A necessary characteristic of a leader is the ability to practice equity. Despite political views or prior affiliations, to be a successful leader, one must treat everyone respectfully without discrimination based on their race, sexuality, gender, handicaps, age, religion, or any other identifiable factor. I try to be a leader in my everyday life as well as at my workplace and at my school. At school, I am part of Link Crew, which is a student leadership organization. Our main goal is to help freshmen adjust to the high school climate and running freshmen orientation. I hold a leadership position in countless clubs as well: I am the president and founder of the American Sign Language Club; president of Sunshine Society, a community service organization; secretary of Cultural Diversity Club; and I hold a service chair position on National Honor Society. This last school year I was also the vice-president of the Spanish Club, and I am currently running for the same position for next school year. Due to my efforts, I have earned employee of the month at my job, and I am trusted by the administration at my school. I am a good leader because I am forgiving and I do not let personal feelings intermix with my role of leadership. There are people in my workplace and clubs at school who I do not get along with, but I put aside any negative feelings and treat everyone with the same amount of respect to which they are entitled to. Bullying is tragically a large issue in schools across the nation, and I have worked as hard as I can to help victims. I have been on both ends of the bullying narrative: my freshman year, to cope with an abusive stepfather figure, I got a new group of friends who were very mean to others. I changed my personality to match theirs, and it wasn't until I became a victim of their attacks that I realized how destructive that behavior is. I had lies spread about me all over social media, and I was labeled things such as "racist" and "sexist", as they knew that was what would bother me the most. The blatant lies and hatred I experienced caused a positive character change in me. This change of personality is what makes me a good leader. By knowing how both ends feel, I am better prepared to aid victims and stop bullies. A recent example of me being a leader occurred during our school's spring musical, Shrek. There was a transgender and lesbian student in the production who also is on the autism spectrum. Due to her personality differing from other students, she was mercilessly bullied and put down by other students. My cousin also is on the autism spectrum, and the bullying he experiences is grotesque. While there were times I got frustrated with the student, I always would talk to her to let her know that I was there for her and I would demand the other students to stop treating her differently. She got teased for her identity as well as her personality. I am also homosexual, so I would sit down with her and give her talks on how to overcome the borderline harassment she endured. By looking past her mental handicap and her gender and sexual-orientation, any good leader would be able to help those in need.

Disney is a company built on imagination, sentiment, and nostalgia. My favorite Disney things are The Seas with Nemo and Friends and The Pirates of the Caribbean rides at Walt Disney World. These two rides remind me of my father, who tragically passed away when I was in fifth grade. Growing up, my family was quite poor, but my father and mother saved up enough money when I was three years old to take me on my dream vacation: Disney World. We stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge Resort, and I loved getting to see the animals out of our window. We went to all four parks, but two rides stuck out to me. The Seas with Nemo and Friends and The Pirates of the Caribbean were my two favorite rides when I was younger, as I wanted to ride them again and again while we were there. I fell in love with the jellyfish displays and the "turtle tunnel" The Seas with Nemo and Friends has to offer. The bright colors fascinated my young eyes, and I was enthralled by all of the vivid characters. Furthermore, The Pirates of the Caribbean supplied me with a sense of adventure I admired and desired at a young age. I have always liked the genre of horror, and The Pirates of the Caribbean offered a slight horror component appropriate for a child of my age. My father and I would talk about our vacation for years to come, and it was a constant source of joy for us to bond over. Shortly after my father's untimely passing, my mother arranged for us to go back to Disney World. We were not able to afford to stay in the Animal Kingdom Lodge again, but it was a miracle we were able to afford to go at all. We ended up staying in the All-Star Movies Resort, and we took a bag of my father's ashes so he could experience our favorite vacation together again one final time. We did not spread his ashes at Disney World, as doing so would have led to us being ejected from the park; however, we did take his ashes on both The Seas with Nemo and Friends and The Pirates of the Caribbean. Overall, The Seas with Nemo and Friends at EPCOT and The Pirates of the Caribbean at The Magic Kingdom hold special places in my heart, as they were a very fond memory shared between my father and I before his passing.

