Making Canceled Cool, at TPUSA’s Young Women’s Leadership Summit
This week, nearly 3000 young women joined together in Dallas, Texas for Turning Point USA’s annual Young Women’s Leadership Summit. We had a jam-packed three days of some of the most impactful and inspiring female conservative voices.
In 2021, I sat in the audience as an attendee at YWLS. I was moved by the women I met and heard from. When the conference had ended, I cried, prayed, and thought to myself, “This is the moment my life changes forever.”
At the time, I was studying mechanical engineering at Texas Tech and had recently been kicked out of my sorority where I was the vice president of recruitment. I was ostracized by my peers for my conservative beliefs, especially pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic. But before attending YWLS and creating a community of like-minded women, I wasn’t aware that thousands upon thousands of people sympathized with my exact experience.
One event showed me that every hardship I faced, the hateful comments I received that misrepresented my character, the debates I was thrown into simply for having a different opinion, and my experience facing college campus cancel culture was all for a greater purpose that I was unaware of until that moment.
Two years ago, fellow Turning Point USA employee Taylor Scornavacco, who acted as our panel’s moderator, was attending college at Stanford University, where she majored in human biology and captained the division one women’s lacrosse team. Once COVID-19 had upended society, she went from being a well-liked and respected member of her university’s community to being threatened with forced vaccination and hated for her conservative values.
I was also joined on stage by two young women who have faced their own form of “cancel culture,” Rebecca Philips and Annabella Rockwell.
Rebecca Philips is a 17-year-old who recently graduated high school in California. Earlier this year, Philips went viral for standing up to city council members after she encountered a naked transgender-identifying man in the women’s locker room at her local YMCA.
“17-year old Rebecca Phillips was using the locker room at a YMCA in San Diego when she encountered a naked male, who identifies as a transgender women. The 66-year old transgender woman, Christynne Wood has received top surgery, however still maintains his male physical appendages, which the young girl claimed to have been unexpectedly exposed to.”
TPUSA Live Feed
Phillips was a minor at the time of the incident, however, the YMCA did not respond to the situation accordingly. Instead, the gymnasium prioritized the feelings of the man in his late 60s. Philips shares her story, and why she felt that she was equipped to speak out against the horrific situation she was placed in throughout our conversation.
Annabella Rockwell told the audience that she “grew up normal,” which today would be considered very conservative — “or even far-right,” she joked. She attended church on Sundays with her family, and said that her principles going into college were “to love everyone equally.” This love and kindness are so easily manipulated by leftist propaganda, however, and she was quickly confronted with concepts like the “spectrum” of gender identity and sexuality which shaped her understanding of the world around her.
Rockwell earned her master’s degree from Mount Holyoke College, where she was taught that women are oppressed in America, that God is not real, and that she would be oppressed unless she played a role in “dismantling the patriarchy.”
She told the audience that after years of being a “bra-burning feminist,” she found God again, got sober, and woke up to the lies of the progressive agenda. “I realized, this isn’t helping anyone,” she said. “Now, I’m committed to speaking out about what I went through,” warning attendees that “Marxism is everywhere,” and permeates college curriculums. Rockwell often jokes that she had to be “deprogrammed” after years of being sold lie after lie.
Each of us has a unique story that led us to sit on stage together, hopefully encouraging other young women to be bold and take a stand for truth. We all shared a single message: your voice matters. Your peers who disagree with you, your family who may dislike your opinions, or the school administrators who actively target you can only “cancel” you if you allow them to. We are all called to speak the truth in love whenever possible, which is why all of us shared our personal journeys with YWLS attendees.
So much good can come from one voice speaking the truth.
Watch our full on-stage interview on Rumble.
