Doing that kind of work. Thinking you have to know everything is not what people expect have you, but they expect you to ask questions when you dont know and thats important. My mom was diagnosed with cancer. That was really difficult. She encouraged me to go to school because in case anything happened i would be able to protect myself. I wanted to be in oncology. I thought going to school it would set me for the trajectory and prepare me for my life. We need the hardships to some of the things that are going to ultimately be your strength in the future. There is no way to map that out and no way to tell those things. You have to do things on your own and you have to experience and figure out life. You dont have to know what you are going to do for the rest of your life when you are in college or high school because there are so many things to do. I would encourage you to try to do everything that you are remotely interested. Its the best time to do it. Being a young woman with so many opportunities, just go for it and try everything. Good morning, everyone. Im tom mcguire and i have the privilege of acting as the San Francisco m. C. A. Were here to celebrate the opening of this beautiful train platform. This is going to be the best way to get to the chase center arena. Were exciting to be cutting the ribbon on that platform today. This arena will be the most sustainable, transitfriendly and most successful arena in the nba. To celebrate this opening, i would like to welcome mayor london breed. Mayor breed thank you, tom. There are a lot of folks here today to celebrate this platform, and i just want to start by thanking each and every one of you for being here and helping us to get the word out, but i especially want to thank the warriors. Not only have they committed to making sure that this is the most transit friendly chase center anywhere, but they can put their money where their mouth is by making investments in our Transportation System here in San Francisco. This platform is just one of their many commitments to supporting transportation to chase arena for the over 220 events that they plan to host every single year. We announced a few weeks ago that any event that you attend at chase center, you can basically show your ticket as proof of payment to get on muni and pull up right to the almost front door and walk over and enjoy a good time. And then when youre ready to go, you can hop right back on muni to get back home or wherever youre trying to get to. A year ago we formed a committee to talk about how we were going to be the most transit friendly location when chase center opened, and the warriors have been at the table, ucff has been at the table. The legislators have been at the table. I really want to thank ucsf for being here today and an incredible partner to make sure that people are able to get in and out this community, whether theyre going to the hospital at ucsf or going to class or coming back from mission bay or going to chase center, this neighborhood which basically used to be a railway and empty space has now become a real part of San Francisco as an incredible, thriving community, with people, restaurants, places to go and things to do. Ive got to tell you, chase center is like the icing on the cake because this is where entertainment is going to happen, this is where the championship warriors nba champions will play right here in San Francisco starting this fall for the well, actually coming home for the second time in our great city. Im so excited about whats to come when we open this new center. But today is about really promoting our transportation plans and how we need to get people around this area safely, securely, efficiently. The thing that people ask about the most, first of all, San Francisco has a lot of congestion, but now that were adding another 18,000 people who are going to visit this area over the course of 220 events, what are we doing . Well, we got bike share, we got plans with muni, we have so many incredible opportunities for people to choose the Ferry Service and transit options first. Our goal is to get the word out and to hopefully when we open this amazing place well see tons of people getting right off at this platform to attend the first concert here and attend one of the first games happening here for the golden state warriors. Im excited about this. Thank you to the neighborhood for your patience and all the people that have had a tremendous role. Id also like to add my real appreciation for the warriors and the four Additional Trains that were going to be getting in addition to the platform and some of the other Infrastructure Improvements as their commitment to doing all they can to provide transit options for the visitors to chase arena. Theyve been an incredible partner in this city. At this time, id like to introduce another incredible partner, someone whos helped on the legislative side and continues to advocate for not only resources for San Francisco, but continues to push the envelope around the kinds of transit options that we need to make San Francisco and the bay area a more transit friendly, a more efficient place to move people around, thats Assembly Member david chu. Thank you, madam mayor. San francisco, are we ready for basketball . Are we ready for the warriors . So i was trying to think of something pithy to say that would be appropriate for this day. This is what ill say in four words this is the station for dub nation. All right. This is ride, this journey, has been long in coming. I was just talking to rick wells about how it was eight years ago when i was serving as president of the San Francisco board of supervisors, i got a call about the possibility that the warriors might move to our great city. A lot as happened over that time. I remember asking him the question how are we going to move 18,000 people in and out games this many times a year . Today we announced we unveiled part