I Didn't Say It ...

Annette Bening, speaking in defense of transgender youth outside the Supreme Court:

“I have four beautiful children—and I’m allowed to brag about my children because they’re mine—and my eldest is a remarkable trans man, an extraordinary human being. As a well-meaning parent, I didn’t always know how to support my teenager—my vulnerable teenager who was just trying to live his truth—but you know what? I learned. I learned that what these kids and families need is judicious counseling, sound medical advice, and an atmosphere of calm and love and acceptance. Trans folks are everywhere. They’re your doctors in your emergency rooms. They’re your firefighters. They’re your teachers, your librarians, the store clerks, the clerks in the bookstores. Everywhere in this world trans folks exist and it is our responsibility to support and love them. There’s nothing to be frightened of. Everyone just wants to live in freedom, safety and dignity."

Dignity; we’re heading toward banning dignity and safety because of ignorance and fear.

Ain’t that America.

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George Takei, on moronic Democrats:

“To the ‘High Road’ Democratic leaders who say Biden should pardon [The Convicted Felon], knock it off. What the hell kind of message do you think that would send? We need to fight autocracy, not flirt with it.”

The Democrats, at least these kinds of Democrats, are going to destroy democracy all by themselves.

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Cynthia Erivo, Elphaba, the Wicked Witch in Wicked, on why the song ‘Defying Gravity’ resonates with queer audiences:

“I didn’t know that was happening. That's really powerful … It’s really important for her in that moment to not allow the things that have hurt her, that have stripped her of her humanity to keep her down, that she does defy gravity, that the possibilities for her at that point, that she decides that they are endless, that it is within her power to change things, that she chooses flight as opposed to staying tethered to the ground. That’s something that we can all learn, that we don't have to be tethered, that we can actually fly, that we can change things, that we can allow the things that make us special to really make us elevate. It's hard to talk about Elphaba as an ‘other’ without having it intrinsically linked to being a woman who walks through the world as a queer Black woman. Immediately I understood what it meant for people to look at you and see you as not beautiful, not acceptable, not any of those things, because I walked through the world like this. And having to find a way to not necessarily be OK with it but be OK with yourself enough so that when other people put that on you, you can still move through it.”

We all have our crosses to bear and sometimes other people put those on us and sometimes we put them on ourselves. We all need to learn that no matter how different we all may seem we are more alike than we can imagine.

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Chris Appleton, out celebrity hairstylist, on how his coming-out journey started after being in a long-term relationship with a woman that included having two children:

"Everybody else also thought I had it figured out. So when you're all of a sudden then changing the record, people are like: 'Well, you must have always known,' and I didn't realize I did. I never was too focused on sexuality, but people at school always mentioned it, and, as a kid, you just don't ever want to be different—I already felt different because I was dyslexic. The difficult thing is, then you're hurting people around you that you've committed to, and you feel that. It sounds cheesy, but there's honestly so much power in living authentically and being authentically yourself. I think once I let go of all the guilt and shame of it all, my whole life changed. I moved to America; it was amazing how much grew and changed."

Every person’s coming out story is their own; they choose when and where and how and we all just need to say, Welcome.

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Sheryl Lee Ralph, Emmy winner and Broadway legend, receiving The Advocate of the Year award at the Out100 event and speaking of being inspired by the LGBTQ+ community:

“To be named Advocate of the Year is an honor I carry on behalf of every individual who has fought for love, for identity, for visibility, and for freedom. Advocacy is not a solo journey—it is a collective movement. It is the bravery of those who came before us, the courage of those who stand with us, and the hope of those who will follow. I have been inspired over the years by so many in this community—by those who refuse to stay silent in the face of injustice, by those who live their truth unapologetically, and by those who show us that joy is also an act of resistance. I am a believer in the power of unity. The world may try to divide us, but our strength has always been in our ability to stand together, to lift one another, and to remind each other that love—at its core—is unstoppable.”

Unstoppable; we’ve done it once before and we will continue to do it.

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