Reborn as a Diva Forthright, Leroy Petunia is a neurodivergent Judeo-Slavic Sparkle Witch, Ritualist, and Queer Cheerleader, Co-Creator with The Limitless, Student of Life, and Certified InterPlay Leader. Residing on the colonized land of the Tsalaguwetiyi (Eastern Band of Cherokee), Catawba, and S’atsoyaha (Yuchi), so-called “asheville, nc,” gey hail from the territory of the Shawandasse Tula, Osage, Kaskaskia, and Myaamia, aka louisville, ky.

Leroy is a descendant of a rich line of journeyers before gem: artists, musicians, care workers, change-makers, mixed-class workers and entrepreneurs, secular and religious scholars, and complex survivors. Deeply grateful to ger ancestors for their persistent will to live and dream of freer futures in the face of exile, occupation, and oppression, gey are also a complex survivor.

Between 15+ years of activism across many intersections, Leroy spent four years working within the mental health industrial complex. While this amplified Leroy’s passion for helping all kinds of people become and return to their best selves, the slow erosion of ger soul within these commodified systems of "care" eventually led gem to a powerful pivot: Gey quit their job, setting out on an uncharted path to remember and trust in ger own passionate purpose for living. Along that journey, gey realized that joy is both the path and the compass of ger life's purpose, and that play is the key to staying on that purpose-full path.

Leroy’s deepest commitment is to nurturing inter(personal) healing for the thriving of all beings—-how gey define collective liberation--which they see as lifelong praxis*. Rooted in practices of humility, relationship, and ongoing self-accountability, gey believe that our individual healing is inextricably connected and vital to the transformation of unjust systems of hierarchy and domination.

*Praxis is a concept Leroy learned from the work of Brazilian liberation theologian, Paulo Freire. Gey understand this term as an ongoing spiral from action→reflection→theory→action→reflection→theory, through which our processes of change-making are ever-evolving.

Gey love the cycles that grow miracles from the intentions we set and tend. Gey specialize in working with lgbtqia2sp+ youth, caregivers, creators, survivors of abuse and trauma, those healing within their families of origin and across their lineages, those working for social and ecological justice, and those on journeys of right-sizing personal power and aligning relationships towards mutual dignity, belonging, and safety.

Among other things, Leroy sustains their bodyspirit through singing, groaning, kitchen wizardry, crafting, herbalism, and romping in the woods in homage to the free-wheeling spirit of their late dog/black bear cub. Gey really enjoy baking cakes, going down slides, swinging, flying kites, catching and spreading mischievous joy between spirits. Gey highly recommend keeping a bottle of bubbles in the car to blow out the window while stuck in traffic.

photo credit to Liliana Hudgens, 2020

[Image ID: Leroy is a white person standing center-frame wearing a pale brown, green, and lilac plaid button-up short-sleeved shirt. The shirt’s top button is unbuttoned and the tails are untucked from their dark colored jeans. Their black-brown hair is short and flat on the sides; the curls on top of their head hang down the left side of their forehead from the viewer’s perspective. They are wearing earrings bigger than their ears made up of many dangling, clustered white pea-sized spheres. Their right arm is hanging by their side, and the frame cuts off around their knees. Leroy’s left arm is hidden behind the foliage of a blossoming Mimosa tree, which is encircling them, leaves and flowers hanging in front of their left leg and continuing down out of the shot. The flowers are pompom-like silky threads that fade from white to hot pink at the tips and bloom in clusters over top of the tree’s dark green fern-like leaves. The shadow of one leaflet stands out against Leroy’s shirt where a patch of sun shines on the left side of their chest. They have a closed-mouth smile and a pink tint of lip gloss that resembles the hue of the flowers. Their dark eyes are looking out at the camera, and they have thick, dark eyebrows.]