Gender Affirming Therapy: A Guide to What Transgender and Non-Binary Clients Can Teach Us

Laura Scarrone Bonhomme (she/her), is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist who specialises in Gender, Sexual, and Relationship Diversity. She provides assessment, psychotherapy, and training to other professionals through www.affirm.lgbt.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-scarrone-bonhomme-3749087a
laurascarrone.com
 
Skye Davies (she/they) is a Peer Support Worker at TransPlus, a gender dysphoria service. They also work as a Volunteer Counsellor at Metro, helping LGBTQ+ people.

Dr Michael Beattie (he/him) is a Counselling Psychologist in private practice with research interests in the psychology of men and masculinities. In addition to psychotherapy, Michael provides training in Gender, Sexual, and Relationship Diversity through www.affirm.lgbt.

Purchase the book at bookshop.org.
Social: https://www.linkedin.com/company/affirm-lgbt/ 

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Episode Transcript

Alex Iantaffi (00:02):
Hello, and welcome to another episode of
gender stories. As usual, Ialways say that I'm excited by
it because I am truly excitedevery time and today I'm very
excited to be with LauraScarrone and Michael Beattie,
who, alongside Skye Davis haveauthored this wonderful book,
gender affirming therapy thathas been published by the Open
University Press, and Skye's nowwith us today. But I have the

(00:25):
privilege to talk to Laura andMichael today. And I'm just
going to let you know abouttheir wonderful work. Laura
Scarrone Bonhomme is a consoleclinical psychologist who
specializes in gender sexual andrelationship diversity. She
provides assessments,psychotherapy and training to
other professionals through afirm LGBT. And we'll talk about
that wonderful online trainingplatform that both you and

(00:48):
Michael are involved in as we gotoday. And then Dr. Michael
Beattie, is a counselingpsychologist in private practice
with research interests in thepsychology of men and
masculinities. In addition topsychotherapy, Michael provides
training in gender sexual andrelationship diversity through
the same platform, a fairmajority, thank you so much for

(01:08):
making time to be with us today.

Laura (01:10):
Thank you, Alex is lovely to you know, after so many
emails exchange, to be able tosee you and to talk to you
directly. And I think that thethe first thing would like to
start really, is to think of youbecause you wrote the foreword,
for our book, and it was very,very important for us to, first

(01:31):
of all, to get such a heartfeltpiece of writing from you and
such validation from you. Butalso, you know, thank you
because both Michael and myselfand I know as well Skye have
been following your career andyour writing career. And it's
been really inspirational to usto see how you use vulnerability

(01:53):
as a superpower in your work.
And I think that's verydifficult for us sometimes, as a
psychologist who have beentaught not to self disclose
anything about ourselves. Butalso, in such a politically
heated environment, to be ableto be vulnerable is very, very
difficult. So you are doing aexcellent modeling for for the
rest of us. Thank you.

Alex Iantaffi (02:18):
I'm gonna just take that in, practicing to take
it in, when people give you acompliment, you know, to say,
thank you, you don't have to,like you know, deflect or
anything. So, just let that soakin? Well, I did really enjoy
writing the foreword for yourbook, and I felt very grateful
that you've asked me, you know,and I definitely want to talk
about the current politicalclimate. But let's start from

(02:39):
the book, first of all, and whydid you feel this book was
needed? Let's just start, youknow, people decide to write
books for sorts of reasons. AndI'm always fascinated, like,
what made you go into writingthis book, because writing a
book is the project, right? Alot of people think about it, a
lot of people might even startit, but it is a project to go

(03:01):
from start to finish topublication. So yeah, what
inspired you to write the book?

Laura (03:08):
So Michael had already written an excellent clinical
guide on supporting trans andnon binary people counseling
skills. For Michael, do you knowthe title of

Michael (03:20):
the title, it's counseling skills for working
with gender, gender identity andgender diversity, I think or the
other way around, It's carriedat all good bookstores. (laughs)

Alex Iantaffi (03:38):
I remember, it's been a minute.

Laura (03:43):
But I hadn't had the chance to write a book, I had
done some research and someexploratory material on the
relationship that transcendmemory fog form with a mirror.
And I felt from my end what itwas lacking is to find something
that was a bit more personal. Ithink that there was a lot more

(04:04):
clinical and dry content outthere. But I wanted to find the
sort of the, the Esther Perel,or the , or the Kerouac of
gender therapy, you know, andthis is not to me, you know,
bringing my ego up. But this islike the modeling of the things
that I wanted to be able to findas a clinician, both Michael and

(04:27):
myself, worked at the genderidentity clinic in London, and
that's how we met. And, youknow, thinking about the sort of
support that was available atthe time, it was religious, sit
with this clinician and learnwhat you can. But many times
people ask what kind of bookscan I read tonight? I felt like
that there weren't that manythat could encompass these

(04:49):
elements. So after we delivereda training session for the
British Psychological Society, Iwas approached and I was like,
Yeah, I know the book. I wouldlike us to write And knowing in
Michael's experience andexcellent ability with words,
particularly as a non nativeEnglish speaker, I was like, I
need him by my side. And sothat's how we started putting

(05:12):
the book together. And it wasvery, very important as well for
us that it wasn't all it was, asa, you know, not bias in a way
that it wasn't just clinicianstalking about the life of trans
people, but rather than it wasthe other way around, right, we
are informed by what we learnedfrom our clients by what they

(05:33):
told us. And it's almost takingthose snippets of repeated
narratives that you hear timeand time again, is that oh,
well, this is really resonatingwith this other person and this
other person. So we invited ourclients, we invited families
together London, which is anorganization, supporting parents
of trans people. And we wantedto make it as alive and truthful

(05:56):
as possible.

Alex Iantaffi (05:58):
Yeah, and one of the things I really appreciate
about your book is that you dohave lived experiences of folks
and I love the subtitle is aguide to what transgender non
binary clients can teach us. Youknow, often things like trans
and a queer lens can be sosupportive to clients of all
genders and sexualities,actually, especially as a family

(06:18):
therapist, and a coupletherapists, sometimes I really
see out that cisgenderism or cisnormativity really impacts
people, even like cis straightpeople are impacted right by
those things, which is at theheart of gender trauma, of
course, which is, you know, mylike, that's how I approach the
whole topic. And so I reallyappreciated that subtitle to,

(06:40):
again, to our trans non binaryclients can teach us, and to put
it distill it in a book so thatclinicians don't have to learn
from their clients directly,right, that they have, like, Oh,
we've already done the work foryou. We have learned from our
clients and our training, andnow you can maybe be a little
bit more culturally attuned toyour clients.

(07:01):
Michael, I'm really interestedin how I mean, I do think that
the first book Euro, and thisbook are different. But I'm
really interested in to hearlike, what is different between
those two books, right? Becauselike you said, louder. Often
books for clinicians are verymuch this is how you treat other
people. Right? Like, this is howyou, you know, there is this

(07:23):
kind of underlying assumption,you know, that the people we
treat are others from us. Andthere is this distance, right.
And this book is not written inthat way. So yeah, my God just
would love to, to hear moreabout how you feel the
difference between those two?

