It’s live ya’ll! This incredible project was the biggest thing I have ever taken on and while it is perhaps my favorite thing I have ever done, it took over 150 hours of work to get to the point where I can share it with all of you. From transcribing the stories, 9 days of photo shoots, over 100 LGBTQ+ folks of sessions to edit, three rounds of spell check, putting together the graphics and this final version….I am just so incredible excited for it to be finally done and shareable with all of you.

I wrote about why I wanted to do this HERE so def go back and check that out if you haven’t yet but now that its all done, I can’t help but reflect on the immense beauty that is born out of resilience and heartbreak within our community. It is my deep and sincere hope that this serves as snapshot of our collective and also a reminder to our community that we are not alone. There is so much grace, wisdom, tenacity, queer joy, resilience, hope, loss, honesty, community and love in what is below and while I know that this is just a tiny slice of LGBTQ+ community, I hope it serves as a reminder that we all can rise. In the words of one of my favorite authors….we are the brave and broken hearted and we are rising strong

A small note before you continue. These images, words, names and pronouns were recorded June of 2021 and may not be accurate to the folks represented here. We have done our best to update pronouns and names to reflect the current identities of those we have photographed but as there is no way to know when you might be seeing this, please note that these may no longer be accurate.

We also didn’t receive answers from everyone who participated so you will see their images here without any quote. If you are one of these individuals and would like to be included, simply email me at hello@amandaswiger.com - you can also email if there are any name/pronoun changes you wish for me to make. If you haven’t received your images you can also email that address as well!

Here’s to queer resilience, joy and the beautiful way in which we all rise