I believe that my greatest achievement to date would be succeeding in my academics despite having a tumultuous relationship with my family and home life. At present, I have a cumulative 4.1 grade point average, I am the president of two clubs: sign language club and sunshine society, I am the vice-president of the Spanish club, I hold a service-chair position on the National Honor Society, I am the secretary for the cultural diversity club, and I am a member of link crew, a student leadership organization; however, the journey here has been quite difficult. My mother got pregnant with me when she was seventeen years old, and subsequently dropped out of high school. My father was a drug addict who was never able to provide a steady income for the family. My parents got married when I was two years old and separated when I was five years old. My parents' separation was ultimately what caused my father's intense downward spiral which ultimately ended up affecting my life devastatingly. After my parents got divorced, they each moved in with their parents. My mother's parents are very mentally ill and my father's parents are very overbearing and passive-aggressive, so living with them was far from easy. My parents would get in fights frequently during my childhood, and my mother would always isolate me from my father during those times, making me considerably upset. My mom was the assistant manager at a video store in the small town I lived in, and her schedule fluctuated a lot as a result. Between my mother's busy schedule and my irregular relationship with my father, I lacked a lot of parental bonds when I was younger. My mother ended up getting a boyfriend shortly before I went into first grade, and while he seemed nice at first, the following years were a catastrophic point in my life. Her boyfriend quickly became her husband and they had a child together. After they quickly got engaged, he got very comfortable and he would frequently verbally abuse me, calling me names and making me feel like I was dumb. He got physical in a few circumstances, but he was always able to talk his way out of it when DCS came. My mother caught him cheating on her and they got divorced just as fast as they got married. I thought my life was turning around, then tragically and unexpectedly, my father, the parent I favored as a child, died from a heroin overdose when I was ten years old. He had been very depressed leading up to his death because he had been planning on proposing to his girlfriend of three years when he found out she was cheating on him. My father's death is the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with. At his funeral, only one of my friends came, and my stepmom did not show up. I felt alone and scared. Kids at school talked about me and made inappropriate comments about my father. I became very depressed as a result, but thankfully things started looking up again when I was in eighth grade. My mom had gotten a new boyfriend who seemed nice and I was doing superb academically; however, history repeats itself. My mother's boyfriend was secretly a methamphetamine addict and a very heavy alcoholic. He would scream at my mom every night, and I could not escape the verbal attacks no matter where I hid. The screaming became hitting, as he became physical, trying to drag my mother through a window to attack her, and proceeding to throw empty beer bottles at her. I wanted to no longer be alive anymore. Following his attack, my mother became very mean and cold-hearted toward me. I visited my family in Florida for the entire summer that year to get away from the situation. In my freshman year of high school, I got a new group of friends which I thought would be good for me. The next summer, I went to Florida again, and while I was there, my friend group spread lies about me on social media and everyone in my school began hating me. I felt alone. I harmed myself and wanred to disappear. I am now two years clean and I have managed to turn my life around for myself. Despite some challenges, I am very proud of the person I have become, and I know that more character development is bound to occur in the future.

I love math because it has one definitive answer. With other subjects, such as English, assignments are nearly always open to interpretation, which is useful; however, I appreciate the fact that mathematics always has a correct answer. Whenever I am wanting to do something more creative in the field of mathematics, I can always look to geometry or trigonometry, as they give students more free liberty in their work, as can be seen in problems such as proofs and word-problem vectors. I also appreciate the hard work, time, and dedication mathematicians put into creating new formulas, theorems, and laws. Without math, discounts in stores could not be properly calculated, engineers could not correctly design items, farmers would not be able to know how much land they need to care for, and the field of pharmaceuticals would be inaccurate, which could be lethal for consumers. America runs on capitalism, which would also not be able to function properly if mathematics were not properly taught in the school systems. All in all, I enjoy math due to the intense work that was required for it to be created and fine-tuned, as well as the fact that mathematics always has a correct answer.

