#GLAAD to Receive TV Academy’s 2023 Governors Award at Emmys

LGBTQ advocacy organization GLAAD is set to receive the TV Academy’s 2023 Governors Award, which will be presented during the Primetime Emmys telecast on Jan. 15.

President and CEO of GLAAD Sarah Kate Ellis will accept the award on behalf of the organization.

GLAAD is being recognized for its “work over nearly four decades to secure fair, accurate and diverse representation of the LGBTQ community in the media and entertainment industries and to advocate for LGBTQ equality,” according to the TV Academy.

“Television shapes our society and influences dialogue that increases understanding and acceptance, making GLAAD’s work so important to the LGBTQ community to legislative bodies and to the public,” TV Academy chairman Frank Scherma said in a statement. “Through its education and advocacy programs, it has had a culture-changing impact.”

Each year, the TV Academy’s Board of Governors chooses “an individual, company or organization that has made a profound, transformational and long-lasting contribution to the arts and/or science of television” for the Governors Award.

Previous recipients of the award include the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, Debbie Allen, Tyler Perry, Star Trek, American Idol, PBS, Hallmark Cards Inc. and Walter Cronkite, among others.

“This tremendous honor from the Television Academy is a testament to the historic and impactful work of GLAAD’s founders, board members and staff over the past four decades as well as the LGBTQ executives, creators and talent who are telling authentic LGBTQ stories on television,” Ellis said in a statement. “At a time when our world seems more divided and media plays an outsized role in shaping culture, television has the unique power to tell human stories that grow empathy and acceptance. This honor is just the latest example of how the Television Academy plays a pivotal role in ensuring accurate and diverse storytelling, which educates, entertains and enlightens.”

GLAAD was founded in 1985 by Vito Russo, author of The Celluloid Closet, and other LGBTQ advocates, and the organization works with leaders in TV, film, gaming, news, politics and more to ensure accurate and authentic representation of the LGBTQ community.