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Oakley

@oakleygab

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artist, bird lover, queer, rabblerouser 🏳️‍🌈

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TRANS LOVE SAVES LIVES PROJECT 2026

I am starting an art-activism project this summer and will be collecting handwritten notes of love, care, and encouragement for the trans and nonbinary community. With We the People Michigan, we are on a mission to collect as many letters of love as we can this summer to challenge the hate and violence against trans people happening in our country.

Trans people belong everywhere, but it isn’t always felt – help us change that norm in our community.

Letters will be incorporated into art pieces alongside portraits and photos of the vibrant trans people of our community. Please write as many notes as you want – but please keep any specific individuals anonymous.

Want to be photographed or submit a note for the TransLoveSavesLives project? DM me or @translovesaveslives on Instagram! by @oakleygab

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4 months ago

Lots of cat cuteness and pretty nature lately by @oakleygab

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a month ago

Asylum Lake is my fave place to escape to in Kalamazoo by @oakleygab

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4 months ago

Memories of queerness, good friends, and my newest home addition - Silly Goose the cat 🐈 by @oakleygab

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4 months ago

2026 has been pretty damn cool so far pt 1 by @oakleygab

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4 months ago

mentally I'm here (btw this is Goose) by @oakleygab

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8 months ago

I'm beyond proud of the community I live in and advocate for. While I love working at K College now, I had a very difficult experience as a queer and trans student. In a world where being queer, especially transgender, means navigating a host of barriers, hate, and stigma, I know intimately the things queer students and colleagues are facing inside and beyond classroom and office walls. Working at the College for me allows me to become the supporter, the advocate, and the voice for people now that I never had when I was a student. This award is never something I expected or sought after. For me, I just want to see queer people succeed in academia, pursue their passions, live in healthy bodies, and explore life loud and proud. When that isn't safe, I want to be a safe office and person with snacks and resources.

I've been on the campus since 2017 as a student and now as a staff member, and some of the best memories have come from the rare moments of change where I've seen College policies and campus culture become more inclusive and supportive. I know there is hate, pain, and harm happening still every day, but there are also more conversations about how to build understanding and safe communities and stigmas are shifting.

Most importantly, I want to uplift the bittersweet conversations I have in closed rooms with people who are suffering. I hear stories, from colleagues and students alike, of harassment, shame, isolation, and fear. But I also bear witness to people standing up and living every day here anyways. Being queer often demands us to live a double life - our public selves and our true selves - to stay safe, but we must keep pressing for a world where queerness is not feared or hated. I'll keep doing what I can to just be a trans adult that queer kids can see themselves in, because everyone should grow up with role models that look like themselves.

Thank you @outfront_kzoo!!!! by @oakleygab

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8 months ago

the cozy winter vibes have entered the chat by @oakleygab

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10 months ago

Spooky season is finally here. It's our time to cause chaos, witches by @oakleygab

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a year ago

There's a lot of stigma around substance abuse and addiction. Generally, we are taught that addiction makes people evil, dirty, manipulative, weak, lazy, and dangerous. And I won't say that none of that can come up as symptoms or effects of a substance abuse problem. But for me, what I have learned in recovery is that recovery helps build the capacity to be highly empathetic, introspective, fiercely strong, determined, loving, successful, and disciplined.

Some of the best things about myself, I forged in recovery. It's important to me to recognize the milestone of another year sober because I still struggle with the urges and impulses to drink too much sometimes. It's important to me to challenge the stigma and share my story so that others know they can. In 2019, I hit my lowest rock bottom of a list of rock bottoms. That Fall, I nearly didn't make it home from study abroad because of the dangerous drinking habits I engaged in.

But since then, I've started life-saving gender transition treatment, I made some of the closest friends, I healed harm I did because of my addiction, I graduated college, I got a great job that I've grown to love, and I'm finally living independently. At 25 I'm 4 years sober and recovered from a decade of disordered eating and self-harm. I'm the healthiest I've ever been and the most content. Today I watched college seniors who I've worked with for four years graduate themselves.

None of these milestones could have happened if I didn't decide one day that being alive was worth fighting for. The people who supported me helped me learn to walk again. All the therapy, reflection, and medication trials and tribulations--it all led me here. So if you are ever struggling, know that you aren't alone and there is something out there to be your reason to stay alive too.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
~Emily Dickinson by @oakleygab

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a year ago

When it's April 9 but you live in Michigan by @oakleygab

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2 years ago

🫁🫶🏻 by @oakleygab

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2 years ago