I have been an advocate for domestic violence awareness for the last several years, and my activism in the community is bound to grow and enlarge in the future. Domestic violence has tragically been a huge aspect of my life for the last three years. My mother had gotten a new boyfriend at the end of my eighth-grade school year. The man had a history of methamphetamine abuse and harassment; however, my mother believed him when he said that he was a changed person. This inevitably was revealed to be a lie, and this man wreaked havoc on my family's life for an entire year. Due to his substance history, he was on probation; however, he would still drink very heavily. Regardless of where I was located in my home, the place designed for my safety, I could not escape the horrendous screams being aimed at my mother by her boyfriend. Hearing him berating her day in and day out clearly did a number on my mother, but it also ruined my mental health as well. Eventually, the abuse turned violent: one night, he drank a very large amount of alcohol and began yelling at my mom on our back porch. She was very scared of him in this state, so she locked the back door after running inside to get away from him. He banged and banged on the door, and eventually opened up a window and began throwing glasses and bottles at my mother. She was near the opened window by this point, and he attempted to pull her through the window. Thankfully, he was unsuccessful. By this point, my mother was attempting to call the police; however, her boyfriend grabbed her phone and refused to give it back to her. She begged me to call the police and I froze. I was too scared to do anything, and to this day I regret not being more helpful. I gave her my phone to call the police with, and her boyfriend ran away, with police not finding him for roughly an entire week. He eventually entered police custody and was placed on house arrest. Despite the man no longer being a physical aspect of my family's lives, the pain and destruction he caused still affect us all today. I plan to attend rallies and marches in the future to support victims of domestic violence, especially women as I want to do something to make up for not helping my innocent mother more when she was being hurt. Similarly, after I am out of university, I intend on donating any extra money I find myself in possession of to organizations aiding domestic violence victims. My actions will hopefully impact the lives of others in two manners: by helping victims be able to get out of any dangerous situations and be in a safe and stable environment, and by showing people across the globe that domestic violence is nothing to be ashamed of and that there is strength in numbers.

Cancer has devastatingly affected my life since its introduction in my life roughly eight years ago. My paternal grandfather was diagnosed with throat cancer at some point when I was nine years old, and he has been in and out of remission throughout the last several years. His health struggles have put my family through a lot of stress and worry. Seeing my grandfather's pain and hurt has harmed my mental health drastically. My father passed away shortly after my grandfather's diagnosis and the actual loss of my father coupled with the potential loss of my grandfather destroyed my faith and spirit. I have had a complicated relationship with religion during my life, and the tragic journey my grandfather has experienced with cancer, along with my father's untimely passing, has caused me to lose my faith and currently identify as an atheist. I would go to my grandfather's appointments with him, and seeing the lack of hope in the cancer patient's eyes made me fully realize how awful cancer is. My grandfather was eventually deemed cancer-free, and it was not until mere months ago that he was informed that his cancer had returned. His throat cancer was back in a much more aggressive form, and he had developed skin cancer. My heart shattered when he was informed about the cancer's return, as he looked me dead in the eyes and said, "Why can't there just be a pill to make me feel better?" He recently underwent two surgeries to remove both sets of cancer and he now has a feeding tube to eat from. There were complications with the second surgery, which caused him to be very anxious and paranoid, as well as experience intense nausea. My grandfather is still not acting like himself, and it is devastating to witness. When he originally had cancer, he was on medications which caused him to act bizarrely, resulting in odd circumstances such as when he wrote on his house with a black marker. Watching cancer change who my grandfather is as a person hurts my spirit, and it makes me worried about his future. While cancer has wreaked havoc on my life, it has also made me realize how valuable a human life is and how quickly someone close to me can have a close call to death. I now cherish all of my relationships more, and I attempt to be more kind and understanding with everyone, as I never know when it will be the last time I get to see them. All in all, cancer has affected my beliefs by making me question my religious standpoint and lose my faith, and it has caused me to cherish the relationships I have more.

