Faces of Outlet
Jason G.'s acceptance speech at Out to Eat, after receiving the Juan Barajas Youth Leadership Award.
May 12, 2011
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Good evening everyone, and thank you so much for attending tonight’s dinner to support Outlet. I am so honored to have been chosen for this award, and I could not be happier to be here tonight.
I like most people who just came out, was shy. So shy even to the point where I was too afraid to go into a GSA meeting at school because I was afraid that someone would see me going to the meeting and know that I was gay. |
I was out to my close friends, but I wasn’t out to society at large. Once I did start going, I was even too shy to come out there. This continued for a while until the end of my Freshman year until the President of the GSA said to me: “One day, you will be GSA President.” When she said that, my life turned upside down. I was going to be able to be out? AND I was going to be president of the GSA? This got me thinking of all the other possibilities in life that I would come across just because I didn’t have to hide anymore.
True to her word, I took over GSA Sophomore year, and took the boldest step I had taken to date. I put on a rally to the school called Black Friday, a rally to protest the passing of Proposition 8. I wore an all black suit to my PE class, one of the most volatile places for homophobia. Sure enough, I was surrounded by 5 boys in the locker room as they screamed faggot into my face. That devastated me.
After that incident, I never wanted anyone else to experience what I experienced. I was tired of being the only gay person at my school, and I was tired of having a GSA with 5 members. GSA became my life, my passion, and my career as I, with the help of organizations such as Outlet, grew my GSA to 40 and brought the number of openly gay or bi males up from one to 18. To top off my activism career, I founded the Bay Area Youth Summit, a conference for LGBT and allied youth and adults to come together to fight bullying in schools in December of 2010, where we brought over 200 people from around the Bay Area to listen to speakers such as Cleve Jones, Graeme Taylor, Yigit Pura and many others inspire them on how to take action within my school.
And over the course of my activism career, I have finally been able to take pride in an identity which I used to fear, proudly state that which used to be a secret. Organizations such as Outlet give youth a channel through which to gain the most important tool that LGBT people have, and that is Pride. I am proud to be who I am today, because Outlet and organizations such as Outlet have allowed me not only to be who I am, but to fight to own my identity, and in the process inspire others to own their identities.
This is why these organizations are so important. It is more than just creating social revolution, it is about creating individual revolutions, allowing people to be what once impossible for them to be. I thank you so much for your support here tonight, and again I reiterate how honored I am to have been selected for this award. Thank you all very much, and have a great rest of your evening. |
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