Zooey Zephyr Focuses on Positivity Despite Legislature Conflict

It's been a big year for Montana House Representative Zooey Zephyr. She was sworn in as Missoula's representative on January 2nd, which made her the first openly-transgender person elected to Montana's state legislature. Since then she was banned from speaking during floor sessions, which received worldwide attention, turning her into something of a rockstar, with mainstream media interviews, protests and 3,200 signatures on a petition for her behalf. Going from being silenced to becoming a national figure in such a short amount of time must be a dizzying experience, despite that it seems Zephyr is focusing on love, below is a video of her at the Missoula event Queer Prom proposing to her girlfriend, now fiancée, journalist Erin Reed.

The video doesn't just capture the heartwarming proposal, but also a moment of Zephyr's speech which encouraged positivity and resilience. She referred not just to interpersonal love, but to communal love also, with cheers of support from the crowd.

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The speech fit with the vibe that night at Queer Prom, "it was almost kismet that the legislation session ended on Tuesday and then we had our events on Friday because it was finally like a chance for people to not worry and let down their hair," said a Queer Prom organizer Tiffany Williams. To describe the feeling in the room after Zephyr proposed, Williams said "I'm getting chills even thinking about it. There was like an explosion of joy... the whole crowd just erupted in cheers and laughter and shouts of joy and the excitement was palpable... It brought tears to my eyes."