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Episode 27 Transcript

Sexual & Gender Identity Transition Coaching with Rae McDaniel, LCPC

Introducing Rae McDaniel, Founder & CEO of GenderFck

Erin Everett:
Hey everyone. Welcome back to Exclusively Inclusive. I’m your host, Erin Everett, nurse practitioner. I’m really excited to announce today’s episode. We’re going to be talking to Rae McDaniel, who is the founder of the one of a kind online coaching community called the GenderFck Club, and as well as the Practical Audacity, which is a gender and sex therapy practice in Chicago. Rae is going to be talking to us at about how to embrace your transition and your gender journey instead of just focusing on the potential anxiety and fear that it can provoke. And also be talking about their new book that will tentatively be published June, 2023, called Gender Magic. We’re very excited to be speaking with Rae. They have a lot of great tips in order for people to feel supported during their journey, and also ways to connect you with other people in the community if you’re living in an area that is not really considered supportive.

Erin Everett:
So without further ado, let’s introduce Rae. All right. Well, welcome to the show, Rae. Very excited to have you and my listeners are going to be very excited to hear about everything you have to enlighten them on when it comes to their transition and finding support. So tell us a little bit about yourself, Rae.

Rae McDaniel Background

Rae McDaniel:
Well, I’m super excited to be here, Erin. So thank you for having me. A little bit about myself. So I am a licensed therapist in Illinois. I live in Chicago and have a group therapy practice in Chicago with about 16 clinicians, all of who are queer or queer-affirming, and our practice specializes in gender and sex therapy. So I’m also a certified sex therapist. I’m a gender coach. So I have a program called GenderFck. That’s GenderFck because we’re polite, where I help trans folks transition their gender with a little bit less suffering and hopefully a lot more ease. I’m also a soon-to-be author. So I have a book coming out in June, 2023 that I am currently under contract writing.

Erin Everett:
Awesome. All that is so exciting. You’re a little bit of everything.

Rae McDaniel:
I do. I do a lot of things. I also forgot to mention my pronouns are they/them. I also identify as non-binary and trans. I didn’t mention that because it’s on my Zoom screen. And then sometimes I forget to say it out loud.

Erin Everett:
Yeah, of course, of course. And thank you for mentioning. And for those that are listening, one of the things that we wanted to chat about today was your journey coming out since you mentioned that you identify as non-binary, if you wouldn’t mind, explaining that to some listeners and if there’s a difference to you between non-binary, gender queer, gender fluid and your journey in reaching that point.

Rae McDaniel:
Okay. Well, I’ll take us way back to the beginning. My upbringing was a bit of a wild ride. So I am the adopted child of fundamentalist Baptist missionary puppeteers, which is a lot of adjectives in a sentence. And we traveled full time when I was growing up. So I was very deep into fundamentalist Christianity world. And so it took a bit longer for me to discover my identities of queer and non-binary and to come out. So I didn’t actually come out officially as queer until I was in grad school, but it was something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on growing up, but I knew that there was something different about me, something that didn’t quite fit. So I went to undergrad, I became friends with the theater kids who were the only gay kids on campus at a conservative university.

Erin Everett:
For sure.

Rae McDaniel:
Yeah. And just seeing them go through their journey of coming out and exploring their identity, I decided that I wanted to be a therapist. And so I went to grad school specifically to become a therapist and work with the LGBTQ community. Pretty much as soon as I got to grad school in Chicago, I flung open the closet doors, came out as queer.

Erin Everett:
That’s awesome.

Rae McDaniel:
Thank you. I am pretty happy about it as well. And the journey to non-binary was a lot slower for me. And I like to describe it with a metaphor of it felt like I was walking around in a shoe that was about half a size too small, and that it was fine for a lot of my life, it didn’t hurt too much to be assigned female at birth and be considered a woman in the world. She/her pronouns were okay. But after a while, this shoe that was half a size too small felt like it was a bit confining. And it started to give me blisters and it started to be less and less comfortable until I found a shoe that fit completely that had more space for me, which is my non-binary identity.

