Annie Lancaster

Paige Ward
“I’m really big on equal rights. I go to a unitarian universalist church, so my youth group is entirely people that are transgender, people that are gay, like my best friend is gay. I have a brother with special needs, so seeing other people around me not have the same rights as me or even seeing myself not having the same rights as others is just a travesty. I just want everyone to be able to be happy, and I am not sure why others wanna prevent that from happening…My older brother has autism and when I was in the sixth grade, these older boys on the bus, who were in the seventh grade, were making fun of him, so I stepped in and I was like you guys can’t do that, like you guys really suck if you are making fun of someone with special needs. And then, two years later they came back to me and apologized for what they had done and recognized that they needed to reevaluate their actions. So, that was a moment where I realized that you need to stand up for people that can’t stand up for themselves, and you will change how people act, even if it takes a long time, by your words.”