I did a boudoir shoot

more than the pictures, the time spent in a safe queer space was invaluable

I did it.

Because I have a really amazing friend, I did a boudoir shoot intended solely to showcase my transfeminine body and help me love her more.

What I find exceptionally interesting is that it was the process and the conversation throughout that I value more than anything. Two queer people creating queer content. Cutting up flowers, stuffing them in harnesses, popping booties, laughing so much. I could never see the pictures and feel so good about the process Kris took me through.

It was safe and fun and it was caring and it was filled with nice feelings even when we talked about hard things. It was amazing to even just be able to talk about hard things and then dump a bag full of lingerie and glasses and makeup and earrings all over the couch and decide what we wanted to play with. The ability to shift from the crap to the fun is not something that can be done in every space with every person.

This is what trans people deserve. Caring and loving spaces where they can just live laugh love.

This post is not about the pictures, it is about the feeling you can get when people see you and cherish you and love you for who you are. It is a feeling beyond tolerance, beyond “I’m ok with you doing whatever you want.” It’s a feeling that you only really know when you get it, and it’s one that left me feeling comfortable in lingerie and harnesses and covered in flowers and smiling with flowers as big as my smile placed in my hair.

It was, as we discussed at one point, like craft time when you were younger. It was just…not sad.

That there is a need to have these small community spaces can be debated as being sad or not. I would certainly enjoy having these feelings of love and acceptance and complete safety in more widespread spaces. But I also would not give up these kinds of experiences.

There is no certain way to build this space for people. What was coffee and flowers and lingerie and photography this time could be a movie and a blanket and a bag of chips the next. There isn’t a way to build this kind of space except to let people be there with you and for you depending on what you need.

Maybe this is in person, maybe it’s online, maybe you have the best and safest pen pal in the world. But being able to share something hard with someone and then sharing laughter and queer joy as well, in whatever form works for you, is such a beautiful and intimate experience.

I am so used to feeling and recognizing what does not feel safe that I forget and have a hard time looking for and acknowledging what does and who does that for me. It is not always the most fun to sit back and wait for these, because they do not happen without work I am learning. But the work could be worth it, for flowers and laughter?