I have overcome adversity in my life on countless occasions. When I was born, my mother had just dropped out of high school, and my father had recently left rehab for his heroin addiction. Growing up, neither of my parents had very well-paying jobs due to the fact that neither of them attended college, and a large amount of money was used to support my father's drug addiction. Around the time I was four years old, my father lost his job and he never held a job for a long duration of time after this. My mother has worked very hard to support me and my younger brother, but being a single mom with a GED, there is only so much that she can do. There were several times throughout my life where I would not be able to have the same clothes or other luxuries as the other kids my age resulting in rude comments. My aforementioned younger brother is my half-sibling, as we share the same mother. His father was very abusive toward me during his relationship with my mother. My mother married this man when I was roughly seven years old, and he was extraordinarily verbally abusive and would call me names and make me feel horrible about myself. He became physically violent on a handful of occasions, but he would convince DCS that I was lying. Eventually, my mother and my brother's father divorced, and I felt like my life was finally starting to get better; however, when I was in fifth grade, my father overdosed on heroin and tragically passed away. His loss was the hardest thing I had ever had to deal with. I was much closer with my father than I am to my mother, and his loss has caused me immense inexplicable pain. I was bullied severely in middle school for being different from the other boys my age, and I realized during my freshman year of high school that I was homosexual. I live in a very small-minded Republican community, and I feel scared to be myself in the place I am supposed to call home. Thankfully, my mother is supportive of me; however, my extended family still does not know who I am because they are very blatantly racist and homophobic individuals. During my time of figuring out who I was freshman year, my mother got another boyfriend. This boyfriend would verbally assault my mother every night, and I would be forced to hear his grotesque language every night. He, similarly to my brother's father, got violent on one occasion, where he tried to pull my mother through a window. All of the abuse caused by this man caused me to have night terrors for an entire year, where I would dream that he was coming back to kill me and my mom. All in all, I still have several challenges in my life, and if I am able to go to university without having to worry so much about the economics of it, I will be able to have a much more smooth journey going forward.

I plan on making a positive impact on the world by refuting the selfishness which has stemmed from American consumerism and capitalism. I am going to school to become a civil rights lawyer, and I have spent a great deal of my life thus far living in poverty and being involved with families suffering from poverty. I lost my father when I was ten years old, and the financial burden fell solely on my mother. She did not go to college and thus makes a smaller salary. My mother is one of the most hardworking people I have ever met, yet there were so many times throughout my life when she would be stressed out significantly by finances. It is not fair for the lower class and middle class to be subject to worse lives solely because they have not been handed money as many upper-class citizens have. Out of the people I have met while living in a "factory town" in the Midwest, the hardest working people tend to be from the poorest backgrounds. I want to be able to do something in my future to help make the lives of these hardworking yet less privileged people easier to live. Lawyer fees tend to be outrageously expensive, and by offering services for a lower price, I can ensure that those in need can secure their futures without going bankrupt. I am the president of a volunteering organization known as Sunshine Society, where we work to help the lower class, especially around the holidays. I foresee advocacy and charity being a large part of my future after I am out of college, and I want to be able to donate to needy populations and homeless shelters alike to help the people who, unfortunately, are struggling as a result of America's toxic mannerisms. Had it not been for food stamps and the generosity of other family members, my mother would not have been able to support both myself and my younger brother. People with the capability to help need to, as the ever-rising division between wealth classes in the United States needs to be brought to an end. Overall, I plan on making a positive impact on the world by helping people in tough situations be able to access a lawyer for a much smaller price, and I intend on donating my time and money to people in need after I receive my college education.

