Last night, NYC’s LGBT Community Center held its annual Center Dinner at Cipriani Wall Street, celebrating the Center’s continued service to the local and global queer community. This year’s Dinner honored Susie Scher, Senior Advisor in the Financing Group within Global Banking & Markets at Goldman Sachs; Ruth Jacks, Executive Vice President and Head of Diverse Segments, Commercial Banking at Wells Fargo & Company; and global superstar (and recent PAPER cover star!) Kesha .
Since opening its doors in 1983 as a direct result of the AIDS crisis, The Center has provided an ever-growing list of life-affirming and life-saving services to LGBTQ people in New York City and beyond. These services, many of which are provided both in-person and virtually, include support groups, recovery programs, advocacy, community organizing and arts events.
Kesha was presented with the Visionary Award by Bob The Drag Queen, who introduced Kesha as “an artist who has not only shaped the music industry, but has also been a beacon of empowerment and authenticity for the queer community.” Kesha, stunning in a pink skin-tight dress, reminded the audience to “be fucking radical.”
“What we live through makes us stronger and gives us empathy for the person sitting next to us,” Kesha said. “In the midst of all of this hate and chaos, and people trying to take away our freedoms, the most political thing we can do is love ourselves and love one another.”
Read the full text of Kesha’s Visionary Award acceptance speech below:
Thank you and hello New York! I’m here in New York to do promo for my new album. It’s called “.”
I am releasing PERIOD as the CEO of my own record label Kesha Records, and all of these songs have been produced by me, written by me, sang by me and it’s the first time in my life, I have legal rights to the recordings of my voice, so I am so excited to be here this week.
As I’ve been here doing interviews and strutting around the city, I wanted to walk into this album cycle being a completely empowered, fully healed, and unbothered cunt, but the truth of it is that I have seen some shit and I’ve been through some shit. And whether I like it or not, it has changed me. And I can imagine that every person in this room has seen some shit and been through some shit that has changed you. Shit that you did not ask to go through. We are just people fighting for our lives to just be ourselves. To be safe. To be free. You are my community and this is my safe space to be authentically myself so I’m gonna be authentically myself tonight. Messy, still healing, pretty cunty most of the time, except for when I get wildly insecure or scared.
And it’s hard not to be scared in these times, when we are faced every day with an administration that is challenging our basic human rights and human freedoms. Although I don’t have the answers on how to combat every piece of this, I will say one thing with conviction.
What we live through, makes us stronger and gives us empathy for the person sitting next to us. In the midst of all of this hate and chaos, and people trying to take away our freedoms, the most political thing we can do is love ourselves and love one another. So let’s be fucking radical.
I love all of you so much thank you for being my home and thank you for having me as part of your beautiful community. I don’t know where I would be without this community and I will fight for each and every one of your rights the same way you have fought and stood up for mine for the rest of my life. Thank you for this honor.
Photography: Gregory Pace/Shutterstock for The Center