so I’m gonna start off my talk with a
quick little live in-person pull from
everybody in the crowd how many of you
guys got more than 6 hours of sleep last
night that’s good I did not how many of
you guys ate breakfast this morning
that’s even better once again I did not
how many of you guys think pineapple
belongs on pizza everyone please take a
look around these are the innovators of
tomorrow how many of you guys in this
moment at this point in your lives can
say that you’re happy that you’re
content with where you are and you’ll
take joy from the things happening
around you that’s good to see you know
from a majority of the crowd I’m 17
years old and even though I’m very young
I am rarely criticised I have two loving
parents and I have a roof over my head I
get to go to school every day where I
get a quality education I don’t have to
worry about getting tied up or kidnapped
I don’t have to share a room with my
sister and I am going to college and
I’ll have the financial aid to do so in
fact I think the only thing I actually
have to worry about is accidentally
poisoning myself after eating a peanut
and dying because I don’t know how to
use my EpiPen yeah that’s bad but in all
seriousness I have friends who care
about me and my life is stable I’m happy
and I think that everybody deserves
happiness you know we all have our own
preconceptions and notions of what
happiness means to us as individuals but
I think once we obtain that happiness
then we will do everything in our power
to protect it we will set up emotional
and mental maybe even physical barriers
to keep us within this euphoric state of
content and I think happiness is the key
to a fulfilling life but I want you guys
to take a step back
and think what happens when someone is
robbed of their opportunity to be happy
what happens when someone is not free to
pursue their identity what happens when
someone may have to come to terms with
lesbian gay bisexual transgender
intersex and asexual are just some of
the sexual orientations and gender
identities that people around the world
luckily for us are progressively
embracing and accepting and educating
themselves about people come out of the
closet every day and they’re welcomed
into a community of peace into a
community of pride into a community of
happiness but I think that all of us
know unfortunately this is not the case
for many many people around the world
who live in communities or an
environment where it is not socially or
religiously acceptable to identify as
anything other than their cisgender
norms you know the sentiment that men
are men and women are women and men love
only women and women love only men are
very prevalent in these societies not
that there’s anything wrong with that
but it does become a conflict of
interest for people who don’t exactly
conform to those societal standards like
Leticia green a 22 year old transgender
woman from Syracuse New York who was
shot and killed because her assailant
thought that she was gay local news
outlets and media reported the story
using her legal name moses cannon or
like semen august provost who was killed
and his body burned while he was
stationed at Camp Pendleton family and
friends believe that he was murdered
because he was an openly bisexual man in
the military or like Carl Joseph Walker
Hoover who was an 11 year old boy from
Springfield Massachusetts who hung
himself with an extension cord after
being bullied all year by his
peers and being called to feminine and
gay or on June 12 2016
when 53 people were injured and 49 were
slaughtered at the pulse nightclub
shooting in Orlando Florida like all of
us dread these individuals became
statistics and I believe that sharing
their stories with you now will allow
you to fully comprehend the extreme
extent of prejudice and violence that
people of the LGBTQ community face on an
everyday basis but from the seemingly
casual injustice of teenagers not being
able to be themselves to the loss of
innocent lives wherever your personal
experience falls on that spectrum you
have to realize that we should all be
fighting for the same things we should
all be fighting for acceptance and
recognition and respect now I felt that
my call to change came last year when
Donald Trump was elected president as
you know of the United States and even
though Trump’s stances on a variety of
ideas and topics were controversial to
say the least I was taken back by vice
president Mike Pence stance on
conversion therapy and for those of you
who don’t know what conversion therapy
is it is treatment that is introduced or
sometimes forced upon individuals of the
LGBTQIA community to when they are
conditioned to conform to their
cisgender roles in society now I saw an
injustice happening right before my eyes
in the midst of history the LGBT
community was a prevalent topic in a
presidential election but they were
being represented in such a negative
light that a superior of a successful
political party was actively against
what this community stood for but then
soon after came the women’s March and
now we have the resurgence of the black
lives matter movement and we have
Stoneman Douglas High School students
planning walk outs across the nation and
getting global attention and that’s when
