 He was awarded the Alumni Citation, Denison's highest alumni honor, in June 2001, and was featured as an early LGBT alumnus in an article on the college's LGBTQ history in 2013.Jim Toy identified as being gay during his speech at an anti-Vietnam-War rally in Kennedy Square, Detroit, in April 1970.At the rally, Toy was representing the Detroit Gay Liberation Front, of which he was a founding member.