Meet the Winners of Seattle Pride's Third Annual Youth Voices and Youth Visions Contests

Every year, we ask LGBTQIA2S+ youth to respond to a theme and see where they take it. This year's theme was "Rally," and what we received said a lot about where young queer and trans people are right now, what's pulling at them, what's holding them up, and what's pushing them forward.

This contest exists because young LGBTQIA2S+ people deserve a platform built specifically for them. Every submission we receive is a reminder that queer and trans youth are already telling their own stories. Congratulations to this year's winners, and thank you to everyone who entered and shared a piece of themselves with us!

Youth Voices

1st place: Sirjana Kaur, "Litany for Kite-Flyers"

Every time my parents say they love me
I hold my breath. I know the line between love
& hate. I know the distance between them
is the opening of a closet door.
So today, I am painting a masterpiece
for me & my brown-skinned sisters
in which there is no door.
In which there is no country to return to
but sky. No heckling on street corners.
No backhanded compliments. No double-
edged swords to parry.
No reverence to any God who dares
leave us hungry. No mothers to feed us
our shame, hand to mouth. No men
to lay us out on the table, call us
“juicy” or “ripe”. In this picture
we name ourselves full.
I am tired of being incomplete.
I am tired of straddling the lines between three things
that cannot exist at the same time.
If I am South Asian and a woman I am property.
If I am a woman and queer I “haven’t found the right man yet”.
If I am South Asian and queer I am disowned.
And there is no one to teach me how to talk about it.
So today there are no microaggressions times three
because my sisters and I, we are not
minorities times three. There is no flight
that feels like falling the whole time.
Nothing but clouds to catch us.
No dreams too dangerous
to hold. No bones too heavy
for liftoff. No body which is not made
of miracles. No body which resists joy.
No body apologizes.
I am lucky not to be alone in the closet, the corner, the kitchen.
But not lucky enough to step out.
Our stories are tied down like kite strings and I am ready
to set them loose.

2nd place: Riley Curtis, "To Die as Charlie"

Charlie’s eyes had always reminded me of nature. In particular, they reminded me of the great evergreen trees in the distant place that he called home. The centers of his eyes were dark, wooden brown, and on the outer rims, the color blended into a striking pine green. Not only was the color of those eyes reminiscent of the ancient conifers, but also the strength in them. When he was moved to anger, albeit an infrequent occurrence, those eyes would narrow and shine with defiant tears like misty morning fog. No one can stand against stubborn eyes like that, no one at all— including the Marianne School for Principled Youths, which was raising its wretched axe against him now. His tattered hiking boots just barely disturbed the river's current as he sat, legs spread unladylike, on a moss-blanketed rock. I watched the sunlight play with his auburn hair from the safety of the riverbank. Charlie had his back turned to me, wearing a spiteful frown which I could not entirely make out. I had known him long enough to be able to infer the rest of his expression from the tensely drawn muscles I could see. I had known him since childhood. I had known him since he had long hair and called himself a girl.
“I won’t do it,” he said solemnly.
“Do what?”
“Wear a skirt, let my hair down, respond to a name that isn’t mine. I won’t lie there on the ground, so it’s easier for them to step on me. I won’t do it, it’s not me.”
For the past few weeks, Charlie had been wearing a boy’s uniform to school, and all hell had broken loose for it. There was much talk of demon-worshipping, lawlessness, teenage delinquency, and crudeness. As of a few hours ago, Charlie had been told by the principal herself that if he did not arrive the following morning in the standard ladies’ uniform, he would be expelled from the school. Instead of riding home on the afternoon bus, Charlie had wandered out to the forest behind the school building to think. Of course, I went with him. I had known for a while that this hour was approaching, and I wanted to help him weigh his options.
I ran my fingers across the smooth surface of a rock and then skipped it over the surface of the river. Charlie watched it skip three times before it sank down. I said, “You can’t make a housewife out of a schoolboy.” Charlie hummed pensively at that. I could tell he was in deep thought, charting his course of action. I waited in silence. Somewhere above our heads, a songbird chirped, ignorant of our sacred space. “They’re no better than I am. No, they’re not any stronger than I am— you want to know why they aren’t?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “Well, it’s because I’m like this river. You can throw all the stones you want, but you can’t change the current. It flows that way because that’s its nature; it can’t do anything else. That’s what I’ll tell her— Principal Laurie, I mean. I’ll say it straight to her face, ‘throw your stones and throw them well, but you can’t change me.’”
“She’ll expel you for that, surely. Besides that, think of what’ll happen if those words get around to the school. I’m certain someone’ll beat you up for that. They don’t understand you. To be honest, I don’t really understand you either.”
“I know they’ll lose their heads. I have been beaten before, and I suppose I will go on being beaten for the rest of my life. Some people are so filled with hate that they can’t do anything but spew it from their mouths and tear at the world with their fists. They don’t understand me, so they beat me. They can’t control me, so they beat me. It doesn’t matter— I’d sooner die as Charlie than live as Charlotte. The thing is, Lucky, I shouldn’t have to die for being who I am. There’s nothing more to understand than that. It’s people like them that are the reason for all this madness, not people like me. It’s absolutely confounding how we are made out to be the villains when, in reality, my transgender siblings are the victims of hate crimes and murders every day. Beyond that, we should all cry bitter tears for the children who are buried under the wrong name because they killed themselves believing the societal lie that transgenders are subhuman. Bitter, bitter tears. We failed those kids. As Americans, we have failed each other. We live in a free country that is appalled by people who just want to live freely.”

Youth Visions

1st place: Elli Darbinian "Sharing Secrets"

2nd place: Emmanuelle "Space Journey"