Great LGBTQ+ Speeches

‘Being visible is the most helpful thing we can do for others’ - this is given as the motivation for collating these speeches into a beautiful, small hardcover book. As parents, teachers, booksellers and librarians we can take this a step further and make sure this book is visible front and centre for the young readers in our lives that need it.

This is a collection of historic and recent speeches by a widely varied group and they are all tied together under the LGBTQA+ rainbow. Some of the speeches fit this categorisation because the speaker is LGBTQA+, some because the speech topic is.

Some of the speakers names are instantly recognisable like Harvey Milk and Audrey Lorde, others are less well known. Many of the speeches are about politics, laws and human rights. Marriage equality is touched on, as are the HIV crises and Stonewall riots. One thing that stands out about this collection is the wonderful introductions given to each speech, with these the reader is able to orient themselves with who the speaker is, where we are in time and place and who the audience was, it’s even mentioned when the speech is up on youtube.

Tea Uglow mentions ‘how powerful it is to look an audience in the eye and tell our truth’, this means some of these words are heavy with pain and anger and some of them are joyful. There’s swearing and there’s tearful pleas. Some speeches deal with complex issues and others refer to complicated laws and political loopholes. Because of this mature subject matter I would recommend this for senior high school students and adults and not so much a primary school setting.

Do you have any advisory warnings for this book? This anthology addresses homophobia and violence. It uses swear words and strong language.

Would this book work as a read aloud? Yes, some of the speeches