Trans & Non Binary MLM BLM

this is our whole thing! check our pinned post for some resources.

• since we got our start as an org over 15 years ago, thousands of people (from celebs to everyday people) have shared their own stories of how thing got better for them - you'll probably relate to at least one who has been in a similar place to the one you're in now! Find a lot of them on our Youtube and TikTok for inspo.

• we also regularly gather community with creators on Twitch where streamers & chat share their stories with each other (Pride streams coming soon)!

• each year we have a group of Youth Voices ambassadors who are LGBTQ+ youth activists from across the country who may be in a similar place to you, too - here's a Q&A we did with some of them recently where they give advice (including how to know when things finally get "good").

• we've also funded over 170 youth-led projects in almost every U.S. state for ideas like Pride festivals, youth conferences, gender neutral restrooms, gender-affirming closets, art murals, and zine projects - so chances are there are people just like you, where you already live, working for the same things you are.

• annd we've got a free mental health tool called imi (no sign-in or download required) where you can hear other people's stories so you know you're not alone; explore things like stigma, stress, and queerness; and there are even some cool activities like a new name try-on, with more coming soon.

Me before I came out, when I did pageants and modeling.

This was me the day of my junior prom. The dress weighed around 20 lbs, was the first one I tried on, and my makeup was done by someone who still thought brown lip liner looked good on white people. I spent the entire day being photographed and generally hating how I looked and wishing I could figure out why, when everything was technically perfect.

Came out in 2016, here's nine years of transformation (in reverse order, sorry)

Turns out I'm neither a Normal Guy nor a woman, but a much weirder type of faggy masc thing.

In my lifestyle lolita egg era. Somehow getting to dress like a princess gave me the will to get up in the morning

granted being a big ol goth doesn't really fit the bill of "socially acceptable heterosexual femininity" but i was HYPER feminine when i was closeted, especially in the years between when i FIRST tried to come out (age 16 - around the time of those first photos) and when i actually made the jump (age 19 - about a year after the last photo)

you can tell in that second to last photo i literally got a tattoo that said "MAD GIRL" which was an exercise in many things, including abstract self-harm, a visual reminder that i had given up on myself, and wildly underestimating the number of dudes who would misread it as BAD GIRL and take that as a cue to say gross shit to me while i was at work

anyway never kill yourself

haha yeah 🫣

consciously dipped my toes into the gender fuckery pool at around 15/16 but I was pentecostal at the time and well. took them out real quick

i tried very very hard to be “femme” for a LONG time but during covid lockdowns I didn’t have to perform for anyone and I slowly started to let it all go and now I’m a silly little man 😌

its not a "native version of nonbinary" or a "native version of bigender"

thats not what it means, that’s not what it’s ever meant

two spirit is an pan-tribal term coined by indigenous people in 1990, for indigenous people, to replace the term berdache, an offensive term that white settlers applied to indigenous people that fell outside of the western lens of gender and sexuality

two spirit isnt a "native version of nonbinary" because two spirit doesnt inherently mean someone is nonbinary. some of us are, but so many two spirited people arent. many people in our community also choose specifically not to label themselves with terms like nonbinary, gay, bisexual, etc, and solely use two spirit or another term from their tribe or language

we can be anything and everything and nothing you've ever imagined

1. Do not do age verification.

Oh no I dropped my link, what a horrible thing! Sure hope this doesn't get reblogged until it reaches users from the UK and Brazil!