LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — A Las Vegas valley transgender teacher and artist is using drawing as an outlet to document her transition and changing social attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community. Her doodles are now helping others who are struggling with identity find self-love.
Hope Nulf first found solace in putting pencil to paper after one of the many beatings she said she not only took -- but welcomed -- as a kid.
"The first time I did it was after that beating when the nurse brought me a pad and paper and said, 'Would you like to draw?' Because I couldn't talk and I couldn't see out of one eye," Nulf said.
She said that first drawing was a picture of her with an "x" over each part of her face where she'd been hit in that horrific beating. She said she invited the bullying and the beatings growing up, because she was unhappy in her own skin -- but she didn't know why.
"None of the bullies that hit me hated me as much as I hated me," Nulf said.
She felt like a hollow outline of a person, which manifested on paper as a character she calls "Doodle."
"I think, in all honesty, Doodle has been a therapist all the time. Even when the doodles were really dark, they were still therapeutic," she said.
For years, her doodles have been documenting her struggles with identity and acceptance.
"That doodle is a reflection from earlier when I didn't like what I saw when I looked in the mirror," she said, pointing to one drawing depicting Doodle looking at her reflection, with the caption "You need to like what you see."
It wasn't until her late 30s, after a suicide attempt, when she said her partner at the time helped her realize the root of her self-loathing.
"She goes, 'Yeah, I'm married to a woman. That's the problem,'" Nulf said.
After doing some research and self-searching, she decided to transition.
"I know trans people now say they know they were born in the wrong bodies. I didn't know about that option. I didn't know what it was. All I know is, I wasn't a boy and I wasn't a person," she said.
After her epiphany about her gender identity, her doodles took an uplifting turn.
"Kindness is a free throw, easy, but it needs to be practiced," she said, reading the caption on one of her hopeful doodles post-transition.
The local teacher and artist went on to share these messages with the world through 8 published collections of her sketches, portraying what she calls "Life as a Doodle".
"I'll run into somebody who has a trans kid or an LBGTQ kid or they're struggling with issues and, 'Well gee, how can you help me?' and I'll give them a book. I've given away far more than I've sold," she said. "I mean, they really speak to people, even though my circumstances are different and even though I came to the party a little late, it's awful similar. The doodles resonate whether you were trans at 15 or 8 or 50."
"It works for anybody that feels like they're not part of the bigger picture," she added.
In recent years, Doodle has become an activist of sorts, with the ACLU now tracking what it calls a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills in state legislatures across the country.
"This is one of my favorite ones now," she said, pointing to a drawing. "See the flags missing a bunch of stars here? It says, 'Don't respect all your citizens? You should lose your star.'"
From self-hatred to self-love and now self-preservation, her illustrations show both trauma and triumph.
"I think the original goal of Doodle was to be a candle. Not a big voice, not famous, not a moneymaker, but just to be a little candle in the darkness," she said. She hopes her drawings help other people struggling with identity find clarity and optimism.
Born out of hard times, Doodle is an important part of Nulf's life journey that can never be erased. She hopes the day will come, though, when she can put the pencil down for good.
"I think the last final doodle is there's no need to doodle. It would be a blank page. Maybe I'd write, 'nothing to say.' I think that'd be a great final doodle," she said.
