EscAPE BEFORE IT GETS YO-

LGBTQ youth are an especially vulnerable demographic in that they are born into families who often do not share their identity or oppression. This means that instead of oppression coming from the environment outside the family, all to often queer and trans youth are oppressed by the people closest to them.

When we trust that parents will always do what’s best for their children we are wrong. Parents fall victim to fear and bigotry that are instilled in them by their communities and which drive them to commit heinous crimes. Crimes such as kicking a 15 year old out on the street because they were born with a sexuality that differs from their parents. Crimes like sending a 17 year old trans youth to religious therapy, the only objective of which is to tear that child apart and destroy them. Crimes like locking a 16 year old girl in her room until she stops liking girls.

Gender identity and sexuality are NOT harmful. It’s the response to these issues from STATE SANCTIONED organizations that is inflicting irreparable harm on children. Children who are unable to speak for themselves, be heard, leave abusive environments and escape the horror that we inflict on their identities and senses of self.

This is torture. And it needs to stop.

cause you miss the ocean when you’re on land

and when you’re in the water you miss the sand

trust me my darling, take this time to roam

click this link

draw whomever you get

don’t worry about making it super-accurate, just focus on the characteristic parts of the face and have fun

the outcome might not look like the ref, but it will be different and more varied than faces you draw out of your head, an dprobably pretty rad on its own right!

I know women in their 30s who are just starting, in their 40s, even 50s and they are so vibrant and alive. They practically explode with vitality because they took their lives back. They clawed and bit and fought and now they see themselves in the mirror and the glow you see in them and in me is omnipresent and beautiful.

You can make it. It doesn’t matter when you start it will save you. You will burst out of that shell that you hate like a butterfly made of flame and rainbows and lightning and chiming notes on the wind. No matter what age. 

No matter when you start, it will be an ascension.

Don’t give up. You can do this. I have faith in you. I believe in you.

There is so much beauty and glory in you, you may not see it yet, you may not see the girl that you truly are but you will.