQ Mental Health Initiative, which uses evidence-based therapy created by and for LGBTQ people.
On the lighter side, they sponsored a Dungeons and Dragons meetup. “D&D builds community in a non-threatening environment,” Jon Culpepper said, calling that event a good balance with information and education.
If COVID taught us anything, Jon Culpepper told Dallas Voice, it’s that you can live and work anywhere. So, “You shouldn’t have to drive an hour to receive resources.”
The couple’s goal is to build an LGBTQ community center in Frisco, keeping them and their organization on the Hero list for years to come.
Phillip and Amy Hightower
Trans teenager Max Hightower made national headlines in the fall of 2023 when his casting as Ali Hakim in the Sherman High School theater department’s planned production of Oklahoma! prompted the district’s homophobic superintendent, Tyson Bennett, to cancel the show. The Sherman ISD Board of Trustees over-ruled Bennett, suspended him in February and eventually sacked him on May 1.
Throughout the ordeal Max’s parents, Phillip and Amy Hightower, remained as his staunchest supporters and most vocal advocates. And in early May, the Hightower family traveled to New York City, where Phillip and Amy were honored by the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund, an arm of the Dramatists Guild of America, as the Defenders of the Year.
Max graduated from Sherman High on May 24.
Amber Glenn
Figure skater and North Texas native Amber Glenn made history in January of 2024 when, with the help of her triple axel jump, she became the first openly-queer woman to win the women’s gold at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
In March, she finished a respectable but likely still disappointing 10th in the World Figure Skating Championships in Montreal. But she went on to win gold last year in the 2024 Cup of China and the Grand Prix de France and then wrapped up the year (although not her 2024/25 season) with a gold medal at the Grand Prix Finals, held in early December in Grenoble, France.
Her Grand Prix Finals gold is the biggest title for a U.S. women’s singles figure skater since 2010.
The United Methodist Church
The General Convention of the United Methodist Church voted this year, at long last, to remove the church’s 40-year-old ban on “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” serving as clergy and to eliminate the rules that penalized UMC clergy for performing same-sex weddings.
Although lesbians and gays had officially been banned from serving as clergy, enforcement of that ban varied from diocese to diocese. Around the country, a number have been serving as ministers and at least two have been elevated to bishop.
In DFW, the vote allowed the Rev. Rachel Griffin, senior pastor at Oak Lawn UMC, to come out and marry her wife.
Ahmad Goree
When an organization or a community loses a visionary leader, especially when it happens unexpectedly and to someone still in the prime of life, it leaves a gaping hole in so many lives. That’s what happened to Abounding Prosperity Inc. and the North Texas LGBTQ community — especially the LGBTQ community of color — when Kirk Myers died in April of 2023.
But thanks to the courage and determination of Ahmad Goree and the staff of Abounding Prosperity Inc., including CEO Tamara Stephney, that tear in the fabric of community life is being mended.
In 2024, Goree worked with Dallas County officials to train poll workers on how to make sure transgender citizens got to exercise their right to vote. In June, as COO of Dallas Southern Pride, Goree spearheaded the annual Juneteenth celebration. And he has traveled to Washington, D.C., to work with federal officials for the betterment of North Texas.
As a representative of Abounding Prosperity Inc., Dallas Southern Pride and the Muhlaysia Booker Foundation, Ahmad Goree continues to put his considerable talents and skills to work on behalf of those with HIV, on behalf of transgender women, on behalf of LGBTQ people of color and behalf of the LGBTQ community as a whole.
Everyday Heroes
Being a hero doesn’t always mean making a big splash. Sometimes being a hero means continuing to create small ripples that can eventually change the course of the river of life. Here are a few individuals — and two organizations — that are every day heroes for the DFW LGBTQ community.
There wasn’t a month that passed in 2024 without the DFW Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence hosting at least one — usually several — charitable and/or educational events for the community. From safety patrols in the Gayborhood to educational outreach to memorial vigils to themed parties benefitting a variety of LGBTQ organizations and efforts, The Sisters do it all. And they do it with a smile that is never just painted on.
Since the February 2018 death of Anthony “Tony” Bobrow, owner of The Hidden Door, the Anthony Bobrow Trust has regularly donated to organizations in the LGBTQ community, providing those organizations with unrestricted funds that allow them to fill in the gaps that grants and loans and other donations can’t reach.
Also, the donations come at a time when many organizations need them most: “Organizations tell us budgets are especially strained by mid-year, so our donations are vital for their operations,” noted Harvey Meissner, president and CEO of The Hidden Door and co-trustee of the Bobrow Fund.
