it’s mr. Morgan sitting down now is
either okay good hello my name is Emma
almond I’m a high school senior at Kiev
international school I’m really nervous
and I’ll be surprised if my speech isn’t
a little shaky so sorry about that in
advance anyway this events theme is
change so I’m going to talk about how
change can happen I think that it’s
easier to think about things on the
small scale and expand outwards so I’m
going to look at change in the frame of
the LGBT community LGBT for
clarification is not a sandwich it’s an
acronym where L stands for lesbian g for
gay be for bisexual and T for
transgender there is usually a whole
slew of other letters after those but I
really don’t know enough to do it and do
them any justice so I’m just going to
overlook that for now before we entrench
ourselves in the particulars of the
community and why change in the LGBT
community make a good match I’d like to
tell you a story to provide some context
the year I turned nine years old my
family and I bounced between seven
houses it felt like we were moving every
other week we lost two whole cats and
probably broke at least an entire set of
dinner plates and yeah sure occasionally
I had my own room and once we ended up
in a house with the yard at least as big
as a football field but I loved my cats
more than I love my personal space a
potential case of Stockholm Syndrome and
we were in that house with a big yard
for like two months before we had to
haul off in the middle of the night we
did eventually stagger to a momentary
halt in Texas but by then my opinion of
change had soured so completely that I
was resistant even to the smallest
changes in my routine this was because
at nine years old every change felt so
agonizingly monumental that I was sure
that’s how change was supposed to be
change was at the default a horrible
ordeal you had to slog through of course
despite my newfound loathing of all
things non sedentary my family and I
moved to Kiev Ukraine two years later
and I had never even heard of Ukraine
Thanks American centric geographical
education I couldn’t make heads or tails
of Russian and half my extended family
was positive I was going to come back a
communist we had to ditch three whole
cats again and half of everything we
owned we arrived in the dead of night to
what might as well have been the moon
for all the places I’d been and I
thought moving from I thought moving
from one County to another was painful
the me right now loves Ukraine but 12
year old me was unconvinced even the
whole snow in the winter thing was novel
for a hot minute before i realized that
texas had us woefully unprepared for
that nonsense i met people from all over
the world but i was so culture shocked
by the notion that it seemed endlessly
difficult instead of wondrous and knew i
had no intention of letting things in my
life change ever again when I came to
Ukraine by the way the minute you decide
that something is never ever going to
happen to you again you may as well ask
the universe for the kick in the pants
that’s headed your way I wanted to
continue stomping through life with my
eyes closed and avoid all things new and
potentially change inducing something
was bound to give and of course it did
right about when I turned 13 puberty am
i right I was cruising along enduring
what most prepubescence do acne body
oh hey I was gay of course I am still
gay and that is something of a problem
not my problem I’m gay and that’s more
or less the end of things on my end but
it’s not all rainbows and sunshine if
you’re here in your queer I mean I’m
proud to be a member of the LGBT
community communities are great they put
a bunch of like people under the same
umbrella a rainbow umbrella so they can
hang out with similar people with
similar interests problem is when you
put a bunch of people all together it
makes them a much easier target and LGBT
folks are definitely akin to punching
bags in the global community we could
look for instance at how they’re treated
right here in Ukraine every country that
enters into an agreement with the
European Union trade-related or
otherwise has to meet a few conditions
the folding of certainty
existing laws into their to boot into
their justice system for instance among
those are laws which prevent the
discrimination of minority groups which
includes LGBT folks the EU is pretty
strict about these things with a sort of
accept these conditions or find another
trade union kind of attitude a list of
countries who have folded such laws into
their own includes georgia albania
serbia mexico and even iraq but not
Ukraine so cultural sensitivities and
even religious proclivities are put by
the roadside when it comes to the e use
trade agreements and political
agreements but Ukraine was an exception
to the rule for the sake of encouraging
Ukraine to enter into the agreement and
make governmental transition a little
easier now knowing the climate now
knowing what the climate for LGBT folks
is in a country which could even be
contained which could even be considered
tame in comparison to other countries
like say Nigeria where I have cheese
where I’d have been sentenced to death
by now it hopefully is understandable
that I’d like to shake things up a
little which brings me back to the
overarching topic of this talk change
I’m of the opinion that how we think
about change is not always conducive to
progress we like to talk about change in
uncomfortably broad terms burdened by
connotation it’s heroic and triumphant
or it’s agonizing but inspiring always
though it’s big change has got to be big
and exciting and important the year I
was nine and moving all over the place I
hated change with a burning passion to
the point that I began to hate to the
point that I began to hate the idea of
change I thought that because the
changes that had happened in my life had
all seems so colossal that all changed
afterwards was going to be just as
horrific I even expected some
earth-shaking change when I stumbled