Rae McDaniel:
And so you had asked, what is that and how is it different from some of these other identities? First of all, I am not the end scholar on language here. Language is constantly changing and evolving and different people apply it to themselves differently. The what being non-binary means to me is that when I was born, I popped out of the womb and the doctor said, “It’s a girl.” And I grew up and that largely felt okay, like I was describing. Eventually it didn’t like I was also describing, but I knew that I didn’t identify as a man. And I found that the most accurate and most authentic descriptor of my identity is that I exist somewhere in the middle, which is what non-binary means to me.

Rae McDaniel:
Now, some of these other terms, some people might use them exactly the same as I’m using the term non-binary. For other people, there’s a bit more nuance. So gender fluid might mean that your gender identity tends to shift and flow throughout your lifetime. There are people who consider themselves agender, and that means that gender really doesn’t feel like a salient concept to describe their identity for them. They’d rather exist out of that construction of gender as much as possible. So different people have different nuances that they bring to their identities as well.

Erin Everett:
Perfect. And thank you for explaining that because I think that’s really important to note that people use the language differently, which is one of the reasons why I asked you what it means to you because people do sometimes use non-binary and gender queer and gender fluid interchangeably. But again, as you mentioned, it can also mean very different things for different people. And I think it’s really important to meet people where they’re at with that and not to have any expectations, which if only we could get society to move right along a little bit faster, that would be great.

Rae McDaniel:
That would be perfect.

Erin Everett:
Yes, exactly.

Rae McDaniel:
Let me know if you figure out how to do that.

Erin Everett:
We just got to keep doing this, keep educating, right?

Rae McDaniel:
Exactly.

Erin Everett:
Yeah. And normalizing it. And so I actually, I have a question for you. When people are announcing their pronouns and putting it in their bio line and putting their email, this is something that I have discussed with other people. So for me, I prefer female pronouns and that was what my birth assignment is. So I’m considered cis. I use she/her. However, if someone was to call me they/them, I would not be offended. And in fact, I feel like it’s progress towards normalizing those pronouns. And so sometimes if people ask, I’ll say she/they, because not because I identify as non-binary, but because I find that when you’re not sure about someone’s gender or you’re in a setting where you can’t ask pronouns, that assuming that someone is a they/them is least offensive. What is your take on that?

Rae McDaniel:
I agree that they/them as a placeholder before you know what someone’s pronouns are is a really effective way to normalize using they/them pronouns and to get us out of the habit of using she or he pronouns automatically before we actually have that information about somebody.

Erin Everett:
Yeah. Okay, cool. I’m glad we’re on the same page as that, because obviously, like you said, language is ever changing. And the last thing I ever want to do is offend people, but my mission is only to normalize those things. And I think it is a good thing, especially if you haven’t been formally introduced to a person. When you’re talking your coming out journey and how you were maybe even considered a bit of a late bloomer on the non-binary front, what kind of advice do you have for people who are maybe tossing this around and trying to, as you say, find joy in this process?

Rae McDaniel:
Well, the first thing I would say is to view gender exploration and transition as a process of self-growth. And what I mean by that, one thing that I see a lot in my clients is that they get very, very focused on what is going to be the end result of my gender transition. What is that going to look like, feel like, et cetera? And the truth is we don’t know because they haven’t done it before. And so if we can refocus and reframe gender transition as simply a process of self-growth like a lot of other processes in our lives, it puts the focus more on the journey of transition and not the destination. And it sets us up with the assumption that this is going to be a lifelong project of moving more into our most authentic self. So I think starting there. That also shifts the focus from what we are running away from to what we are running to.

Rae McDaniel:
Another thing that I see in my clients is that there is a very intense focus on the past as well, as well as this imagined future that we’re not sure about yet and trying to get away from the sex that they were assigned at birth and the gender that came along with that. And I find that it’s a much easier and more pleasurable and joyful process when we are focused on what do I want? What is it that I am moving towards? And like I said, we don’t need to have an answer about what step 10 is in that process. But maybe we can say, well, I want to feel good in my body, I want to have an identity in the world that the people that are close to me respect and see, I want to be my most authentic self in the world. And that’s a drastically different frame. The second thing I would say is to get curious and play. Play might not be a word that many people associate with gender exploration and transition, but it is a powerful word.

