MISSION

Founder /  Head Director

Elliott Morehead is an ambitious young advocate born and raised in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. With the overall goal of making his state a better place for underrepresented communities, this autistic, genderqueer leader has started challenging the norms by getting involved in the legislative process and taking on entrepreneurship at 16 years old. Elliott has found their path to building change in their community through working with several advocacy organizations including but not limited to, SD American Civil Liberties Union, the Transformation Project, GLSEN, and LEAD South Dakota. Currently, Elliott is still working on receiving his high school diploma at Lincoln High School. They first discovered what leadership meant by reestablishing the Gender & Sexuality Alliance (GSA) after-school club in freshman year. He also found a safe space to be himself in another after-school club, (no-longer running) LHS Black Student Union throughout his freshman and sophomore years. As a sophomore Elliott was a member of GLSEN’s (Gay Lesbian Student Education Network) 2021-2022 National Student Council where they brought midwestern queer youth representation and met fellow LGBTQ+ leaders from across the nation. Taking a step back from LGBTQ+ advocacy work on the national level, they decided to reallocate their direction toward local activism. During the 2022 state legislative session, he testified against the trans-exclusion act of HB1006 “fairness in women’s sports” and in 2023 he testified against HB1080 which would ban minors like himself from gender-affirming care in SD. Through this groundwork, Elliott has discovered his truth and his purpose which lies in his potential to make an impact on their home in the midwest.  Passionate about all things social justice and politics, they will ensure that the next generation of marginalized youth will be better elevated in the advocacy world here in South Dakota.

Elliott is the founder and head director of South Dakota Youth Activism, an organization that came out of the passion for amplifying youth voices and bringing a fundamental but missed value of activism in this state: intersectionality. As a minority, Elliott recognizes not just the lack of diversity in general leadership, but also how that shortcoming can even be found in several trail-blazing organizations in this state. With this vision of a youth-led coalition of change-makers, Elliott intends to build SDYA’s structure with full equity-based inclusion of BIPOC, disabled, and LGBTQ+ peoples and make certain that the intersections of these identities will not go unheard. With this organization, he plans to build campaigns that will bring hearts together and ignite excitement within South Dakotan youth to get involved in state legislative sessions. Get ready to see this driven, optimistic teen with no intention of stopping to show South Dakota how to get things done.