Queer Yoga: Embodiment as Liberation

In my book, Demystifying American Yoga: Embodied Movement for Individual and Collective Transformation, I explore what it means to practice Queer Yoga—powerful, heart-led movement and breath rooted in visibility, healing, and resistance.

One of my greatest influences is Jacoby Ballard, author of A Queer Dharma: Yoga and Meditations for Liberation. Ballard writes, “Society is constantly telling queer and trans people that we shouldn’t exist, through overt and subversive forms of oppression.” That messaging doesn’t just live in the headlines—it settles into our bodies.
Even here in Bangor, where we’re held by a supportive community, we’re not untouched by the cultural forces that attempt to shrink or silence queer and trans expression. Queer Yoga offers something radically different: a space to come home to your body, your truth, and your joy.

What Is Queer Yoga, Really?
There’s no single definition--and that’s the point. Queer Yoga, as I teach it, is infused with my own lived experience: my identity, the symbols and stories that resonate with me, the femme power that grounds my movement.

Every Queer Yoga teacher brings their own fire, but at its heart, Queer Yoga is:

• A celebration of queer existence,
• A sanctuary for self-expression,
• A space where embodiment becomes activism.

It’s not about fitting in—it’s about showing up, fully and freely.

Why Trauma-Informed Yoga Matters
Ballard reminds us, “Trauma lives in the body, and through embodiment practices those stories can be unlocked.”

Queer, trans, and non-binary folks often carry layers of trauma—from rejection, from systemic harm, from the daily micro-injuries of living in a world that wasn't built for us. We don’t just need affirming ideas—we need embodied practices that help us shake loose what’s been held too long.

Movement is how we transmute pain into power. It’s how we break cycles of harm, not just in society, but within our own nervous systems.

Activism, art, and education are essential. But if we’re not healing the body? We’re leaving part of ourselves behind.

The Power of Queer Embodiment
As Ballard puts it, yoga connects us to “our growth, pain, and resilience.” It’s a spiral inward and outward—a path that helps us release shame, soften our shields, and reconnect with our human capacity to thrive.

Queer Yoga isn’t a performance. It’s a reclamation. Of gender. Of community. Of pleasure, rage, softness, strength. Of the full spectrum of who we are.

That’s what we practice at Spiral Studio.

Why Femme? Why Now?
My class weaves Ballard’s wisdom with a deep celebration of the femme side of the queer spectrum—because that’s where I’ve found my deepest healing. Through the work of building the Spiral Goddess Collective, I’ve learned to honor my softness, my fluidity, my intuitive knowing.

This practice is rooted in what author Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore calls “the radical potential to choose one’s gender and one’s sexual and social identities... to create a culture on our terms.”

That’s the culture we’re creating at Spiral Studio. A space for authenticity. For courage. For coming home to yourself.

Pride at Spiral Studio
Join us in celebration, in movement, in community. This Pride season, we’re holding space for all the layers of what it means to be queer—grief and joy, rage and softness, pride and power.

🌀 Queer Yoga — May 22, 7:00–8:15 PM
A healing and affirming space for movement, stillness, expression, and connection.
🌀 Generations of Pride Dance & Fundraiser for Bangor Pride — May 31, 7:00–9:00 PM
Dance, release, and raise funds for queer joy and community power.
🌀 Bangor Pride Festival — June 29
Visit us at our Spiral Studio table or come to our studio space on the 4th floor of 16 State Street for a quiet, welcoming refuge.

Come as you are.
Move as you need.
Be held, seen, and celebrated.
This is Queer Yoga. This is Spiral Studio. This is liberation in motion.