We recently had the chance to connect with Asher Phoenix (they/them) and have shared our conversation below.
Good morning Asher, we’re so happy to have you here with us and we’d love to explore your story and how you think about life and legacy and so much more. So let’s start with a question we often ask: What is a normal day like for you right now?
Right now, my days are busy, creative, and fulfilling.
I strive to spend my days focusing on equal parts art and recovery. As many of you reading this probably already know, I’ve struggled with addiction to a slew of different substances since something profoundly traumatic happened in my life in 2019. Only recently have I finally begun taking my recovery and life seriously, clocking in at 118 days clean & sober as I write this, today. Just a few days away from that 4 month mark! I owe this newfound progress and success with my sobriety to my sponsors and the incredible community of sober humans I’ve gained through my recovery program. In the 118 days I’ve spent sober this time around, I’ve spent all 118 days attending multiple meetings surrounded by some of the coolest humans around.
I’m currently in the rehearsal process for my return to stage theatre, after an 8 year hiatus. Many avenues of creativity fuel my forward trajectory and, before photography, musical theatre was my first true love– the first outlet that ever made me feel at home in myself and my community. I have the honor of playing Mischa in the ridiculously hilarious and spooky show, “Ride the Cyclone” at Stage 9 in Hutchinson, KS. I was in a horrible car accident that left me with a shattered ankle and shin back in February, so I’ve been back in Kansas since then for a little R&R in my parents’ care. Also, one of my longest mentors and best friends, Kate Stoss, is choreographing the show, so I’m super stoked to get to create with one of my Kansas besties again! To my director, Theresa, thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to come back into myself post-transition in such a fun, creative, and connecting way.
On top of an already busy rehearsal schedule, I also recently booked an Overdose Prevention Awareness Month gallery at Harvester Arts in Wichita, KS, for the month of August. I’m featuring 15 subjects and a 1-2 paragraph narrative on how each individual has had their life personally impacted by addiction and overdose.
I begin my days with gratitude and work, sprinkle in some sort of recovery meeting between writing my morning gratitude list and rehearsal in the evening, and do my best to end my day with proper rest and reflection.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I think what sets me, my business, and my art apart is my overwhelming desire to help heal the world with it. Or, now that I think about it, maybe my mission isn’t all that different from the next photographer. We’re all just out here trying to heal ourselves and each other through the mediums which bring us the most joy.
What I know for sure stands out about my mission is that I care so deeply about making sure that my clients feel safe with me and my camera. Following a 14 year battle with Anorexia, I understand firsthand how important it is to ensure that subjects feel comfortable enough in their own skin to share themselves with the world through my work.
Additionally, I’ve leaned towards specializing in serving underrepresented populations since the conception of my career in 2013. Through this, I’ve had the greatest honor of connecting with some of the coolest queers on the planet. After losing my trans partner in 2021, I realized how pertinent is for me to provide trans humans, no matter their level of dysphoria or camera aversion, with the opportunity and safe space to explore being documented exactly as they are.
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
My addiction and struggle with substance abuse/eating disorders/escapism, for sure.
I think that one of the most important, but least noted steps in the process of healing from addiction is befriending and acknowledging it for the (sometimes life-saving) purpose it served. I think it’s so important to be able to separate my authentic self, the REAL Asher Phoenix, out from the grips of the part of my brain/personality that addiction controls. The therapy modality Internal Family Systems, developed by psychologist Richard Schwartz, approaches healing through the lens of our psyche and behavioral patterns being comprised of all sorts of different parts, which help us navigate this, at times tumultuous life. Practicing this modality and befriending my maladaptive parts has been the cornerstone of my recovery from both addiction to substances, and my decade and a half long battle with restrictive eating disorders.
With the insight I’ve gained through IFS, I’ve been able to look my addiction and eating disorder in the eyes, give them the hugs that younger me needs, and say, ‘Thank you. I’ve got this now. It’s okay to feel.” And that, my friends, is some radically powerful shit. Especially as a transgender person in today’s political climate, creating space for myself to feel and not numbing it out via substances or maladaptive process addictions is a radical act. My trans joy is an act of resistance, but so are my tears. So is my anger; not to mention my resilience.
I think that in the recovery and therapist/CDAC community, we often overlook the part of the narrative where our addictions actually *kept us alive*. Yes, you heard me correctly. The things that ultimately came so close to taking the oxygen right out of my lungs is the thing that helped me hold on and not succumb to suicide for nearly a decade. Without drugs, alcohol, and restrictive eating patterns, I wholeheartedly believe that the feelings would’ve been so big that I wouldn’t have seen the truth, that the way is through, not out.
And now, I know that it’s safe to ride the waves. It’s okay to feel whatever emotions come up, beginning, middle, to end. Today, I *get* to feel my feelings. I have the privilege of using the skills I’ve gained to be able to properly acknowledge them and see them through to their end. One of my favorite things to remind myself is that, “This feeling is not forever, it’s just for now.”
Because I feel safe to embrace my emotions, I know that there’s no better time to release my old friends to create space for better, life-giving and self-compassionate ones.
What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
TRIGGER WARNING: mention of rape, sexual assault, PTSD
I have waited 6 years to discuss this publicly, and I think I’m finally ready to do so. The next chapter of my healing starts today by coming forward with my story. Though I’ve mentioned it as an event that happened, in passing here or there, I’ve never spoken up about that night without reservation until this very moment, right here, right now, today.
Why did I wait 6 years to come forward publicly with the most defining wound of my life, when I’ve had a significant public platform for almost 5 of those years? Because I allowed him the power of silence over me. I’m taking that power back today.
