Seattle Pride Awards Monserrat Padilla the Ackerman Award for Service

Honoring Monserrat Padilla: 2025 Ackerman Award for Service Recipient

The Ackerman Award for Service is given annually to an outstanding leader who exemplifies the heart of Pride: community, courage, and care. Nominated by the community, this award is a celebration of service rooted in resistance and love.

This year, Seattle Pride is proud to recognize Monserrat Padilla with the 2025 Ackerman Award for Service.

For more than 15 years, Monserrat has been a bold and visionary force, advocating for the rights and dignity of LGBTQIA2S+ and immigrant communities across Washington and beyond. As a movement builder, coalition leader, and philanthropic strategist, her story is one of transformation, truth, and tenacity.

“As a community organizer, movement builder, and philanthropic leader, it is my deep honor to receive the Ackerman Award for Service from Seattle Pride during Pride and Immigrant Heritage Month.”

Monserrat’s journey is deeply rooted in both Pride and place.

“I came to the United States at the age of two. Growing up undocumented in the heart of Seattle meant learning to navigate fear and invisibility. At 15, I stepped out of the shadows and declared myself undocumented and unafraid.”

“During that time, I sold hot dogs every weekend in front of Neighbours Nightclub, Seattle’s longest-running LGBTQ+ club, to help my family make ends meet, quietly watching the beauty of queer community shine on Broadway, too scared then to claim it as my own. A few years later, I found the strength to come out as queer, and at 25, to live my truth as a trans woman. Each step was an act of resistance, of love, a refusal to disappear.”

Her work is a testament to how personal liberation and collective liberation are intertwined.

“Organizing became my lifeline, not just to survive, but to transform. That journey of becoming myself is deeply tied to a journey of service. I began organizing to protect LGBTQ+ and immigrant communities.”

“From co-leading statewide campaigns to defeat anti-trans ballot initiatives to building coalitions and networks passing state laws that elevated Washington’s immigrant rights policies to the national stage and now stand as cornerstone legislation protecting our communities.”

“My organizing turned fear into action, and isolation into power. Because for my community, survival was never the end goal. Thriving is. Joy is. Liberation is.”

As our communities continue to face rising threats, from anti-trans legislation to harsh immigration enforcement, Monserrat reminds us where our strength lies:

“Today, as our communities face renewed attacks across the nation, from transphobic laws to militarized immigration enforcement, I’m reminded that we’ve always had everything we need: each other. The antidote to fear is community.”

“Pride is not just a celebration. It is resistance, resilience, and radical joy. Dancing, existing, and building solidarity across communities is how we metamorphosize into the next evolution this moment demands.”

And her message to anyone watching from the margins is clear:

“To every person in the shadows or living in fear: your truth is powerful. To the movement: keep building, keep dreaming, and keep organizing from a place of strategic love. That is how we win, living fully, freely, and fabulously together.”

Seattle Pride is deeply honored to uplift Monserrat Padilla as our 2025 Ackerman Award for Service honoree. She reminds us that our truth is power and our community is unstoppable.

Join us in celebrating Monserrat and all those who make Pride what it is: a movement, a celebration, and a call to collective action.