Deserve to Grow 

Ransom Scott

(she/her/hers)

20, Brooklyn 

Ransom is a queer trans woman, an undergrad Art education student at Pratt Institute, and an artist driven by her personal experiences, upbringing, and values. Ransom’s dream is to use her art and abilities to ignite passion in the younger generation and make our society a more accepting and creative place.

Queer advocacy means standing up for the queer community and being a voice to those of us who, at this time, can’t truly be vocal in the way they want to. And it also means advocating for people even if you aren’t within the same group. Being able to shout with trans people as a cis person, being able to stand with lesbians as a gay or mlm person, being able to march with black queer people as a white queer person, being able to support closeted queer people as an out or transitioned person, that is what advocacy and empowerment is about to me.

In this climate, art can be one of the most powerful forms of advocacy and empowerment, because art is the most beautiful extension of the human experience. A person can share their thoughts, feelings, turmoils, hopes, dreams, and their motivations in a universal way that can unite people that might not have ever even interacted. Yet, they can still stand together and relate to those motivations from across the globe. This is also part of why I find art so empowering to me personally; it’s a way to convey who I am while defending the human experience.

This piece is a part of me that I feel strongly about in relation to individuality in terms of figuring out yourself, especially with trans kids. There is a corrupt and hateful notion that trans kids are “confused” and are not trans, but simply being led astray in their most vulnerable years, but to me that isn’t the case. As a kid you know exactly who you are, you just don’t have the language to express it, so instead you turn to pushing your creativity. You wear clothes that make you feel nice, you style your hair in a way you see in books or on TV, you gain interests that make you feel like you’re seen, and you just generally begin to explore the world through an individual lens. But somewhere down the line, people around you begin to tell you that you’re wrong or that you’re confused, and you’re sent down a path of feeling uncomfortable being yourself, or even believing that you don’t know yourself like you thought you did.

It can be such a confusing journey trying to unpack that kind of rhetoric as an adult, so I want trans kids, queer kids, and kids in general to just be allowed to explore the world on their own and grow and experiment. I want to protect trans kids, because they deserve to grow up and be trans adults who are allowed to let their creativity run wild. Advocacy and standing up for yourself and for those around you is the only way to survive in a climate that is constantly trying to tell you that there is a “right” and a “wrong” way to live the human experience, and that your human experience is wrong.

@Ransom_Dead35 and Ran.the.tryhard

Venmo: @ransom_dead35