Erin Everett:
It really is.

Rae McDaniel:
It is. And bringing curiosity to the process of exploring your gender is a great way to tap into that play. So I call it spaghetti wall mode. And what I mean by that is you’re cooking a pot of spaghetti and then to check if the spaghetti is ready, you pick up a little noodle, you throw it at the wall. And if it sticks, cool, your spaghetti is ready. If it doesn’t stick, it’s not a big deal, you haven’t failed at cooking spaghetti, you’re not an awful cook or an awful person. You just need to boil the spaghetti a little bit longer. And I view gender exploration the same way.

Rae McDaniel:
I don’t think there is any failure here. It is only taking one step forward towards what you want, being curious about that, how did it feel? How did I feel in my body? How did I feel versus how I was perceived? Because there’s also this big focus on how others perceive me, but maybe there’s a gap there between, well, I feel amazing when I do this thing, but there are some people in my life who react badly to that. And just being curious there. And by doing that and assessing, okay, does this little step that I’ve taken, this tiny step, does it feel good to me? And if the answer is yes, then you take one more tiny step. If the answer is no, just like the spaghetti, you just keep cooking, you just keep trying new things to see what feels good to you.

Erin Everett:
I think that’s great advice. I sometimes, I’m not a licensed mental health professional at all and never claim to be, however, when you’re seeing someone as a healthcare provider, there’s always a little bit of that therapeutic listening and communication that plays into it and advice until I can get them connected with the appropriate folks. But that is something that I often say. And even when we’re going over informed consent, if people do decide that hormones are going to be part of their journey is when I’m talking to them about like how hormones should never be used as a form of contraceptive or birth prevention, it’s like, well, they sometimes look at me like I have three heads. It’s like, well, this is the next step in your own self-exploration. And so I’m going to give you the information, you may never need it, but if you do need it, now you have it, because some people do change their sexual preferences and the different types of sex that they have, and they weren’t expecting that.

Erin Everett:
But again, it’s playing around with it and seeing what feels good. And I don’t think it has anything to do with the hormones. I think it’s they were just taking that next step to figure out who they really are, what’s their authentic self. There’s nothing about the hormones that changes someone’s sexual preference or orientation. You know what I mean?

Rae McDaniel:
Yeah, I do.

Erin Everett:
So its playing around with it as far as like what you said with gender expression and what feels good.

Rae McDaniel:
Yeah. And I’m really glad that you are educating people on the fact that hormones are not birth control because it’s true. Number one, we don’t get enough education on birth control in general or sex education in general. And a lot of people don’t know that even if your menstrual cycle stops, for example, that you might still be able to get pregnant. So I love that. And you’re right, there’s nothing about hormones that changes your sexual orientation, but some people from, again, this place of self-growth, their sexual orientation and who they want to be romantic and sexual with may shift and change as they shift and change as a lot of us do.

Erin Everett:
Yeah. Of course. And I also mentioned that too, I’m very respectful of people who are asexual. However, I do give them the heads up, like you might actually have some inner conflict with this because again, the next step in your self-exploration, you may start to have feelings that you weren’t expecting and you may change how you feel about being asexual, and that’s okay too. Expect the unexpected. There is no expectations with this. Like you said, there is no flight path. It’s just like, let’s just hold hands, we’ll get through this together, let me know if you need me.

Rae McDaniel:
Exactly. Yeah.

Erin Everett:
So that’s perfect. And I’m so glad that you have the resources that you do for patients. I wish Atlanta, Georgia, had more of that. We’re working towards that. But having that GenderFck Club, is that something is available to people who aren’t in your geographical area?

