Jim Toy (MSW '81)
Thankfully for Michigan's TBLG community, Jim Toy abandoned his graduate study in musicology and instead earned an MSW in clinical social work from U-M. Toy has since been a pioneer for social justice and equal rights, but he still loves music and is proud to have both played and sung Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in public performance, though "not simultaneously," he jokes.
As a junior high student, Toy's first struggle against injustice was with his mixed racial identity. In Ohio during WWII, Jim wore a sign around his neck that read "I am not a Jap." Escaping racial intolerance, he eventually earned a Fulbright travel grant for an assistantship teaching English in French high schools and traversed Europe in a '29 Citroen. Upon returning to the United States, he lived in Manhattan as a conscientious objector and later opposed the Vietnam War in Michigan.
But out of the closet and into the streets, Toy became famous in 1970, when at an anti-war rally in Detroit's Kennedy Square, he became the first person to "come out" publicly in Michigan. In 1971--now fighting another form of intolerance--Toy co-founded the Lesbian Gay Male Programs Office at the University of Michigan, the first staff office in a U.S. institution of higher learning to respond to sexual orientation concerns.
Over the years, Toy has helped bring about the inclusion of gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation in the university's non-discrimination bylaw. Toy has also founded and worked with HIV/AIDS resource centers and social justice organizations throughout southeast Michigan. Toy continues to counsel individuals and families on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Since his retirement in 2008, Toy has continued his advocacy with the Association of Michigan LGBTQ and Ally Organizations and has lobbied for state-wide anti-bullying legislation. He also works to form strong bonds with clergy through the American Friends Service Committee's Michigan Inclusive Justice Program. "I'm bureaucratically retired, but pragmatically, no," he explains. "I'm retreaded."
Above all, he continues to advocate and fight against those who oppose equal rights "because," he says, "they work just as hard as I do." To help stay motivated in retirement, Toy draws inspiration from his old love--music--citing the lyrics of an Episcopal hymn, "no time for rest 'til glows the western sky."