New York City, New York

Thank you, Special Envoy Stern.

Your Excellencies and distinguished guests, it’s an honor to join you, along with THE courageous human rights activists who are speaking here today.

Each year, we come together in New York to “reaffirm the dignity and worth of the human person.” Those words, written in the United Nations Charter, ring in our hearts today.

Our humanity—that simple fact—guarantees us certain rights. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you were born, or who your parents are: being human is enough.

To deserve safety.

To deserve freedom.

To deserve love.

To deserve a future.

That should be true for LGBTQI people.

But it wasn’t enough for a woman whose family sent men to rape her in an effort to “correct” her sexual orientation.

Or for two men who were targeted and shot outside a gay bar.

Not for a young man, right here in New York, stabbed to death at a gas station for voguing.

In 2023, the Human Rights Campaign declared a “state of emergency” for LGBTQI people in America, because states across our country passed an unprecedented number of discriminatory laws.

And in more than 60 countries around the world, LGBTQI people are criminalized for who they are.

But we’re not going to stand for hate, discrimination, and violence in our own country. We won’t stand for it anywhere in the world.

Because, yes, being human is enough.

It’s what we share across time and place, across borders and oceans.

At our core, we are all just people, filled with love and hope, reaching toward a better future.

And, as poets and civil rights leaders have said over the centuries, until all of us are free, no one is.

Right now, it feels like we are caught in the push and pull of progress.

By gathering here today, we are saying loud and clear: you are enough. And this community is never alone. Joe and I are with you.

In just the last few years, we’ve seen more countries legalize same-sex relationships, and recognize marriage equality.

These are big victories—ones that bloom across history.

But our triumphs live in the small moments too—moments that would have been unimaginable just a few decades ago: Walking down the street without fear. Co-workers who use your chosen name and pronouns. Kids with two moms or two dads at the playground. Coming together for LGBTQI rights during the United Nations General Assembly!

That progress, in moments small and large, may almost feel inevitable now.

But it took tens of thousands of people fighting for decades to have their humanity recognized. People who kept shouting, even when they were tired, even when they were censored, even when they were jailed.

Because change never happens on its own. 

It takes people—just like the ones in this room—speaking with one voice and declaring what is right. To say, change is coming. Let us lead the way.

That’s the power of this community. To hold each other up, in all of our humanity. To heal one another. To share our inner strength. To create lasting change.

To leave no one behind.

Thank you.

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