of the solution to that blueandgold question. I want to also along with the mayor thank so many folks that were responsible for the day, starting with the mayor and her team at muni, along with our contractors and our engineers, our builders. Of course to the warriors for your vision of what an amazing venue could be about. Ucsf, thank you for not only your science but also partnership. I want to thank a moment to thank the neighborhoods, the neighbors, our transit advocates for bringing us to where we are today. I want to take a moment to thank the legislature and the bay area voters who last year passed regional measure 3, which is over 4 billion of transit and congestion funding to help ensure that we are building the best Transit System in the world here in San Francisco. Let me also mention today is a Ribbon Cutting, but this is not going to be the last transit stop Ribbon Cutting. As i mentioned when we were moving forward with regional measure 3 it was suggested to me and my colleagues that we also invest in a ferry system that includes a future mission bay ferry stop. If all goes well, in 2021, we will hopefully do a Ribbon Cutting there as well with the temporary option, as mayor breed just reminded me. Let me just close by saying that we all know that the greatest 21st century cities have great transit. We know we have more work to do in San Francisco, but this is one of the major stops to ensuring that we have great transit here in San Francisco and here in the bay. Go dubes. With that, its my honor to introduce someone who needs no introduction. Someone who has overseen three championships over the last five years, the the of the golden state warriors. Thank you. Another great day. We have been on this journey for about seven years now. I know its a distant memory, but we had some press conference on pier 3032 about seven years ago accepting the mayors invitation to bring the warriors back to San Francisco. Obviously a lot has happened since then. Two people up here actually, all of them, but two in particular at that point in time were critical to this project david chu in his former role at the board of supervisors was one of the first advocates for this project. It seems really easy now that its all done. At the time he took some arrows for us and there were some times when it wasnt the easiest position to be taking. David, we owe you a great debt of gratitude and the support you gave us then in guiding us to our new home at mission bay. Im going to introduce this guy in a moment, but i want to Say Something about him before i do. Chancellor hagad has been an amazing partner in getting this project done. Through the time that i have known him, which initiated with this project, ive come to respect what an incredible steward you are for this amazing institution. Hes a really good negotiator too. I will tell you that. He was you know, we had a common vision, but we had to figure out how to get there. The getting there was the part that chancellor hagood was so instrumental in making happen. Mayor breed before she was mayor was a supporter. She even came with us to china a few years ago to see the warriors play there. She has since the time she has been in office has been an inbelievable advocate in focusing in on what its going to take to make this project successful for the city. I think her encouragement is what resulted in our muni program. Remember that, your ticket to any event at j center is our ticket on muni. Free transportation on muni the day of the event. Thats an incredible opportunity. I think its not only going to be great for getting people familiar with muni on muni. I think its going to bring a lot of people to muni that have never tried it before because of the guests from outside the bay area and outside of San Francisco who now will have an experience with muni that hopefully theyll repeat over and over again. I think, mayor, youve assured us that tom has made sure with all this demand that were creating, that the service is going to match that demand, right . Isnt that what you told me . Thanks to each and every one of you. You deserve to be up here. Were less than a month away from cutting a ribbon and welcoming our first event, metallica and the San Francisco symphony. What else would you do in San Francisco on september 6. Thanks to all of you. Im going to turn this over to chancellor sam hagood. Thank you, rick. Let me welcome you all here the Medical Center and university here. Were delighted to be welcoming the equally world class warriors to be our partners. It has been a journey as rick mentioned, but i am confident that everything is in place to make this a spectacular success not just for mission bay, but San Francisco. At ucsf we strongly believe in the mayors transit policies. We run our electric Shuttle Services to keep our patients, staff, students out of cars. We promote the use of transit whenever we can. That includes allowing City Employees to access our transit to zuckerberg San Francisco general hospital. I would like to especially thank the mayor, who from day one has made a commitment to the opening of the chase center and the operations of the chase center the Great Success that i know it will be. With the cooperation of the m. T. A. For their terrific work on this new pavilion. My office is just here. I can actually see this Transit Center and see the chase center from my office. I believe ill be looking directly into ricks office. Well be able to monitor very carefully how this all works, but were very excited about welcoming the warriors to our neighborhood. I thank the members of the ucsf community, but the Broader Community who have tolerated a lot of construction including our own construction and the warriors and the transit. It will all be over soon and well be able to enjoy the fruits of everyones labor. Thank you for being here. Its a very, very exciting day. Tom. Thank you, chancellor. Thank