Queer Visibility Becomes a Powerful Act at Lavender Graduation

In a time of backlash against LGBTQ+ individuals, Jean Halley, a professor at the CUNY Graduate Center and College of Staten Island, takes a powerful stand by addressing graduates at her home campus’s Lavender Ceremony honoring LGBTQ+ students. Halley joins The Thought Project to talk about why showing up as her full, queer self is an act of courage — and why visibility from those in leadership matters now more than ever. Halley urges students to speak out, invoking Audre Lorde’s call to transform silence into action: “Your silence will not protect you.” Reflecting on her own coming out and journey from a violent, racist household in Wyoming to a life of advocacy and scholarship, Halley reminds listeners that queer lives are revolutionary by their very existence — and that now is the time for bravery, solidarity, and truth.