WEBVTT

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Jenni Chang: When I told my parents
I was gay,

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the first thing they said to me was,

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"We're bringing you back to Taiwan."

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(Laughter)

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In their minds, my sexual orientation
was America's fault.

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The West had corrupted me 
with divergent ideas,

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and if only my parents
had not left Taiwan,

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this would not have happened
to their only daughter.

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In truth, I wondered 
if they were right.

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Of course, there are gay people 
in Asia,

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just as there are gay people
in every part of the world.

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But is the idea of living
an "out" life,

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in the "I'm gay, this is my spouse,
and we're proud of our lives together"

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kind of way just a Western idea?

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If I had grown up in Taiwan,
or any place outside of the West,

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would I have found models
of happy, thriving, LGBT people?

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Liza Dazols: I had similar notions.

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As an HIV social worker in San Francisco,

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I met many gay immigrants.

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They told me their stories of persecution
in their home countries,

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just for being gay,

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and the reasons why they escaped the US.

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I saw how this had beaten them down.

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After 10 years of doing this kind of work,

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I needed better stories for myself.

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I knew the world was far from perfect,

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but surely not every gay story was tragic.

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JG: So as a couple, we both had a need
to find stories of hope.

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So we set off on a mission
to travel the world

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and look for the people we
finally termed as "The Super Gays".

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(Laughter)

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These would be the LGBT invidiuals


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who are doing something
extraordinary in the world.

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They would be courageous, resilient,


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and most of all, proud of who they were.

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They would be the kind of person 
that I aspired to be.

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Our plan was to share their stories 
to the world through film.

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LD: There's just one problem,

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we had zero reporting 
and zero filmmaking experience.

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(Laughter)

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We didn't even know
where to find the Super Gays,

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so we just had to trust that we'd 
figure it all out along the way.

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So we picked 15 countries
in Asia, Africa and South America,

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countries outside the West
that varied in LGBT rights.

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We ordered a camcorder,

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ordered a book on 
how to make a documentary,

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(Laughter)

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you can learn a lot these days,

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and set off on an
around-the-world trip.

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JC: One of the first countries
that we traveled to was Nepal.

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Despite widespread poverty,
a decade-long civil war,

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and more recently,

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a devastating earthquake,

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Nepal has made significant strides
in the fight for equality.

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One of the key figures
in the movement is Bhumika Shrestha.

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A beautiful, vibrant transgendered woman,

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Bhumika has had to overcome
being expelled from school

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and getting incarcerated 
because of her gender presentation.

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But, in 2007, Bhumika and Nepal's
LGBT rights organization

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successfully petitioned 
the Nepali Supreme Court

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against LGBT discrimination.

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Here's Bhumika:

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BS: What I'm most proud,

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I'm a transgendered person.

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I'm so proud of my life.

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On December 21, 2007,

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the Supreme Court gave the decision

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for the Nepal government

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to give transgender identity cards

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and sam sex marriage.

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LD: I could appreciate 
Bhumika's confidence on a daily basis.

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Something as simple 
as using a public restroom

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can be huge challenge
when you don't fit in

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to people's strict gender expectations.

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Traveling around Asia,

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I tended to freak out women
in public restrooms.

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They weren't used to seeing
someone like me.

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I had to come up with a strategy

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so that I could just pee in peace.

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(Laughter)

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So anytime I would enter a restroom,

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I would thrust out my chest
to show my women-ly parts,

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and try to be as non-threatening
as possible.

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Putting out my hands and saying, "Hello"

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just so that people could hear 
my feminine voice.

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This all gets pretty exhausting,

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but, it's just who I am.

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I can't be anything else.

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After Nepal, we traveled to India.

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On one hand, India is a Hindu society,

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without a tradition of homophobia.

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On the other hand, it is also
a society

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with a deeply patriarchal system,

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which rejects anything that threatens
the male-female order.

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When we spoke to activists,

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they told us that empowerment begins

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with ensuring proper gender equality,

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where the women's status is
established in society.

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And in that way, the status of LGBT people
can be affirmed as well.


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There we met Prince Manvendra,

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he's the world's first openly gay prince.

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Prince Manvendra came out
on the Oprah Winfrey show very internationally.

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His parents disowned him

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and accused him of bringing great shame
to the royal family.

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We sat down with Prince Manvendra

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and talked to him about why he decided
to come out so very publically.

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Here he is:

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Prince Manvendra: I felt that 
there was a lot of need

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to break this stigma and discrimination

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that was existing in our society.

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And instigated me to come out openly
and talk about myself.

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Whether we are gay,
we are lesbian,

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we are transgender, bisexual,

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or whatever sexual minority we come from,

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we have to all unite 
and fight for our rights.

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Gay rights cannot be won in the court rooms,

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but in the hearts and the minds
of the people.

