Kim Watson wins Christine Jorgensen Trailblazer Award

The Bronx LGBTQ Center has announced that they will present their Christine Jorgensen Trailblazer Award to Kim Watson. This is the first of five community pride awards they will present at their 2014 Bronx LGBTQ Pride & Health Fair on Saturday, July 19 from 12-6 p.m. at the amphitheater at Crotona Park in The Bronx.

"I'm really honored and appreciative that I'm getting this award," said Watson. "I'm very excited and surprised at the same time. I know I do a lot of work, but I do it out of my passion like a lot of trans individuals here in the Bronx. It's a shock to me to see myself receiving such an award."

Watson is co-founder of CK Life organization, founded in 2007 to make sure individuals of the trans experience get the services they need. They work with no funding from the government, and so the work they do is funded by fundraisers. They see more than 200 patients a year from New York, New Jersey, Philly and as far as Baltimore and North Carolina.

Christine Jorgensen, a former GI who was born and raised in The Bronx, was a pioneer of transgender rights. She was the first person ever to undergo sex reassignment surgery (SRS) in the United States, and spent her later years working as a successful Hollywood actress.

Watson is a proud wife and mother of a 4-year old daughter. She has worked tirelessly on behalf of the transgender community, having founded and become the chief executive of CK Life, which is the first specifically transgender medical clinic in The Bronx to serve all transgender individuals. She is also the first person to make history by adapting the H.O.W. (HEALING OUR WOMEN) intervention to the transgender community, which was created by Gayle E. Wyatt, Ph.D., a Professor at UCLA.

Join Bronx Pride on Saturday, July 19 at their 2014 Bronx LGBTQ Pride & Health Fair to recognize and honor Watson's work. Four additional awards will also be presented. Lady Clover Honey will co-host the Bronx Pride event this year. She was a staple at last year's Pride event, and has been a strong supporter and ally of the new Bronx LGBTQ Center.

Joining her onstage is The Life Ministries Choir, who will open the event with a gospel rendition of Pharrell Williams's smash hit, "Happy." Additional performances will be provided by Bronx vocalist Frankie Allday, drag artist LeeLee Heavenly and spoken word artist Nicole Goodwin.

Producer, writer and director Leslie L. Smith will be speaking at the Pride event this year. Smith is the editor of "Leaving The Rest: Gay Men on Alcoholism, Addiction and Recovery." His film "David Searching" is also available on Amazon.

Bronx Pride must raise $15,000 this year to produce Pride. Half of this money is fees for permits and licenses required by NYC. The other half is expenses such as equipment, promotional costs, decorations, and related expenses in producing a pride event. Please donate now.

For more information, visit http://blog.bronxlgbtqcenter.org/2014/06/the-christine-jorgensen-trailblazer.html

To donate for Bronx Pride, visit http://bronxpride2014.eventbrite.com/ or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/events/559875584095127/.