In late May of 2024, the trust distributed checks totaling more than $300,000 to seven nonprofits in the community. This year’s donations raise the trust’s seven-year total to well over $2 million.
Since she first moved to DFW from Arkansas some 45 years ago, Betty Neal has been a relatively quiet but always steady and strong force for equality and progress in the LGBTQ community here. From her early days as a DJ then a club manager, to her role in helping found Dallas Southern Pride and the annual Juneteenth celebration, to her role as a volunteer with both Dallas Pride and Pride in Dallas, Betty Neal continues to be someone who leads by example as a friend to many and an advocate for all.
A career in counseling wasn’t Brian Kennedy’s first path. But since he started down this path, he has walked it with a determination to help those in the LGBTQ community, especially LGBTQ youth who struggle with the weight of society’s disapproval and disdain. “I believe individuals want to live a more manageable life and are doing the best they can with the tools that they have,” Kennedy has said. “I can provide you with the tools to do that. I want to support you as you work to overcome whatever struggles life has thrown at you.”
Today, Kennedy is a licensed professional counselor with Room for Change, and in October he was recognized with the Michael DeVoll Award of Excellent in Counseling from TxSAIGE, a division of the Texas Counseling Association.
Heroes in the Arts
James Williams has cumulatively donated close to a million dollars to area arts organizations in honor of his late partner Charles Longcope. The organizations he chose all have deep ties to the LGBTQ community. Through direct donations or grant challenges, Williams gifted funds toward Bruce Wood Dance Dallas, Turtle Creek Chorale and Uptown Players. Additionally, he has donated toward non-arts organizations such as The Dallas Way, the Bob Mizer Foundation (San Francisco), Visions for Change and Elevate.
Captain Milbourn did so much for local representation with two major productions. They identify as an AFAB transmasc nonbinary lesbian human but that’s not their only identifiers. Milbourn wrote, directed and starred in the world premiere of La Maupin: The French Abomination, about the bisexual duellist Julie D’Aubigny. In October, Milbourn was cast as the lead without audition for Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors by the Dallas Theater Center.
Theatre Three, a professional theatre company in Uptown, has consistently delivered high-quality productions for more than 60 seasons. Sixty! Led by artistic director Jeffrey Schmidt and co-artistic director Christie Vela, the company embraces bold, exciting and even cheeky visions, evident in their season announcements that often feature campy, sexy, and queer ingredients mixed with serious drama and classic musicals. With across the board diversity onstage and among the creative teams and directors, productions like Big, Scary Animals, Scrooge in Rouge, and the upcoming Debbie Does Dallas and Xanadu, T3 delivers these shows with an organic ease that feels authentic and representative of the entire Dallas community. For real, do not sleep on Theatre Three and all the fabulosity they are serving.
Political Heroes of the Year
Julie Johnson was elected in a landslide as the first out congresswoman not just from Texas but from all of the South, earning her Dallas Voice’s LGBTQ Person of the Year honors for 2024.
In her primary, Johnson received more than 50 percent of the vote against 10 challengers. And she won the election always being honest about who is.
When reporters interviewing her didn’t mention her sexual orientation, Johnson always made mention of her wife, Sue, and their two sons. And while promising to work on issues like education, healthcare and immigration, she never shied away from her support for abortion and reproductive justice, sensible gun control and LGBTQ rights.
Her election to the U.S. Congress gives the LGBTQ community in North Texas representation.
Molly Cook of Houston became Texas’ first openly LGBTQ state senator when she won a special election to fill the seat left vacant when John Whitmire stepped down to become mayor of Houston. Then Cook was re-elected to a full term in November. Not only is she the first openly LGBTQ person in the Texas Senate, she’s also the youngest member of that legislative body.
Cook is for common sense gun legislation, protecting public education and environmental and climate justice. As an emergency room nurse, healthcare is among her top issues and stands for Medicaid expansion and Medicare for all.
Those are all bold positions to take in the very conservative Texas Senate and the reason we call her a political hero of the year.
Sarah McBride of Delaware will become the first transgender member of the U.S. House of Representatives when she takes the oath of office today (Jan. 3).
When McBride was elected, before she was even sworn in, South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace pushed for a new rule basically banning trans people from using appropriate public restroom facilities in the Capitol, and Speaker Mike Johnson, also a Republican, put that new rule in place.
But while other members of Congress were having a bathroom debate — and, by the way, forcing trans men into the ladies rooms — McBride stressed that she was there to serve the people of Delaware, would use the bathroom in her office. So not only is McBride blazing trails for the transgender community to follow, she is doing it with a grace, class and determination that helps take the wind out of others’ transphobic sails.
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To View The villains of 2024, Click Here