Being a first-generation college student has influenced my future goals in countless manners. I have seen the stress associated with struggling to provide for your family given the lack of career options available to high school graduates, and I want to ensure a safe future for myself and my family. My mother was not able to go to college because she had me at a young age, and I want to go to make her proud as well as experience it for her since she did not get to go herself. Due to not having a lot of money or parents with a college degree, I did not always have the finances or resources available to me to do well. I have been in honors classes since I was in third grade, and several of my fellow classmates and peers have been born into education and were taught things growing up as their parents had more free-time whereas my parents were constantly working and I had to learn everything for myself. Earning this scholarship would greatly help me reach my goal of becoming a civil rights lawyer, as my single mother will not be able to afford to aid me while in college.

My experience with mental health has greatly influenced my life on countless levels. Beginning with my upbringing, my father struggled with substance abuse. In school, I was always taught that people who do drugs were bad people, so when I found out that my father was an addict, I was devastated and afraid while my other third-grade peers got to enjoy regular childhood experiences. My father tragically and unexpectedly passed away from a heroin overdose when I was in fifth grade, and it ushered in my personal mental health battles. I have been diagnosed with clinical depression and anxiety, and I have been on medication for the last four years. I have also been in therapy for the last six years. Depression runs in my family, with both of my maternal grandparents having it severely, my aunt having it, and my mother. My mental health has caused issues within my life as I have had difficulty communicating with my friends and family members whenever I do not feel like myself. Mental health also unfortunately has a negative stigma surrounding it, and living in a small-minded midwestern town, I was terrified of anyone ever finding out I had my own issues or that my family has a history of mental illness. Moving forward to the end of my eighth-grade school year, my mother got a new boyfriend who was physically and verbally abusive toward her. Witnessing his constant attacks on her made my mental health struggles greatly worsen and eventually caused hers to get worse as well. Following their break-up, which occurred after it was discovered he was a methamphetamine addict, my mother could not get out of bed for months. My mother is a very strong woman and I look up to her in the sense that she is one of the toughest and most independent people I know. Seeing the devastating effect the man had had on her life clearly was hard on her, as it was also very rough for me. There was a period more recently where something very traumatic and illegal occurred to my mom while she was in an intoxicated state at a friends house; moreover, this disgusting offense, which I cannot specifically disclose nor describe, caused her to be in the worst depressive episode I have ever seen from her. I had to become more responsible and grow up quickly so I could help as much as I could around the house and with my younger brother. My mother's mental health has drastically improved recently, but the effects of her struggles are long-lasting. My mother's mother also has several mental health issues: she is an extreme hypochondriac and has several other undiagnosed mental issues which drastically impacted my mother and aunt's upbringing. My mother explains how growing up, my grandmother permanently layed in bed and said she didn't feel good, an excuse, my mother claims, to stay far away from her children. This harsh parent-child dynamic has caused my mother to be the polar opposite in my life, as she has always wanted to be involved and is frequently overbearing. My grandmother's mental health issues have unfortunately impacted me as well, as she frequently explains to me how painful her illnesses are, and it takes all I have not to break down in tears hearing her say this. My paternal grandfather had been diagnosed with cancer when I was in fifth grade, and around the same time, my maternal grandmother decided to tell everyone she was dying from throat cancer. Being roughly ten years old at the time, I did not know she was mentally ill, and the idea of losing both my grandmother and grandfather to throat cancer haunted me day in and day out. A final example on how mental health has altered my life comes from my mother's father. My grandfather has the worst case of depression that I have ever seen, extreme Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and is potentially suicidal. He had hurt himself while my mother was growing up, but he has not done so during my life time; however, my family still believes he could be suicidal as he makes sorrowful remarks frequently about how excited he is for death. I have tried to raise awareness for mental health in my community, and I know that mental health advocacy and awareness is bound to be a drastically important element in my life as an adult.

