Growing up the son of a Mormon missionary in Texas, Dustin Lance Black knows firsthand how hard it can be to be gay in America. And he’s spent a lifetime fighting to change that, as a playwright, filmmaker and one of the country’s most respected LGBTQ role models. Black has taught screenwriting at UCLA, and been awarded by the university both for his work as a writer and his impact as an activist. He was a key player in repealing California’s Proposition 8—his play, “8,” based on the trial that overturned the discriminatory legislation, has been staged in eight countries and all 50 states and continues to break viewership records online. He also is a founding board member of the American Foundation for Equal Rights. Black shot into the spotlight when his original screenplay Milk, the biopic about the late civil rights activist Harvey Milk starring Sean Penn, won an Academy Award in 2009. In 2017, ABC aired When We Rise, Black’s eight-hour miniseries about the modern LBGTQ movement, which starred Guy Pearce, Mary Louise Parker and a star-studded cast that Black hopes will serve as “a testament to the relevancy and necessity of our continued march toward justice for all.”