One of the most powerful truths I’ve come to understand — in both my personal life and my work — is this: Proximity shapes perspective.

It’s easy to hold beliefs, opinions, or assumptions about systems we’ve never had to navigate. We can read about them, advocate from afar, or acknowledge them intellectually — but something shifts when those systems intersect with your lived experience. When they start to shape your body, your home, your day-to-day choices.

For me, that shift has been slow and personal.

Over the past five years, I’ve had to learn how to live in a disabled body. I’ve parented two neurodivergent kids and discovered my own neurodivergence. Each of these experiences has cracked open a new layer of awareness — and grief — about how deeply our systems fail those who don’t fit neatly inside them.

What I’ve learned is this: the people most impacted by harm are the ones who are expected to carry the weight of adapting. To make it work. To push through. To show up anyway.

And that’s not okay.

Real change — systemic, cultural, sustainable change — can’t just come from the people being harmed. We need those who are not directly impacted to show up, too. We need your energy. Your resources. Your capacity. Your willingness to move closer.

Because proximity is a choice. And it’s one of the most powerful tools we have.

This Pride Month, I’m Asking You to Expand Your Proximity.

Pride isn’t just a celebration — it’s a legacy. One rooted in resistance, protest, and survival. Pride began with the bold leadership of queer and trans people of color, many of whom were poor, disabled, or neurodivergent. Many of whom are still fighting for basic safety and dignity today.

So if you hold privilege — in any form — this is your invitation to lean in, not look away.

Here are some ways to do that:

• Learn about Pride from someone whose experience differs from your own — a Black trans leader, a queer autistic artist, a disabled activist. Follow their work. Listen to their stories.
• Honor the history of Pride. It didn’t begin with rainbow flags and parades — it began with protest against police violence, housing discrimination, and the criminalization of identity.
• Use your money to support LGBTQ+ businesses, especially those that are Black, brown, disabled, or neurodivergent-led.
• Use your voice to lift up people and stories that don’t always get heard. Share their work. Advocate in your circles.
• Use your time to volunteer with or donate to organizations doing intersectional work — supporting queer youth, providing healthcare access, offering legal aid, or building safer spaces for marginalized communities.

Proximity invites us to see differently.

When we move closer — not just emotionally, but relationally, politically, and financially — we begin to understand just how interwoven oppression is. And how urgently we need collective responsibility.

Here’s how I’m doing that in my own work:

I help women leaders break the habits that oppressive systems have conditioned into their nervous systems, behaviors, and personality patterns — so they can lead with greater clarity, capacity, and ease.

That commitment starts with me. I’m continuing to expand my proximity — to use my platform, my voice, and my work to move closer to what matters.

I hope you’ll join me.

~erin