Rae McDaniel:
It is. And that’s precisely why I created it. So in therapy as a licensed therapist in Illinois, I’m not allowed legally to see anybody for therapy who lives outside of the State of Illinois. But I was getting a lot of request, especially from more rural areas, areas in the South, different countries of people who needed extra support, and I wasn’t able to give it to them. And so creating GenderFck: The Club, which again is GenderFck if you’re going to look it up was my way of developing a coaching program, which isn’t therapy, but does provide additional support that is able to reach people who otherwise might not have access to affirming resources or are in a country where they theoretically do have access to gender-affirming resources, therapists, surgeries, like Canada, and a lot of European countries, but the wait list is three years long to get a therapist, much less surgery. And so they’re looking for something now.

Erin Everett:
Right. Right. Who can wait three years? That’s crazy. I’m so glad that you have that though. And it doesn’t surprise me actually that you have so many people reaching out to you from all different areas because the same thing happens and my licensing is similar, people do have to be a resident of Georgia or they have to travel in person. I can’t do telehealth visits with them. So I have a lot of folks driving in from Tennessee and Alabama and surrounding areas and I can do in-person visits-

Rae McDaniel:
That makes total sense.

Erin Everett:
Yeah. And I can do in-person visits with them, but I can’t do telehealth. So it’s similar in that regard. And having that resource, I’ll definitely be able to pass that along to my clients as well. And they’ll be very excited because everybody’s always asking me about online resources.

Rae McDaniel:
Excellent. There you go.

Erin Everett:
Yeah. Hey everyone, I have a quick favor to ask. If you wouldn’t mind taking a moment and just clicking the subscribe button on whichever platform you use to listen to my show, that would be wonderful. Not only does it allow you to get notified every time I publish an episode, but it also helps with my ratings and reviews, which what that means in podcast world is that I’m able to climb up in the rating scale and reach other listeners. The whole reason why I started this show is to access people who needed the information. So please just go ahead and click subscribe, then we can all be happy and continue to listen to this good quality free information. Thank you so much. One of the other things I wanted to talk to you about too, which is branching off of the GenderFck club and the model that you have adapted, how would you recommend that people even get started with that and use it in their process?

Rae McDaniel:
That’s a really great question. So I created the Gender Freedom Model, which takes everything that I’ve been teaching and the way that I do therapy and all of the research and education that I’ve used over the past eight years of working with trans and non-binary folks, and it puts the core information into a course. So people are able to take that at whatever pace they want to. Some people really just go right through it and other people, they need to go a little bit slower. And then the GenderFck: The Club also includes bimonthly group coaching from me. So that is intended to help people implement the course that they’ve taken and provide some peer support. We know it’s really powerful to just know that you aren’t alone. And I think that’s part of the magic of GenderFck.

Rae McDaniel:
If anybody is listening and can’t or doesn’t want to join GenderFck, some of the things that I’ve just mentioned around transition being a process of self-growth, about spaghetti wall mode and taking one tiny step, testing it out, seeing how you feel about it and then taking the next tiny step or deciding you want to go in a different direction, those are really easy, low hanging fruit, I should say simple, but not easy low hanging fruit where people can get started that curiosity about themselves, about their experience.

Rae McDaniel:
Another place that might help people right away would be reframing some things around body or gender dysphoria. So I was very fortunate in that I never had very significant or distressing chest dysphoria, but after having boobs for 30 plus years of my life, I came to the point where I realized that the only reason I still had them was because I always had them and there was no other benefit to me. So about a year ago, I got top surgery and I have been happy as a clam ever since. I love how that feels on my body. But a lot of trans folks do have significant distress about their bodies generally, about their chest, about their genital area.

Rae McDaniel:
And one thing that I teach people is there’s a lot of talk about body love and that’s good. We loving our bodies is a good thing to do. And if you’re having very significant gender dysphoria, it might not feel possible to love your body. It’s too distressing. And so I bring up a term that people have called body neutrality. I’ve actually just moved to a term called body respect that Lindo Bacon from the Health at Every Size movement taught me. And what it means is that instead of focusing on loving our bodies and every single part of our bodies, we can love what our bodies can do for us, we can respect our bodies and show kindness to them, even if we don’t love every single part. And we can believe that we deserve to have pleasure in our bodies, even if we don’t love every single part. And that tends to be a very powerful shift for folks.