I realized
whatever class creed color what you
believe in who you believe in what you
affiliate with you have to acknowledge
and believe in the power of people and
the power of congregation and the power
of individuals coming together under one
unifying goal and I knew that I needed
to be the catalyst for the change that I
wanted to see in society and with that
after recruiting six other intelligent
and business savvy young women in my
social justice class we created the
happy campaign now the happy campaign is
a year-long fundraising event for the
San Francisco LGBT Center we thought
that through selling merchandise such as
sweatshirts and shirts and clothes and
buttons and hats and pins we would raise
enough money to donate to the
organization and its services but then
it hit me
my confidence wavered a bit I thought
was the country ready for what we were
going to say hell I didn’t even think
the school was ready but we made that
leap we took that risk and it paid off
because we were pleasantly surprised
within the first three months of the
project’s conception we’ve raised
fifteen hundred dollars we’re making
connections to the Morgan Stanley branch
in San Francisco and the lavender cow
program at UC Berkeley we’re planning on
making the campaign a legacy project for
underclassmen when they come into their
senior year they will continue to
educate themselves and educate others
about the LGBTQ community but I think
the impact of the campaign goes beyond
t-shirts and fashionable clothing items
the impact of the campaign is so
profound yet so simple as we adorn
ourselves with a campaign logo with LGBT
flag plastered on the left side of our
chest we are saying that we are allies
that we are members of a community
disenfranchised of a community
disrespected of a community pushed aside
but pushed aside no longer
and I think that it’s time for me to be
pushed aside no longer I have friends
who love me and care about me and the
family who accepts me for who I am and I
am blessed beyond recognition
but I have not been honest with myself
for a few years now and I think it’s the
best time now more than ever to say
confidently to you all for the first
and I believe that just like me this
campaign is destined to become more it’s
destined to become more because I know
that it is worth and it is the purpose
of this campaign goes beyond the
t-shirts the purpose of this campaign is
to make more people prideful to make
more people confident to make more
people embrace themselves and others
around them who may not be the same to
make more people genuinely and truly
happy thank you
[Applause] [Music]
quick little live in-person pull from
everybody in the crowd how many of you
guys got more than 6 hours of sleep last
night that’s good I did not how many of
you guys ate breakfast this morning
that’s even better once again I did not
how many of you guys think pineapple
belongs on pizza everyone please take a
look around these are the innovators of
tomorrow how many of you guys in this
moment at this point in your lives can
say that you’re happy that you’re
content with where you are and you’ll
take joy from the things happening
around you that’s good to see you know
from a majority of the crowd I’m 17
years old and even though I’m very young
I am rarely criticised I have two loving
parents and I have a roof over my head I
get to go to school every day where I
get a quality education I don’t have to
worry about getting tied up or kidnapped
I don’t have to share a room with my
sister and I am going to college and
I’ll have the financial aid to do so in
fact I think the only thing I actually
have to worry about is accidentally
poisoning myself after eating a peanut
and dying because I don’t know how to
use my EpiPen yeah that’s bad but in all
seriousness I have friends who care
about me and my life is stable I’m happy
and I think that everybody deserves
happiness you know we all have our own
preconceptions and notions of what
happiness means to us as individuals but
I think once we obtain that happiness
then we will do everything in our power
to protect it we will set up emotional
and mental maybe even physical barriers
to keep us within this euphoric state of
content and I think happiness is the key
to a fulfilling life but I want you guys
to take a step back
and think what happens when someone is
robbed of their opportunity to be happy
what happens when someone is not free to
pursue their identity what happens when
someone may have to come to terms with
lesbian gay bisexual transgender
intersex and asexual are just some of
the sexual orientations and gender
identities that people around the world
luckily for us are progressively
embracing and accepting and educating
themselves about people come out of the
closet every day and they’re welcomed
into a community of peace into a
community of pride into a community of
happiness but I think that all of us
know unfortunately this is not the case
for many many people around the world
who live in communities or an
environment where it is not socially or
religiously acceptable to identify as
anything other than their cisgender
norms you know the sentiment that men
are men and women are women and men love
only women and women love only men are