MIchael (07:41):
Yeah, really interesting question, I probably
could probably answer it in awhole bunch of different ways. I
think. Certainly, I would agreewith what Laura said in terms of
positionality that thatcertainly, the way I was trained
was very much like, don't selfdisclose anything about
yourself. And I particularlyfound that challenging. I mean,

(08:04):
I didn't train that long ago, inthe UK, and gender and sexuality
were very much out there in theclinical population. So I wrote
my thesis on gay male therapistsexperience of working with men.
And it was quite challenging tokind of get that work done, in
part because there was neverthis sort of sense that that the

(08:26):
gay and trans and so on, peoplewere were therapists, you know,
and, and, and I raised thequestion of like, why wasn't I
given training on how to workwith straight, cis het people.
Because, you know, when I firststarted working as a therapist I
was working with to set peopleI'm like, I don't really

(08:47):
understand how these people dotheir relationships. And you
know, the first person I workedwith was a straight woman who
was divorcing her husband. And Ifind that really challenging
because it wasn't in in my kindof wheelhouse, but I'm kind of
slightly going into that, thatsort of side topic. But the the

(09:08):
core sort of idea was to say,well, actually, this is this is
in here. And that one of thethings about this particular
book, compared to the previousone was that Laura very much
gave us all permission to verymuch be in the book and write
about ourselves and to andchallenge it was a real
challenge for me to write in mychapter that I wrote something

(09:32):
about my childhood and about myexperience of having my
masculinity policed. And thissort of idea that actually we
all have a gender identity. Andthat gender is something that we
share, it's very much your sortof point about gender trauma. So
I sort of felt that that thatpermission then allow the kind

(09:52):
of conversation to be aboutOkay, so what is masculinity and
how do I do I even define myselfas as male and and What does
maleness mean? And I think bothof us realized in that that it's
not a topic really that was everdiscussed the gender clinic, we
might have been given trainingon HRT, and gonadotropin

(10:13):
releasing hormone analogue andall of this kind of technical
stuff. But like, what is a man?
What is a woman? What ismasculinity? What is femininity?
How is it performed? What isgender even mean? Was never,
never looked at or discussed.
And so we wanted to bring thatinto the book a lot as well.

Alex Iantaffi (10:35):
Absolutely. And I love how you did that. And
you're really speaking tomorrow,Michael, because I remember even
when I did my therapy, mypsychotherapy training in the UK
over 20 years ago, now wow, I'mgetting real old. Because my, my
first licensure was actually inthe UK with the UK CPE back all

(10:55):
the way back in 2006. At the endof my training, and it's easy
for me to track because I havemy, my oldest was born, but
rarely, I think my second yearof political trading. So it's an
easy remember, I was like, Well,how old is she? Oh, yeah, she's
gonna be 21. So over 20 yearsago, there was really so little,

(11:16):
you know, yes, there wassomething about LGBTQ
populations out there. But itwasn't really integrated, you
know, and I remember we had todo this paper and like, observe
a family, you know, because Idid systemic psychotherapy
training, observe a familythat's different from yours in
terms of like culture and so on.
And I went to observe, like,English Christian family and
their mealtime, you know, as aritual and the paper and I

(11:41):
remember the tutor going, Oh,that's not what I had in mind.
And I was like, well, they'redifferent from me. I was like,
I'm not a Christian. You know,I'm a practicing pagan. I'm
queer. They're straight. Iwasn't out as trans yet, at the
beginning of my clinicaltraining. To myself, even I was
just figuring it out still. Justabout, you know, I'm, like,
genderqueer by it, like, theyare different from me, you know?

(12:04):
And they're like, oh, and I'mlike, yep, that says a lot. So
it's this other egg of anybodywho is, you know, when often
when we think about diversity inour field, we're thinking about
people who are not says peopleare not straight people are not
white, right? We never thinkthat for some of us, actually. I
was like, English culture,endlessly fascinating to me,

(12:25):
right. But I have people in mycohort that were like, You're so
lucky that you have culture? Wedon't have any I was like, Well,
you do. Let me tell you allabout your contracts. And these
are all the fascinating thingsabout English culture, you know
what I mean? And so I feel that.

(12:46):
Yeah, well, and you know, I lovethat you're going through this
process, also, like, puttingyourself in the book. But and I
wonder, you know, you said itwas challenging. What was it
like also to write this book? Imean, you're in partnership with
Skye as well as an author. Butin terms of assist folks, and
you know, us as people, astherapists, what was it like to

(13:09):
engage in that process of like,really putting your
positionality in there andputting yourself out there? In
this way? Does that make sense?
That question?

Laura (13:23):
I think, yeah, it was conflicting at times, you know,
there was a element of thinking,Am I going to put too much of
myself out there? Is this goingto hinder my work? How am I
going to feel when someoneapproaches me and say, Hey, I
read your book, and I know thatyour family is South American,

(13:43):
and or I know that you know,these things about yourself. So
I think there was a lot ofactive questioning as to how
much was I comfortable to share,but also involve a little bit of
a leap of faith, you know, interms of being able to share it
and hope that it would bereceived in the way it needed to
be received. For me, the leap iseven greater, because not only

(14:08):
am I cis but I'm also straight,and I was also raised, very
Catholic. And so you know, it'sthe whole, the very, the very
core of the ideology that we'retrying to shape and challenge
and this is why for me, it'sbeen so amazing, because even
though I've had lots of, youknow, a LGB friends in my life,

(14:29):
I had never met a trans personuntil I got the job at the
clinic. And it was a matter aswell as challenging as well.
What was I going to do there?
For a moment, I thought I neededto, I don't know, gay trans
women on their expression offemininity, because as a syst
person, I had that too, youknow, validation and I know how
to do it, you know, I had thatperhaps the idea of, you know, a

(14:52):
certain arrogance that ispersonal rise to a Transfield
with you know, or thinking thatcertain things might be odd? And
certainly it's like, well, whyyour sis mobile in the mind, you
know, why your experience. Sothis being a whole world opening
to me and as much as MCs head,you know, when I learned that

(15:15):
queer was also an ideology, Iwas like, Okay, I'm queer to
have and I want to insert myselfinto into this one into this way
of seeing things more flexiblyand to fit people's experiences,
you know, not just the mold.

MIchael (15:31):
was gonna say I find the process very effective in
terms of thinking aboutintersectionality. And the fact
that as a middle aged white man,who has been privately educated,

(15:55):
I grew up in a very colonialkind of setup, I was born in
what was then Rhodesia, and thenBush became Zimbabwe, and I
lived in, in a kind of verywhite colonial upbringing with a
reasonable degree of privilege.
I also, like Laura, I have avery Catholic background, I in
fact, even trained to be apriest for a while, as a way of
kind of avoiding having asexuality and the shame of being

(16:18):
gay and within the context ofculture that I lived in. But the
process of writing I think, justmade me more and more aware of
different kinds ofintersectional privilege, and
kind of oppression in differentkinds of ways or dis privilege.
I don't know, I wouldn't want tosay particularly that was

(16:38):
oppressed and such. But, youknow, my experience of having
my, my gender policed, or myexperience of being shamed for
my sexuality, etc, then alsointersects with people listening
to me, because I'm six foot twomiddle aged, privately educated
white man with a doctrine. Andpeople just sort of like,
automatically assume that what Isay is right. And all of these

(16:59):
things, and really kind ofhaving that, pull it holding
that kind of mirror up toyourself and going well, okay, I
really do need to think about myown positionality in my work in
the way in which I write and theway in which I speak, and the
way in which I think about thework that I do with, with all of
my clients, and particularlywith the trans non binary ones

(17:21):
who I support.