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JC: While getting my haircut,

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the woman cutting my hair asked me,

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"Do you have a husband?"

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Now, this was a dreaded question

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that I got asked a lot by locals
while traveling.

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When I explained to her that 
I was with a woman instead of a man,

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she was incredulous,

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and she asked me a lot of questions
about my parents' reactions

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and whether I was sad that I'd
never be able to have children.

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I told her that there are no limitations
in my life

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and that Lisa and I do plan
to have a family some day.

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Now, this woman was ready
to write me off

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as yet another crazy Westerner.

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She couldn't imagine that 
such a phenemonon

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could happen in her own country.

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That is, until I showed her photos
of the Super Gays

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that we interviewed in India.

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She recognized Prince Manvendra
from television

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and soon I had an audience
of other hairdressers

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interested in meeting me.

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(Laughter)

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And in that ordinary afternoon,

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I had the chance to introduce
an entire beauty salon

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to the social changes that were happening
in their own country.

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From India, we traveled to East Africa,

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a region known for intolerance
towards LGBT people.

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In Kenya, 89 percent of people
who come out to their families are disowned.

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Homosexual acts are a crime 
and can lead to incarceration.

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In Kenya, we met the soft-spoken
David Kuria.

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David had a huge mission
of wanting to work for the poor

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and improve his won government.

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When he decided to run for Senate,

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he became Kenya's first openly-gay
political candidate.

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David wanted to run his campaign


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without denying the reality of who he was.

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But we were worried for his safety

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because he started
to receive death threats.

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David Kuria: "At that point, 
I was really, really scared

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because they were actually asking
for me to be killed

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and, yeah,

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there are some people out there who do it

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and feel that they are doing
a religious obligation."


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JC: David wasn't ashamed of who he was.

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Even in the face of threats,

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he stayed authentic.

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LD: On the opposite end 
of the spectrum is Argentina.

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Argentina is a place where 92 percent
of the population identifies as Catholic.

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Yet, Argentina has LGBT laws
that are more progressive

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than here in the US.

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In 2010, Argentina became the first
country in Latin America,

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and the 10th in the world,

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to adopt marriage equality.

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There, we met María Rachid.

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María was a driving force
behind that movement.

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María Rachid [spanish]:
I always say that, in reality,

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the effects of marriage equality


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are not only for those couples
that get married.

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They are for a lot of people that,

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even though they may never get married,

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will be perceived differently by their coworkers,

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their families and neighbors,

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from the National State's
message of equality.

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I feel very proud of Argentina

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because Argentina today
is a model of equality.

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And hopefully soon,

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the whole world will have
the same rights."

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JC: When we made the visit
to my ancestral lands,

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I wish I could have shown
my parents what we found there,

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because here is who we met:

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[Video]: Welcome gays to Shanghai!"

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(Laughter)

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A whole community of young, beautiful
Chinese LGBT people.

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Sure, they had their struggles.

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But they were fighting it out.

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In Shanghai, I had the chance
to speak

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to a local lesbian group

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and tell the my story
in my broken Mandarin Chinese.

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In Taipei, each time 
we got onto the metro,

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we saw yet another lesbian couple
holding hands.


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And we learned that Asia's largest
LGBT pride event

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happens just blocks away 
from where my grandparents live.

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If only my parents knew.

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LD: By the time we finished our
not-so-striaght journey around the world,

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(Laughter)

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we had traveled 50,000 miles

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and logged 120 hours of video footage.

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We traveled to 15 countries

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and interviewed 50 Super Gays.

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Turns out, it wasn't hard
to find them at all.

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JC: Yes, there are still tragedies
that happen

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on the bumpy road to equality.

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And let's not forget that still,

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75 countries criminalize 
homosexuality today.

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But there are also stories of hope
and courage

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in every corner of the world.

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What we ultimately took away
from our journey is,

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equality is not a Western invention.

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LD: One of the key factors
in this equality movement is momentum.

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Momentum is more and more people
embracing their true selves

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and use whatever opportunities they have

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to change their part of the world.

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And momentum as more and more countries

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find models of equality in one another.

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When Nepal protected against
LGBT discrimination,

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India pushed harder.

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When Argentina embraced marriage equality,

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Uruguay and Brazil followed.

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When Ireland said yes to equality,

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(Applause)

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the world stopped to notice.

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When the US Supreme Court makes
a statement to the world

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that we can all be proud of.

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(Applause)

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JC: When we reviewed our footage,

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what we realized is that 
we were watching a love story.

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It wasn't a love story
that was expected of me,

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but it is one filled with more freedom,
adventure and love

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than I could have ever possibly imagined.

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One year after returning home
from our trip,

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marriage equality came to California.

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And in the end, we believe,
that love will win out.

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[Video]: "By the power vested in me,

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by the state of California,

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by God almighty,

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I now pronounce you spouses for life."

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(Applause)