“Cats” Costume Designer Qween Jean Makes History at 2026 Tony Awards as First Openly Trans Person to Win

The activist-artist won this year's Best Costume Design of a Musical Tony for 'Cats: The Jellicle Ball'

NEED TO KNOW

• Qween Jean won the Tony Award for Best Costume Design of a Musical at the June 7 ceremony
• The designer behind Cats: The Jellicle Ball, the Andrew Lloyd Webber revival, is the first openly transgender person to win a Tony
• “We have to take up space. We have to shift the paradigm,” she said in her acceptance speech, shouting out fellow queer and trans people

The 79th annual Tony Awards is proving to be a historic one. 

In winning the Best Costume Design of a Musical prize for Cats: The Jellicle Ball on June 7, Qween Jean has become the first openly transgender person to win in the history of the Tonys. 

“This experience has been monumental,” said an emotional Jean in her acceptance speech at Radio City Music Hall during the Laura Benanti– and Tituss Burgess-hosted pre-show, The Tony Awards: Act One. She wore a ruffled pink gown of her own design, per Playbill.

“We are here for the legacy of queer people, trans people,” continued Jean. “We are taking up space in ways we have to take up space. We have to shift the paradigm.”

Thanking Tony voters “for this incredible honor,” she added, “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.”

Cats: The Jellicle Ball went into this year’s Tony Awards with nine nominations, including for Best Revival of a Musical.

The latest iteration of the Andrew Lloyd Webber classic (inspired by T.S. Eliot) opened at the Broadhurst Theatre this April. Directed by Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch and choreographed by Arturo Lyons and Omari Wiles, the production radically reimagines the musical with inspiration from ballroom culture.

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The Haiti-born Jean was also nominated in the Best Costume Design in a Play category for her work on Bess Wohl's Liberation (which won the 2026 Tony Award for Best Play). It’s been a busy season for the costume designer, as she also won a Drama Desk Award for Cats, a Lucille Lortel Award for Off-Broadway’s Saturday Church and a Dorian Award for LGBTQ Theater Artist of the Season.

While nonbinary artists including Toby Marlow, Alex Newell, J. Harrison Ghee and Cole Escola, have taken home Tony statuettes, no openly trans person has claimed the prize before now.

Jean is the founder of Black Trans Liberation, an outreach organization that hosts weekly communal meals for New York City's transgender and gender-nonconforming community.

Tickets for CATS: The Jellicle Ball are on sale now.