By the time you read this, I will have been the keynote speaker of a conference for the first time. I’ve been a keynote before. I’ve just never had the opportunity to keynote about pronouns and belonging on that big of a stage. The topic is usually typecast as a concurrent session. One you’d need to be “interested in” to attend. But this conference didn’t believe that belonging should be an optional topic. I don’t either.

Kat, at 12, would never believe I’d be standing on a stage talking to all these people about anything—let alone my identity. That was the year I tried out for a role in a Shakespeare play. I got the role of a backup to the backup to the lead. This position is created to give kids a place to be instead of telling them acting isn’t their strong suit. I wanted to be on that stage so badly. I was too quiet. I couldn’t make eye contact. I could barely read out loud in class without breaking into a sweat—much less reciting lines on a stage. Every time I opened my mouth in front of people, the tremble was so strong in my voice that it sounded like I had a stutter.

I realized a lot of things about myself at 12. I realized I liked myself a whole lot more when I wore that blue UNC hat that made me look like the boys in my school. That I hated all dresses. That I felt something in my stomach when I brushed hands with the pretty girls in my class. I didn’t have a name for any of these feelings.

I just knew I was different. I was, in fact, the greatest actor of all. I hid who I was every day.

I wrote a letter to that 12-year-old over the weekend—to the child who knew they were different but never wanted to be. I think I said “I’m sorry” a million times in that letter. For hiding. For burying the feelings. For all the things I don’t even know to be sorry for now, allowing all my apologies to seep out before I stand on the stage unapologetically myself on Thursday.

I’ll tell my story boldly from that stage in a state that tried to ban conversations like this as one of the survivors of a lifetime in hiding. But most of all, as a champion for a world where kids can live without fear of being murdered for who they are. A world that’s safer for queer kids like Nex Benedict. For every trans person of color whose name you’ll never read in the headlines. An advocate for ending our acting careers early simply to survive.

Weekly Letters keynote keynote speaker LGBT on stage pronouns queer speaker