"I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept." — Angela Davis
"I am nonbinary and I feel that my gender dysphoria may be part of why I am sex-averse. I feel that there is a pro in that being asexual means that I am not distressed by any sex-aversion I experience due to my gender dysphoria." — Em Z., via Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca Sounds Fake but Okay
"A lot of my ace identity is inherently a part of my trans identity. Being sex-indifferent or sex-repulsed is fueled by my lack of sexual attraction and my disconnection from my body. One example is that my aversion to wearing a bikini stems from not wanting people to be sexually attracted to me, but also that it accentuates the parts of my body that I am most uncomfortable with and what I see as counter to how I view myself." — Kara T., via Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca Sounds Fake but Okay
"I am nonbinary/genderqueer and I feel like my gender is very tied with my ace identity. I think it took me such a long time to figure out my gender because I'm ace. I thought that I was uncomfortable looking like a girl because of how sexualized AFAB bodies are by general society." — Mattea, via Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca Sounds Fake but Okay
"As breasts are heavily sexualized in every form of media, I was never comfortable with my own. Even crossing my arms didn't feel right because I preferred to simply forget that they existed." — Finch, via Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca Sounds Fake but Okay
"Often, aromantic-spectrum women will find themselves being compelled to reject "traditional" womanhood not because they have anything against it in particular, but because they so closely associate femininity with dating and romance. In these cases, it's not necessarily about a questioning of gender at all (although that can certainly be another layer of it), but about wanting to reject the stereotypes that surround gender." — Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca Sounds Fake but Okay
"Some aspecs also find themselves wanting to distance themselves from the parts of their gender or presentation that are sexualizing—or parts of their bodies that are not sexual by nature but often sexualized within the broader culture." — Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca Sounds Fake but Okay
"We can't fail if we never give it an honest try, or whatever Yoda didn't say." — Aidan Multhauf Alpinist Magazine, Issue 87, "Twenty Classic Climbs in Twenty Days"
"I won’t be here when the worst of what’s coming comes. I think about it and then I try not to think about it. And then I try to think because if we don’t—but I can hardly grasp it. (on climate change)" — Ellen Bass Lighthouse, You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World
"Fear lives in a past experience or in a future assumption of what might happen." — Kimmy Fasani Outside Podcast: What Snowboarding Has to do With Parenthood, Loss, and Cancer
"Resilience doesn't come from comfort. And so I'm not wishing you a life free of discomfort. I'm wishing you a life where you can handle the discomforts that are inevitably going to come. And I think about that's what my journey in the mountains so much has taught me is not how to prevent all of the things that don't feel good, but how to lean into the ones that are there to teach us." — Melissa Arnot Reid Outside Podcast, "Climbing Everest is Easy Compared to Surviving an Abusive Parent"
"Public lands are our public commons, breathing spaces in a country that is increasingly holding its breath. ... These are places of peace and renewal, where landscapes of beauty become landscapes of our imaginations. We stand before a giant sequoia and remember the size of our hearts instead of the weight of our egos." — Terry Tempest Williams "Public lands are our public commons", The New York Times
"I don't like fear. I want to win against it. It keeps me alert, but I won't obey it." — Jan Farrell, speed skier Hard Pack Ski Magazine, Issue 5, "The Speed Racers"
"Due to the patriarchal understanding of man as norm and woman as other, the wider world often struggles to comprehend anyone drawing on femininities who is not regarded as a woman. Such expression is often heavily policed. Whereas anyone drawing on masculinities is understandable: of course people would want to be masculine. Because masculinity is regarded as superior to femininity, anything associated with femininity on a man is highly visible, whereas masculinity on women is often unremarked." — Meg-John Barker Gender: A Graphic Guide
"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." — JRR Tolkein via Gandalf The Lord of the Rings
"Every climb feels impossible until you stand on top." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"'Asking for help isn’t giving up,' said the horse. 'It’s refusing to give up.'" — Charlie Mackesy The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
"Life isn’t a cognitive exercise. It’s an action sport. Understanding isn’t enough. You have to go out and do the damn thing." — Psychedelic therapist Lauren Taus via Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"Children are not things to be molded, but are people to be unfolded." — Jess Lair
"There is little room for others when we’re consumed by ourselves." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
