Teen Delivers Graduation Speech on Nightly Show That His School Banned Over His Coming Out as Gay

Dan Van Winkle

Published: Jun 5, 2015 01:38 pm

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Evan Young, valedictorian at Twin Peaks Charter Academy High School in Colorado, was never allowed to read his graduation speech because it included him coming out as gay. Of course, that backfired, and now his speech has reached a wider audience than ever intended with a reading at an Out Boulder fundraising event in the weeks following his graduation as well as this reading on The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore.

Sadly, the speech couldn’t be included in full on TV for time reasons, but they’ve uploaded the uncut version, which you can watch here:

As for the school, it’s currently under investigation for discrimination over the incident, in which they also outed Young to his family while informing them about it. Let this be a lesson, bigots: everything you try to do to stop progress and keep people from being happy will only make things worse for you.

(via Daily Dot)

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Author

Dan Van Winkle

Dan Van Winkle (he) is an editor and manager who has been working in digital media since 2013, first at now-defunct Geekosystem (RIP), and then at The Mary Sue starting in 2014, specializing in gaming, science, and technology. Outside of his professional experience, he has been active in video game modding and development as a hobby for many years. He lives in North Carolina with Lisa Brown (his wife) and Liz Lemon (their dog), both of whom are the best, and you will regret challenging him at Smash Bros.