Music has shaped the way I view the world in a large capacity. Music is a beautiful art form that allows artists to express how they feel healthily for a plethora of audiences worldwide. I have several songs I love listening to on a regular basis which helps me validate the way I feel: the song "Cause of a Scene" by Jake Wesley Rogers, a musician I highly look up to, describes the intense feeling of wanting attention from others, a feeling very real in many people but generally negatively viewed by society. The newly released song "Paris, Texas" by Lana Del Rey perfectly represents the conflicted feelings I feel regarding wanting to move away from my small town but being too scared to. Music also has the capability of being one of the most entertaining art forms in modern times. A prime example of how music has helped entertain me can be heard in the 2021 heartbreak anthem "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)" by my favorite musical performer, Taylor Swift. The vivid imagery, the literary elements, and the overall messages of the song beautifully convey a powerful story in a single song. While the song in question is on the lengthier side, it still manages to capture the attention of listeners, and it doesn't leave a stale taste in your mouth as many repetitive pop songs tend to do. In terms of how music has become an important part of my everyday life, I have participated in choir since I was in sixth grade, earning several solos and earning the "Best Male Performer" award when I was a sophomore. I have also participated in nearly twenty stage productions, most of which were musicals. I most recently acted as the Big Bad Wolf in Shrek, and the role helped me learn how to get out of my comfort zone. Show choir has helped me become confident, a major issue in my life throughout all of my childhood; moreover, I have a love for performing, and music has helped me be able to perform joyously. I do not play any sports, so the intense dancing we do for show choir also helps me regulate my exercise daily. I plan on doing a solo at our competition this year with the song "Role of a Lifetime" from Bare, as it miraculously conveys the raw and intense inner conflict I face with my LGBTQ identity. Lines such as "Hoping that one day when you wake, those feelings won't be there", "Try to bury something so intense" and "You learn to play the straight man, your lines become routine, never really saying what you mean" have aided me in my journey of self-discovery and empower me to be myself. Overall, music is a wonderful thing and it can do countless wonders for different people. For me, Taylor Swift puts it best as she states, "People haven't always been there for me, but music always has".

I have overcome adversity in my life on countless occasions. When I was born, my mother had just dropped out of high school, and my father had recently left rehab for his heroin addiction. Growing up, neither of my parents had very well-paying jobs due to the fact that neither of them attended college, and a large amount of money was used to support my father's drug addiction. Around the time I was four years old, my father lost his job and he never held a job for a long duration of time after this. My mother has worked very hard to support me and my younger brother, but being a single mom with a GED, there is only so much that she can do. There were several times throughout my life where I would not be able to have the same clothes or other luxuries as the other kids my age resulting in rude comments. My aforementioned younger brother is my half-sibling, as we share the same mother. His father was very abusive toward me during his relationship with my mother. My mother married this man when I was roughly seven years old, and he was extraordinarily verbally abusive and would call me names and make me feel horrible about myself. He became physically violent on a handful of occasions, but he would convince DCS that I was lying. Eventually, my mother and my brother's father divorced, and I felt like my life was finally starting to get better; however, when I was in fifth grade, my father overdosed on heroin and tragically passed away. His loss was the hardest thing I had ever had to deal with. I was much closer with my father than I am to my mother, and his loss has caused me immense inexplicable pain. I was bullied severely in middle school for being different from the other boys my age, and I realized during my freshman year of high school that I was homosexual. I live in a very small-minded Republican community, and I feel scared to be myself in the place I am supposed to call home. Thankfully, my mother is supportive of me; however, my extended family still does not know who I am because they are very blatantly racist and homophobic individuals. During my time of figuring out who I was freshman year, my mother got another boyfriend. This boyfriend would verbally assault my mother every night, and I would be forced to hear his grotesque language every night. He, similarly to my brother's father, got violent on one occasion, where he tried to pull my mother through a window. All of the abuse caused by this man caused me to have night terrors for an entire year, where I would dream that he was coming back to kill me and my mom. All in all, I still have several challenges in my life, and if I am able to go to university without having to worry so much about the economics of it, I will be able to have a much more smooth journey going forward.

