When bisexual Westworld star Evan Rachel Wood received the Human Rights Campaign‘s LGBTQ Visibility Award she gave a truly magnificent speech.

The actor and singer spoke from the heart about her own experience of growing up attracted to women and men. She described the first time she heard the word “bisexual”.

“A light bulb went off. The word didn’t make me feel marginalised. It made me feel less crazy. It made me feel less alone. It gave me hope.”

She quoted such greats as civil rights icon Audre Lorde and singer Nina Simone and explained the importance of LGBTQ visibility:

“Because of the voices I listened to, because of the people I identified with, the films I had watched, the music I had heard – because of words like ‘bisexual’ and the doors that it opened – I’m still here.”

Evan was open about the struggles she had overcome, which affect many people in the bisexual community; “suicide, addiction, sexual harassment, rape and intimate partner violence”.

“To be yourself in a world that is doing its best to make you somebody else is the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting.”

In her closing remarks she paraphrased an inspiring quote from E.E. Cummings:

“To be nobody but yourself in a world that is doing its best to make you somebody else is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting.”

Evan Rachel Wood is awesome.

Only reading DIVA online? You’re missing out. For more news, reviews and commentary, check out the latest issue. It’s pretty badass, if we do say so ourselves.

divadigital.co.uk // divadirect.co.uk