Actress and singer Cynthia Erivo spoke candidly about personal challenges regarding gender identity and pronoun use during her acceptance speech at the 2024 GLAAD Media Awards.

Erivo, who starred in the upcoming film Wicked, was honored with the Stephen F. Kolzak Award, which recognizes an openly queer individual in entertainment or media for efforts to eliminate homophobia.

Erivo used her moment on stage to reflect on the difficulties she has faced being open about her identity and asking others to use her preferred pronouns.

“This has been a wild, wild ride and I’ve been deeply grateful for every second of it,” she said in her speech.

“More than anything that I have seen and felt, how open-armed my community has been.”

Erivo said she often speaks about the importance of authenticity and being one’s “whole self,” but acknowledged the personal difficulty that can come with it.

“I have spoken about being your whole self and your true self. I speak about the prizes that come from being you against the odds, but rarely do I acknowledge how hard that can be,” she said. “It isn’t easy. None of it is.”

Actress and singer Cynthia Erivo spoke candidly about personal challenges regarding gender identity and pronoun use during her acceptance speech at the 2024 GLAAD Media Awards.

Erivo, who starred in the upcoming film Wicked, was honored with the Stephen F. Kolzak Award, which recognizes an openly queer individual in entertainment or media for efforts to eliminate homophobia.

Erivo used her moment on stage to reflect on the difficulties she has faced being open about her identity and asking others to use her preferred pronouns.

“This has been a wild, wild ride and I’ve been deeply grateful for every second of it,” she said in her speech.

“More than anything that I have seen and felt, how open-armed my community has been.”

Erivo said she often speaks about the importance of authenticity and being one’s “whole self,” but acknowledged the personal difficulty that can come with it.

“I have spoken about being your whole self and your true self. I speak about the prizes that come from being you against the odds, but rarely do I acknowledge how hard that can be,” she said. “It isn’t easy. None of it is.”

She shared that navigating public and private spaces while trying to live authentically has involved frustration and emotional labor, particularly in asking others to use the pronouns “they” and “them.”

“Waking up and choosing to be yourself, proclaiming a space belongs to you when you don’t feel welcomed, teaching people on a daily basis how to address you and dealing with the frustration of re-teaching people a word that has been in the human vocabulary since the dawn of time,” Erivo said.

“They, them. Words used to describe pedantically two or more people, (and) poetically a person who is simply more,” she added.

Erivo continued by discussing dignity and the emotional toll of repeatedly asking for it.

“It isn’t easy to ask people to treat you with dignity, since you should just have it, because it’s a given. It isn’t easy to learn to grow who you are if the world around you is knocking at your door, telling you to stay inside,” she said.

Using a metaphor to describe the journey of self-discovery, she said, “Some flowers bloom against all the odds, like the peony, but most flowers need to be tended to and cared for before they brave the light and open up their petals to the sun.”

Erivo emphasized the challenges faced by many in the LGBTQ community, stating that not everyone has had the same path.

“Here in this room, we’ve all been the recipients of a gift that is the opportunity to be more. I doubt that it has come easy to any of us, but more for some, the road has not been one paved with yellow bricks but instead paved with bumps and potholes − whichever road you have traveled, how beautiful it is that you’ve had a road to travel on at all. There are the invisible ones who have had no road at all.”

She concluded her speech by calling on those in attendance to use their influence to help others.

“We are all visible,” Erivo said.

The GLAAD Media Awards were held in Los Angeles and celebrate media portrayals that promote fair, accurate, and inclusive representations of LGBTQ individuals and issues.