By Sarah Zakhary, a 15-year-old local high school student



Our names are Sarah Zakhary, Midori Terrill and Karina Bañuelos. We are from Lancaster and we go to SOAR [Students on the Academic Rise] High School, which is an early college high school located at Antelope Valley College.

We are currently in the ninth grade. Midori and Karina are both 14, and I [Sarah] recently turned 15.

Our English class project was to create a message about an issue in the world from the perspective of those being affected, and to try to spread that message.

We decided that those from the LGBTQ+ [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning] community face a lot of harsh judgments every day, and their perspective needs to be seen.

The class project/video took a little over a week total because we wanted to choose the best information and to find a story that would perfectly represent the issue. We chose Josh Alcorn (aka Leelah) as an example and representative of this cause.

This is an issue in the Antelope Valley because this type of bullying happens here too.

We want to live in a place where people don’t get judged based on their sexuality. That is their choice, their happiness – which is what we want viewers to take away from this video.

We would also like to add that what started off as an English project has become an actual passion to want to get this around so that others can express their happiness freely.

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Disclaimer : The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The AV Times.

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