Laura (17:25):
I liked Michael that you say that I gave you permission
to write from your experience.
Michael to go there.

Alex Iantaffi (17:33):
very, very gentle British reframe.

Laura (17:44):
Know, we're going back?
And I think I think as well, Idon't want to speak for Skye,
but I think also for Skye was abig element, you know, to think
about their own identity andhow, you know, what is the
impact in terms of puttingyourself out there. And I think
for a lot of people that who aretrans or non binary, and the
repeated experience that I'mhearing is, you know, like, on

(18:05):
the one hand, I want torepresent my community, and I
want to show people that you canbe trans and a therapist, trans
and a teacher, trans and aperson who has difficulties or
not, you know, whatever it is,but also want to just not be
anything of the things, youknow, don't want to be holding
these labels constantly in frontof my face. And saying that,

(18:25):
yeah, it's it's about strikingthat balance with being
authentic. This is what weneeded to model for, for
everyone.

Michael (18:35):
And I am also sorry, to kind of interrupt. But I think
that that really, that reallykind of speaks to the title of
the book. So the reason we callit gender affirming therapy, and
what that sort of meant. And Ithink that for both Laura and I,
we've kind of went on a bit of ajourney, if you like, but also,

(18:56):
you know, it was where we'vestarted with the title, but then
we started to really try andbring that to life. And what
does it What does affirmativepractice mean? What does it
mean, to do this kind of thiskind of work in this way? And I
suppose for both of us, thereare the two things one is
knowledge that you it'sincumbent on you to increase

(19:17):
your knowledge in the area. Sothe example we always give is if
if you're working with eatingdisorders, for example, it's
incumbent on you to read somebooks about eating disorders, to
learn about the subject area.
But secondly, and mostimportantly, to practice
reflexivity in relation to thatsubject area. So to think about
what's my relationship withfood, how do I feel about my
body? What has been myexperience of kind of dieting,

(19:39):
of not liking the way that Ilook of having the way that I
look policed or commented on byother people or feeling shame
about different body parts andthings? And so that I have this
shared experience with theclient, they're, they're
struggling with something that Ialso struggle with or have
struggled with, or have anexperience of and So for us,
this kind of the, the part of usas, as long as I say, gave me

(20:04):
the give me permission, but alsopolitely pushed me into it. But
it's partly about kind of likeshowing your, your vulnerable
bits in terms of this is myexperience. And when I reflect
on, on my identity, this is whathappens for me and for us. Those
are the two things. That's whatwe mean by it. And that sort of
thing. should kind of be thebasis of it. Oh,

Alex Iantaffi (20:27):
absolutely. I couldn't agree more. I feel like
there are like 20 tangents Icould go off. On right now. I
was like, Oh, I love that wewere all brought up Catholic. I
feel like I could do episodes.
Gender in the Catholic Church.
Yeah, almost became a nun. Ireally wanted to be a priest.

(20:48):
But that wasn't a thing, right.
And then I was like,

Michael (20:52):
I used to have a T shirt that said, recovering
Catholic. Oh,

Alex Iantaffi (20:55):
I love that. Oh, my God, that's so good. And
yeah, I did two years at theGregorian University, I was
pretty serious about becoming anun. When I was big, you know,
brought up in Rome, kind of, soI feel that. So there was all
times in there that made me wantto type in that was, you know,
another podcast episode.
Exactly. It can be gender andCatholicism. But I love a lot of

(21:16):
what you said in terms of thatthe reflexivity right from both
of you, because one of my petpeeves is always, often clients
have seen a therapist for a longtime, and then all of a sudden,
you know, they're exploringtheir gender in it, like, oh,
you need to go see somebodyelse. Right. And I know that in
some, you know, in the UK,though, different system, but

(21:39):
for example, here on TurtleIsland, and the so called us
where I live, right, it's like,that is not necessary. You know,
it's like, if we all have agender identity, we should all
be able, you know, there arethings like gender, sexuality,
like we all have gender andsexuality in some way, shape, or
form. It's part of the humanexperience. So I don't see it as

(22:01):
a specialist right subject. AndI think that any gender or
sexuality that falls outside ofcis heterosexual ality is seen
as a specialist population or asthe reserve of like,
specialists, right? And I waslike, Why, like, we shouldn't
refer people because of theirgender and sexual I end up
seeing the harm of that too.

(22:23):
Right? Right, the harm of like,clients feeling like rejected or
feeling like, I'm such a freak,that now I need to go see a
specialist because of my gender,right? And it is painful, right.
And I've also seen the impacteven on like, you know,
clinicians were 2030 years olderthan I am, in terms of
sexuality, having internalizedthat sense of like, having a

(22:45):
criminalized sexuality, right.
And then not my that is trauma,actually, when our gender is
policed, no matter what ouridentity is, right, we are being
put in a box and squished andlike, a part of us that's being
told it's unacceptable,regardless, right, of our gender
identity. And so I love how youapproach it, because it really
highlights we all need to like,do our gender and sexuality work

(23:08):
to work with clients, it shouldbe an essential part, does that
make sense? Or training, butit's not? Still, I don't think
it is not a part of our trading.
So I love everything you justsaid about that. And I am
curious about when you ask transfolks to like, share, you know,
maybe like, I'm gonna use someof your experiences in the book

(23:31):
or a conversation with some ofyour colleagues or clients. How
did that go? How was thatreceived? You know, because it
can go I think a number ofdifferent ways. And I think
sometimes people are like,scared of asking, you know, I
don't want you to feel talkingeyes. I don't want you to feel
others, like, you know, that I'mdoing ballroom dance. And my

(23:53):
studio was like, we want to askyou and your partner, have you
been photos, but like the studioowner would didn't want to
offend you. And I was fine. Youknow, I was like, Absolutely, by
and stuff like that show. I waslike, this studio is very Trans
and Queer affirming. And ofcourse, if you only have people
photos of people look this hatlike people are not going to

(24:16):
know that. But that helped methat nervousness right in
approaching people sharedifferent identities. And so I
was wondering what thatexperience was like for you.

Laura (24:27):
So there are some of the some of the stories that I share
in the different chapters, whichis a bit of an amalgamation and
also the clients that I haven'tseen, perhaps in years, so I
didn't have the opportunity toask them directly. I simply
ensured that you know, their,their, their identity remain
confidential. But the couplethat I did ask particularly one

(24:50):
of them, he loved it, he lovedit so much. I sent him the
fragment and then he came backbecause I gave him a pseudonym.
And it he is Mediterannean Buthe is not Italian. And he loved
the idea of seeing himself asItalian. And so in then he was
signing the email back to mewith a pseudonym I had given him
so he was reading into it. Very,very funny guy. And then the

(25:16):
other the rest of the interviewwas actually that was fully
Skye's work, who was amazing at,you know, seeking people online
and communicating with them andsetting up the meetings. And I
think perhaps the one interviewor sets of interview that I was
a little bit more anxious aboutwas the interview with the
parents of trans folk. Becausewithin that group, and within

(25:40):
any group of parents, you willfind a variety of attitudes,
right? So it was interesting forus to see who would come out and
also, how does it feel tocommunicate perhaps if you
struggle with ideas around whatit means to be trans to a person
who is themselves a, you know,trans or non binary. But what

(26:00):
sky relate to the study was alovely meeting, and they were
all very keen. And we reallywanted to ensure that everyone
was comfortable with what hadbeen published. So they received
copies, they didn't they cameback, even, you know, there was
so hopefully, when I go here,there's at least some type of
make sure that is correctitself, you know, this properly
collaboration with them.

