Cy (he/they) is a RECRUIT Intern and the artist behind the We Are Still Here project, which aimed to amplify the stories and voices of humans that may otherwise go unheard. Cy collected personal narratives from multiply marginalilzed people within our communities, and created hand-drawn portraits depicting people as they wish to be seen.
Colt (she/her)
My name is Colt. I’m a cis, ethnically Jewish sapphic queer woman, and I detransitioned as trans person. I know detransitioning has historically been stigmatized but I want to help change the narrative. I believe we all deserve to be who we are and if that means exploring your gender and/or sexuality, that is totally ok.
I grew up in the south, and I wasn’t getting the support I needed. I had the privilege to travel all over the US to explore my truth. Now that I’m in my 30’s, I feel happy and free.
Cyrus (he/they/any)
A stark white, serene, business-y virtual background. Blocking out the ever-changing chaos, depression cave scenery that surrounds me. I haven’t left my house alone in months. I’m too scared.
School was my escape, since graduating uni last year, work has become my escape. And my lifeline. My structure. My source of income. My success and my friends and family’s pride. I’ve gone corporate. Not very Berkeley of me!
But we deserve to be everywhere. In conference rooms and board rooms too. But I know who I am and what I need to be here.
I have gotten 2 new gender neutral bathrooms opened at my company in my state. We went from 1 trucker bathroom in Shipping and Deliveries in the basement to 3 gender neutral bathrooms in the state of California, with blueprints being drawn for more in another office.
We should be able to be corporate. We should have access. One bathroom in the state? Of California? Of the second largest tech company in the world? Is unacceptable.
Queer, trans, nonbinary, mixed ethnicity, immigrant parents, disowned, no financial support, physically disabled, neurodivergent, abuse survivor, mental illnesses, takes meds. What box don’t I check?
8 scholarships to get through college.
6 figure earner at 20 fresh out of college.
I beat the odds- and now I’m paving a trail for others to do the same. Until it isn’t beating the odds, and success and access are our norm.
Delta (they/them)
I’ve always felt like I was on the sidelines. I was a neurodivergent child who did not fit in at school, and I first developed a chronic illness at age 11. I first realized I was queer when I was 13. I struggled to make friends, struggled to find any other child who could possibly understand. But now I’m in college, and those things that once made me an outcast and made me fear I’d never get through life independently make me strong. They have given me community and have allowed me to build community. I’m proud to be disabled, neurodivergent, and queer. Not because those things make my life easy. But because of the shared strength I have with my community.
Diem (he/they)
Growing up, it was hard not to feel perpetually stuck in the middle. Neither boy nor girl, neither gay nor straight, neither completely Westernized nor Indian. I lamented being a floater in search of solid ground within social groups. It was only a matter of time before the differences were irreconcilable — either between me and the group, or between me and the ‘me’ people thought me to be. I was either too close to the stereotype or not stereotypical enough: too confident in my queerness for Texas but not enough for Toronto.
I spent so long trying to figure out which box I fit into that I neglected myself. The energy I put into making sure I didn’t alienate myself from newspaper staffs, marching band members, classmates, and extended family zapped me of the strength I needed to find myself in the mess of my anxieties and others’ expectations.
The worst part was that I ended up feeling alienated anyway because you can’t feel cared for by others if the person they are caring for is not ‘you’.
It was only when I fully embraced my queerness, my transness, and my background that I felt able to form genuine connections. It was only when I learned to reserve my energy for those who energize and support me that I stopped always feeling alone. Of course, not everything is solved, but I’m an Indian, queer trans guy medically transitioning with the support of my family and friends — and I’m the happiest I’ve been in years.
Ed (they/he)
I am a Trans, Queer survivor of domestic violence in recovery from acute C-PTSD and DID. I’ve experienced violence and revictimization at every step while trying to access help and navigate the reporting process. This has made it difficult to see myself in a positive light or consider myself worthy of help and healing. Becoming a DV survivor advocate, working with and connecting with other survivors and offering them the help and safety I always needed, has been an act of tremendous healing. I am also a passionate climber and mountaineer in training which has helped reground my confidence and my relationship with my body and mind. I am still learning to love and be at peace with myself, and am committed to recovering so I can continue to be of service to as many survivors as possible.
Eleanor (she they he)
Despite consistently being pushed aside, by medical, academic, religious, government, or social systems and institutions I feel fortunate to continuously bounce back. I think I’m like one of those inflatable toys that kids punch and then it just gets right back up. I am disabled, neurodiv, and trans experiencing all of this vividly from a very young age.
When I was in my 20’s I was in a car accident and every morning since I wake up feeling like I was hit by a car all over again. I got progressively more sick until finally a decade later I became totally bed bound, unable to even get to my own kitchen. My friends would wheel me where I needed to be. After far, far too long it was identified that I had a catastrophic neck injury that was standing between me and a greater degree of mobility and freedom. Working on this injury has given me much of my life back.
