Do You Mind 2021 Mental Health Resource

Ways our queer and trans identities nourish us

As queer and trans youth leaders, we have come together in 2021 to create a resource that would serve as a helpful tool for inspiration and gentleness for ourselves and our peers, as well as a source of nourishment to our mental health. As a result of our collaboration, we have come up with some ways that our queer and trans identities, stories and legacies nourish our whole personal and collective beings. Please save this resource, revisit it, or share it with your friends and peers. Our hope is to also encourage ongoing reflection on additional ways that our queer and trans identities nourish us.

This resource was created in partnership with YouthCO and CBRC. 

Image description: The text is on a pastel pink, blue, green and purple background with white stars and additional galaxy elements including planets, nebulas, spaceships, meteoroids, and black holes.  

Slide 1, text: Ways our queer and trans identities nourish us. 

Slide 2, text: As queer and trans youth we are often told to look outside of ourselves for resources to support our mental health and wellbeing. In this resource we want to change that narrative. 

Slide 3, text: Instead, we want to look inwards to identify the ways that our queer and trans identities, stories and legacies nourish our whole personal and collective beings. 

Slide 4, text: My body is my teacher. my queerness keeps calling me into my body as the site of the change i seek to shape, my body holds wisdom beyond belief, my body teaches me about sovereignty, my body asks me to slow down, my body is a site for revolution - Anonymous   

Slide 5, text: Storytelling. The real hunger I am naming, yearning to nourish, is having spaces for storytelling. Where our lips aren’t shut by shame, or that any story isn’t only characterized by the word “trauma”, but is also just seen as the real trajectory of living. The evidence of choosing to remain in this body, when there are so many reasons to escape. - Joelle 

Slide 6, text: Play as diversion. [my] transness is inherently about play; playing with societal norms of gender experience and subverting those. Letting yourself experience pleasure, play, joy freely without worry. - Anonymous 

Slide 7, text: Our ability to lead. When we face challenges, our ability to lead helps us find a solution. We can choose to surround ourselves with people who support us and our needs. We can also create solutions that help us and our communities. Since we are the ones who are most in tune with what we need, we should be part of the solution. - Mel

Slide 8, text: Capacity for transformation and creation. freedom of expression, freedom of play, lingering outside the edges, dancing to the music within, capacity to ignite transformation, creating the reality we hoped to see within ourselves and one another. - Anonymous 

Slide 9, text: Be the unexpected. Being the unexpected if knowing the social norms expected from us and then proceeding to not do that, because what we think about us has nothing to do with us. Being the unexpected is seeing arbitrary social rules for what they are: arbitrary rules; and then seeing the value in taking care of ourselves and not following them. - Joanne 

Slide 10, text: Empathy. Our sense of kinship can extend beyond blood ties to include our chosen family and communities. Our sense of empathy inherited through our queer and trans ancestors allows us to form deeper and more meaningful connections with people, animals, land and spirituality. - Anonymous