Last night, gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, and transgender youth all across the country received a bold and supportive message from the President of the United States: that all children, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation, deserve the chance to grow up just as they are. President Obama confirmed his support for all LGBT youth by publicly condemning the practice of conversion therapy on minors and vowing to support every state-led effort to ban the practice – including the effort we are leading here in New York. President Obama said: “Tonight, somewhere in America, a young person, let’s say a young man, will struggle to fall to sleep, wrestling alone with a secret he’s held as long as he can remember,” the statement says. “Soon, perhaps, he will decide it’s time to let that secret out. What happens next depends on him, his family, as well as his friends and his teachers and his community. But it also depends on us — on the kind of society we engender, the kind of future we build.” As with so many us of, the President was deeply affected by the death of transgender teen Leelah Alcorn, and the countless other young people who have suffered so much because their families and communities would not accept them for who they are. Today, because of the President’s words of support, some of those young people may have hope for another day. It is up to all of us in New York not to let our young people down. Today, the Empire State Pride Agenda, along with legislators and other advocates, are fighting to pass two life-saving bills that currently stand before the New York State Legislature – the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) sponsored by Assembly Member Dick Gottfried and Senator Daniel Squadron, and the bill to end conversion therapy on minors sponsored by Assembly Member Deborah Glick, Senator Brad Hoylman and Senator Mike Gianaris. GENDA would protect all transgender and gender-nonconforming New Yorkers from discrimination in housing, employment, education, credit and public accommodations. Both bills were passed in the Assembly last year (and GENDA has passed for seven years in a row), but the Senate consistently refuses to bring them up for a vote. We must make 2015 the year we pass both. We must create a state which not only values the lives of our youth, but gives them a chance at a future free from legal discrimination. Help us urge our leaders to make GENDA and the bill to protect LGBT youth from conversion therapy a priority this year. Share this petition with your networks and amplify our voice in Albany Together we can create meaningful, life-saving change.