Troye Sivan gave a powerful and important speech at the GLAAD awards honoring the unsung heroes of the LGBTQ community
At Saturday night’s GLAAD Awards, YouTuber and singer Troye Sivan gave a powerful speech honoring the LGBTQ community, and it’ll bring a tear to your eye.
It was reported last week that Troye Sivan was set to become the youngest recipient of GLAAD‘s prestigious Stephen F. Kolzak Award. The singer was praised by Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD President and CEO, who noted that “[Troye] embodies a generation of LGBTQ youth who are unapologetic, outspoken, and proud to be who they are.”
The singer has previously paid homage to his LGBTQ forefathers with the emotional and beautiful video for “Heaven,” which features fellow popstar Betty Who.
Now speaking at the GLAAD Awards, Troye Sivan has given an emotional and powerful speech paying tribute to the unsung heroes of the LGBTQ rights movement.
Speaking at the awards on Saturday night (April 1st), Troye spoke about how he felt that the award was more than just an award for him, but rather a moment “about visibility and about representation.”
“What and who we see in the media defines our perception of the world around us, and so to see ourselves in this picture of what is ‘normal’ and what is acceptable and what is beautiful is absolutely vital,” he said. “In saying that, so much of the work that has contributed to our progress as a community is far less glamorous than the work that I’m being honored for tonight.”
Continuing, Troye went on to say that he’d recently watched the 2012 documentary How to Survive a Plague, which charters the outbreak of the AIDs epidemic in the 1980s, and he shared how the movie had a lasting impression on him.
“Within the characters in the doc, I saw myself, and I saw my friends, and I saw my colleagues, and I saw my boyfriend. These kids were young, smart, active fighters. I saw that wit, that humor, that resilience that I’ve grown to love so much about my community,”
he said.
“The difference was that these people were attending a friend’s funeral on a weekly basisThis was in New York City, not even 40 years ago. They were fighting for medical treatment, for visibility, and they were fighting for their lives. It was a life or death situation.”
Troye went on to say how thankful he was to have the award, before saying that he’d like to share it with people who helped forge ahead with LGBTQ rights, including Peter Staley, one of the driving forces behind of ACT UP, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, the two trans women who helped spearhead the Stonewall Riots, Bayard Rustin, a gay civil rights leader who helped organize the March on Washington, and Gilbert Baker, the creator of the rainbow flag who sadly passed away last week.
Watch Troye Sivan’s powerful speech below.
Among the winners at Saturday’s GLAAD Awards were the movie Moonlight, Transparent, and supernatural TV drama Shadowhunters.
