Jim Toy - Ann Arbor

Jim Toy is an activist for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender issues, and is the namesake for the nonprofit Jim Toy Community Center in Ann Arbor.

Jim Toy at an April 2013 Ann Arbor city council meeting. (Photo courtesy of The Ann Arbor Chronicle.)

The community center's website lists these highlights from his decades of advocacy:

First publicly out queer in Michigan.
Co-author of Ann Arbor’s non-discrimination policy in regard to sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.
One of the founders of the Ann Arbor Gay Liberation Front and the Detroit Gay Liberation Movement.
Co-founder of the first office at any university in the world devoted to sexual orientation concerns, the Lesbian-Gay Male Programs Office at the University of Michigan – now known as the Spectrum Center.
Co-author of the first official “Lesbian-Gay Pride Week Proclamation” by a governing body in the U.S.: the Ann Arbor City Council.
Founding member of the PFLAG/Ann Arbor, GLSEN/Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti Area, WRAP, Transgender Advocacy Project, Washtenaw Rainbow Neighbors, Washtenaw Faith Action Network, and the Out Loud Chorus.

Column: Happy Birthday, Jim Toy, Ann Arbor Chronicle, April 29, 2013

Proclamation Honoring Jim Toy, City of Ann Arbor, April 2013; via the Ann Arbor Chronicle (pdf)

Link to a 5-minute Vimeo interview with Jim Toy, on the Spectrum Center's 40th anniversary.

In 2012, he received a Bezonki Award from The Ann Arbor Chronicle for his advocacy work. One of the next year's winners, Linda Diane Feldt, had been a student in a class Jim taught decades ago at Community High School.