you again for your patience and for all the neighbors here in mission bay and all the neighborhoods who have been so patient with the amount of construction that has taken place and that has been required for a great station and a great arena to take shape here in mission bay. Thank you also to our elected officials for their leadership encouraging us to put transit first. Of course to the warriors for funding infrastructure investments. Making your warriors ticket count for your muni ticket. Im looking forward to seeing what our peer cities and other teams in San Francisco, thank you, madam mayor. Also joined by our board member who has been terrific. Thank you to all the m. T. A. Members who have been working so hard for the last few months to make sure that this station opened before the arena so weve got a great facility for all the fans who are going to show up in one month. With that, lets go across the street and cut a ribbon. Ready . Five, four, three, two, one. Yay. Were open. [ ] growing up in San Francisco has been way safer than growing up other places we we have that bubble, and its still that bubble that its okay to be whatever you want to. You can let your free flag fry he fly here. As an adult with autism, im here to challenge peoples idea of what autism is. My journey is not everyones journey because every autistic child is different, but theres hope. My background has heavy roots in the bay area. I was born in san diego and adopted out to San Francisco when i was about 17 years old. I bounced around a little bit here in high school, but ive always been here in the bay. We are an inclusive preschool, which means that we cater to emp. We dont turn anyone away. We take every child regardless of race, creed, religious or ability. The most common thing i hear in my adult life is oh, you dont seem like you have autism. You seem so normal. Yeah. Thats 26 years of really, really, really hard work and i think thises that i still do. I was one of the first open adoptions for an lgbt couple. They split up when i was about four. One of them is partnered, and one of them is not, and then my biological mother, who is also a lesbian. Very queer family. Growing up in the 90s with a queer family was odd, i had the bubble to protect me, and here, i felt safe. I was bullied relatively infrequently. But i never really felt isolated or alone. I have known for virtually my entire life i was not suspended, but kindly asked to not ever bring it up again in first grade, my desire to have a sex change. The school that i went to really had no idea how to handle one. One of my parents is a little bit gender nonconforming, so they know what its about, but my parents wanted my life to be safe. When i have all the neurological issues to manage, that was just one more to add to it. I was a weird kid. I had my core group of, like, very tight, like, three friends. When we look at autism, we characterize it by, like, lack of eye contact, what i do now is when im looking away from the camera, its for my own comfort. Faces are confusing. Its a lack of mirror neurons in your brain working properly to allow you to experience empathy, to realize where somebody is coming from, or to realize that body language means that. At its core, autism is a social disorder, its a neurological disorder that people are born with, and its a big, big spectrum. It wasnt until i was a teenager that i heard autism in relation to myself, and i rejected it. I was very loud, i took up a lot of space, and it was because mostly taking up space let everybody else know where i existed in the world. I didnt like to talk to people really, and then, when i did, i overshared. I was very difficult to be around. But the friends that i have are very close. I click with our atypical kiddos than other people do. In experience, i remember when i was five years old and not wanting people to touch me because it hurt. I remember throwing chairs because i could not regulate my own emotions, and it did not mean that i was a bad kid, it meant that i couldnt cope. I grew up in a family of behavioral psychologists, and i got development cal developmental psychology from all sides. I recognize that my experience is just a very small picture of that, and not everybodys in a position to have a family thats as supportive, but theres also a community thats incredible helpful and wonderful and open and there for you in your moments of need. It was like two or three years of conversations before i was like you know what . Im just going to do this, and i went out and got my prescription for hormones and started transitioning medically, even though i had already been living as a male. I have a twoyearold. The person who im now married to is my husband for about two years, and then started gaining weight and wasnt sure, so i we went and talked with the doctor at my clinic, and he said well, testosterone is basically birth control, so theres no way you can be pregnant. I found out i was pregnant at 6. 5 months. My whole mission is to kind of normalize adults like me. I think ive finally found my calling in early intervention, which is here, kind of what we do. I think the access to irrelevant care for parents is intentionally confusing. When i did the procespective search for autism for my own child, it was confusing. We have a place where children can be children, but its very confusing. I always out myself as an adult with autism. I think its helpful when you know where can your child go. How im choosing to help is to give children that would normally not be allowed to have children in the same respect, kids that have three times as much work to do as their peers or kids who do odd things, like, beach therapy. How do speech therapy. How do you explain that to the rest of their class . I want that to be a normal experience. I was working on a certificate and kind of getting think Early Childhood credits brefore i started working here, and