very prevalent in these societies not
that there’s anything wrong with that
but it does become a conflict of
interest for people who don’t exactly
conform to those societal standards like
Leticia green a 22 year old transgender
woman from Syracuse New York who was
shot and killed because her assailant
thought that she was gay local news
outlets and media reported the story
using her legal name moses cannon or
like semen august provost who was killed
and his body burned while he was
stationed at Camp Pendleton family and
friends believe that he was murdered
because he was an openly bisexual man in
the military or like Carl Joseph Walker
Hoover who was an 11 year old boy from
Springfield Massachusetts who hung
himself with an extension cord after
being bullied all year by his
peers and being called to feminine and
gay or on June 12 2016
when 53 people were injured and 49 were
slaughtered at the pulse nightclub
shooting in Orlando Florida like all of
us dread these individuals became
statistics and I believe that sharing
their stories with you now will allow
you to fully comprehend the extreme
extent of prejudice and violence that
people of the LGBTQ community face on an
everyday basis but from the seemingly
casual injustice of teenagers not being
able to be themselves to the loss of
innocent lives wherever your personal
experience falls on that spectrum you
have to realize that we should all be
fighting for the same things we should
all be fighting for acceptance and
recognition and respect now I felt that
my call to change came last year when
Donald Trump was elected president as
you know of the United States and even
though Trump’s stances on a variety of
ideas and topics were controversial to
say the least I was taken back by vice
president Mike Pence stance on
conversion therapy and for those of you
who don’t know what conversion therapy
is it is treatment that is introduced or
sometimes forced upon individuals of the
LGBTQIA community to when they are
conditioned to conform to their
cisgender roles in society now I saw an
injustice happening right before my eyes
in the midst of history the LGBT
community was a prevalent topic in a
presidential election but they were
being represented in such a negative
light that a superior of a successful
political party was actively against
what this community stood for but then
soon after came the women’s March and
now we have the resurgence of the black
lives matter movement and we have
Stoneman Douglas High School students
planning walk outs across the nation and
getting global attention and that’s when
I realized
whatever class creed color what you
believe in who you believe in what you
affiliate with you have to acknowledge
and believe in the power of people and
the power of congregation and the power
of individuals coming together under one
unifying goal and I knew that I needed
to be the catalyst for the change that I
wanted to see in society and with that
after recruiting six other intelligent
and business savvy young women in my
social justice class we created the
happy campaign now the happy campaign is
a year-long fundraising event for the
San Francisco LGBT Center we thought
that through selling merchandise such as
sweatshirts and shirts and clothes and
buttons and hats and pins we would raise
enough money to donate to the
organization and its services but then
it hit me
my confidence wavered a bit I thought
was the country ready for what we were
going to say hell I didn’t even think
the school was ready but we made that
leap we took that risk and it paid off
because we were pleasantly surprised
within the first three months of the
project’s conception we’ve raised
fifteen hundred dollars we’re making
connections to the Morgan Stanley branch
in San Francisco and the lavender cow
program at UC Berkeley we’re planning on
making the campaign a legacy project for
underclassmen when they come into their
senior year they will continue to
educate themselves and educate others
about the LGBTQ community but I think
the impact of the campaign goes beyond
t-shirts and fashionable clothing items
the impact of the campaign is so
profound yet so simple as we adorn
ourselves with a campaign logo with LGBT
flag plastered on the left side of our
chest we are saying that we are allies
that we are members of a community
disenfranchised of a community
disrespected of a community pushed aside
but pushed aside no longer
and I think that it’s time for me to be
pushed aside no longer I have friends
who love me and care about me and the
family who accepts me for who I am and I
am blessed beyond recognition
but I have not been honest with myself
for a few years now and I think it’s the
best time now more than ever to say
confidently to you all for the first
and I believe that just like me this
campaign is destined to become more it’s
destined to become more because I know
that it is worth and it is the purpose
of this campaign goes beyond the
t-shirts the purpose of this campaign is
to make more people prideful to make
more people confident to make more
people embrace themselves and others
around them who may not be the same to
make more people genuinely and truly
happy thank you
[Applause] [Music]
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