Despite my health and the various ways it impacts me I live my life the best ways I know how. I am passionate about mediation and Buddhist practice, trying to live in accord with its ethical principals and in harmony with its communities. Two friends and I facilitate a community of transgender Buddhists; I pour out a lot of my energy into this project. Trans people can have a hard time thriving in cis-hetero-normative religious spaces, so we work to create an alternative space for us.
We never know if we’re going to get a tomorrow. I try my best to live proud of who I am today, even when today is a big pile of shit.
Jenna Erwin (she/her/they/them)
My name is Jenna and I didn’t have an easy life growing up. In fact, I went through a lot of things no one should have to go through. It was so much trauma that my mind fractured and I now know due to that I have many different alters in a single body. I also suffer from Autism, Bipolar Disorder, ADHD, OCD, and CPTSD.
My main other alter is named Kat. And while there are many more, me and Kat are the primary alters that front or come forth.
I’m an artist and Kat is a writer. We all are completely different people with different memories and they each have a mind of their own. They talk differently, body language is different as well. We even have different styles and interests. It’s complicated and yet they are all here and I know I’m not alone.
We have a girlfriend who cares for us and has different relationships with each alter. Some she is dating and some, such as our little, she treats with understanding, kindness and empathy. Our girlfriend is amazing with all of us though it’s not perfect by any means. She’s met some alters that she doesn’t get along with and it gets complicated at times, but we work it through.
I never asked for this, to have DID or any of the rest. But I’m not defective. I’m just a woman who is trying to make it in a world that may not understand me. They may not accept me. But the important part is I accept myself as well as the rest of my alters who are in my system, my body as it were. We each deal with the mental illnesses differently but we deal with it.
We are amazing and that’s enough.
Kaël (they/them)
I am a trans, neurodivergent and mad human studying to work in mental health. Growing up I always felt othered, like my soul was defective and broken and had been sent on this earth by accident, and that everybody could feel it. I went through 9 years of intense bullying which led me to struggle a lot during my teenage years. I got diagnosed with dysthymia + MDD, GAD + panic disorder, anorexia, C-PTSD, and later with BPD and alcohol use disorder, and struggled a lot with suicide.
During my stays in psychiatric wards, I witnessed many devoted members of the staff who treated us like humans with compassion and kindness, and I also witnessed situations where psychiatry was misused to overly drug and restrain patients, and abuse that came from stigma from the practitionners. That shaped my view on how we treat mad individuals in this medical system, especially those from marginalised communities and identities, and I want to do good. On the side apart from my studies, I am learning more about anti-carceral and community-led ways to help, focused on harm reduction, that I want to integrate in my future work.
I am no longer ashamed of my queerness nor my madness. They are integral parts of who I am that don’t need to be fixed.
Kels (they/them)
How do I fit my life in 300 words? Unprecedented summarizing! I am a contradictory collection, swarming within scarred, tattooed skin: genre-defying, multitude encompassing, unrelentingly verbose. I’ve never been one to read a single book at a time / subscribe to binaries / fall in love with just one person. I am, if anything, Queer, àla bell hooks: “the self that is at odds with everything around it… that has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.” I am a cycle-breaker, a survivor (of abusers aplenty, at many ages / stages; of oppressive systems; of brushes with Death): expected, like so many of us, to achieve endlessly, regardless, and to thank everyone for the opportunity. I am an accumulation of formative experiences: growing up neurodivergent / trans / gay in the Bible Belt, in a multifamily household not unlike “Running with Scissors”, traumas masked by privilege / test scores.
Breaking down, running away at 15; the following nightmarish year in residential “treatment” in Utah (enough to cement a calling to “alchemize” what I’d lived through by later supporting and advocating for the most vulnerable / naming such corruptions). Even grown up, in long longed-for NYC, I cycled between grad schools and hospitals: still so “treatment-resistant” that they eventually tried almost 50 electric zaps to my broken brain in all (shockingly electrocution didn’t cure me / mostly left me forgetful, filterless). Last year, increasingly unbearable pain finally culminated in a life-changing Official Diagnosis with an incurable genetic disorder (hEDS)— only 33 years after the first symptoms! This revelation of my long-denied host of illnesses has me processing / raging / grieving the unfathomable impact of medical gaslighting and neglect— all those accusations of hypochondria; malingering, even! It’s been the heartbreaking end of several relationships and chapters of my life: humbling, illuminating, freeing.