Erin Everett:
Yeah, because I mean, realistically, regardless of gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia exists too. And so it’s like even after we’ve made some changes of the parts that we really dislike, they may never be true comprehensive happiness without bodies. We have to learn to accept it, the parts we can’t change.

Rae McDaniel:
I’ll use another quick example. I also have rheumatoid arthritis, which is an autoimmune disease. I have limitations in my body that I don’t love. I can’t jump, I can’t take up running, I can’t stand for a really long time and I don’t love those things about my body, but when I’m having a flare up of my autoimmune disease, I also get to show care and kindness and love even, but mostly like care and kindness to my body that is struggling.

Erin Everett:
For sure. Yeah. And focusing I think on all the positive things that our bodies do regardless of the gender struggles that we may have with them, I think is really helpful and the functions that it serves and the purposes that each thing that our body does for us as far as like allows us to explore life, allows us to have pleasure, allows us to have unique thoughts and individuality. I think that is really important to focus on.

Rae McDaniel:
Exactly.

Erin Everett:
Yeah. And it’s fun that you mentioned Lindo Bacon. I actually had the pleasure of interviewing them on my podcast as well. And I do recommend other listeners revisit Lindo and their work with writing because it is very helpful for body acceptance and positivity.

Rae McDaniel:
Absolutely. I just interviewed them for my book as well.

Erin Everett:
Oh, fantastic.

Rae McDaniel:
They’re lovely.

Erin Everett:
Yes. Yes. They are a true pleasure. Well, let’s talk a little bit more about your book and what plans you have for that.

Rae McDaniel:
Yeah. So it’s tentatively titled this could change, but tentatively titled Gender Magic. And it is taking the, I spoke about the Gender Freedom Model that became the GenderFck Club and a course in there, it’s taking that work and making it even more accessible for people by turning it into a self-help book that is meant to help people consider, explore, expand, and transition their gender with more ease and curiosity and pleasure.

Erin Everett:
Awesome. And so is this going to be more of a narrative format or are there going to be parts through the book where people can fill out questions or have write their thoughts through it?

Rae McDaniel:
It’s more of a self-help frame, I should say, or a self-help structure. So there are a lot of very important and beautiful memoirs by trans folks out there that people have access to. There are less self-help books that are meant to help people through the process in a very tangible way. There are some out there that are great, but I’m excited to add to the conversation and then to have the conversation added to more after my book is finished in a way that can help people be curious about their gender and their gender journey and transition in a way that doesn’t feel bad from day one. I want to help people be able to transition their gender in a way that actually feels supportive and not this incredibly emotionally intense experience that we’ve been told it has to be.

Erin Everett:
Yeah. So maybe foster some excitement about the upcoming journey rather than fear and anxiety.

Rae McDaniel:
Yeah. While giving them very practical tools to help that fear and anxiety and acknowledging that there’s a reason there is fear and anxiety. We have so many oppressive systems that are not meant to celebrate transgender folks and make it actively difficult to be a transgender person in the US, and I would say in much of the world. So this book is not going to love and light our way through gender transition, but it is going to give people practical tools that research shows will help them cope with gender transition in a better way.

Erin Everett:
Yeah. Absolutely. And so I imagine it may even cover some content about how to navigate challenging relationships that maybe you felt close to but now that you’ve come out as trans may not be as supportive as people once thought and how to navigate those things, because that can be really nerve-racking. I think a lot of people view transition differently of course, but maybe don’t even realize some of the, and I don’t even mean trans people themselves, I also mean cis people don’t often realize the sacrifices and the loss that can come with it and how they can also help support trans people, but how trans people can get through those and turn it into a more positive experience. Does that make sense?

Rae McDaniel:
Yep. It does. And absolutely. And I have a whole section on relationships and sexuality. I also have a whole section about what I call kinship, these close familial relationships, whether they are biological family, adopted family or family that you choose.

