Educated from the Heart

May 27, 2025 | By Elliott Turn­er

“In 6th grade, I thought to myself: maybe I am not what every­one thinks I am.  I nev­er felt like I was a girl. My gen­der did not feel solid­i­fied, but every­one around me seemed to be fit­ting neat­ly into one of only two avail­able cat­e­gories: girl or boy. I was not ques­tion­ing who I was – but actu­al­ly ask­ing – is there a name for how I feel?”

Elliot­t’s jour­ney of self-dis­cov­ery began like many others—with a search that final­ly put words to feel­ings long held but nev­er artic­u­lat­ed.

“I looked online and what I found began to res­onate. I dis­cov­ered the world of being non­bi­na­ry. The con­cept of being com­plete­ly sep­a­rate from girl or boy felt like com­ing home. Sud­den­ly I had a space and a word that allowed me to feel that I don’t have to be only one or the oth­er. I am some­thing dif­fer­ent and I am of equal val­ue.”

As Elliot­t’s sense of iden­ti­ty crys­tal­lized, so did his courage. “I became more vocal about who I was becom­ing. In 8th grade, I came out to my par­ents. Like many on this path, it was a lit­tle bit rocky.”

Elliot­t’s par­ents, like many, had con­struct­ed a vision of their child’s future based on assump­tions that now need­ed recon­sid­er­a­tion. “They had this idea of where I was going to go in life and this did­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly derail it, but it changed it. They had to rearrange what they thought was going to hap­pen, but they still loved me uncon­di­tion­al­ly. They put in the work to sup­port me, and they under­stood how peo­ple see me and respect me is so impor­tant.”

The pan­dem­ic cre­at­ed space and time for Elliot­t’s fam­i­ly to learn and grow togeth­er. They researched resources and grad­u­al­ly came to under­stand not just Elliot­t’s iden­ti­ty, but the com­mu­ni­ty they were all becom­ing part of togeth­er.

Elliot­t’s jour­ney of self-dis­cov­ery ran par­al­lel to anoth­er equal­ly chal­leng­ing path—navigating the com­plex­i­ties of racial iden­ti­ty in high school and in soci­ety at large.

“I am a mixed stu­dent. I am Black and white. In high school, I had to con­tend simul­ta­ne­ous­ly with mul­ti­ple types of dis­crim­i­na­tion and racism. The admin­is­tra­tion was­n’t help­ful in pro­tect­ing stu­dents like me and did­n’t know how to sup­port mar­gin­al­ized stu­dents in gen­er­al.”

Rather than accept­ing this real­i­ty, Elliott posed a pow­er­ful ques­tion: “How do I change my own cam­pus?” The answer was­n’t sim­ple. “It was dif­fi­cult to go through the strug­gle while also need­ing to fight that strug­gle at the same time,” he recalled.

With remark­able resolve, Elliott orga­nized a social jus­tice forum at school—a two-hour event fea­tur­ing a stu­dent pan­el that exam­ined issues fac­ing LGBTQ+, Black, and oth­er mar­gin­al­ized stu­dents.

“We explored how our expe­ri­ences are big­ger than our­selves. It was a pro­duc­tive space where peo­ple lis­tened and asked ques­tions. Stu­dents said they felt seen at the event even if they were only watch­ing. It made me feel good to do that work, espe­cial­ly because kids younger than me saw our voic­es being heard by the admin­is­tra­tion, teach­ers, school dis­trict offi­cials, and oth­er stu­dents.”

This activism, born from per­son­al expe­ri­ence with dis­crim­i­na­tion, ignit­ed Elliot­t’s pas­sion. “Deal­ing with racism is what made me so pas­sion­ate. Adults were ask­ing me what needs to be done. And as the per­son deal­ing with it, I kept thinking—why should I be the one mak­ing the plan?”

Elliott chan­neled frus­tra­tion into action. “I came out much stronger. I wrote a let­ter to the prin­ci­pal and turned it into a speech which I gave at a NAACP event. I received so much sup­port from those attend­ing who had nev­er met me before, and although they were decades old­er, they had gone through the same thing. They told me that they knew how to sup­port me, even if the high school admin­is­tra­tion was­n’t able to at the time. This made me real­ize how much I want to sup­port oth­er stu­dents.”