Michael (26:23):
Yeah, and I think, certainly, that, although we
haven't kind of particularlyaddressed it quite yet, but we
wanted to carry that samethought on to the training
platform that we've developedher firm. Because I think that,
you know, we've talked a lotabout positionality Laura and I
are both very aware of oursickness. And this kind of idea

(26:45):
of cis plaining transmits topeople and to trans people, it's
like, it's apparent, and wedon't want to do it. And but at
the same time, we alsorecognize, you know, I first
started working in the field 14years ago. So, and I've worked
on and off in it, but, you know,that, that we both have
significant clinical hours, youknow, we reckon probably

(27:07):
together we've maybe worked withor supported, like, 1000 trans
people, it's like, it's just,like, it's lots lots of clinical
experience. But we're not, wedon't have those those lived
experiences. And so we want to,we want to kind of bring that
in. And we certainly do that onthe training platform, as well.
And that's where I have beeninvolved in interviewing

(27:30):
different folks, and then takingtheir their stories and breaking
them up into little clips,little snippets and clips that
go into the training. So thatthat, you know, people who who
are watching or or engaging withthe training, kind of have these
voices.

Alex Iantaffi (27:49):
Absolutely, I do want to talk about the training
platform. And I also want tohold on to, like, one of the
threads that was following isloud, I want you said something
about and I'm gonna I'm gonnaparaphrase, because I don't
remember your exact words. Butyou know, when you start, you're
working in the clinic, like younever met a trans person, right?
And you really were like, Whatis my role? Right? Am I just,

(28:11):
for example, guiding trans womento understand what femininity
is, right? What, what is it thatI'm doing? And I think that is a
really, I love the way you putthat right? And so like honest
and authentic, because, youknow, for myself, even as a
trans person, I know what tounlearn a lot of internalized
cisgender ism, right, the wordswe use to use, like when I

(28:33):
started writing, you know, weused to use needles, sex, you
know, we used to say malebodied, female bodied, you know,
in like, it was really otherfolks in the community, you
know, pull me aside, and whenlike, when you say, male bodied
or female body, you're like,reinforcing this idea, right,
that our gender is not real orauthentic and awesome. Oh,

(28:55):
that's a really good point. AndI think, you know, that there is
a real process of unlearning,right? And really, and
capitalism, we would say insomatic experiencing, right?
Those things like, Oh, if I seesomebody with a beard, it means
they're a man, for example,right? And I know lots of lovely
trans feminine folks who don'thave dysphoria about their

(29:15):
beautiful beards. And so thathas been a process, right? Just
because I'm trans myself doesn'tmean that magically cisgender
ism disappears from my mind. Imean, I wish but in my
experience, that's not how itworks. Right. And I've had
really interesting encounterswith clients even, you know,
because we have different ideasof gender, you know, and often

(29:36):
I'm like, Well, I say toclients, my job is not to impose
my ideas of gender and your withmy job is just to ask you
questions to help you thinkcritically about the choices you
want to make, so that you makethe best choices for yourself.
Right? And it's just like, in soI'm really curious about what
did you find maybe, I mean,within the realm of what you

(30:00):
Feel comfortable disclosingpublic? What did you find the
most challenging concept tounlearn around gender? If that
makes sense? What was one of thethings that really was like,
wow, this is a hard one for me.
I know what like I had my myshare, as somebody was brought
up as a second wave feminist interms of shedding, you know, all
that cisgender ism. But yeah,I'm curious about for you both.

Laura (30:27):
I think that, well, I'm not sure if it's unlearning. But
yeah, the things that have beenmost interesting to me, and this
is actually something I wastalking with my husband about.
And he put it even morebeautifully than I could ever.
And it's this idea of theassumption of sameness, right?

(30:47):
Just because we share a humanbody. That doesn't mean
anything, right? I don't knowwhat you know. And you can see
it, for example, on theperception of color, you put a
green and a blue, and somepeople say no, this is blue,
this is green, right? And theysay, gray area in between,
metaphorically, not literally,where you cannot really tell the

(31:08):
difference, right? Or pain? Howdo we evaluate pain? How do we
evaluate this very intrinsichuman and phenomenological
experiences of our bodies andwho we are in our environment.
And I think that when it comesto gender diversity, that is the
beauty of it, the you will beconfronted with things that you
don't quite understand, yet youhave to rely on on the other

(31:32):
person, you know, that actually,you know, it sounds like they're
saying, and they know whatthey're talking about. And
there's nothing really psychoticabout their experience is just
as different from my own. So whoam I really to make a judgement,
now you are invalid. And thenwhen we mix this with neuro
diversity, you know, and feelingyour body differently with

(31:54):
interoception extra perception,all of these sensations that
vary so greatly for people whoare neurodiverse, from people
who are neurotypical, then it'seven more, I think that now
starting as well, I sort of whenlooking back at the time that
I've been in the field, how atthe start, when there were some

(32:14):
non binary folk who wanted toaccess top surgery without their
nipples. This was like rarestudy, right? You really need to
think about it, there must besomething wrong. All people have
nipples, why would you refusethis, and what I'm finding most
recently is that there are a lotof neurodiverse people who have
a hypersensitivity to theirnipples. And that is making my

(32:34):
life difficult. I walk around,like this pulling my shirt so
that I don't feel this. So it'sjust inconvenient. You know? So
again, it's about it's abouthelping people feel comfortable
in their own bodies. And it'sabout challenging, whatever we
feel normal is, right, becausewe might be abnormal in another

(32:54):
society in another culture.

Michael (32:58):
Yeah, I mean, I absolutely endorse what what
Laura said, I suppose I was kindof thinking after you asked Alex
of, of what, what the challengehas been for me, and I suppose,
something that I've noticed, youknow, that when I first started
working in the field, you talkedabout different language that

(33:18):
was used, and so on. So in 2010,you know, non binary was not
available, there's not really aan idea. And I realized that
that basically my position inthe clinic, and I wasn't
assessing clients, I was doingpsychotherapy, with trans non
binary folk to help them kind ofeither make sense of their

(33:42):
decisions and their genderidentity and explore it with
them, or deal with challenges inliving as a result of their
gender identity, either how itaffected their relationships
with families and those kinds ofthings. But one thing I've
become perhaps aware of is, eventhough theoretically, we talked

(34:02):
about it a lot in my training,which is how to sit with
uncertainty. And be okay withit. You know, we're kind of
like, we're modelinguncertainty, we're okay with
sitting with, but in fact, whenyou think about it, gender wise
the temptation to try and kindof move into a certainty into a
binary and just go, Okay, well,you're completely and utterly
clear that you are you have afemale gender identity, or you

(34:26):
are kind of feminine, or, ormasculine or whatever. And
that's clear, it never changes.
And it's like, okay, everyonecan kind of relax and we can go
into our boxes. I think one ofthe the, one of the things that
continues to be challenging forme is is to be okay with and to
allow uncertainty and notknowing. And yeah, and even, you
know, that the end point oftherapy might be a

(34:52):
comfortability with uncertaintyrather than a certainty that
kind of indicates that thereHe's done now because we're all
certain. And everything. So Isuppose there's all sorts of
tangents I could go off in inthat, but I suppose, yes,
there's this kind of real pulltowards gender norms and fitting

(35:13):
in a box and being a Oh, you'reone of those. Okay, so there we
go. You want that to be to bemore relaxed or more okay with
the stuff that we don't know.

