Ambassador Award

John Mitchell

John Mitchell relocated to Orange County in 2001, making our community his home. Upon his arrival, he immediately contacted the LGBTQ Center OC to find out how he could get involved. From that moment, John has been one of our most active and engaged community members. He was once a member of the LGBTQ Center OC’s Young Professional’s Council and he has volunteered at several Center outreach events helping link community members to much
needed services. In addition to his volunteer work with the Center, John is a consistent supporter of Center events. John also supports and is actively involved with other organizations serving the LGBTQ Community in Orange County. He is an active volunteer and member of the Development
Committee, for Gay for Good and he serves as a member of Radiant Health Centers’ Board of Directors. In his professional life, John served as an Irvine Chapter Ambassador of his company’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Pride Community. He also helped launch the OC Rainbow Alliance Employee Resource Group and encouraged his colleagues from local companies to get involved. John attended the Riordan Leadership Institute in 2019 and joined his employer’s Non Profit Leadership Committee to learn how he can best support local nonprofits and he has put this knowledge to great work. John truly leads by example, demonstrating how one person can make a difference for so many people, in many different ways. He is truly an Ambassador of our LGBTQ Community in Orange County.

Torchbearer Award

Flint

Flint (they/them) is a nonbinary public high school teacher and social media content creator who has been working to foster a more patient, loving, and accepting world for queer youth in Orange County over the last ten years. Having grown up in south OC, Flint returned after college to teach in their hometown, where they have acted as a champion for queer student rights and support ever since. Throughout their tenure, they have propelled changes in the district’s nondiscrimination policy, overseen the drafting of a district-wide transition plan for trans and nonbinary students, worked in advocacy as an elected teachers union leader, and have mentored and supported countless students, parents, and teachers through the challenging waters of growing up and living in Orange County as part of the LGBTQ+ community. Perhaps most notably, Flint hosts a 200-title LGBTQ+ library that has been curated and well-loved by students of the school’s Queer Student Alliance for the last six years.

Undeterred, Flint’s advocacy continues to extend well beyond the classroom. In addition to acting as a frequent guest writer for the online queer publication Into More magazine, Flint is also often a guest on parenting podcasts such as “Camp Wild Heart” and “Come to Mama,” and co-hosts their own podcast “Two Trans Teachers” with colleague and friend Skye Tooley. Online, Flint publishes social media content on TikTok under the moniker @justflintisfine for their 165,000 followers relating to queer life and culture, the joys of “mostly harmless teenage weirdness”, and the uniquely strange experience of public school teaching as an openly nonbinary educator. Their content, shared widely in both education and queer circles, is often made in partnership with organizations like National Education Association, Parents Together, and the It Gets Better Project.