 Hello, my name is Blanca, I'm with the Office of Climate Action and Sustainability. My pronouns are they, them, and I'm happy to be here. Hi, I'm Tony Villamontes. I'm a queer Latinx man. I use he and pronouns, and I work for the Office of Equity. Hello, my name is Marina Carranza. I'm co-owner of Adelita's Revenge. And I'm Yvonne, the other co-owner of Adelita's Revenge. We are a gift boutique on 4th and Terminal here in Long Beach. Hello, my name is Francesca Polling. I am a graduating senior, and my pronouns are she, her. Hi, my name is Deanne McDaniel, and I am the co-president of the Long Beach chapter of PFLAG. I also am a mom of four children, and I am tickled to be invited here to speak on behalf of Proud Voices. Hi, it's Jules Long Beach on the beautiful city of Long Beach. I am a drag queen, philanthropist, community organizer, and cheerleader for the city of Long Beach. It means well being proud of what makes me me. Just knowing what I'm like and loving myself for it. Pride to me means ancestral memory, community, love, gathering, building relationships of trust, and creating a space in a world where all can love freely, be themselves, and connect to their most inner power. Pride means to me gratitude, deep, heartfelt gratitude. From Jeanne Manford, who was the founder of PFLAG when she marched in the First Liberation Day Parade, which is a prequel to New York City's pride. And children, young women, and men came up to her as she was holding her flag and her handmade poster saying, I'm proud to have a gay son. Women asked her, would you speak to my parents, or I wish you were my mother. I'm so grateful for her and the work she did because less than a year later she held the first PFLAG meeting for parents and were struggling or wanted to be involved or just needed to know more, needed to feel not alone. I'm so grateful for those people at Stonewall and other bars throughout this country who decided one day, many days to stand up and fight because I have a young male gay son and I know life for him will be different than it was if those people didn't step up and do what they've done and continue to do so. I'm so grateful. Visibility is always important for you to exist in the world and see people who reflect you, your family, your LGBTQIA family, or simply people you want to be like or with. I feel like visibility is important because when we normalize our lives, normalize our store, our neighborhoods, and we say this is who we are, it's easy for our younger generation to feel comfortable. It's easy for people to see us and say, hey, we can be just like you one day. We have several younger lesbian couples that come into our store and they call us theas and they want us to, they want to hear about our story and so we're very open about who we are. We've never hid who we are. Our family members know and I think visibility is everything. It allowed some of our family members to feel comfortable enough to come out and say, hey, I identify now as lesbian or I'm non-binary now or I'm this and so I think for us to do that is important. Yes, it's very important for us. Visibility is great. It's very important and it comes with challenges. It's very difficult to be visible. I think of many trans and non-binary people that I know and I have the privilege of being a cis man so I can show up in a way that has been to a degree where my gender is not questioned, my gender identity, right? But when I think of individuals who are trans or non-binary, being visible takes way more courage and it's way more important as well to be supportive. So in terms of how do we make an environment that's inclusive? I mean, I think it's really rudimentary but my dad always told me whatever you do, just always act with kindness and I think that's really severely lacking, you know, socially but if you live more of us led with vulnerability and led with kindness then we would have lived that will uplift all people and celebrate how it is that they show up into a space. Well, right now is a difficult time, I think, for all of us. You know, they're trying to eradicate us. They're trying to just, I don't know how many bills and laws they're trying to bring into the world now and it's just so, it's scary times. You know, we feel like we've gone a little backwards. I feel like, you know, the world is getting a little backwards but we just have to be more vocal about who we are. We have to be proud of who we are and surround ourselves with the community that we have. This Long Beach community especially just loves and adores us. And the Long Beach community. Yeah, vice versa, right? So I feel like there's no way that they're going to eradicate us. There's no way. We've come too far. We won't go back. We will still be here. I know me as a radical Latina, Chicana, queer, lesbian. It's, I'm not going anywhere. Yeah, we're not going anywhere. Of course not. No. I think it's just representation. Having uncomfortable conversations with your family members. Having uncomfortable conversations with your community to normalize who we are. We have existed for thousands of years. We are here. We're going nowhere. And we have the ancestral memory on how it is to be and exist in our most resilient, joyful and restful selves. And in order to have a society that is fully accepting of us, we have to do the work. Accomplices, allies have to do the work to have uncomfortable conversations with their family, to challenge the hate that can be projected onto our communities. It is time to stand beside us, to embrace us, to see our magic, and to truly, truly speak up for the magic that the LGBTQIA carries and holds within them day to day, within their sadness, within their joy, within their anger. We are here and we are quite special. So, yeah. I think that, that quote that you see occasionally is be careful who you hate because it could be someone that you love. I feel that if more people started to look around to see how many members there are in the LGBTQ plus community, how many people you love or your neighbor that you help out or the child in the classroom, it gets harder to dismiss, ignore, marginalize when you have a connection. And I think it's important that those of us that embrace the community continue to embrace it, we might have to open our arms even wider than they already are. But it's so important. My favorite thing about being a fabulous drag queen in our beautiful rainbow community is the fact that I can wake up every morning and put on my drag. I can feel like a beautiful princess, a fabulous clown, a funny character, a serious actress, or my jeans and a t-shirt and go on a hike and be my boy self. For me drag is freedom. The freedom of expression, the freedom of joy and happiness and the choice to be yourself every day no matter what. Well, I love that it's a part of myself. It's a part of what makes me me. And I love the community as well. I love how accepting everyone is because we've all been in that same boat. So we know how everyone feels. And it's kind of like a big family, honestly. My favorite thing is that after years of caring shame, after years of being embarrassed, of not accepting myself, of feeling not accepted by my loved ones and walking around with fearful masks, of being who others wanted me to be, after going through that now, because I'm queer, I have such a grounded sense of who I am. I love that. I love that for the first time in my life. I know exactly who I am. I know exactly how I show up into a space. I just love that.