Alex Iantaffi (35:28):
Absolutely. And there's so much more in line
with what we know even about howour brain works in terms of
neuroplasticity. And so whywould our gender identity
necessarily safe, like fixed inone place? You know? And, and
yeah, we have come a long way. Igot my top surgery back in 2010.
And it just was not a thing. Imean, yes. You know, my surgeon

(35:49):
talked about you. We can do anipple grafting, but we don't
have to, you can do surgicaltattooing, right. But even a
handful of years ago, it was,you know, and I wasn't taking
hormones. So we had to put thatin the letter, and why and we
didn't have non binary language,right. And it was, it was
definitely an interestingexperience. And I was lucky to

(36:11):
get approved by insurance here,I get it. But it was like, if
you don't take the classroombefore you have top surgery,
that's not our plan. Right? Now,that's not even a thing that I
need to put in letters. By andlarge, if somebody is not on
hormones and want to pursueother body modification for
surgical intervention, it's notnot even a consideration pretty

(36:32):
much anymore, in most cases, atleast in kind of my geographical
context, so the things havechanged so much. And I love what
you said about uncertainty. Ioften talk with clients about
like, yeah, you can, you can be90% Sure, it's okay. Like, and
also you're probably gonna havelots of different feelings. You
know, and I think that folksfeel like I have to be certain

(36:55):
and otherwise, I'm a bad transperson. And then, you know, then
that, you know, conservativefolks are going to use me as an
example of like, See, peoplemake choices, and then they
regret them. I was like, humansmake choices they regret all the
time. And most of the choicesI've regretted have nothing to
do with gender. Personally. Youknow, I also work with a lot of

(37:17):
cis people will regret all sortsof things, right. But there is
this pressure that we put ongender to be like us to be
absolutely sure. And that reallyis just now human nature. Right?
We were assures can be, butthere is that piece, sometimes I
even talk to clients like oh,you know, like there is this
concept of embodied cognition,right. Merleau Ponty? Like it's

(37:39):
okay, if you're not sure, ifyou're not gonna know exactly
how you feel, or Norman's untilyour normals, that's the reality
of it, you can make the bestguess you can, you know, you can
feel like, I think more or less,this is what I want. But you're
not going to know how it feelsin your body, right until you've
made that change. And so I loveeverything you're saying,

(38:02):
because I think it really, weneed to change the way we
approach transports becausethere's so much pressure. And
then you have this very cookiecutter stories, right? I
remember when I started,especially in the gender
identity clinic, when I startedworking with trans people, I was
like, Okay, you're giving me thespiel, right? I always felt like

(38:23):
it was just really boring.
Sometimes I would have to say topeople, I'm like, That's great.
I'm glad that's the officialstory. I'm not withholding the
letter from you. I actuallywould like to have an authentic
conversation to understand,right, because, and I don't know
if that was ever yourexperience. But definitely, you
know, even 15 years ago, youwould get this very like, this

(38:44):
is what I need to do. To gothrough the hoops I need to
perform my gender in a verynormative way. Exactly.

Unknown (38:53):
I mean, I think one of the things that shocked me, I
mean, the clinic that both Lauraand I met in some years back, I
think has or certainly positionsitself as the oldest or one of
the oldest gender clinics in theworld. Charing Cross Hospital
used to be. But I was stunned tofind out that until reasonably

(39:16):
recently, I'm going to sayprobably the 90s. The idea was
that conditions would only well,they ostensibly saw far more
trans women than they sawtransplant. And ostensibly, they
would only allow them to goforward for treatment if they
believe they had a substantialchance of passing. And so the

(39:37):
whole idea was that you had tokind of convince the doctor that
you could pass for a specificperson or assist person. And
that's just, I mean, it'sspeechless with that. It's just
like, it's horrific. And thatattitude, certainly I think, I
don't know, virus speak to that.
herself, but I think it wasstill kind of around in it, it

(40:02):
was not obviously policy in anyway at all. But that sort of
that the center of it kind oflingered on a bit, I think
people would present forassessment a little bit in the
kind of like, I'm, I've got todo the best job I can to
convince you.

Laura (40:24):
I absolutely see that.
And I can almost almost notfully on to feeling that because
I guess it is a lot easier tovalidate and believe someone who
matches your expectations,right? If you are a trans woman
who is tremendously feminine,who has a very high pitch boys

(40:45):
who loves to wear high heels andmakeup, you're absolutely you
are a woman. However, if youhappen to be a person who used
to be a bodybuilder, who is verytypically very masculine in the
body characteristics, thensuddenly you, you show Are you
sure, and this is something thatevery time I need to stop myself

(41:07):
from having that automaticreaction. And I think that this
is a lot as well, part of whatMichael and I are really wanting
to work on when it comes to thelibrium this trainings through a
firm, you know, is thatreflexivity of the clinicians
and the same way that there isthis whole beautiful and amazing
movement around you know,challenging your own racism, and

(41:31):
not being blamed for about itsimply you have grown up with
these ideas about people who aredifferent from you. This is the
same basics that we need toapply to gender and to translate
well, you know, I'm always Ifeel it's okay. But there's a
little bit of me that feels sad.

(41:51):
Every time a patient says, Can Italk to you about my sexuality?
Like, is it okay? Are you goingto think that, like the
underlying speech says is areyou going to think I'm a sexual
deviant because I have sexualfeelings and I'm trans you know,
in a see it time and time again,how B is medicalization of trans

(42:12):
identities and of genderdiversity leads to sexual
repression for transport,particularly for trans feminine
people. And I really enjoy thepart of the psychotherapeutic
work that is about liberating,you know, helping people to
liberate themselves to enjoythemselves and to say, you have
the right to enjoy is your bodyis for you to take into on and

(42:35):
to use them in whichever way youfeel is best. And I think that,
that said, like, there's a partof me that so looks forward to
30 years from now, looking backand saying was in that fact that
sorry, I'm just gonna sweatwithin that tab, about how, how

(42:59):
help we lead the lives of transand non binary people? Well,
because at the end of the day,there's, there's an element
about what your core beliefs asan individual, about the human
rights of people, do you thinkpeople have an ability to choose
whether they can wear whateverclothes they want? Or any hair

(43:21):
they want? Can they get fillers?
Can they get Botox? Is thatokay? Why when we transgress
that invisible line offeminizing, masculinizing,
someone suddenly becomes apolitical issue, I cannot
understand, you know, and in thevariety of, of models from the
consent model to, you know, themore guided military or police

(43:45):
or, you know, in the UK, itreally shapes the way in which
we interact with the people thatwe are aiming to serve, you
know,

Michael (43:54):
and I think sorry, that the the point that just kind of
like bubbles up and I need totalk about that is is the
connection with your ownworkaholics with gender trauma.
And I suppose, to some extent,they're the chapter in iron, but
which parallels that in terms ofidentity based trauma, but this

