WEBVTT

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Such a pretty girl, huh?

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Ouch.

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Such a pretty girl, too bad she…

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I am almost certain
that somewhere in your head,

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those were your exact words: "Too bad."

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Well, I will prove to you
that life is a matter of editing.

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Choosing to add
or take out a certain detail

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changes the whole picture.

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At least, that’s what it looks like.

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There are one too many clichés
when it comes to disabled people.

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For example, no matter what we do,

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even the easiest, most trivial chore,
like going shopping,

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becomes sort of epic
in the eyes of beholders.

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This has gotten me
quite a few laughs over the years.

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You may not know, but I'm also
a heavy metal guitar player.

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Here I am, on stage,

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with my cool guitar and my cool hair.

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One night I was backstage,
waiting to go up and play with my band,

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electric guitar in one hand,
and a drink in the other,

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when this journalist comes up to me

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and, trying to give a compliment
I suppose, he says:

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“You must be very brave
to go on stage in your condition!”

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I looked at him and replied,

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“Hey, what conditions?
I am perfectly sober!”

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I had no idea what he was talking about!

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(Applause)

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Another prejudice has to do
with my wheelchair.

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I have lost count of the times I heard
people say, “Confined to a wheelchair.”

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It appeals me how much ignorance
this sentence is infused with,

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and how it increases
that very horrible sense of pity

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we're trying to get over.

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A wheelchair is an incredible
piece of equipment,

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halfway between technology and design,
which allows you to go wherever you want,

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to wear, to dance, to run,

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even to wear five-inch heels
without fearing cobblestones.

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There is nothing “confining” about it.

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A wheelchair gives you the freedom
to move around the world,

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it does not take it from you.

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I guess you are now wondering
why I'm sitting on a wheelchair.

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When I was five months old,

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I was diagnosed with
a congenital heart condition.

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I was not given much chance of survival,

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so I had to undergo emergency surgery.

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The heart surgery was a success,

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and I quickly got healthy again.

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However, during the procedure,
the doctors hadn’t noticed

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that blood wasn't reaching my spinal cord.

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The result was a bone marrow injury:

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a very low one, thankfully,
but it took away my legs.

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Yes, that was a medical accident.

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Most of you may say:

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“How unfortunate!”

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Instead, I think of it
as a simple "collateral effect'"

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of being healthy, alive,
and here with you today.

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Back then, I was one of very few cases

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when a spinal cord injury
occurs in a newborn.

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Thanks to this, however,

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nobody explained to me
what I could or couldn't do with my body.

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So I simply learnt on my own
while I grew up, like all children do,

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adapting the circumstances
to my abilities,

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learning to take advantage

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of all the potential
that my body could give,

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and not being worried
about my limitations.

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Don't get me started on how many times
I caused my parents goosebumps

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when they found me climbing trees
or kitchen shelves.

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From then on, my free spirit
and my eagerness to explore the world

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have taken me far away.

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Fresh out of high school
I moved to Bologna,

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where I graduated in philosophy,

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and I traveled far and wide in Europe,

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sometimes with other people,
but more often by myself,

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to festivals and concerts,

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with the very goal of seeing new places,
meeting new people, and cities.

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One day, my travels
took me to the mountains.

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I met my latest challenge in 2012

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when I tried skiing for the first time.

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I had never done any sport before then,
mind you, and I did not even like sports.

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But when I saw these
high-power carbon mono-skis,

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that can get you to 120km per hour,

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the speed I take on the highway

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down by the steepest slopes,

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balancing on a single ski,

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I fell in love hard,

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and I decided I was going to become
a professional Alpine skiing athlete.

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This is me, and then it started,

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a very challenging time of my life.

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I used to wake up at six AM
to load my mono-ski in my car,

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25 kilograms with one arm only,

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since I was balancing on the other,

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and I would drive almost two hours
to get to the ski slopes of Folgaria,

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singing along to Motley Crue or Testament
to keep me company on the road.

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Then I would train for three
to four hours between the poles,

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and I would jump back in my car
and head back home.

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Three times a week,
plus competition weekends,

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no matter what the weather was like.

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I faced storms, snow, fog,
freezing ice, sun, heat, whatever.

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After as little as two years of training,

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in March 2014, I was awarded the title
of Alpine Skiing National Champion

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with a gold medal in Giant Slalom
and the silver in Slalom.

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Not too bad for a girl

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who was used to staying up
all night playing in clubs.

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Anyway, I can’t deny
that life on a wheelchair

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isn't always rock events,
parties and sport winnings.

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Often, yes, but not always.

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As it happens in everybody's life

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there are also challenges
you have to confront.

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One of mine came about when I was 13.

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I found myself with a serious scoliosis
and two possibilities ahead of me.

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I could either wear

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a plastic orthopedic corset
all day, every single day,

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until I was at least 20.

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Or I could undergo a surgery
called 'posterior arthrodesis,'

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where two metal bars are inserted
on both sides of your spine,

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in order to support, extend and fix it.

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It is not an easy procedure.

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Your backbone is open
and you stay there, under the knife,

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in general anesthesia for four hours,

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with no certainty of a positive outcome.

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OK. Great.

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I had to make my choice. What do I do?

