Elliot Page

“Can I kiss you?” It was two months before the world premiere of Juno, and Elliot Page was in his first ever queer bar. The hot summer air hung heavy around him as he looked at her. And then it happened. In front of everyone. A previously unfathomable experience. Here he was on the precipice of discovering himself as a queer person, as a trans person. Getting closer to his desires, his dreams, himself, without the repression he’d carried for so long. But for Elliot, two steps forward had always come with one step back. 

With Juno’s massive success, Elliot became one of the world’s most beloved actors. His dreams were coming true, but the pressure to perform suffocated him. He was forced to play the part of the glossy young starlet, a role that made his skin crawl, on and off set. The career that had been an escape out of his reality and into a world of imagination was suddenly a nightmare. 

As he navigated criticism and abuse from some of the most powerful people in Hollywood, a past that snapped at his heels, and a society dead set on forcing him into a binary, Elliot often stayed silent, unsure of what to do, until enough was enough. Full of behind the scenes details and intimate interrogations on sex, love, trauma, and Hollywood, Pageboy is the story of a life pushed to the brink. But at its core, this beautifully written, winding journey of what it means to untangle ourselves from the expectations of others is an ode to stepping into who we truly are with defiance, strength, and joy. 

A Memoir

Pageboy

taylor miles hopkins

Let me just exist with you, happier than ever.

Revna

Victoria Justice

We do not realise the extent of the energy we are losing until we find where it is seeping from. Invisible until it is not. A thought just out of reach.

It often feels like more people step forward to defend being unkind than they do to support trans people as we deal with an onslaught of cruelty and violence.

On other’s thoughts with expectations to fit into gender norms 

And whether it was conscious or not—If I had to conform, why shouldn't you have to?

I felt I needed to call myself out for the selfish little shit I could be, especially when it is to maintain comfort and privilege. I can hold that and also understand just how good I have it, and knowing just how good should only enlighten the need for action, for care, to make the right choices, the uncomfortable choices.

The core tenets of cultivating a regenerative, reciprocal relationship with nature are derived from Indigenous science and wisdom. Permaculture illustrates our interconnectedness and how we can live in partnership with the land and natural cycles of our planet. Essentially, slow down, look, listen, and witness what is happening. Let the landscape tell you what to do, make meaningful decisions or adjustments, versus forcing your ideas or expectations. Take a breath and find the alignment. Nature takes time, all of our growth does. If we can see the impact of our actions, perhaps we can make better decisions based on those observations. Work with the cycles, not against them. Permaculture is about closing the loops. Yield with no waste. Our actions reflecting the planet's. And as humans, how do we as individuals harness and to store our energy? How best can we protect it, enmbrace it, and share it? To keep cycling through?

Kat Albanese

"We get it, you're gay!” he responded instantly.

It's as if there is a need to trivialize such endeavors, unwilling to acknowledge experiences that are not their own, unwilling to listen. Throwing around power but refusing to admit they have any.

Hollywood is built on leveraging queerness. Tucking it away when needed, pulling it out when beneficial, while patting themselves on the back. Hollywood doesn't lead the way, it responds, it follows, slowly and far behind. The depth of that closet, the trove of secrets buried, indifferent to the consequences. I was punished for being queer while I watched others be protected and celebrated, who gleefully abused people in the wide open.

"The system is twisted so that the cruelty looks normative and regular and the desire to address and overturn it looks strange," Sarah Schulman writes in her required read, Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences.

I resent that we were cheated out of our love, that beautiful surge in the heart stolen from us. I am furious at the seeds planted without our consent, the voices and the actions that made our roads to the truth unnecessarily brutal.

“It's exceedingly surreal to have transitioned ten years ago, find myself happier & healthier than ever, have better relationships with friends & family, be a better and more engaged citizen, and yes, even more productive ... and to then see strangers pathologize that choice. My being trans almost never comes up. It's a fact about my past that has relatively little bearing on my present, except that it made me more empathetic, more engaged in social justice. How does it hurt anyone else? What about my peace demands vitriol, violence, protections?”

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