Narrative therapists assume that you are the person who knows the most about your life.

This is such a useful position from which to start, especially when working with 2SLGBTQIA+ community. Too often, our expertise in our own lives is questioned by loud, well-funded systems of power (colonialism, eugenics, racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.) that seek to pathologize and criminalize queer existence.

My answer didn’t come from a dance floor or a community meeting, though I’ve found real joy in both. It came from a muddy riverbank with my little dog, Sunshine, shoulder-high in black mud, while I stood there in my hiking boots, laughing.

That’s it. That’s the whole answer. I am most joyful and most queer when I’m doing anything outside with my four-legged friend, whether it’s kayaking, hiking, sitting under a tree doing nothing in particular, or watching her decide that a perfectly normal stick is, in fact, a treasure.

It's a direct physical refusal of everything she was told to be instead. And so for me, in my body, in my queerness, in my feminism, my liberation lives in moments like that. It's a breath that finally drops all the way down. My shoulders stop apologizing and return to where they're supposed to be. And when I catch myself doing math, right? Like how much room should I take up? Is this too much? Am I too much? Have I talked too much? I just like stop doing the calculations and just try to exist fully in my body.

As queer people, we inherit that legacy. Not just from fictional rebels, but from the very real ones who stood at Stonewall, who marched in the first Pride parades, who demanded visibility when invisibility would have been safer.

Their work is the reason we are here.

And our work is to ensure that those who come after us inherit something even freer.

Not because the fight should belong to us alone.

But because we know what becomes possible when enough people decide to carry the weight together.

We survive not in spite of our queerness but because of it. The same qualities that have been policed, pathologized, and pruned — our fluidity, our refusal of neat categories, our ability to grow sideways and find nourishment in unlikely places — are exactly what keep us alive. Adaptation without assimilation. Persistence without permission.

Trans rights are not in conflict with women’s rights. They never were. That has always been a lie, told by people who need us divided and afraid of each other, because they know what we can become when we aren’t.

It’s 2026, and victim blaming, minimization of violence, and protecting perpetrators are still shockingly common.  The survivors who have come forward have faced a barrage of judgment, misrepresentation, and outright vitriol.  The girls (I use that word because many of them were minors at the time) whom Epstein and his co-conspirators abused have been called “prostitutes.” (No shade – we love sex work and sex workers.  It just isn’t true in this case and serves to imply consent where there was none.) They’ve been accused of lying and ruining important men’s reputations. 

Some folks find the new year to be an exciting time to set new resolutions and make positive changes in their lives, and that’s fantastic! Many of us, however, find this time of year to be extremely challenging for various reasons. Some of us are navigating feelings of loneliness or grief, recovering from busy holiday plans, being away from home, trying to get back into routines ourselves and/or supporting others to do so, and experiencing seasonal impacts on mental health, physical health or daily functioning. All of this while navigating some of the coldest and darkest days of the year doesn’t exactly make for an ideal foundation to set new goals or habits, when many of us are barely hanging on to our existing routines. Many folks find they have more capacity to set goals and make changes in the Spring, when the days are longer, brighter, and many parts of nature around us are waking up from winter hibernation.

Bears are not updating their LinkedIn profiles right now.
Squirrels are not circling back on emails.
And no mammal thrives under fluorescent lighting at 8:30 a.m. while being asked to perform cognitively complex tasks.

And yet, here we are. Again.

Alberta’s decision to invoke the notwithstanding clause is not just unconstitutional. It is gender-based violence made into policy.

Dr Kim Williams (she/her) PhD MSW RSW shares her thoughts on Transgender Day of Remembrance 2025.

“But I also carry the familiar question: how much of myself can I safely bring into these spaces? Will I have to brace against microaggressions or silence some of my most important parts, especially as pressure, threats, and sometimes outright violence from white supremacists, transantagonists, and misogynists increases?

Here are a few practices that I return to over and over again.”

Why questions can get us stuck in a loop - here are some different things to ask ourselves about our predicaments.

Summer is officially here and for some of you that may look like kids being out of school and juggling that with work or time off. Maybe you’re someone who enjoys the chaos of summer, or maybe you’re pre-emptively overwhelmed by the expectations and high activity.

In this post we’re focusing on having a more fulfilling summer without depleting your energy reserve and being a bit more mindful of the autopilot decisions that can creep in. 

Here are some things to think about that might help you take care and have fun sustainably in the summer heat!

“I have come to value gardening (or horticulture, if we’re going to get fancy about it) for its therapeutic and practical value in my family's life. If I am being honest, it offers more therapeutic value than practical crops, as I am no expert in this field. Casual gardener feels like a better descriptive title - low pressure and no expectation. The garden is a freeing place for me.”

Challenge rigid ideas of connection. Embrace relationships that feel expansive rather than limiting. Seek out and nurture the spaces where you feel truly seen.