Sarah Kess
Eighteen-year-old Kess has been living out loud since eighth grade. After graduating a semester early from Farmington High, the Connecticut teen won a Live Out Loud scholarship and plans to study photography at the Massachusetts College of Art this fall. Always strong-willed, Kess decided to tell friends she liked girls before her 14th birthday. She made a name for herself by starting the school’s first Gay-Straight Alliance despite “kids writing ‘fag’ on our lockers,” and anchored a school news program with segments featuring events in the gay community. By the end of high school, the daughter of a college professor and a high school teacher says, “I was just Sarah: this fun awesome girl who just happens to be gay. It was not like ‘oh that’s the gay girl’ anymore.” –MW
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