HOW DO YOU SHOW UP?

At Levi’s®, authentic self-expression is behind everything we do—our clothes, for sure, but also our values. So for this year’s Pride campaign, we set out to champion self-expression with a greater purpose. We wanted to celebrate how being able to show up as yourself—in the ways you dress, act, love, create, make people feel—empowers you to show up for others.

And you’ll find a beautiful demonstration of that truth in the lives of our Pride 2023 cast: six inspiring LGBTQ+ individuals from around the globe and across the spectrum of self-expression.

What do they all have in common? Living as their most authentic selves and helping others do the same. In their own words, here are their stories—and images, as captured by photographer Liam Woods, a trans and non-binary image maker based out of LA, whose work is characterized by the candid, intimate storytelling of queer people and other marginalized communities.

My name is Dalzell and I consider myself non-binary. My family is from Guerrero and now I live in Mexico City. I experiment with textiles and use leftover materials to make art and clothes. Sometimes, I make clothes for other non-binary people. It’s really beautiful to see people loving and interacting with your art.

My aunt and grandmother taught me to hand sew when I was five. I started modeling so I could afford a sewing machine and made my first shirt in sixth grade.

In 2020, I wasn’t feeling connected to my body and the way people saw me. I lost weight—a lot—because of horrible expectations of what I thought non-binary was supposed to look like.

The thing that saved me was sewing my own clothes because you don’t have to think about, “What size am I?” Or, “This is for men and this is for women.” You just make it for yourself. Clothes are made for people, not people for clothes.

I show up as “brave.” And “vulnerable.” I think the two go together because you have to be brave to be vulnerable.

I hope that me being me and doing what I do inspires other people to feel like they don’t have to fit anyone’s standards but their own.

Cake: I’m Sam, but friends call me Cake. Someone gave me the name as a teenager because I’m sweet. I’m a Puerto Rican princess, Coney Island’s finest, and now I live in Brooklyn with my wife, Britt. We have a collective called Girls Only, and do tattooing and community outreach.

Britt: For us, the name “Girls Only” is inclusive because everyone can be “the girls,” you know? Regardless of gender.

I’m from Maryland, but I’ve been in New York for eight years. I like to call myself the people’s champ by profession. I work in HR for my 9–5, and with Girls Only, I’m the people connector—the behind-the-scenes person.

Cake: We do community work in a way that’s personal to us. I come from a loving family and always had super big birthdays, so one time we threw a party for kids at a women’s shelter. I remember one little girl said…I’m going to cry thinking about this…“I feel like a princess.” That stuck with me.

Britt: That’s real work, you know? During the pandemic, we put out a fridge and gave away food to families in Coney Island. That’s a moment you can pinch yourself and feel human.

In terms of how we show up, the word that resonates with us is “real.” Girls Only feels truly organic. We have this natural way of bringing folks in—friends, family, people we have no idea who they are—and allowing them to leave feeling part of the team.

We are incredibly grateful for the lives we get to live, but it’s incredibly humbling. You have no idea until you step out. The more we continued to grow as individuals, the more we realized how important the spaces we make for others felt.

Cake: If you can, pick up and go to a city. I grew up in NYC with about a million gay people in my Puero Rican family. But I feel like in places where it isn’t safe, I’m not mad at you for being in the closet. You only got one life, and you just gotta live it. There’s gonna be things you do that make people unhappy, but you gotta live true to who you are. Your happiness is number one. That’s it.

Britt: Embrace who you want to become and start showing up as that. For me, it wasn’t until I started embodying exactly who I saw myself as fully—the piercings, tattoos, my hair, everything—that I started expressing that.

And the other piece is: journal through the journey. Because that’s part of your self-expression, too: to see and recognize your growth along the way, to be able to look back and reflect on how far you’ve come.

Cake: As an ally, the best thing you can do is listen. Even to people you don’t agree with, as long as they’re not being harmful towards anyone. A lot of issues in the world right now have to do with people not hearing each other out. We all have unconscious biases, even the queer community. But you don’t gotta understand me, just respect me.

