Willow Defebaugh

What is your favorite example of what we would call queerness in nature?

And that is the story of nature.

Life in transition, one might say.

I'm curious to hear I mean I was just writing yesterday about one of my favorite evolutionary phenomena, which is mimicry and I was writing about the mimic octopus and

which literally has evolved to have this advanced neurological control over its skin color, texture, shape, movement, and it will hide in the sand and then just have two limbs above the sand to mimic sea snakes.

It will become striped so that it looks like a venomous lionfish.

It does all of this depending on who it's interacting with, and so its identity is like fluid and relational.

And I think that, you know, for me, my journey has always been about getting closer to what feels true to me and authentic.

And I always say that transitioning was not about getting from point A to point B. It was about going from a place of dissociation to a place of enlivenment or embodiment.

You know, it's like...

Putting on glasses, not realizing that I needed them my whole life.

You know, dissociation, when you feel really disconnected from yourself, it's like you're in a haze.

And there's a lot of grief that can come with confronting that, like realizing how much time you've spent in that state.

Yeah.

But there's so much beauty that waits on the other side when suddenly you're looking at the world with glasses on.

And so much what I wish our species could see, right?

Because I think we are living in this deep ecological dissociation.

Like, not just disconnected from ourselves, but also disconnected from the world.

And I want us to become enlivened.

But so many people are afraid of facing that grief of disconnection with themselves or with the world.