What motivates you to advocate for LGBT youth?

I wasn’t the only gay student in my school, but many of the teachers treated me as if I was the only one. I assumed they knew that many of the misconceptions they had about gays aren’t true. One time one of my teachers said gays are the only people that get AIDS. I responded with disbelief and politely told my teacher how wrong her comment was and asked her to please take back what she said. I couldn’t walk away from this; I had to say something before my teacher filled my peers’ heads with those lies. I knew what she was saying was wrong and I could not have lived with myself if I had let her continue telling those lies to young people. In that moment, I knew I had to get myself involved in something that would help me spread the truth about being gay and change people’s perceptions of what it means to be gay. I hoped what I had to say would change things for the better and change the views of the people who had brought me down.

My experiences being excluded because of my sexual identity have helped me become a voice for the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) community. I have had the pleasure of spreading positive messages that help people understand where the lies end and the truth begins. I’m trying my best to change as many things as I can about the views and misconceptions about gay people. I take my experiences with me and try to make sure not one person feels the way I was made to feel.