The Story Behind Nature is LGBTQIA+
The most motivating thing I felt was the fear of a bad recovery. The countdown had begun and I was locked into prioritizing my health above all else for the next 4 months. Started training in Muay Thai and returning feeling lighting and breathing easier. Smoke free and ready to change my mind and body. Earlier in the day I scheduled my Top Surgery- was feeling the excitement, the anxiety and most importantly- the trans joy. I had done a significant amount of research, reading other's stories online and watching their YouTube videos. Learned about all of the different kinds of surgeries there are and what options were available for me. Went through examples of results that I would want. Played with photo editors to try and envision myself with a flat, more masculinized chest- no nipples. The scars running along the bottom of what would be my smooth pecs. Felt right for me- and almost androgynous- also knowing I'll have a beautiful chest piece soon after. It wasn't just about physical preparation- I wanted to prepare emotionally as well. I read how some folks honor their chest before surgery and other's may experience post-op depression. I turned to support groups as I navigated questions that kept swirling around in my head; a quiet storm of self-doubt. A whisper said,
What if this is unnatural?
It wasn’t my voice, not really—it was the echo of centuries of conditioning, the inherited residue of biased science and rigid social norms. For a while, I let that whisper haunt me. But then, something shifted.
Unlearning the Myth of “Natural”
As I began to research, to read, to question, I stumbled into a beautiful, liberating field called Queer Ecology—a way of seeing nature that dismantles the myth of heteronormativity as the only “natural” order. I learned about animals that change sex to adapt to their environment, species that thrive through same-sex pairings, ecosystems that depend on fluidity, interdependence, and transformation. It was clear; Nature is Queer—diverse, adaptive, unapologetic.
The more I read, the more I realized how much of our understanding of “nature” has been filtered through the narrow lens of privilege. For centuries, the people documenting life on Earth were largely cis, straight, white men. Their worldview defined what was recorded—and what was dismissed. Queerness in nature wasn’t absent; it was edited out.
Truth as Liberation
Recognizing those blind spots cracked something open in me. I stopped asking whether my transition was “natural,” and started seeing that the question itself was built on a false preconception. My body, my identity, my transformation—they were all expressions of the same creative, adaptive energy that pulses through every living system.
In that moment, I didn’t just accept myself. I felt aligned—with nature, with truth, with the dazzling complexity of life itself.
Creating the Series
The Nature is LGBTQIA+ series was born out of that revelation. It’s a series able to debunk the automatically accepted notion of what is "natural" in this world. Shared with every queer person who’s ever been told they're "unnatural", that they’re “against nature.” It’s a reclaiming of the narrative, a reminder that our identities are not exceptions but manifestations of the same wild, abundant diversity that sustains life on this planet.
Each piece in the series highlights the beautiful variations found in nature that we could consider LGBTQIA+. It’s an invitation to see queerness and transness not as deviation, but as the heartbeat of evolution itself.
