Non-Conforming Gender Views

Laura Fink is currently a high school senior and she gives a speech on the fluidity of the gender spectrum, and how it has defined not only her life but the lives of everyone born into this gender-conforming world. Fink's talk was inspired by her multiple written pieces for her school's literary journal, where she explores similar concepts. She grounds herself in her own self-discovering journey and shares her stories of how she breached these conforming ideas that once consumed her.

Diving into the exploration of the fluid range of gender identification, the concepts of extreme male or female concepts become blurrier. Fink explains how people can counter the gender-based negativity with love, respect, and acceptance. To explore the different identities, she explains that it is not only male or female, there are people who choose to identify as, cisgender, transgender, genderqueer, genderfluid, or androgynous. She emphasizes the importance of respect in the matters of gender, to simply respect who one identifies as and abide by their wishes and to respectfully ask if they're unsure.

She states her strong belief that a society which accepts individuals of all genders is on the right side of history. Most importantly, she encourages people to not have gender conformities define us because 'we are not only a gender, we're people.'