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Personal Thought Starters

There are so many ways to get at the work of really making your allyship count, and what I know from experience is that this work is very personal.

 

Your work will necessarily be different from mine. You'll find your own way into exploring the depths and turning over some of your own assumptions to get to a place where you can engage more honestly and actively in the world.

  

But this space is about giving you as many entry points as possible.

 

Featured here are some personal reflections that focus on my own exploration of what it means for me to be actively involved in building the world I want to live in, how I come to think of my place in broader community, the privilege of parenting my trans son, and the personal growth I need to continue to push myself toward.

 

 The invitation is for you to take from here what resonates and leave what doesn't.

Anti-Racist Personal

Anti-Racism + Community

Parenting My Trans Son

Parenting My Trans Son

A light purple circle with a smaller circle inside. Inside the smaller circle is a picture of a child, the top of their head and jacket visible. The face of a dog is on the child's right shoulder.

When my kid started to realize the world saw them as different, and the need for people to listen.

A light purple circle has a picture of four hands clasping a wrist to illustrate community.

One of my first lessons in advocacy.

Deep purple circle with a smaller circle inside. Inside the smaller circle is a picture with an arrow with the words "follow me." A pair of shoes straddles the line of the arrow.

Learning to follow my gender nonconforming kid's lead.

Bright purple circle with picture inside that shows a forearm and a hand holding up a nonbinary pride flag.

The early years of navigating gender with my trans child.

Blue circle with smaller circle inside. Inside the smaller circle is a picture of a young child standing in front of Lake Michigan. You can see the white foam of the waves.

My gender nonconforming child asks some big questions.

Dark brown circle and inside is a smaller circle that has a single tree visible with now leaves against the bacground of white snow.

Listening to what my trans child is telling me.

Listening to—and believing—someone's  personal experience is sometimes the best teacher.

Light tan background with a square photo that has several dim lightbulbs and one lightbulb that is bright.
Bright purple bacground with a messy drawing of a heart in the middle that is both deeper shades of red and some lighter pink
A light tan background with a roadmap that has pins in various places to represent exploration.
A bright purple background with an irregular cream circle with an outline of a head and shoulders and a quote at bottom.
A cream background with a bright purple circle with arrows that go from smaller to bigger, left to right.
An outline of a video camera against a bright purple background. There is a quote about the video under the graphic.

Want to share your own experience here? I'd love to chat.

© 2025 by The Ally Education Collective. All rights reserved.

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