This thread of social jus­tice activism led Elliott to Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Berke­ley, where he is a major in polit­i­cal sci­ence with an envi­ron­men­tal focus. Ini­tial­ly drawn to envi­ron­men­tal sci­ence and biol­o­gy, Elliot­t’s deep­en­ing involve­ment in social jus­tice work shift­ed his focus toward envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice.

“In Berke­ley, there are so many peo­ple who are unhoused. I saw first­hand dur­ing the heat wave how it impact­ed those liv­ing on the streets and how hard it was for peo­ple to stay safe. It pushed me to want to do more,” Elliott explains. “I start­ed ask­ing myself about how pol­i­cy impacts peo­ple across Amer­i­ca.”

Though col­lege has offered a more sup­port­ive envi­ron­ment than high school, it comes with its own chal­lenges. “Find­ing com­mu­ni­ty in col­lege as an LGBTQ+ stu­dent was­n’t entire­ly easy, but there is an amaz­ing resource cen­ter called QARC, a stu­dent-run orga­ni­za­tion for the queer and trans com­mu­ni­ty on cam­pus.”

“This is a com­mu­ni­ty that is con­sis­tent­ly there for me. In high school, it did­n’t feel like school was sup­port­ing me. Queer stu­dents did­n’t get the resources we need­ed. This orga­ni­za­tion is explic­it­ly there for stu­dents like me. It dilutes some of the stress and is a safe space to go to if I need help.”

Elliot­t’s NRCF schol­ar­ship enables him to focus entire­ly on aca­d­e­mics, includ­ing work with Peren­ni­al, an under­grad­u­ate jour­nal where he writes about cam­pus emis­sions. His career aspi­ra­tions cen­ter on envi­ron­men­tal pol­i­cy, par­tic­u­lar­ly as it affects mar­gin­al­ized com­mu­ni­ties.

“This schol­ar­ship keeps me from wor­ry­ing about need­ing the mon­ey to write my next hous­ing check,” they say. “I am grate­ful for Nation­al Rain­bow Schol­ar­ship Fund. All the work I’ve been doing is worth it. I’ve always felt like I could be doing more and am excit­ed for what comes next.”

The finan­cial sup­port extends beyond mere prac­ti­cal­i­ty. “Schol­ar­ships have helped me to cov­er the finan­cial costs of col­lege, and they have also giv­en me the free­dom to focus on my edu­ca­tion and my tran­si­tion. These are two of the most impor­tant things to me in life right now.”

Elliott rec­og­nizes that this free­dom is par­tic­u­lar­ly mean­ing­ful for trans­gen­der stu­dents. “The free­dom from wor­ry­ing about finances in col­lege enables many stu­dents to take the nec­es­sary time to devel­op them­selves how­ev­er they need to nav­i­gate the path. This is espe­cial­ly true for trans stu­dents who want to start their tran­si­tion.”

Elliot­t’s sto­ry illu­mi­nates the vital impor­tance of sup­port­ing trans­gen­der voic­es. “Now, more than ever, it is essen­tial to hear and sup­port trans sto­ries and lives. We have been his­tor­i­cal­ly oppressed and dis­crim­i­nat­ed against even in queer spaces. Trans peo­ple need com­mu­ni­ty sup­port to con­tin­ue engag­ing in free­doms grant­ed to all: the free­dom of speech, assem­bly, and expres­sion.”

Through Elliot­t’s journey—from ques­tion­ing mid­dle school­er to col­lege activist—we see the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of find­ing one’s voice and using it to cre­ate change. His sto­ry reminds us that edu­ca­tion hap­pens not just in class­rooms but in the heart. At our core, we all want to be loved, accept­ed and able to be our most authen­tic selves. NRCF is aimed at work­ing to make the world a place where there will be space for every­one to be unapolo­get­i­cal­ly them­selves.

Elliott’s coura­geous jour­ney was recent­ly reflect­ed in ABC7 News, Go Mag­a­zine, MSN and KQED.  

These news out­lets spot­light­ed the ground­break­ing work of Nation­al Rain­bow Col­lege Fund which has pro­vid­ed schol­ar­ships to LGBTQ+ stu­dents, offer­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties like the one Elliott has received. 

Elliott’s sto­ry is just one exam­ple of how sup­port can trans­form lives. By donat­ing to NRCF, you can help empow­er more stu­dents like Elliott to thrive in their edu­ca­tion and make a last­ing impact on their com­mu­ni­ties.

Donate today: https://rainbowcollegefund.org/donate/