Growing up surrounded by Mormon culture and military bases, Dustin Black worried about his sexuality. When he found himself attracted to a neighborhood boy, he remembers telling himself, "If I ever admit it, I'll be hurt, and I'll be brought down." He says that his "acute awareness" of his sexuality made him dark, shy and at times suicidal, and he only came out after leaving high school.

When going to North Salinas High School, Black began to work in theater at The Western Stage in Salinas-Monterey, California, and later worked on productions including Bare at Hollywood's Hudson Main Stage Theater. Black graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Theater, Film, and Television (UCLA) while apprenticing with stage directors, taking acting jobs and working on theater lighting crews.

In 2000, he wrote and directed "The Journey of Jared Price", a gay romance film, and "Something Close to Heaven", a gay coming-of-age short film. In 2001, he directed and was a subject in the documentary "On the Bus" about a Nevada road trip taken by six gay men. In 2006, he was hired as a writer on the HBO drama series Big Love about a polygamistic family. He has written for all seasons, serving on season one as a staff writer, executive story editor in season two, and was promoted again, to co-producer, for season three.

Black had first visited San Francisco in the early 1990s and was inspired by city supervisor Harvey Milk's representation of the gay community. In college, he viewed Rob Epstein's documentary "The Times of Harvey Milk", and thought, "I just want to do something with this, why hasn't someone done something with this?" Researching Milk's life for three years, Black met with Milk's former aides Cleve Jones and Anne Kronenberg, as well as former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos, and began to write a feature film screenplay encompassing the events of Milk's life. The screenplay was written on spec, but Black showed the script to Jones, who passed it on to his friend Gus Van Sant, who signed on to direct the feature.

On February 22, 2009, Black won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for "Milk" at the 81st Academy Award. In his acceptance speech at the Oscar ceremony, he said:

"... When I was thirteen years old my beautiful mother moved me and my family from a conservative Mormon home in Texas to California and it was there that I heard the story of Harvey Milk and it gave me hope. It gave me the hope to live my life openly as who I am, and that one day I could even fall in love and maybe even get married...

I want to thank my mom, who has always loved me for who I am even when there was pressure not to.

But most of all, if Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think he would want me to say to all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told that they are less than by their churches, or by the government, or by their families, that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value, and that no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you and that very soon I promise you, you will have equal rights federally across this great nation of ours.

Thank you and thank you God for giving us Harvey Milk."

Black told the Daily Bruin that "You hear people say, 'This is my reason for being here. This is my compass.' For me, that's 'Milk.' I wanted to maybe inspire the younger generation to start becoming activists in a grassroots way. There's a lot of stuff that still needs changing — not just gay rights."

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