(44:15):
idea that we are all traumatizedby gender or socialization, and
so much of what Laura's has beentalking about in terms of like
our automatic thinking andthoughts about like, what's an
appropriate trans feminineperson, what's an inappropriate
trans feminine presence? All ofit is all of these stereotypes
are kind of policed into us. AndI think that's, that's why I got

(44:37):
into gender in the first place,because I had my masculinity
policed as a gay man, andcertainly in the era in which I
grew up, and I supposeparticularly maybe now as well.
You can't really be a real manif you're gay, because gayness
or homosexuality, whatever kindof language label you want to
use, is a is the opposite of ofmasculinity because part of

(45:04):
masculinity is defined byheterosexuality so you can't
really be a real man, you cansort of be a bit. And we see it
within the communicationcommunities of masculinity, that
there are effeminate men, or wesee it within, for example, even
gay culture, you know, kind oflike, gym bunnies are kind of
like the ones with like, we'recertainly in my youth of dating

(45:26):
with like, straight acting. Soif you are straight acting or
could pass for straight, you hadmore social capital women, the
kind of gay community and this,this this pernicious constant
trauma that we all kind of likeplaying out on each other. For
like, how to be a real boy orreal girl, whatever it is just

Alex Iantaffi (45:47):
it's definitely, it's so ubiquitous and kind of
yeah,lingers, right, even in the
early 2000s. I rememberpresenting at the conference in
Norway, and people are like,well, but you know, if a trans
man really enjoys kind ofpenetrative sex, because they're
gay, are they really a transman? Or are they just like, you
know, some sort of confusedwoman. And as a very, you know,

(46:08):
I'm by been very gay leaning, soto speak, transmit trans
masculine person, that was a lotto hear, right. And even in
terms of gender identityexpression, right, the way I
need to explain my gender,expression, like, if I'd been
born a cis boy, I would havebeen a very effeminate queer cis
Boy, you know, for my mom tounderstand that I was like, I

(46:32):
would not have been thequarterback of the football team
in Glee. You know, I think I'veused that example before on the
on the episode, but just howthat kind of people confusing
gender, for sexuality, you know,the pathologize ation of like,
trans women are attracted towomen even, you know, in our
field, I don't even want to givethat concept, the favor of

(46:53):
naming it actually right now.
But like, even the fact that theconcept persists some people buy
into it, and also the same youngpeople then find it right often
about young trans femininepeople are like, that's the
first concept I came across, youknow, and so how do I then feel
like, um, you know, it's, it'sthe concept of pathology, right,

(47:15):
and so like that, thatlingering, is still very much
like seeping in the field, youknow, and it wasn't that long
ago, like, you know, even, youknow, in my own lifetime, the
the university based genderidentity clinic, I used to work,
I used to have panels, you know,before my time, but in the 80s,
I think, still were like,members of the public deciding

(47:37):
if somebody was masculine orfeminine enough, that they could
get access to more money insurgery, or, you know, front
office staff giving makeuplessons to trans feminine folks,
you know, we're talking withinmy life, you know, and even
within my own professionalidentity lifetime, I went from
having to diagnose genderidentity disorder, you know, to
now we have the ICD 11, withgender incongruence. And that

(48:00):
that isn't irrelevant, that'stwo decades. It's a very, like,
things have changed very quicklyin some ways. But things are
also swinging back. And there'sthe oldest transatlantic, and
I'm doing a talk about that. ButI do want to talk about your
platform. Tell me about thetraining platform that you put
together. You know, I think it'saffirm.lgbt. And of course,

(48:21):
we'll put that in the episodedescription. But yes, tell, tell
us about the, the trainingplatform and what motivated you
to put that together.

Laura (48:32):
I think that as you can see, Michael and I can speak for
hours. So we needed a platform.
Maybe we have a whole otherepisode about that, wejust have
to get scheduled. (all laugh)But yeah, I think that, you
know, it's I was always veryfrustrated with my teachers at

(48:57):
university. And with lecturesbeing boring, with me saying, if
you're going to tell it to methat way, I'm going to read it
at home, you know, on myslippers, and, you know, my
pajamas, there's no point in megoing in there. And I guess, I
think you learn more when peoplespeak to you, truthfully, and

(49:20):
from the heart and authenticallyand and I think that's what we
wanted to do. So Michael and Isat down and might will use his
amazing background in as amarketing consultant to sort of
help us decide what is it thatwe are and what we want to be so
Michael was the term we chose.

(49:41):
They're

Michael (49:43):
the kind hearted rebel was was our we were doing
archetype work. So my backgroundis in marketing and
communication. So we're kind ofdoing brand development and so
on. And so we want to just be wewanted to kind of like work from
and speak from the heart and wewanted to also be a bit
rebellious, because, but withinthe context of counseling

(50:04):
psychology, or maybe clinicalpsychology where we have to
color between the lines and youknow, absolutely be very
unscientific, it's like, it'snot that we didn't want to be
scientific. But we also wantedto kind of like, speak in a less
dry tone, perhaps, and to be aswarm, engaging, reflexive, all

(50:26):
of the things that we've talkedabout in relation to the book,
but kind of turn that intotraining. And as Laura says, you
know, both she and I have workedtogether on trainings, before we
started this, we did delivertrainings together, we work
together, we just kind of vibewith each other, and we like and
spark off each other. And we'vegot kind of good complementary
skills. And, yeah, as she said,we know we, we like the sound of

(50:49):
our own voice a bit. And so theidea of doing some training
together kind of was was fun forus. And we've, we've had a lot
of fun over the last, I guess,must be 18 months now, building
a lot of content.

Laura (51:03):
Via Michael has been traveling to Tel Aviv, there's
been a lot of filming in myliving room. My husband has been
behind the scenes doing all thetech parts for it. And now we've
come to the point where we'revery, very proud to present a
five hours comprehensivetraining for clinicians and
clinicians who might say, Youknow what, first of all, I might

(51:26):
know enough about gender, butI've actually never been
thinking much about my owngender identity, or this is the
first trans client I have, oractually, I don't have any trans
client, but I find this veryfascinating. So for anyone who
would like to learn, and notonly hear us, but hear trans
people speak in themselves, butwhat is like and what they
struggle, and what are the joysas well, you know, then this is

(51:49):
the sort of training we feelpeople should complete that we
wish we had when we started inthe field.

Alex Iantaffi (51:54):
That is really wonderful. I mean, I wish there
was a needed, right, because itwas integrated in everybody's
training. But given that it'snot like we said, you know, it's
really wonderful to have thatkind of platform. And he sounds
like very much, you know, justlike in the book, it's not just
folks talking from a clinicalperspective, but it's also those

(52:15):
lived experiences that I thinkit can be, you know, so hard for
folks to access, you know, oftensay to supervisees or trainees
like read books, listen topodcasts, right? If you're in
training and the pure, you wantto learn more about, you know,
trans folks or non monogamousfolks, or, or queer folks, like,

(52:37):
read the stories, listen to thestories, don't be your client,
be the first person to hearthose stories that because, you
know, find that or avenues, butI love that there is an avenue
that is more like, and here issomething that merges kind of
best scientific knowledge, likeyou said, Michael, with also
lived experiences. Because yeah,otherwise you can just read a

(52:58):
paper in your pjs like. And Ithink there is something to be
said for kind of hitting peoplewith their more and more that
like we're humans, right, weneed to connect. Otherwise, it's
kind of almost dehumanizing,learning about other people just
in numbers, right? You know,people are 10 times more likely
to like, you know, engage, havesuicidal ideation. Okay, but

(53:23):
then you listen to a poem orlike somebody who shares living
with chronic suicidality. That'svery different, right.