Hello! My name is Nivek Witt. My pronouns are he/they, and I am homosexual. Being a part of the LGBTQIA+ community has greatly impacted me throughout all of my life. I never really noticed being too different when I was younger; however, looking back, I always had way more girl friends than boy friends, and I now have a more difficult time connecting with my male peers as a result. While in middle school, I would commonly get questioned by my fellow students asking if I was gay, and, for a while, I did not think that I was, and when I finally did realize I was, I was too afraid to admit it. I did not want to come out due to a fear of never having my own biological children with the person I love, and the reaction from my very conservative extended family. I entered high school, and I had a girlfriend for a while. Eventually, I came out of the closet, but only as bisexual, as I was too confused about my identity to fully know if I was not attracted to women. During my sophomore year of high school, I came out fully as gay, and I have faced severe ridicule and judgment from my peers. During this last school year, I was forcefully shoved in the hallway and called slurs, I had someone follow me around the hallway and oink at me, and I had someone chase me around school playing music by RuPaul Charles, a famous LGBTQ-identifying celebrity. My male classmates who I have grown up with look at me differently, and immediately assume that since I am gay I am obsessed with each of them. I have had people I have known since I was a child sever relationships with me due to my identity, and I have had countless passive-aggressive remarks made toward me by my peers. I still have not yet been able to tell all of my family, as they frequently exclaim their hatred for the community. While I wish I could be who I truly am around my entire family, and I wish I could have biological children with my significant other in the future, I have never been happier, and I am so grateful to have had the courage to be myself regardless of the fact that I live in a very tiny, small-minded, and uber-conservative community. I plan on majoring in political science in college, as politics interest me greatly; moreover, I want to become a civil rights lawyer post-university, protecting the rights of the oppressed in our so-called land of the free.

Taylor Swift is one of the most influential music artists of modern times. Her fifth studio album, 1989, takes audiences on an emotional journey through her young adulthood. Due to themes present in my own life, I connect most dearly with the song, I Know Places, and, by extension, this song is my favorite on the album. I cherish this song due to how I can relate to it on a personal level. The song details a couple trying to hide from the public; moreover, I identify as a homosexual male, and I have had to hide my identity from certain members of my family, friends, and teachers. Lines such as, "They are the hunters, we are the foxes" perfectly portray the raw emotion I feel regarding this issue. I find myself having to metaphorically run from close-minded individuals who make me feel bad about myself. Taylor Swift flawlessly captures the constant battle present in any LGBTQIA+ teenager's life: the battle between being yourself and loving who you love and/or maintaining a relationship with your family and peers, inevitably hiding who you truly are. Another line from the song which I can relate to is, "I can hear them whisper as they pass by". Going to high school in a largely close-minded and conservative small town in Indiana, I am subject to a plethora of ridicule and judgment from my peers, and on countless circumstances, I have had students whisper about me in the hallways, make social media posts about me, or outright call me slurs in the hallway. Taylor Swift has also had to hide who she is from the media, with paparazzi and fans alike having no idea where she was after her release of 1989. Taylor Swift's passionate support for her LGBTQIA+ fans makes me feel better about myself, and, while some of my family members may not support me, I know that I have a celebrity who cares deeply about me. Finally, one of the concluding lines of the powerhouse anthem, "They take their shots, we're bulletproof" gives a powerful and uplifting end to the song. This line reminds me that, as long as I am happy with myself, the judgment and borderline hatred I endure from my peers will inevitably not matter, seeing as I am "bulletproof" to their prejudice-filled bullets. All in all, there are countless Taylor Swift songs I can relate to, and I Know Places has helped me escape dark times in my life when I have been ridiculed for being different.