(This image is me with my legal name change documents, my small step towards making change for myself).

For the past three months I have been a part of my school’s musical, How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. It’s part of the reason I’ve been so distracted from this program. We had our shows last week and they went extremely well but that’s not what I’m here to talk about. How To Succeed was written in the early sixties and is basically a lampoon of business ambition in that time, what it is not however, is a lampoon of sexism and gender roles.

The main goal of all the females in the musical is to get a husband and become a reliable wife, there’s literally three songs about it. The main goal of all the men is to rise in the world of business and ogle the secretaries. Incidentally the cast was made up of two trans men, two gay men, and a whole bunch of other queer kids. I myself played a character who sings a song about conforming so you don’t get in trouble.

What I find is the most important takeaway from this is that things have come a long way, but not without the struggle of many wonderful people fighting for their rights. Since the election I’ve seen an abundance of people telling others of minorities to ‘suck it up and deal with it’. I find this sentiment to be laughable as every single piece of change we got in this country was not made by being a polite and upstanding citizen. People fought for their rights, and that is what I intend to do as well. It is what I hope you will do as well. In other words, don’t wear your safety pin unless you’re prepared to fight for what it stands for.

My group and I have begun to schedule interviews with people who have very valuable and emotional stories to tell.  I hope these stories will inspire people to make change.