Erin Everett:
Awesome. Yeah. I think I can’t wait to read it myself. And I love the title, but of course, it’s your prerogative to change it at any point, but I do love the title Gender Magic. I think that is really exciting and mystical.

Rae McDaniel:
Thank you. I thought so too.

Erin Everett:
Yeah, of course. So when you touched on supportive things, so outside of the book, what kind of advice would you have for people who are currently facing rejection when it comes to their transition and how maybe you could even give some advice to people who are in the cis community who aren’t as educated as I am and you are on all of these things and how they could be supportive to other people in their lives who may be going through this?

Rae McDaniel:
Sure. I can speak to the second part of it first. So folks who are cisgender, which again means simply that what you were assigned at birth is still the gender that you identify as. So not trans, that’s what cisgender is, not trans. So for folks who are cisgender, some of the easiest things that you can do are also the most impactful, which is simply using someone’s name, using someone’s pronoun that they tell you and identifying them and using the language that they use to explain their gender identity. So those three things, if you can call somebody by the name that they are choosing, the pronouns that they are choosing and refer to them by their gender identity, you’ve made it past 80% of the population, which is a low pie.

Erin Everett:
You’ve reduced the suicidal thoughts by 71% based on some recent data.

Rae McDaniel:
Oh, I love that number. I didn’t know the exact percentage, but I do know that it is very, very high like you’re saying. And I would argue that it’s probably, probably even higher because research about trans folks isn’t super well-funded.

Erin Everett:
Yeah. Limited.

Rae McDaniel:
Yeah. It’s limited.

Erin Everett:
Yes. It is very limited.

Rae McDaniel:
So that’s the first thing I would say to cis folks. I would also say watch your biases and your questions. So if you didn’t ask someone you know about their genitals before this conversation, you probably shouldn’t ask about them afterwards. So watch those invasive questions. But you can be curious about what somebody is experiencing, asking them questions about, hey, what has really felt good to you in your gender lately? What are you excited about? What are you, are you nervous about anything? What are you nervous about? Those types of curious questions can go a long way.

Rae McDaniel:
For trans folks who are dealing with rejection from either, well, I’ll use maybe family or partners. So family broadly to mean spouses or the parent of your children or whoever you consider to be family. I would say first, building your support system outside of those people who might be rejecting you or who you’re afraid of rejecting you. And I know like you said that a lot of people live in geographic areas where that can be difficult. And I understand that. And trans people are everywhere. They’re in the South, they’re in rural places. And sometimes it may take a little bit of extra work to find them, but I’m guessing that they are out there and there might be ways to do that.

Rae McDaniel:
Online spaces are also really robust places of support. So there are, I have a free Facebook group that people can join called Transition With Ease. There are a lot of other free Facebook groups or Reddit forums or Discord forums or things like that that people can join and be supported by each other and have some of that peer support in a sense that they aren’t alone.

Rae McDaniel:
I would also say surround yourself with mentors who have been through this before. If you don’t have that in-person, then there are a lot of really amazing memoirs by trans folks that you can read. You can read Kate Bornstein, you can read some of the other great workbooks that people have out there. You can get on Instagram and TikTok and start searching for hashtags of trans and non-binary folks and find the people that resonate with you that you want to follow. Even just having those things in your social media feed goes a long way in increasing visibility and helping you feel like you aren’t alone, exposing you to ideas that maybe you hadn’t considered if you feel pretty isolated.

Rae McDaniel:
The other thing I will say is that it is legitimately difficult when you are rejected and it can have really intense consequences. Hopefully the people you’re speaking about are physically safe and we know that that’s not always true. There is a high, high rate of violence against transgender individuals, especially transgender women of color. So if you are considering coming out, I would consider that physical safety first. And if you’re not going to be physically safe, then let’s consider some other options.

