Jim Toy

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For the 19th century baseball player, see Jim Toy (baseball).

Jim Toy (b. April 29, 1930 in New York City^[1]) is a long-time LGBT activist, considered a pioneer among LGBT activists in Michigan. He became the first gay person in Michigan to come out of the closet in public during a speech at an anti-Vietnam War rally in Detroit's Kennedy Square in April, 1970.^[2]

Toy was a founding member of the Detroit Gay Liberation Movement and the Ann Arbor Gay Liberation Front. He successfully lobbied the University of Michigan to establish the Lesbian-Gay Male Programs Office in 1971. At its founding, it was the first LGBT office at any university in America. He was its co-coordinator and then director from its founding until 1994.

In 1972, Toy co-authored the first official "Lesbian-Gay Pride Week Proclamation" by a U.S. governing body, the Ann Arbor City Council. The same year, he co-authored the city's non-discrimination policy on sexual orientation. He also successfully lobbied the University of Michigan to include sexual orientation in the nondiscrimination clause of its bylaws, a fight that would last until 1993.

Toy continues to work for the University of Michigan as a diversity coordinator in the Office of Institutional Equity. He currently serves on Triangle Foundation's Board of Advisors^[3].