A healthcare leader and long-time advocate, DeeJay Johannessen has spent decades supporting LGBTQ+ people in North Texas. Now recognised with Black Tie Dinner’s 2026 Raymond Kuchling Humanitarian Award, he’s known for both expanding access to care and speaking up when he believes civil rights and community safety are at stake.
The work goes well beyond one award
Johannessen’s work spans two closely connected causes: HIV prevention and care, and the protection of LGBTQ+ civil rights. As chief executive of the HELP Center for LGBTQ+ Health, he leads an organisation serving communities in North Texas, while his advocacy has helped shape public conversations about equality and safety.
Black Tie Dinner selected him for its 2026 Raymond Kuchling Humanitarian Award, recognising his service to the LGBTQ+ community. Dallas Voice reports that his work has included healthcare access, hate-crime protections and efforts to secure non-discrimination safeguards in Fort Worth and Arlington.
From Alaska activism to North Texas healthcare
Johannessen began working in HIV/AIDS services in Alaska, where he became a community organiser and helped establish a housing programme for people living with AIDS. The original story describes how he faced opposition from neighbours but continued, guided by a belief in speaking up for what he considered right.
His experience there carried into his later work in Texas. Dallas Voice traces HELP Center’s beginnings to 1994, when it was founded as an HIV-prevention project, and says Johannessen moved to Arlington in 1998 to lead the organisation. Over time, HELP expanded from prevention into clinical care, including PrEP, HIV services, gender-affirming care and counselling.
Care that tackles practical barriers
For many people, healthcare is only useful if they can reach it, afford it and feel welcome using it. HELP Center says its mission is to reduce financial, social and cultural barriers to HIV, AIDS and sexually transmitted infection prevention and care.
The centre lists services including PrEP, HIV testing, condom distribution and education. In its account of 2025, HELP says it distributed 350,000 condoms, carried out 2,654 HIV tests and connected all 54 people newly diagnosed with HIV to care. It also reports providing more than $60 million in PrEP services without charge to over 5,574 at-risk people.
Why Arlington Pride became part of the debate
Johannessen’s advocacy has also put him at the centre of a difficult local debate. KERA reports that HELP Center suspended Arlington Pride after the city council declined to reinstate an anti-discrimination ordinance that had protected LGBTQ+ residents. Johannessen said the decision was about attendee safety, while Mayor Jim Ross said losing the festival harmed LGBTQ+ residents, even as he understood the protest.
The cancellation drew attention because the event had grown from a small gathering into a major regional celebration. KERA reports that around 15,000 people attended in 2025. Dallas Voice has also documented its rapid growth, from more than 1,000 at the first gathering to more than 10,000 at a later event.
Advocacy means making difficult choices
Pride is both a celebration and a public show of belonging, so suspending it can carry an emotional cost. In a statement reported by Dallas Voice, Johannessen argued that staging a large event without confidence in the community’s protections would put people at risk and could make it seem as though everything was fine.
There’s no neat separation between his health work and his civil-rights advocacy. Both are about whether people can access support and live safely, without being made to feel that their needs are an afterthought. That’s a demanding brief, but it helps explain why Johannessen’s recognition reaches beyond one organisation or one festival.
Recognition is one milestone; the work of care and advocacy carries on.
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