Squirrel

Squirrel (they/them)

Squirrel is a 56-year-old, gender-defiant, neurodivergent elder whose life spans punk counterculture, queer and trans community building, and the corporate tech world. Born in Denver and partly raised in California, they grew up amid horses, hardship, a mother’s mental illness, and a Depression-era father who taught resilience through hard work. At 17, Squirrel left home and lived on the streets of Hollywood, surviving heroin addiction and witnessing the AIDS crisis, while forming deep connections with queer and trans communities.

Over the following decades, they lived in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, and abroad—balancing a “gutter punk, squatter, ex-junkie” existence with a thirty-year corporate tech career. Their life has unfolded through cycles of trauma, recovery, and transformation, culminating in a midlife choice to embrace life over self-destruction.

Now, Squirrel dedicates their energy to supporting younger generations, bridging urban queer/trans organizing and rural sanctuaries like Wolf Creek in Southern Oregon. A self-described “Borderlands witch,” they move fluidly between punk scenes, boardrooms, and rural communities, seeking shared humanity.

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Audio Stories | Transcripts

1. Gender Deviant, Cahotic Punk (chosen family, city, disability, language, media, subculture)

2. ADHD (disability, friends, online, support)

3. Bubblings of Gender (childhood, disabilitiy, parent, representation, young adult)

4. Fem Icon (childhood, family, ideals, parent)

5. Gender Transitions (childhood, disability, expression, ideals, media, medical transition)

6. Community Building & Rest (disability, family, region, support, work)

7. Aging, Learning & Teaching Skills (interngenerational ties, joy, mutual aid)

8. Developing Skills (family, ideals, intergenerational ties, mutual aid, representation)

9. Networks of Resiliance (groups, media, mutual aid, region, subculture, work)

10. Digital Connections & Mutual Aid (community, expression, friends)

11. Authoritarianism & Space for Evoluation (activism)

12. Zines, How-Tos and Propagating Info (mutual aid, work)

13. Forestry Camp, Aging, and Community Building (disability)

14. Wolf Creek and Intergenerational Ties (activism; aging; community)

15 Wolf Creek and Dessent (activism, community, intergenerational ties, middle-age; spirituality)

16. Wolf Creek and Social Inflamation (community; language, intergenerational ties)

17. Finding Shared Reality/humanity and Initiation (expression, identitiy, spirituality, work)

18. Support Network (friends, mental health, partner)

19. The Pull of Cities (community, urban-rural movement)

20. Cities and Rural Spaces (activism, class, expression, family, urban-rural movement, work)

21. Three Ages (disability, family, life course, mental health, support))

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