Quotes About Advocacy

Even before 'Pose,' I was involved in activism and advocating for my community in various ways. I didn't see that stopping with my entry into this industry, but people are going to be afraid of what you're going to say. I'm going to bump heads with people that benefit from the oppression that they put trans people through.

If I can, in any way, give people the courage to say, 'Actually, no, the nonsense stops right here,' then I want to be a part of doing that. Especially if that means that our folks will be more free.

I want to be the last girl in the world with a story like mine.

All I've ever done since I was 17 is tell stories. You know, I'm a storyteller. And that's what I'm going to keep on doing, especially now, kind of embracing and making sure that we tell immigration.

I have some good friends of my own who happen to be gay, and when it comes to gay, straight, or whatever, I'm for anything life-affirmative. I'm for gay power, straight power, male power, female power; everybody should feel empowered without oppressing anyone who's different.

I certainly believe that all of my friends should have the right, as Marc and I did, to marry their best friend. I certainly expect my straight friends to help us achieve that for all New Yorkers, for all Americans, and for the children that, at least, Marc and I hope to have someday.

Whether you're gay or straight, with a physical disability, your skin's a different color, it's absurd in this age to not be aware and be concerned of the inequity in rights.

As straight Americans we have two choices: we can choose to sit back and enjoy our rights as we have them, or we can realize that it is actually not freedom at all when our friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues do not share these basic rights.

Lawyers have to make a living, and can only do so by inducing people to believe that a straight line is crooked.

It may be that that we can sing what we often cannot say, whether it be from shyness, fear, lack of the right words or the passion or dramatic gift to express them. More souls have rallied to more causes by the strains of music than by straining rhetoric.

What is also strange to me is that public libraries have always been in the forefront of opposing censorship.

As a member of the Aging Committee, I'm no stranger to fighting for America's seniors.

When I think about where most of Scripture points me, it is toward defending the poor, and the immigrant, and the stranger, and the prisoner, and the outcast, and those who are left behind by the way society works.

I have a sense that the USDA and the secretary who represents the USDA has always been seen as either a stranger or adversary to the farming community and a stranger to the consuming community.

It's OK to be outspoken about your faith.

It is a common enough mid-career urge: having taken care of life's immediate needs, some of us yearn to chase villains, right wrongs, fight on the side of the angels.

could not find a lawyer in Muncie brave enough to take on his defense of free speech.

Madge Oberholtzer deserves a plaque of her own.

The bottom line is that you only have the rights you fight for.

You only have the rights you fight for.

True fans are not only the direct source of your income, but also your chief marketing force for the ordinary fans. Fans,

In my specific area of longevity, I hear too much emphasis on how people look (sort of important) and feel (important, to be sure), but very little on the actual task of delaying the onset of chronic disease, which is almost the mathematical equivalent of delaying death and improving quality of life. I'm consistently amazed how little the experts in this space advocate for approaches to delay the onset of cardiovascular disease, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, and accidental deaths.

Martin Luther King, Jr., famously remarked that "justice too long delayed is justice denied." Learning

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights. —BISHOP DESMOND TUTU, South African cleric and activist