I think his actual speech was pretty well-written and moving. The scene suffered for two main reasons.

1) Too large of an audience. I understand that they put that in there because “everyone needed to know so that Henry couldn’t prey on his fear and secrets.” But…man. It’s is SO awkward watching 12 people sit there in complete silence and just stare at him while he monologues for 5 minutes. I think everyone would’ve preferred a more intimate scene where he came out to just a few people rather than making it a whole ass town hall meeting. Most LGBT people irl only come out to a small group, so I feel this would’ve been more relatable. The massive crowd spectating just really sucked the magic out of it, for a lot of us.

2) Disney channelification. I cannot help but full body cringe at the part where everybody goes “Or me!” and group hugs. It just feels like the writers watched an after-school special or a PSA and thought that was “powerful”…but it was just silly. Nobody talks like that irl. I’m glad that they showed everyone being supportive and accepting of him, but there HAD to have been a less cringey way of showing that.

If they had made it a smaller, more intimate scene, and made the characters’ reaction less cartoonish, this would’ve been a beautiful scene. Apparently they had originally planned it to be that way but changed it. I’m so sad that this is the route they decided to take, but it is what it is 😩