"Hope will never be silent." 

- Harvey Milk

I thought I was burning—my cousin's homophobia scorched my skin and he told me I was going to hell. I saw my cousin’s scorn mirrored in a flame that seemed to consume the world. It lingered after each taunting news headline—buildings alight in protest; California’s forests ablaze; a world scorched by COVID-19. In school, I was taught the world was on fire, and that it was our generation's duty to solve this. Simultaneously, I was told that I was too young to make meaningful changes. 

After doing my own research and finding a queer community, I began realizing that my cousin was echoing parents who believed difference was shameful and the silence of a school system that did not teach otherwise. For this reason, I educate and advocate for youth who were deprived of this information, and who are learning stigma passed on by generations and inaction internalized from silence. The hurt others have imposed on me will not strip me of my ability to perceive kindness in others. 

Though the positive impacts of education are not immediately visible, I seek to empower youth by providing information about advocacy and sex education. I measure my success by the connections I make with other youth; my ability to make someone feel seen; the number of kids asking questions while I am teaching; and the students who keep the zines we create. It is impossible to know the scope of my impact, and I can endlessly pour over how much I could have or should have done, but I see success when I watch a student nod while I answer a question, or see students eagerly writing testimony. I participate in advocacy and education to empower others and make them feel seen.