Unknown (53:31):
And I think also how we use statistics, you're, you're
kind of stuck there, Alex justreminded me of a wonderful one
that that Laura shared, which isabout relating to D transition,
that you're more likely tobecome pregnant while using
contraception than you are to Dtransition. And all of these
kinds of, you know, sometimesusing stats, but in a way that

(53:53):
that kind of disrupts a bit or,but yeah, I mean, we want to be
storytellers.

Laura (53:58):
Yeah, I did. I sent you.
I think I sent you thescreenshot. Michael, there was
also like a recent article, Ithink it was in the gay times,
saying that more people regrethaving children that that regret
the transition? Yes.

Alex Iantaffi (54:11):
I can, I can believe that, being parents is
like really hard. You know, andit's really interesting, also,
best thing I've ever done andalso hardest thing I've ever
done to parent children. Andthat's one thing, you know,
like, I've worked with clientswho are trying to decide if they
want children, that is a theory,actually, like almost more heart

(54:32):
wrenching process for me, thanpeople are exploring their
gender or sexuality because it'slike, you know, it just brings
up a lot. And again, there'ssocietal expectations as
internalized expectation, butthere's a lot to but we don't
see that as like necessarilylike, this is very specialist
and satisfied, right. So it'sreally interesting, who gets to

(54:54):
be viewed as like a human and astherapists we should be able to
deal with those tissues. Andyou'll get to be viewed as like,
this is a special case thatright needs to go over there. I
feel like we could talk aboutall those things for a long
time. So you've got thiswonderful online training
program, you've got the book,and you're also, you know, cis,

(55:15):
folks who are very passionateabout this access to health
care. What's it like to do thiswork? Or what do you feel like
it's your role as cisgendertherapists at the moment, with
the increasing level of like,backlash of like trans panic?
transphobia? You know, I wouldsay, almost everywhere,

(55:36):
definitely, you know,nationally, here on Turtle
Island in the support us, I knowthat Australia has got its own
version, the UK has got its ownversion. So yeah, how do you see
your role as this therapist,authors trainers in this moment,
in this political moment?

Laura (55:57):
Michael. (laughs)

Michael (56:02):
Just a light question.
I mean, it's, it's a very, verylight question, I think for both
of us. You know, we, I thinkfrom a from a val speak, first
of all, from a personalperspective, I definitely am a
kind of a voice within anoverwhelmingly, kind of cis het
group of friends say, you know,I'll go to a dinner party with

(56:27):
people who feel perfectlyentitled, often, cis het white
men to have opinions aboutthings they know nothing about.
And I will just say, Well, howmany trans people have you ever
met? Or how many books have youwritten on this subject? Or how
many papers have you read? Orhow many conferences have you
been to about this? And yet, yousit here with me at the dinner

(56:49):
party, telling me what what theanswer is, it's like, you know,
sit down, and, and, and listen,you know, don't kind of so I
feel kind of quite activist ish.
And certainly I advocate for,for my clients and for the
communities and so on. Thatbeing said, it is a very

(57:10):
difficult space to stick yourhead above the parapet and be an
affirmative practitioner in apolitical environment, certainly
in the UK, which is verytransphobic, I would say the
government is transphobic. Andit is, you know, there's more
legislation, which is apparentlyannounced this week, where
they're like, going to make it asort of a statutory requirement

(57:34):
for all new buildings to havegender specific toilets, not
gender neutral toilets. And thiswhole kind of like, I mean, the
bathroom panic thing is justnuts. And of course, it's a way
of distracting in my view, fromthe failure of the government to
address all kinds of otherthings and is part of obviously
the kind of a culture wars butto to stand up for clients is

(57:58):
and and for you to use myprivileges as a salesperson. I
suppose I see that definitely asas something that's part of
being an ally. But it is alsodifficult, for example, to do
that, really publicly, I've beeninvited onto different news
shows and things like that oftenvery right wing news shows and

(58:18):
I've refused to go because Ijust don't want to be kind of
like red meat to a transphobic.
News Anchor to kind of like stirup things, and I suppose. Yeah,
it's hard. I don't know. Maybenot answering this as clearly
maybe yes, but I feel veryconflicted about it. I, I worry

(58:39):
about being attacked. I mean,not physically attacked at all.
But we know that that within ourdiscipline. I mean, I'm a
counseling psychologist Lauer'sa clinical psychologist, you
know, tomato tomahto, but we'reboth within the British
Psychological Society, and thatthere are gender critical
practitioners and voices withinthat. Sorry, Laura, let you

(59:01):
speak a bit to this.

Laura (59:06):
Yeah, it's, it's challenging. It's challenging to
know what you want to do. Youknow, whether, whether you want
to, you know, really fight,whether it is a fight that is
worth fighting, or whetheryou're just fueling the fire
with your words, you know, soit's, it's really a matter of my

(59:27):
show, I think, for me, what'smost difficult is having to
bring the political reality intomy clinical work. And so for
example, as part of theassessments that I do for people
who want to access hormones orsurgery, we ask about fertility
preservation, right. Would youlike to have biological children

(59:50):
one day? Is this something youthink and in most people because
there's so much looking forwardto starting hormones? They're
like, No, no, no, I'll adoptadopt. And I have to say I'll
stop there. Do you think youmight have the opportunity to
adopt in future? Or is thisright going to be revoked? You

(01:00:12):
know, we haven't I thinkcurrently in I believe is
Hungary, there's been aregression of gay rights in
terms of marriage. You know, soit can happen, and we're not in
the best trajectory in the UK.
And so to think that you have tothink ahead, because your rights
are going to be revoked. It'sreally, really sad. And it feels

(01:00:34):
paralyzing. And as someone wholike I said, Being cis het who
has the privilege and rage onbehalf of my clients, and on
behalf of the communitiesbecause I cannot because it's
absurd, I simply absurd. Butit's, it's, it's challenging as
well, because of this wholeideology that the gender

(01:00:56):
critical movement is a validone, when racism isn't
considered valid when otherforms of homophobia isn't
considered valid. Yet, whenwe're talking about trans folk,
it's kind of okay, you know,

Michael (01:01:13):
It reminds me a bit of two things that occurred to me
what Laura saying is one isabsolutely say that solidarity
becomes more and more important.
And Laura and I kind of haveworked with and connected with a
bunch of organizations, werecently worked with Transgender
Europe to, to deliver sometraining for mental health

(01:01:34):
people and psychiatrists,psychologists in Slovakia where
there are no gender services.
And we know that conditionsthere are being targeted by
individuals who say that theirwork is sinful and wrong, and so
on, and how we can havesolidarity for and with one
another to sort of like so wedon't feel like we're, we're on
our own. And I guess, I can'tremember what my second point

(01:02:00):
was, it was... I've kind of lostmy thread in that. In that kind
of question around aroundsolidarity, but also, yeah, that
kind of recognition that rightscan what has been given come can
be taken away.