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On the one hand,
I was literally scared to death

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thinking that something bad
could happen during the procedure.

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On the other hand,

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I sure didn’t want to be stuck
with a crooked back

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and a plastic corset
for the rest of my life.

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But then I thought of something:
I thought of butterflies.

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Butterflies are not born as such:
they start off as chrysalides.

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Still, hiding in their cocoon
in the dark, clammed up.

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I thought of how much strength
and courage those chrysalises must have

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to break free from their cocoon

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and reach the open air, finally free
to fly in their most beautiful form.

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I did not want to stay
a chrysalis forever.

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I also wanted to fly, I wanted
to make all of my colors shine.

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So I decided to become a butterfly
and I gathered up all the strength I had

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to break free from my cocoon,
and undergo surgery.

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When I woke up, I had a straight back
and a new awareness:

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I had become a butterfly, and nobody
would ever be able to break me.

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Having a straight back again
made me feel more beautiful,

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and admittedly, more self-confident.

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You know, it is not easy to go unnoticed
when you sit on four wheels.

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But instead of hiding away
or feeling uneasy

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under all of the stares, I thought,

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“OK, if people really can’t quit
looking at me when I pass by,

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let them at least look at the most
beautiful thing they’ll ever see!”

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Here is another cliché
on people with disabilities:

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the ever so irreconcilable contrast
between disability and beauty.

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This one time I went to see
an American rock band

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and when the gig was over
the singer came after me,

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looked me deep in the eyes and said

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“You can’t be in a wheelchair!
You are so beautiful!”

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Excuse me?!

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That’s what our traditional iconography
taught us about people with disabilities.

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We're losers.

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Even Mattel,

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in an attempt to include disabilities
in Barbie’s perfect world,

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produced Becky, Barbie’s friend
on a wheelchair.

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And this is what she looks like.

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We can see:

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Lumberjack shirt, long loose jeans,
trainers, and a wheelchair as old as time.

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Quite different from Barbie:

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sexy, blond, slender,
with her colorful makeup,

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glitter micro tops, and high heels.

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Sadly, people with disabilities
often tend to reject their own bodies,

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or the parts that can’t work anymore,

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or what is not considered to be normal.

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In fact, more often than not,
we don’t even need a disability

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to feel uncomfortable with our own bodies.

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Let me tell you a story on this subject.

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Do you know what mermaids are?

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Mermaids are creatures
of exquisite beauty,

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much beyond the ordinary.

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For centuries, sailors and pirates
have hoped to see one.

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These creatures of sublime femininity,

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whose allure seduced
and caught any human being,

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have a peculiar trait:

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A sinuous fish tail in place of legs.

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And thus they swim in their immense sea,

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quick and lively.

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There is a well-known tale


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where a young mermaid
falls in love with a human prince

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and chooses to give up
her tail and her voice

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in exchange for legs,
so that she can seduce her prince.

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Deprived of her most
important features, though,

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and contrary to what Disney
would have us believe,

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the young mermaid fails, and the prince
never falls in love with her.

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Did you get what this means?

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It means that the mermaid,

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refusing the very feature

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that made her wonderfully unique,

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thus not expressing her true self,

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she ended up grey, dull, uninteresting.

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Normal.

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I know for a fact that, had the prince
seen her for who she really was,

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not only would he have
fallen in love with her,

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he would have loved her tail too.

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And here lies the secret
to a mermaid’s seductive power:

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not only is she proud of her look
and her tail's look,

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she celebrates it,
she makes it her strongest point.

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And here lies the secret of seduction.

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Loving yourself, your peculiarities,

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anything that makes you
different and unique.

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I also - thank you.

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(Applause)

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There was a time when I used to wonder
how my life could have been,

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had I had a pair of strong legs
in place of my “tail."

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But then I closed my eyes
and I realized that yes,

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my legs would never allow me
to climb up stairs.

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but they let me feel
the heat from the sun,

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the sand and the grass between my toes.

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I started loving my body
and every single part of it

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and I was grateful for all that they
allowed me to do in this world.

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I never saw my legs
as too skinny to be shown again,

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because they are slender and light…

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and I started to highlight them,

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maybe with just a miniskirt or shorts.

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I believed in this so much
that I became a model.

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A disability, per se,
is neither good nor bad.

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It is a physical feature.

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We all have features that make us
stand out from the rest of the people.

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A disability only becomes a handicap
in relation to the environment,

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that is, when the environment
is not suitable for it.

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We need to remove
architectural boundaries,

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to enhance our technology,

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to allow all people to express
their potential to the fullest.

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Only then can we judge people 
for who they are

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and for their true merits,

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instead of appreciating them
in a cheap, slightly pathetic way

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just because of their disabilities.

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Similarly, being sexy

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has nothing to do
with any prearranged model.

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It is all in the confidence that we have,

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in feeling at ease
in our own skin and mind

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and in transmitting all of this to others.

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You need to be aware
of how wonderful your mermaid tail is.

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Loving our details

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will make us love those
of other people too,

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all of those small or big peculiarities
that make us all unique and beautiful.

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That's the only way for disabled people
to be seen as they are:

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beautiful in our entirety
and in our full seductive potential.

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Life is just a matter
of editing, of choices.

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Choose to keep your details.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)