Hey, Translash Family. It's me, Amara Jones. Welcome to the Translash podcast, a show where we tell trans stories to save trans lives. Well, we are finally approaching the end of Pride Month, a month that has gone on for quite a while now.

Now, sadly, I have spent the last week of Pride with COVID, so I missed out on so many of the fun activities.

All I can say about COVID is that it is not fun.

I have had all of the things that you're supposed to have.

I had three shots.

I went on Paxloved, and it was still rough.

So whoever said that COVID is mild is not telling the truth. And I want everyone to continue to be

careful. But so many people threw caution to the wind throughout pride, which makes sense

because that's what the month is all about. And in looking at all of the pictures and videos,

because I was laid up at home, one of the things that I noticed was the fact that pride really is about the embodiment of our freedom, the way in which so many people were decked out in whatever way they wanted to be decked out as an expression of who they are. And so that got me to thinking

about the fact that our bodies are our first sight of pride. They are where we begin in our journeys.

And this idea is more powerful than ever, of course, given the new abortion ruling, which is

about taking that very idea away from us.

And this juncture, this union of these two ideas is why so many priaparates this

year focused, of course, as well on the importance of body autonomy and abortion rights.

So it made sense then to talk to someone who, for me, is the living example of everything

that I am talking about and discussing right now, and that is a loke bad menon, who goes by

in many ways just a loke.

Now, a loke, as we know, is gender non-conforming artist and humorist and all of the things,

but in so many ways, they show up as themselves wherever they go.

I thought it would be really powerful for us to have a conversation about what it means for us to be who we are all of the time and the way in which our bodies are the first sights of our joy.

I just got to a place in my life where I wanted to not wait for freedom but live it and where I wanted to practice joy.

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