For a long time, my trans son wanted to seamlessly blend in. So much of his early years were spent under the watchful and often intrusive eyes of people who couldn’t just let him be.

They desired—and felt entitled to ask for—confirmation of their own assumptions or answers to their own confusion: Are you a boy or a girl? Do you belong in this bathroom?

And on and on and on.

Now, in a world that feels too tight and constricting, his voice is where he finds his freedom. Freedom to trump lies with truth. Freedom to share his story. Freedom to loosen the ties that bind, holding him to an arbitrary standard he was never interested in. Freedom to stake his claim, demand his autonomy, push the boundaries over and over again until they’re non-existent.

I think about the effect of his stepping into himself. The community he and others unknowingly create when they share their truth, the light they spread, the darkness they push back, when they demand to be seen and heard.

My invitation to you today is to sit, quietly, and let your own truth come to you. What about you is essential and enduring? How can speaking that truth into the world help light the way for others?

A Little Light Inspo