Angel Joy Flores is fighting for a world where young trans athletes can chase their dreams
appearing on the reality TV show Queer Eye, she said she was “built like a fridge” and struggled with presenting herself as a proud young trans woman.While the show’s Fab 5 crew gave Flores a stunning makeover, the challenges facing trans kids will take more than just community support, Flores says, especially as more states pass laws to ban LGBTQ content from classrooms and keep trans students off of the sports field.In order to support queer youth, we have to shift towards compassion and listening to what young people need in their personal journeys.“We ask the wrong questions,” Flores said. “We spend our childhoods being asked what we will do, what path we’ll take. ‘What is your career?’ ‘What is your vocation?’ ‘What is your calling?'”“In my activism, I’ve met people, young and old, who were never given permission to ask questions,” she continued, “Aged athletes who spent their lives chasing what they do and not a second finding themselves….
Bright students that have never been told that it’s okay to be unsure, that they’re not wrong in their confusion.”We need to give people the space to listen to what their body and mind are telling them, Flores believes.
So many people feel like they don’t belong, that there’s something wrong with them, she adds. Most simply have never had the space to speak their truth and say how they actually feel.“We just need to leave kids alone.
Let them speak and let them ask questions,” she says. “Tell them being confused is okay, and that life is a constantly changing path.