Nathan (she/her)
From the time I was really young, I knew I didn’t want to be a boy. I constantly asked my family if they would love me if I were a girl and I would play dress up and other typically girly games. Even though I had always knew I didn’t want to be a boy, I really struggled with my identity because I always thought I just had to be a boy since that’s how I was raised and that’s what everyone knew me to be. I finally took a big step in the journey that is my identity and came out as a trans woman. I haven’t told many of my family because I feared that they wouldn’t like me. I know that they would still love me, but I’ve heard them talk negatively about other people’s identities and I’m scared they would talk about me the same way and no longer think of me as their family. Even though I still have a lot of growing to do, I know that I will never let anyone tell me who I am or who they think I should be.
The Galaxy (all pronouns)
Collectively we are The Galaxy, a system of parts who make up a whole mind. We have complex Dissociative Identity “Disorder” whose main symptom is identity fragmentation; for us, this condition is our brain’s adaptation to survive many forms of abuse and other traumas throughout our life. Our body is mixed South American Native, and we exist as genderqueer, multicultural, autistic, mad, and physically disabled persons. We depend on our community for financial, emotional, and physical support, and we are strong advocates for the importance of building community care and support networks outside of oppressive institutions. In order to survive, we have been forced to hide the scarier truths of our mental and physical disabilities, such as voice-hearing, self harm addiction, and chronic pain, which especially in conjunction with our racial identity, can and have resulted in severe danger. It is our prayer that one day, nobody should have to hide their disabilities in order to survive, but instead can reveal their support needs to a community where they will be protected.
Theo (they/them)
I’m a non-binary transgender person, and the host of a DID system. We also experience depression, anxiety, and complex PTSD. I used to feel like I was too weird for anyone to ever really know me and still like me. Gay, transgender, mentally ill, neurodivergent, multiple. “I just get weirder as people get to know me!” I thought. “There’s no way anyone will think I’m worth loving.” But now I have people in my life who actually do love and accept me in all my complexity. They celebrate my queerness, my resilience, my uniqueness. I still struggle with depression and anxiety. I still feel lonely. I still experience chronic suicidal ideation (which is common for people complex ptsd), but I know that I don’t deserve to suffer. I know that I’m not hard to love. I am good, and I am worthy of love. And so are you.
Wyatt (he/it)
I have been the weird, annoying kid for as long as I can remember. I’ve been both too smart and too dumb for everyone else, too socially inept, too literal, too blunt. Then, in fourth grade, I got my autism diagnosis, and everything started to make more sense.
Unfortunately, this changed my life in some less ideal ways—my opinions and identity weren’t taken as seriously by my family. They brushed everything off as being due to my autism, not realizing that I am fully aware of how it impacts me and that, rather than detracting from my identity, it builds on it. My autistic experience and my queer experience are intrinsically linked, and neither one negates the other.
Another thing I hear a lot from people is that I can’t be trans because I like my body and my voice. I’ve struggled with imposter syndrome because of this, telling myself I can’t be trans because I like the way my chest shapes my shirt, or the softness of my hips and thighs, or the sweet way I sing. But then again, I know men with soft bodies and bigger chests than mine and sweet honey voices, and they are no less men for it, so why should I be?
I am autistic and trans and weird and beautiful and socially awkward. I love pink and rhinestones and leopard print and the smell of peaches on my clothes. My identity is not negated by my joy or my taste or my disability or the way I wear my skin.
It took a long time to realize that.
Yusur (she/her)
Life hurts. I know it does. I know it does because I’ve been there. There are times where I have questioned why, why this life had to be given to me when I felt like a ghost inside. Why was I given this life to live when I selfishly wish I wasn’t here in the first place. These are questions that I have asked myself for years, and though I don’t have an answer to any of them. I recognize that it’s okay to admit that life hurts.
Zach (they/any)
When I was a kid, not even in kindergarten, I would often play with dolls and other ‘feminine’ toys with my sister, until I was told by kids outside of our family that this was ‘wrong’ and “boys don’t do that.” So I stopped, at least partially, and tried to be more ‘masculine’ in the way I played with toys and interacted with others. I wouldn’t say I really succeeded at that, but I believed that I was playing the part of a ‘real’ boy. As I grew older, learning how my body would change, I feared the idea of growing hair and being a man like my dad. Not that I would be like my dad, because he’s awesome, but because I would be a man with body hair and a deep voice, and that scared me. Of course, the inevitable came and I inherited a lot of the traits of my father, and I tried to be proud. But I struggled to accept who I was, choosing instead to wedge myself into the facade of a “good little Catholic boy.” It wasn’t until I started questioning my religiousness that this facade began to crumble from within.
I realized that I certainly was not heterosexual, and I wasn’t just a ‘typical white boy’ either. I realized in the hateful way that others spoke of people that I, as someone of Lebanese descent, didn’t fit into their ideas of a ‘true American.’ As I began to realize these things about myself, I pushed further into that conformity, until my high school partner gave me a safe space to express who I was. Now, away from my restrictive hometown, I feel so much more alive, so much more me. And I couldn’t be more proud of who I am.