Last Saturday, Girls Inc., an organization dedicated to youth development and fighting gender stereotyping of girls, honored 18-year-old Leilani Hopson with their Women Who Dare Award. Leliani is a high school senior in Oakland, California who used her role as a media producer at Youth Radio to address the, "treatment of urban homosexual youth and teen-on-teen violence and its impact on Oakland."

Leilani told her local paper, "My friend who's gay, we went to a party together in West Oakland, and she got robbed and had a gun pointed against her head because she didn't want to talk to some guy...There are small numbers of people who just don't like gayness and will take violent actions because of your sexuality and how you express yourself. It's really dangerous for men, because of the macho thing out here."

Leilani's fellow awardees were honored for their work with youth government and female empowerment.