The speech I wouldn’t get through in person
Dear Venture Out community,
After about seven months of planning, Venture Out is here. After this event I will be passing the baton to someone else to lead this team and bring our communities together for years to come. And this got me thinking, especially at 3am.
The Venture Out family is the hardest working team I have ever had the privilege of working or volunteering with. We all have work, school (sometimes both), life, general stress… but here we are, committing hours a week to this team because we want to.
We work as hard as we do to bring this community together because we have not forgotten the people who paved the way to make it possible for us to host an event celebrating the achievements of LGBTQA+ people.
I stand proudly on this stage, humbled by the work others have done to let me be here — and super queer. I stand proudly on this stage, but not without some nerves and much reflection.
I stand here, a cis, white, able-bodied, neurotypical woman, in acknowledgment of the many privileges those identities afford me and with a pledge to never stop learning more effective and inclusive ways to practice allyship.
“We stand on the shoulders of giants” is said to mean that we see farther, understand more, and reach higher than ever thanks to those who came before us and did the work. Usually said with gratitude, I think, but I can’t help but think about how, in this context, the shoulders of those giants are tired, and many are dead.
We stand on the graves of our guardians. We stand on the scars of our siblings.
I look back in humble, somber, reflection not to bring us down. Just the opposite — I say this to lift us up. I am saying thank you to everyone who helped get us here, and I’m pledging to all those still fighting for respect that we haven’t forgotten and we aren’t done.
Today is about opportunity and success; this event is about sharing skills and building a stronger and better future for us to thrive in tomorrow. It is forward-looking, with optimism and hope, but that doesn’t mean we can’t root our efforts in honouring the work done by those who came before us.
We, as a community, have been passed a baton and we can’t drop it. To stretch this analogy to its limits, we need to ensure that we aren’t running laps but rather running farther and stronger than ever before.
As I prepare to pass the baton on to someone else I reflect on the past few years and what I have contributed to this relay. I can’t answer that, but I can tell you what I’ve gained: love, family, friends who inspire me every day, and a new plan for the future.
Over to you, team. You have all of my respect and I dare you to kick me out of our Slack channel.
Love, Lisa, your rarely-ever-fearless leader
