Your Stories - Stacie-Mei

Content Warning: These stories contain mentions of body dysmorphia, body image struggles, pregnancy loss, fertility struggles and gendered violence. If you find any of the below triggering, please find a list of helpful and free resources below:

DV/SV: 1800 RESPECT

Mental Health: https://www.beyondblue.org.au/

Eating Disorders and Body Image Issues: Butterfly Foundation 1800 ED HOPE

We could talk for hours about Stacie. We probably have. She deserves to be spoken about. 

She’s a self-described ‘woman with a transgender experience’, living with AuDHD, a mum to an eight-year-old boy who’s inherited her spark, QCEO of Queer and Diverse Pathways, a community powerhouse, and after seeing it for the first time, a recently self-admitted “butt girlie”. She’s on boards, in meetings, volunteering, showing up time and time again for everyone who doesn’t have a voice yet. She does all of this while living with chronic kidney disease, navigating dysphoria, and raising a son who thinks she hung the moon.

She can change the temperature of a room when she walks in, her energy hums between fierce and soft but she loves loudly. 

Stacie came to Crooked carrying a lot, not in a heavy way, just honestly. Her body has been through hell, healing, hormone shifts, and whole new beginnings. It’s a body that’s been argued with by the world, picked apart by strangers, and rebuilt by love. And yet, she showed up ready to see it differently. She 

She was nervous, which makes sense. The camera can feel like a spotlight and a mirror all at once, and she was scared of seeing remnants of an old self she’s worked so hard to move past. But what unfolded was something special, a mix of grace and electricity, laughter, and these moments where you could feel her starting to see herself as we see her. 

She came in with concepts so we could show her exactly how she wanted to be seen. The trans flag, her suit that makes her feel powerful, the quiet portraits, the sensual and sexy ones, each image she chose felt like a love letter to every version of her that’s survived and to everyone who’s ever felt like their body was an argument with the world. 

Her viewing was one of those goosebump-inducing moments that reminds us this work is more than photography. It’s reclamation, proof, and affirmation. Watching her look at herself and say, “That’s me. That’s a beautiful woman,” is something we won’t want to forget. 

Stacie is heaven on earth and fights every day for her community and still finds time to pour love into everyone around her. And if you’ve ever had the luck of being in her orbit, you know: the world is brighter, funnier, and infinitely safer because she’s in it.