I watched the film “Girl Connected” which follows the stories of five young teen girls from 5 different countries, on their journeys of activism for women’s rights and female empowerment. Their stories touch upon issues like child marriage, denial of women’s access to any education, a lack of sex education and high rates of teen pregnancy. Each activist group began with a single person (each individual girl sharing her story) and often was driven by lived experiences with the issue, whether themselves or someone close to them. They learned that power comes in numbers and brought more girls in to join their cause, and create a larger impact. One of the girls, Latifa from Bangladesh had been tried to marry off as a child and resisted. She now works to prevent child marriage by increasing awareness about the moral rights of the child’s lack of ability to consent. She is often asked why she is an activist and says, “We have faced these problems ourselves and we work so that no girl should have to suffer such a fate. So they can get educated and live beautiful lives.” She is passionate about this cause, and says that changing even one girls life/fate is worth the work.

Activism is about creating change (social, political, environmental). Activist movements usually originate within and are led by the people who are being affected. I think of activism as speaking up for a marginalized group that is being hurt, discriminated against and/or dismissed. In many activism causes, voices of white activists are the one’s being highlighted in media and listened to. The voices of the people actually being affected by the cause are frequently ignored.  It is the job for white people/the “majority group” to use their voice and privilege to speak for groups that are being hurt and killed through discrimination and ignorance. I think that this line from the reading summarizes it very well, “Decentralizing yourself within an issue is about more than keeping your mouth shut. You also need to seek out ways to give up some of your space to others”  

In my early years as a queer young adult, I was more active in my local LGBT organization. I participated in some LGBT summits and our Social Justice program, leading small groups. I personally want to focus on disability advocacy and animal rights activism. I think gender has a huge influence on both. Women/femmes are more likely to be dismissed around health and disability reasons, and it is life threatening. POC femmes and fat femmes are affected at higher rates. In my daily life, I try to share my experiences as a queer disabled poc person to counter ignorance and expand people’s understandings of my marginalized identities. I think I would like a part of my future activism to teach about Gender and Sexuality to our new generations.