RiseUP With Dawn Ennis

Dawn Ennis (she/her/hers) is an award-winning journalist, the sports editor for the Los Angeles Blade and was previously an on-air correspondent for “Connecticut Voice Out Loud” on WTNH-TV and a regular contributor to CT Voice Magazine, The Daily Beast, Out.com, SeniorExecutive.com and StarTrek.com, among other publications.

For four years, she was a columnist and regular contributor to Forbes.com.
She was also a TV news consultant and hosted the “RiseUP With Dawn Ennis” talk show for six years.

In 2013, Ennis was the first journalist in network TV news to come out as transgender. She subsequently served as the first out trans editor at The Advocate, LGBTQ Nation and Outsports.com, which she led as managing editor and podcast team manager for 2 1⁄2 years.

Before coming out, Ennis worked in the newsrooms of ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC, as well at Politico and TV stations across the country as a writer, producer and news manager. Her blogs about her transition and life experiences are at lifeafterdawn.com, HuffPost and Medium.

Ennis teaches journalism, feature writing, sports reporting, advertising, public relations, podcasting and media literacy at the University of Hartford, while simultaneously managing the university’s state-of-the-art podcast studio and pursuing her Master’s degree in Communications.

In September 2023, Ennis was hired as a newscast producer at WTIC-TV Fo61 in Hartford, Conn., marking her professional return to the mainstream television news industry after nine years.

She previously served as co-chair of the West Hartford Human Rights Commission, on the board of directors at the Triangle Community Center and West Hartford Pride and as co-chair of the LGBTQ Caucus of the Connecticut Democratic Party. She is a volunteer member of several committees at her synagogue.

For a dozen years, she worked as a successful child model and actor in New York City.

Ennis is a single mom residing in West Hartford, Conn., with her three children, their dog Dahlia and their cat Faith.

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