We are delighted to ANNOUNCE that Stuart McPhail will chair the Proud Scotland Awards this year. With 8 years’ experience with operators of Pride events he will successfully chair the judges panel for 2022.
Bringing a wealth of experience from the public, private and third Sectors, with experience in delivering international events and festivals including Glasgow 2014 and the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, the Glasgow 2016 Homeless World Cup, the inaugural 2018 European Championships as well as delivering Pride events across the UK over the past 9 years, including more recently the Parade Manager for Pride by Mardi Gla.
Horse is renowned throughout Scotland as a legendary singer songwriter. Her music career has spanned over decades and brought her huge success. As a previous Proud Scotland Awards Hall of Fame winner, Horse has been a huge ambassador to the LGBTQi+ community all her life and campaigned for diversity and inclusion in her own right. We are delighted to have Horse join the judging panel at the awards.
Professional Footballer Zander Murray. The striker has scored 100 plus goals and holds the club record for number of goals scored in one season. In September 2022, Zander became the first Scottish professional footballer to come out as gay and one of the few actively playing footballers in the world. Since coming out Zander has shared his story on many TV shows including Lorraine, and Good Morning Britain on ITV1, and Sky Sports as well many BBC shows.
Zander is also a proud ambassador for LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall, and he regularly works with ‘Time for Inclusive Education,’ a Scottish LGBT inclusive education charity. Zander is a motivational speaker, and he attends workshops in schools, football academies and corporate organisations including TESCO, Babcock, Barclays,
Aviva and the Hong Kong Gay Games to share his story and promote positivemovement in the LGBTQIA+ community.
Zander has won several awards since coming out, including the Unicorn of The Year award from charity ‘Somewhere: For Us’ and a Proud Scotland Award in the Sport & Recreation category. In 2023 he was named by Attitude Magazine as one of the LGBTQ trailblazers changing the world, and his football shirt that he scored his 100th goal wearing was placed in the Scottish Football Museum.
Also last year Zander’s documentary with the BBC launched entitled “Out On The Pitch” where he spoke about his own coming out story. He also interviewed many contributors to look at what is being done to tackle homophobia in Football.
John Stuart is an Inspector with the Care Inspectorate covering the north of Scotland. Within his work, John is part of his organisations LGBT+ champion and Equality groups, providing support around improving outcomes both within, and external to the organisation.
John has been an ambassador of kindness, and runs the local areas Covid-19 volunteer response group, born from his kindness group. John will use his skills as an inspector to examine every nomination that has been submitted with rigour and passion.
Brett has chaired Pride Edinburgh since 2015, having before involved with the organisation since 2005, seeing it established as a charity and continuing it work on Diversity and Inclusion. Pride Edinburgh is Scotlands longest running celebration of diversity and 2022 will see Pride Edinburgh celebrate its 25th anniversary event in the charities 27th year.
Prior to Pride Edinburgh, Brett Chaired Fusion volunteers the volunteer arm of LGBT youth Scotland. He is also the editor of Scotsgayarts.com
Brett is an established actor, writer, producer and arts critic, he believes passionatly in diversity and inclusion for all irrespective of Colour, creed, ability, gender or sexuality.
Brett is thrilled and deeply honoured to once again be returning to the judges panels of the 2022 Proud Scotland awards.
Kasey Monroe is a multi platinum selling Scottish songwriter from Edinburgh. She has been signed to some of the worlds biggest labels including EMI, Virgin (LA), and BMG.
Having worked in groups from her teens to twenties she now acts as a consultant and manager for a variety of artists. Kasey lent her expertise to Mardi Gla 2019 and is passionate about helping new talent to shine through.
She is delighted to be a judge for The 2022 Proud Scotland Awards.
Louise works for an energy supplier as the D&I Accelerator, working hard to create a culture where everyone feels that they truly belong.
She set up and leads the LGBTQ+ network driving policy change and supporting many initiatives to increase awareness of and tackle challenges of LGBTQ+ People in the workplace.
Louise is also a committee member for Pride in Energy, a network committed to improving LGBTQ+ Inclusion within the Energy Sector.
She is a proud and active ally and mum who takes part in various panel events and speaker sessions to support ally’s and is a trusted confidant to many LGBTQ+ Parents and young people.
Scottish professional footballer / athlete Zander was an award winner at the awards on 2023. After making the headlines in 2022 as the first male Scottish senior player to struggle to come out as gay, he has been on a personal journey which now sees him planning a future beyond playing the sport which has dominated his life.
Zander is a true inspiration to the LGBTQi+ community and struggle to come out as gay in his industry saw him lead the way for many people throughout the country. Its a pleasure to have Zander join the team and help recognise those worthy award winners moving forward.