Alex Iantaffi (01:02:18):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I love where you both said,and I know we're kind of coming
up to time, but I think it's soimportant to an orphan it's like
yes to start maybe with transpeople but then it's like well,
which queer people areacceptable in the no queer
people are acceptable like andactually then we see that oh,
actually like this old this isracism even a thing you know,

(01:02:39):
critical race theory that we'reseeing on Turtle Island we know
that it's never just about onegroup of people when we're
trying to police folks right andso and it's tricky like you
said, Michael, and Laura aswell. It's like how do you
discern which sides to step upabout which fights to like you
know, amplify which which fightsare just not even worth it

(01:03:03):
because it's just kind of fodderfor right wing media right and
or conservative media. It's,it's, it's not easy to do the
work you do in this currentpolitical climate for sure.

Michael (01:03:19):
Struggle so far, you're just reminds me of the very kind
foreword that you wrote to ourbook, which was written in the,
in the aftermath of the Pulsenightclub shooting in the
States. But also, my own kind ofexperience of growing up as a
gay man in what was thenRhodesia, then Zimbabwe, the

(01:03:40):
very kind of heteronormativemacho masculinity, where gay men
was seen as a threat to childrenand that very much you you can't
have gay men being around kids,because they are ultimately
going to recruit them, orsexually assault them and the

(01:04:01):
same tropes are being rolled upparticularly for trans women.
Trans masculinity is lessproblematized. And we can have a
whole thing around thepatriarchy and masculinity and
all those kinds of stuff. Butbut, you know, it seems that
trans women are beingparticularly or trans femininity

(01:04:23):
has been particularly attackedin the same way or similar ways
to, to the way that men havebeen, maybe perhaps continue to
be in different ways, attackedsome kind of threat. Absolutely.

Alex Iantaffi (01:04:35):
It's all part of that biological determinism,
right? If you have a penis insome way or ever had one, you're
a threat. But oh, you have avulva. You couldn't possibly be
afraid we'll just infantilizeyou and just not pay any
attention to you basically,which because you couldn't
possibly be a frat right. It'sjust always goes back to that

(01:04:57):
biological determinism, whichultimately then invalidates
transcripts at that To the butyeah, the the tactics are the
same and most of us were oldenough were like, hang on a
minute does we've seen thisdiscourse around grooming,
right? This is not our firstkind of rodeo. And it's yes,
absolutely. You know, and as aparent, you know, I've had

(01:05:19):
people, when my oldest waslittle like, trying to stop me
from going into the bathroomwith her, even though she wanted
me to go to support as aneurodivergent. Kid, and like,
you know, depending, you know,if my gender is read
ambiguously, like, right, what'shappening? Is that your child
what's going on? Right? So it'salso it's like, yes, if you're a

(01:05:41):
trans man who passes you mightbe if you're like, a gay trans
man, who's a parent, then it'sall different ballgame. Because
then you're falling more intothat, like, what happens to
queer masculinity around kids?
Right? I remember when she was ayoung teen, like, please don't
look like if you connect you.
This is why, you know,conversations and queer parents

(01:06:05):
have to have with their kidsknow, queer parents. Right? This
is complicated enough with allof us have different last names.
And we looking like this waslike, let's not make it harder
and talk to some social workers.
You know, like trafficking you,um, your parents with a very
cantankerous teenager at the,you know, of course, we gotta
love but it's like, it's like, Ishouldn't have had to have this

(01:06:28):
conversation with my kid. Butit's all it's all the same
route. Right? Who's the danger?
and who's not? And how do wemaintain this like, colonial cis
heteronormative state of wecould go on. So we'll have to do
another episode to talk aboutall the things because I also
know it's like afternoon foryou. And we're going over a

(01:06:51):
little bit. I'm located time. Sothe question I always ask at the
end of interviews is, is thereanything that we haven't talked
about that you were reallyhoping that we would talk about?
And if there isn't, that's okay.
But I always ask that questionjust to make sure.

Laura (01:07:09):
Psychotherapeutic approach to this (laughs)
nothing else from my end. Thankyou for the question.

Michael (01:07:20):
No, absolutely. I mean, there's so many things as you
say that then tangents anddifferent places we could go
your your sharing of your storyabout parenting reminds me of
that. I think it's a YouTubechannel or certainly a meme, but
like driving while black. I sortof think parenting wild queer is
a whole other. You know, it's awhole kind of other thing. But

(01:07:43):
yeah, I mean, nothing, nothing.
Nothing big has been has beenleft out from my side. But I've
had an absolute blast. I'vereally enjoyed the conversation.

Alex Iantaffi (01:07:54):
Yeah, likewise, I'm like, Yeah, I'm looking
forward to that Catholicism andgender episode that maybe we'll
do at some point. And if peopleI mean, all of those links will
also be in the episodedescription. But if people
wanted to get ahold of yourlovely book, which if you're
watching us on YouTube, you cansee what the pretty cover is

Gender Affirming Therapy (01:08:13):
A Guide to what Trans Gender and
Non Binary Clients Can Teach Us.
Where can they find your bookwhere they can find you and your
learning platform? All the linksshare them away?

Laura (01:08:29):
The only other thing as well is that it is a beautiful
cover because Fox Fisher drawthe cover. Yeah, so we're very
very happy that collaborated.

Alex Iantaffi (01:08:41):
Oh, I love it I love beautiful Yeah, so you can
find the book I think whereveryou get books, so ordinary asked
your library to carry it. Andthen the platform is affirm.lgbt
right? And is there anywhereelse that people should follow

(01:09:04):
you any social media that peopleshould follow or anything else
that you want to share?

Laura (01:09:09):
So I'm the Social Media Manager here we have a we have a
LinkedIn account to the name ofa firm dot LGBT, but also I have
my own profile so you can followme at laurascarrone.com if you
can spell that

Alex Iantaffi (01:09:28):
it will be in that. Okay. You any additional
social media platforms?

Michael (01:09:37):
I'm a little bit of a kind of social media phobe? I
know that we shouldn't be andthat we should be more more
present. But when I spokeearlier about complementary
skills, this is one of themwhere Laura, Laura is able to
kind of hold that it's an areaand a thing that I feel quite
anxious about, perhaps betrayingmy age, but yes, Laura's. Laura

(01:10:04):
kind of holds that for both ofus.

Laura (01:10:06):
(laughs) If you want to send messages for Michael I can
pass them on.

Alex Iantaffi (01:10:17):
I feel your social media, is getting
intense. I'm in my 50s. And evenas a early adopter of
technology, and as a socialmedia enthusiast, that's a lot
to keep up with. Don't ask meabout TikTok. I'm like, I kind
of get it but you know, inTumblr just passed me by you
know, I'm still on Live Journal.
So it's Well, this has been anabsolute delight. Thank you both

(01:10:39):
so much for making time forthis. And thank you for creating
this beautiful book and thetraining platform really looking
forward to checking it out andrecommending it to folks and
wonderful gender storieslisteners. Thank you as ever for
listening. I hope that thisepisode kind of give you some
inspiration to explore. What isit that I need to unlearn about

(01:11:02):
gender to make my life and maybemy loved ones life more
expansive, and more easeful? Anduntil next time, take care.