Watch: Ellen Page’s emotional LGBT rights speech
By Nick Bond
Actor Ellen Page accepted the Human Right’s Campaign’s Vanguard Award over the weekend, delivering a stirring nine-minute speech in which she reaffirmed her commitment to furthering LGBT rights and talked about her own experiences as an out gay public figure.
Page – currently starring opposite Julianne Moore as a real-life gay police officer fighting for her rights in Freeheld – reflected on how her life has changed since she came out publicly on February 14 last year.
“I can proudly stand here tonight and tell you that since Valentine’s Day of last year, I am very, very happy, and I finally feel that I am truly living my life. There was a time when I thought it would be impossible to be out,” she said.
“I acutely remember the pain I was in before I was out. I have been able to experience a lot of things for the first time in the last year and a half: having my arms wrapped around my girlfriend Samantha while we walk down the street, holding her hand on the red carpet, kissing her in the ocean while we surf – yes, she has taught me to surf – and getting to say in public, ‘I am in love’.”
Watch Page’s full, stirring speech below:
It was only a couple of weeks ago that Page made her red carpet debut with girlfriend Samantha Thompson – check out pictures from the evening here.
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