A First Award in West Hollywood Park, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez Will Be Honored at AIDS Walk

The Sunday morning crowd at West Hollywood Park will have a headliner before it takes a single step. Michaela Jaé Rodriguez will receive APLA Health’s first Voice of Visibility Award at the 42nd annual AIDS Walk Los Angeles on Sunday, October 18, the organization announced Thursday.

Joel Kim Booster, her on-screen co-star, will present the award during the kick-off ceremony in the park, which begins at 10:30 a.m. Singer David Archuleta will perform. After the ceremony, walkers set out on a two-mile route through West Hollywood’s Rainbow District, MyNewsLA reported.

APLA Health said it chose Rodriguez, known for Pose and Loot, for her commitment to HIV and AIDS awareness, her work against stigma and her advocacy for the transgender community. Her résumé already holds a run of firsts. She won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama Series for Pose, becoming the first openly transgender actress to win the award, and she was the first trans woman nominated for a Primetime Emmy in a leading acting category, also for Pose. She has also received GLAAD’s Stephen F. Kolzak Award and was named The Advocate’s Person of the Year.

Rodriguez spoke plainly about why the walk still matters. “There is still a cruel distance between what medicine can do and who actually gets to benefit from it,” she said in the announcement. “Our lives cannot become negotiable when the political climate changes or when supporting us becomes inconvenient. If you stand with this community, that commitment has to remain when it is hardest.”

“Michaela Jaé is a powerful voice for the community,” said Craig E. Thompson, the chief executive of APLA Health. “Voices like hers keep HIV and equity in the public conversation at a time when it would be easy to look away.”

This year’s theme is Defend Care, Demand Action, and APLA Health describes AIDS Walk Los Angeles as the first and oldest AIDS walk in the country. The organization, formerly AIDS Project Los Angeles, serves more than 23,000 people a year through eight federally qualified health centers across Los Angeles County, and its Vance North Necessities of Life Program distributes more than one million meals annually. This year’s sponsors include Paul Hastings as premier sponsor and ABC 7, Gilead and Paramount as grand sponsors, with the City of West Hollywood among the principal sponsors and The Abbey among the supporting sponsors. For the full picture of the morning, see our earlier story on the 42nd AIDS Walk.

Registration for individuals and teams is open on the AIDS Walk Los Angeles site. The morning starts at West Hollywood Park on San Vicente Boulevard.