over my sexuality nothing was ever going
to be the same I figured that the next
day I was going to get up go to school
and somehow everyone would know as it
turns out life just goes on I got
dressed the next morning I went to my
classes struggled to meth ate a peanut
butter and jelly sandwich and the whole
time I was gay and doing the same stuff
I always do
there weren’t any extra rainbows or
glitter involved and that awkward
juxtaposition of that frightened fantasy
and the really Monday in reality helped
me understand that we’re thinking of
things mm-hmm not things we’re thinking
of change like it’s a mountain when
really it’s a molehill which is that
little pile of dirt you get when moles
poke their heads up above ground they’re
small and mountains are babe guess what
I’m getting at and if we’re assuming
that mole hills or mountains nothing is
getting done the thing about change is
that it rarely ever starts out as more
than a molehill or really as one mole
one person who gets to thinking or makes
one unintentional or perhaps even
deliberate shift in routine or diet or
behavior it doesn’t immediately feel
like anything has happened moles aren’t
usually aware that they’re moles in the
first place but they do what they do and
they leave a mole hill behind maybe your
mole hill is saying hello to that quiet
girl in class or trying a new sugar-free
diet for a while it’s going to be
uninteresting and run of the mill but
that’s just the beginning I’m the mole
and gay rights or my mole hill and of
course things have started to change
little by little I got comfortable
expressing myself in ways I thought
would be incriminating before I cut my
hair short and we’re masculine clothes
and you know I’ve taken a few blows in
consequence but it’s still nothing like
the mountain I had thought it would be
when I was 13 I had a horror story all
mapped out in my head getting lynched
never finding a loyal or loving partner
and never being able to build a family
because change is supposed to be
agonizing big and exciting and important
because that’s easy it’s easy to think
that one thing happens and it builds and
builds and builds all on its own to
something remarkable because of that one
initial action we think of change like
some sort of inertia we implement that
initial push and sit back and watch the
rest happen and of course that’s how we
want change to work i wish i could give
this speech and let it snowball out of
control well I look on maybe in a year’s
time LGBT rights will have improved but
that’s just pretty thinking and it’s not
going to get me to the places I want to
be the trouble is that we can’t change
the world
a molehill isn’t a mountain sometimes it
feels like a mountain I have people I
love who will watch this video and our
relationship is going to change because
of what I’ve said here today it feels
like a mountain but for all the enormity
it only really matters that much to me
for now we all have people and things in
our lives that we can reach out and
change right then and there these are
our spheres of influence and I’ll reach
out to everyone I can even if it feels
big even if it hurts despite my best
efforts though I can only reach so many
people I have a relatively small sphere
of influence and no one in this room
sorry has a sphere of influence big
enough that they alone could make the
monumental change we all like to think
about instead we have to content
ourselves with making mole hills which
isn’t as bad as it seems it’s not as
though mole hills can’t become mountains
but making mole hills into mountains is
hard work it’s arduous and tedious it
takes integrity and endurance it takes
wherewithal and patience and a heap of
other synonymous s80 words but more than
anything it takes commitment we have to
make our molehill into a mountain and
not everybody likes to think that your
mole hill deserves to be a mountain and
that’s why it’s a molehill in the first
place that’s where the grip comes in
it’s going to start unremarkable
unattractive and so small you can barely
tell it’s there you have to pack dirt
into that little mole hill until you’ve
got something that passes for a mountain
and you might have to drag all your
friends to come and see what you’ve made
it’s not going to be easy and it might
take a while but it can be done I think
that if more people could face the music
and start approaching change with mole
hills in mind we’d get a lot more done
that’s not to say there’s not a lot
being done gay rights are on the up and
up and we’ve seen right here in Ukraine
what happens when somebody turns some
other molehill into a mountain one of
those protestors in my dawn sat down did
their bit and waited for the ripple
effect to do the rest they hunkered down
and they started packing in dirt every
way they could they called friends they
rented billboards and they raised a
stink about unfair government where
everybody could see they wanted
something to happen and they made it
happen they
made it a big deal they made that
molehill a mountain it’s easy to feel
defeatist when you think this way I’m
just making little changes look at my
sad little mole hill or to feel like
you’re not making enough of a difference
so you might as well not make one at all
the world is too big and I’m too small
why try to make something happen when
it’s so hard that was definitely me like
three years ago but the LGBT community
here needs that kind of change and I’m
not a networking speech giving kind of
gal usually but I’m willing to get on a
stage in front of a sea of almost
strangers because gay rights my rights
matter to me they matter enough that I’m
willing to do just about anything that I
can do to make things a little bit
better real change is a lot less
stoicism and heroic suffering and a lot
more network King and shameless slogging
through the mud but if it matters if
it’s worth doing then it’s worth the
tedious task of piling the effort up and
up and up until your mole hill is a mountain thank