Emma Gonzalez

Emma Gonzalez is bisexual.

According to fashion and lifestyle magazine, Vogue, her buzz cut is not a feminist statement but just a measure to help her withstand the hot Florida weather.

Emma Gonzalez was born in 2000 to Beth Gonzalez, a math tutor, and Jose Gonzalez, a cybersecurity attorney who immigrated from Cuba to New York City in 1968. Gonzalez was raised in Parkland, Florida and has two older siblings.

She is expected to graduate from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in the spring of 2018. Gonzalez serves as the president of the ‘gay-straight alliance’ in her school. She was the tracking team leader on ‘Project Aquila’, a school project which aimed at sending a weather balloon ‘to the edge of space’. Her fellow student David Hogg documented the whole project. Creative writing and astronomy are her favorite subjects while mathematics is her least favorite.

On 14 February 2018, a gunman opened fire in her school, killing seventeen people and injuring several more. Emma along with dozens of other students hid in the auditorium when the fire alarm went off. Although she made an attempt to exit through the hallway, she was told to take cover. After taking refuge in the auditorium, she was held there for two hours until police finally started letting students out.

On 17 February 2018, Emma Gonzalez delivered an 11-minute speech at a gun control rally in front of the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Her speech was in reaction to the deadly shootings in the Stoneman Douglas High School she had witnessed just three days previously. Her speech which featured a call and response: ‘We call B.S’ in response to gun laws, went viral in no time. According to ‘The Washington Post’, her speech became emblematic of the ‘new strain of furious advocacy’ that sprang up immediately after the shootings.

On 20 February 2018, she along with other survivors spoke with Florida state legislators in Tallahassee on how gun control was the need of the hour. Gonzalez and her fellow students watched the legislature vote down debate on an existing gun control bill.

On 21 February 2018, at an internationally televised town hall hosted by CNN, Gonzalez and her fellow students criticized the NRA as well as politicians accepting money from them, for being complicit in the shootings. At the town hall, Gonzalez pressed NRA representative Dana Loesch to answer her questions when the latter was being evasive.

On 23 February 2018, in an interview with Ellen DeGeneres, Gonzalez stated that she came up with the ‘We call B.S’ slogan as she felt that her message would best resonate through repetition.

Emma Gonzalez joined Twitter shortly after her viral speech and high-profile media appearances. She acquired more than a million followers within a span of fewer than ten days.

Emma Gonzalez and her fellow students have been constantly attacked and criticized by the political right wing of American politics and press for their activism. Leslie Gibson, a Republican candidate running unopposed for the Maine legislature and lifetime NRA member called her a ‘skinhead lesbian’. He was subsequently forced to drop out of the race for the Maine legislature.

Conspiracy theorists have falsely accused Gonzalez and her fellow protestors of being ‘crisis actors’. Following her highly publicized speech at the ‘March for Our Lives’ protest, doctored photos of her ripping up a copy of the United States Constitution spread online. She was also criticized by Republican congressman Steve King for wearing a Cuban flag patch on her jacket during her speech.