Britt: Pause before you pass judgment. You never know someone’s life experience. That’s it. Point blank period. And actively listen. There’s a difference between listening and actively listening. This allows you to visualize yourself in someone else’s shoes.

My name is Tanaka, from and in London. People call me a spoken word artist, but I just call myself a poet. During the pandemic, I became a mental health first aider. I give facilitation workshops on writing, self-expression and autonomy—ways to find yourself and emotionally regulate and articulate how you feel every day.

Coming to terms with my transness and being in a space where that wasn’t accepted, I started writing as a release from tension and self-doubt.

I show up “compassionate.” Judgment is easy to have, and everyone can have it because it’s free. But compassion we make people pay for and it should be free.

I know what it’s like to have to hide so much of yourself the minute you go through a certain door and how hard that can be. So, I share my poems for other people as much as I share them for myself—because I am the other people. I see myself in the people who listen to me.

I think it’s important to show up as a storyteller because who else will share the stories that others are too afraid to or can’t?

If you can’t be your truest self on an internal level, I recommend just once a week writing down how you feel for one minute. Time it. And then that one minute is going to go to five, to ten, because you’re going to be like, “Wait, for these minutes, I didn’t have to care about anyone else’s opinion. Just me and my pen or my notes app, we kept a secret.” Because that’s what journaling is, really—keeping your own secrets.

I also recently found comedy clubs. Being a comedian is one thing I’m really scared of doing, but finding solace in other people’s bravery—that helps.

I’m Toshi. I’m from Nagoya, Japan, but based in Tokyo now. I’m the owner of Tokyo Rebels, Inc. As a Japanese modeling agency owner, people expect me to look and dress a certain way. But I don’t like to be put in a box. So, I just show up with a mohawk and people are like, “Whoa! Who is she?”

When I was young, being gay and yourself was NOT okay. I didn’t have a safe space. So, I wanted to create my own. Modeling was the perfect way to bring diverse, rainbow people from all over to Tokyo, and create a world I wish I’d had as a queer kid in Japan.

I show up “rebellious.” I’m 110% my queer self, and showing up a queer woman who doesn’t dress ‘traditionally’ femme in Japan is already making a statement because in my culture, people assume if you’re a woman you must dress and act a certain way. I want to break all those rules.

I thought the fashion industry in Japan would be more open, but it’s not. I want to be out there pushing boundaries to open people’s minds—showing them we exist, it’s natural and everyone should be included.

Cut off people who judge or make you unhappy. It’s hard sometimes, but that’s what I did. Not living as you truly are or trying to change will never make you happy, so create your own safe space of people who love and appreciate you for who you are.

Protests aren’t really a thing in Japan, so I wish people would speak out more. Straight men especially, because the culture here is male-dominated.

In Japan, we don’t have rights as a LGBTQ community. We cannot even get married. It’s hard to be open and come out. Some people find it very difficult to just be themselves.

But men have so much power. They’re the ones who can change things.

My name is Sean. I’m from San Bruno, California, and now I’m an instructor with Stud Country, a line dancing social club that travels around to different venues in Los Angeles. The history of queer country dancing is really interesting to me, and I want to keep it alive by allowing it to change and grow.

I never meant to be an instructor. When I moved to LA, someone told me about Oil Can Harry’s, this gay bar that opened in 1968 and did line dancing nights twice a week. I fell in love instantly and showed up every day for five years. Then, sad story: Oil Can Harry’s closed during Covid.

Trying to fill that void, a friend with a dance studio asked if I would teach. All these people who had never line danced before showed up, and it created this whole new community.

When you find a safe place, it’s important to hang on. Whether it’s an activity, community, work, being able to regularly go to that thing that gets you through the week and makes everything feel okay…

That’s what line dancing was for me when I started and now I get to share that with other people.

If you don’t have that yet, find a friend and try something new. And imagine all the good things that could come from it. I was so afraid of teaching dance. But instead of worrying about how it could go wrong, I was like, “How can this go right?”