Qween Jean Becomes the First Openly Transgender Person to Win a Tony Award

Gayes! The 79th annual Tony Awards took place earlier this week and proved to be historic.

Qween Jean made history Sunday night, becoming the first openly transgender person to win a Tony Award after receiving the honor for Best Costume Design of a Musical for “Cats: The Jellicle Ball.”

Jean began her acceptance speech by celebrating Pride Month, telling the audience, “Happy Pride, y’all! Happy Pride!”

“This is such an amazing experience,” she continued. “I just want to say thank you, thank you so much to the entire Tony Award nominating committee. I want to say thank you to the Almighty for breathing creativity and imagination. We are architects of imagination as costume designers that create so much love and compassion in this world.”

Jean also thanked the cast, crew and creative team behind “Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” describing the production as “monumental.”

“We are here for the legacy of queer people, trans people,” she said. “We are taking up space in ways we have to take up space. We have to shift the paradigm. So I just want to say thank you all so much for this incredible honor.”

“The world right now is deeply, deeply combating so many ailments, and we know, as a society, that when we come together, we can make real, permanent change,” she signed off. “Thank you so much for this honor.”

The gag is that Jean had double the chances of walking away with an award, as she was also nominated for Best Costume Design in a Play for her costuming work on Liberation.

WHO IS QWEEN JEAN?

Born in Haiti and raised in Miami, Florida, Qween Jean found inspiration in queer literature and learned to sew from her grandmother, a dressmaker.

She later earned a bachelor’s degree in business communications from the University of North Carolina and a master’s degree in design from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts before launching her career in costume design.

Prior to her historic Tony win, Jean had already made waves in the theater and arts worlds.

In 2020, she was honored by Black Women on Broadway for her costume work and designed “The Amen Corner” for Shakespeare Theatre Company.

In 2021, she was named an artist-in-residence at MoMA PS1, where she curated “Black Trans Liberation: Memoriam and Deliverance.” Her work and portraiture later appeared in exhibitions at the Queens Museum and Hannah Traore Gallery and were featured in Cero Magazine and Logo’s “30 Changemakers” series.

In 2022, she designed costumes for “Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story in Black and White,” earning a Drama Desk nomination. She also co-hosted “The Big Mix – LGBTQIA+ Pride” alongside Idina Menzel and made a cameo appearance on the “Sex and the City” reboot, “And Just Like That…”

In 2025, she designed costumes for “Saturday Church,” earning additional acclaim for her work. In 2026, her designs for “Liberation” and “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” earned Tony Award nominations, along with a Dorian Award nomination for LGBTQ Theater Artist of the Season.

Beyond her work in theater, Jean has become a prominent advocate for transgender rights and racial justice. Between 2020 and 2022, she organized and participated in LGBTQ+ and racial justice demonstrations across New York City and beyond.

In 2021, Jean helped lead several trans liberation demonstrations, including the Brooklyn Liberation March focused on trans youth empowerment. She also participated in the March On for Voting Rights in Washington and led a rally supporting Abimbola Adelaja following an anti-LGBTQ+ assault.

That same year, she appeared in Interview magazine in conversation with artist Avram Finkelstein.