Rae McDaniel:
Emotional safety is another thing to consider. So what are ways that you can keep yourself as emotionally safe as possible? Do you need to know that you have a way to leave the house or the scenario that you’re in? If you’re riding in a car with somebody, you’re trapped in that car. So what are your outs for how you can leave the situation if you begin to feel overwhelmed or like you’re being harmed? And the last piece that we have to think about, unfortunately, is financial safety, are you in a place where the person who might be rejecting you or your work is needed for something absolutely essential financially that you don’t have a way to replace just this second, like school tuition, for example, or like access to a car or housing that you might need? So those are a few things that I ask people to consider.

Rae McDaniel:
The social support and talking to other people about your experience and your identity is going to probably be the number one thing that is going to pull you through. And then a lot of self compassion for yourself and knowing that this is a hard thing that you’re doing that probably if you were early in transition, this is going to be the hardest part. That’s what we know from research is that the beginning parts of transition are the most emotionally challenging and that you’re going to get through this. And there are people all over the United States and all over the world who will see you, love you and support you for who you are. And you don’t have to sacrifice on that.

Erin Everett:
Yeah. Because one might ask, if you have a good friend who then rejects you for letting them know that you’re trans, are they really a good friend? That’s a hard piece to accept. But if you truly love a person, you’re going to love them regardless of their gender identification, gender expression, sexual orientation if you truly love that person and care about them. And so I often remind people of that too, like throughout life in general, regardless of being trans or cis, we learn about people and we lose friendships and relationships for lesser things. And there’s always those hard pieces of acceptance of like you were really close to a person and something happen and you’re no longer close to them. And that may be a transition. It may not be something so significant, but those things are going to happen regardless. So you may as well live your authentic self and find that out sooner rather than later when you’ve sacrificed your own happiness.

Rae McDaniel:
Yep. And I love that frame and I completely agree. Experiencing rejection is something that as humans, we all experience and people live through that. It’s really hard. It hits a lot of buttons and we can survive it.

Erin Everett:
Yep. This too shall pass.

Rae McDaniel:
And we can thrive outside of that.

Erin Everett:
Yep. Absolutely. And with every pain comes growth. And I think that this one is one well worthwhile having as long as what you said, that you’re safe during the process, both physically and financially, because the rate of homelessness amongst LGBTQIA in general is very high. And so making sure that there’s that physical and financial security I think is the utmost importance when preparing to set your future.

Rae McDaniel:
Definitely.

Erin Everett:
Yeah. Very cool. You have been so enlightening during this whole conversation. I want to make sure that there isn’t anything else that you want listeners to know or hear about from you.

Rae McDaniel:
If I could leave listeners with one thing, it would be the idea that gender exploration and transition should be celebrated individually, yes, but also systemically. And by celebrating gender exploration and transition as a culture as well as individually, we are opening up the doors for a lot of gender freedom for transgender and cisgender folks alike. A lot of us whether we are cisgender or trans are trapped in these boxes of gender that we have been assigned. And there is nothing wrong with being a masculine man or a very feminine woman, whatever that means to you. And let’s create a world where we get to choose how we want to identify ourselves and how we want to express ourselves so that it’s not automatic, it’s not a box that we’ve been put in. It is simply our most authentic expression of self.

Erin Everett:
Right. I love that. Yeah. Because regardless if you’re cis and you don’t identify with society’s gender norms, then that’s all something that we also need to work on because not everyone, like you said, fits into that box. And if we all practice acceptance, then everyone’s going to feel a lot more comfortable living authentically.

Rae McDaniel:
Exactly.

Erin Everett:
Yeah. That’s amazing. Thank you so much for your time today. It has been a pleasure to chat with you. And I’m going to make sure that all the resources that you have in place are listed in the podcast episode so that listeners can connect with you and the communities that you’ve created. And then I definitely will be keeping up to date with tentative Gender Magic. That’s very exciting to me. I can’t wait to read it and recommend it to my patients.

Rae McDaniel:
Thank you so much. This has been a pleasure for me as well, and I will definitely keep you updated.

Erin Everett:
Awesome. Remember everybody, stay fierce and live your truth.