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Jenni Change: 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 bring 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 (?) to spouses for life."
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(Applause)