On September 28th, 2019, my life changed profoundly and drastically, forever. I was violated in a way that foundationally changed the way I’ve interacted with the world and myself ever since. That night, Edward Ehsan, Doctor of Chiropractics and “holistic medicine,” owner and broker of Golden Palm Properties, and textbook shitbag, raped me. This is the first time I have ever written, spoken, or communicated the “R” word in relation to what happened to me. I’ve called it a “sexual assault” since the day that it happened because my heart hasn’t been ready to commune in the vulnerability of allowing others to carry the “R” word with me. What he did to me left me fragmented, physically, mentally, and emotionally. He battered me into a deafening silence that has taken 6 years to finally fully break. Before today, if I tried to communicate with that word in relation to the traumatic event, I choked on my words and reverted back to SA. Almost as if his hands were still around my throat. If I said it, then that made the crippling weight of reality real. Using that word means allowing the reality to sink in, that I’m in the process of healing from one of the ultimate human violations and betrayals in this life.
He forcibly stripped me of my humanity that night. His violation, his overtaking of my body and ability to consent, left me with permanent lower gastrointestinal damage (which I’ve undergone two procedures to repair, mind you), a dislocated articular disc in my jaw, an infection which I ultimately was hospitalized and treated with IV antibiotics for, not to mention the shockwaves of emotional and mental damages/injuries, as well as a couple of other lasting physical complications which are still too painful to name in this interview today.
I say all of that to say this.
This has been the most defining wound of my entire life, because the healing I’ve sought in response to it has definitively been the most transformative and connecting process of my entire life.*
*I am not an “everything happens for a reason” type of dude. Nope. Nah. Absolutely not. I think that I eventually would’ve ended up with the same level of emotional intelligence, connection, and insight had the rape not occurred. There are many routes to the same positive outcome, and the trauma has not made me stronger or helped me get to where I am. Traumatic injury to the psyche does not foster resilience– community, therapy, and the intrinsic desire for healing in the aftermath are the catalysts for post-traumatic resilience.
That being said, what I /can/ do from here is share my story with the world and adopt the willingness to help others through the same painful reality I’ve had to face. What we’ve been through didn’t make us into who we are today– our ability to push through to the other side of the shockwaves in the aftermath did. The thing that happened to me didn’t shape me, but what I did with it after the fact most certainly lead to the transformation into the human that I am today.
Sharing my story with you today is the light at the end of a very long, tumultuous tunnel. The concrete paving the way in between has been years of intensive psychiatric treatment and therapy. I owe so much of the progress that I’ve made both with my rape PTSD and in general, as a human who strives to be love and light, to the clinicians who have held the flashlight up for me. I’ve slipped, fallen, crawled, keeled over in exhaustion and excruciating emotional pain, but one thing I haven’t done is stay down. If I’ve had to inch my way through the trenches on scathed knees and elbows, I’ve done it. My resilience taught me to feel the fear and do it anyway, which is exactly what I’ve done by seeking healing through EMDR, IFS, CPT, and intensive DBT/CBT.
If there’s one thing I want you to take away from my answer to this question, and in reading my interview as a whole, is that you are not alone in what they did to you and the ways that they hurt you. You are not the first or only person who has considered putting yourself away because of traumatic events outside of your control. Over the last 6 years, I’ve contemplated suicide more times than I could even think to count, and I am still here standing, thriving, and manifesting a better future for myself than I ever could’ve imagined in the beginning stages of my trauma recovery. If I can do it, I have no doubt that anyone reading this can, too.
Next, maybe we can discuss some of your foundational philosophies and views? What would your closest friends say really matters to you?
Okay so I decided to have fun with this one and actually ask some of my friends to answer it for me. Here’s what they said! (May or may not have got a lil teary, ily guys)
Kate (Insta: @katelynstoss) – “Making art that impacts others.”
Seven (Insta: @angelsareintersex) – “Your Recovery. Your friendships and family. Your loyalty and willingness to help when a person really needs you is beautiful. Can’t forget your fur babies. And your passion and love of music & art!”
Ryan (Insta: @ryancassata) – “Art, Community, Healing, Adventure, Thrills.”
Izzy – “Justice, your relationships, and seeing the beauty in all humans.”
Anna C (Insta: @ag__christensen) – “It seems to me that what really matters to Asher is also what they are really great at. Loyalty, compassion, and determination are the first things that come to mind when thinking about Asher. Their world has looked very different over the past decade and somehow they find a balance of reaching for what’s better in the future while also holding on to what’s beautiful in the past.”
Anna V (Insta: @Anna_van0) – “When I think of what really matters to Asher, I think of the values they demonstrate on the daily: Authenticity, integrity, and presence.
Authenticity. Asher cares deeply about authenticity, not just as an ideal, but as a lived experience. They show up as themself in bold, brave ways, and invites others to do the same.
Integrity. Asher stands firmly in their values, while never losing sight of the humanity in the people around them.
Presence. Asher demonstrates a quiet strength in the way they hold space for complexity, for growth, and for contradictions. Asher doesn’t just make people feel seen, they see them, without expectation that they be anything other than who they are.”
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. Are you tap dancing to work? Have you been that level of excited at any point in your career? If so, please tell us about those days.
Absolutely yes. There have been a few moments over the last decade that I’ve felt burnout in my field, but for the most part, my job as a photographer has been nothing but fulfilling and exhilarating. The first time I remember being that excited in my career was driving up to the Los Angeles Coliseum to work my first major music festival. Not only was it pride, but some of my absolute favorite artists in the world were slated to be there, and I knew it was going to be the beginning of something really, really incredible. I met one of my best friends and favorite collaborators, Ryan Cassata, through that festival, and it truly has only been up from there.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.fujifilm-x.com/en-us/createforever/asher-phoenix/
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/@asherphoenixphotography
