Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I first want to acknowledge with my respect the land on which we stand of the Seminole people.
I bring you greetings from San Diego, California, the home of the largest military complex in the Western Hemisphere. Thus, I wish to pay respect to our veterans and active-duty military that are with us this evening. Would you please stand so we can acknowledge your service to our great nation.
Tonight, I speak to you as a Latino and LGBTQ+ citizen who comes from the times of Joe McCarthy of the 1950s and his national anti-homosexual campaign. I come from the times of the Stonewall Riots in the 1960s and the beginning of the Gay Rights Movement across this nation. I come from the times of Anita Bryant in the 1970s who launched her national “Save Our Children” campaign right here in Florida. I come from a time that with just a stroke of a pen by a judge or your parents, homosexual Americans were sent to mental hospitals, and many were subjected to electric shock treatments and lobotomies, never to return the same. I grew up in a time when I wasn’t only called queer and faggot, but also spick, wetback and greaser.
I say to you and America: “Read my silicone lips: We are never ever going back into the closets.”
My fellow LGBTQ+ Americans, a war has been declared on us by the radical conservative Right Wing of this nation. But they do not know our history or our resolve. We were here long before Christopher Columbus and other invaders of the sacred native land. We were here as two-spirit people that were respected by their native brothers and sisters. We were at Valley Forge with openly homosexual Revolutionary Ward hero Baron von Steuben (and his homosexual lover) whose statue stands across from the White House in Lafayette Park.
We have fought and died in every American war.
And by the way, drag shows have been performed at military bases since the 1800s, especially during World War I and II when even then President Roosevelt praised the efforts of these drag shows which raised millions for the Army Emergency Relief Fund.
But it isn’t only our community under attack with growing hate crimes. And so, LGBTQ+ America says to you: We stand with the Jewish Community. We stand with the African American Community. We stand with Women’s Rights to control their own bodies. We stand with immigrants and Dreamers! We stand with the Latino Community. We stand with the Asian Pacific Islander Community. And hear me loud and clear, we stand for gun control. And we LGBTQ+ Americans in every state say to you this evening: We stand with you Florida and our message to your governor “the new Joe McCarthy”, is that in every state we stand ready to fight and oppose your presidential campaign, every step of the way. But we cannot do this alone. Would your straight/heterosexual allies, families and friends here please stand so we can acknowledge you and thank you for your support.
In closing, we LGBTQ+ Americans want to say to our brothers and sisters from Russia and Ukraine here with us tonight, we stand with you.
And most importantly to those trying to erase our transgender community, we say: when you attack the “T” in LGBTQ+, and our youth, you attack all of us.
Lastly, in the 1970s when Anita Bryant launched her anti-homosexual campaign, we of the Imperial Courts were one of the first to hold benefits for the Dade County Coalition. And today, we are pleased to announce that the Imperial Court of Florida and the International Imperial Court System will be distributing over $1,000 worth of checks to Equality Florida and the ACLU Florida this week.
I say to you we will win this radical right war against us because “History indeed is on our side.”
Yes, we will win! Si se puede! Yes, we can!
From the bottom of this old queen’s heart: Thank you and God bless you all.
