Seen
I care about the people who are overlooked, discarded, misunderstood, or pushed to the margins.
My Story
Compassion, resilience, and radical honesty.
I am a technologist, creator, advocate, entrepreneur, writer, photographer, musician, baker, and lifelong learner. More than any title, though, I am someone who believes deeply in helping people feel seen, inspired, and curious.
My life has never followed a straight path. I grew up feeling different long before I had all the words to explain why, and that shaped the way I see people, systems, and the world around me.
Becoming
The woman I became.
As an autistic person, I have often experienced the world differently than the people around me. I can be quiet when others expect conversation, direct when others expect subtlety, and deeply curious about things many people overlook.
Those differences taught me resilience, but they also taught me empathy for anyone who has ever felt like they did not quite belong.
Over the years, I have survived homelessness, abuse, loss, and more challenges than I can easily count. Those experiences changed me, but they never took away my belief in people. If anything, they strengthened it.
Compassion is not weakness. It is courage.
Grandma
Compassion was modeled for me.
Much of who I am today was shaped by my grandmother. She showed me that strength and kindness are not opposites, and that helping people matters even when nobody is watching.
Her compassion was practical. It was not just something she believed; it was something she lived. She taught me to notice people, to care about people, and to keep showing up even when life is difficult.
The values she modeled continue to guide every part of my work and life.
Identity
Radical transparency and honesty.
One of the longest journeys I have ever taken was accepting that I am transgender. Living openly required confronting fear, expectation, and old assumptions about who I was supposed to be.
Transition was not about becoming someone else. It was about finally allowing myself to become who I had always been.
That honesty changed how I move through the world. It made me more committed to truth, dignity, access, and the idea that people deserve room to become whole.
Work
Technology, creativity, and advocacy.
Professionally, I have built a career in information security, identity and access management, systems engineering, governance, and technology leadership. I have been called a cybersecurity evangelist, but what matters most to me is helping people use technology to solve real problems and improve lives.
Creatively, I write, photograph, bake, and create music. Through Glass & Thorns, photography, and writing projects, I explore identity, resilience, healing, curiosity, and the stories that connect us.
Advocacy is equally important to me. I care deeply about trans rights, disability rights, accessibility, homelessness, and the people society often overlooks or discards.
Blackthorn is not just a name. It is the thread connecting every project, story, photograph, song, and act of advocacy I create.
Why Blackthorn
Strength, edge, and resilience.
The name Blackthorn came during my transition. I was deciding between Black Rose and Blackthorn. Blackthorn stayed because it felt stronger, more resilient, and more representative of the person I was becoming.
Over time, it became more than a name. It became a way to describe strength with softness still inside it: beauty, survival, protection, growth, and the ability to keep blooming after difficult seasons.
Inspired
I believe stories, images, music, food, and technology can help people imagine something better.
Curious
Curiosity keeps us learning, growing, rebuilding, and finding new paths forward.
Continue Exploring
Different paths, shared purpose.
If you'd like to learn more about my work, creativity, and projects, start here.
I hope they remember that I cared. I hope they remember that I fought for people who could not always fight for themselves.