Rae McDaniel: On Gender Magic

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Dr. Roger Kuhn: Greetings, greetings, greetings. Hello there. Hi, Rae.

Rae McDaniel: Hi. I'm so excited to be here.

Roger: Well, it is nice to see you, friend. How have you been?

Rae: I've been good. It has been a whirlwind since the book came out, and I'm really excited to be in a place where I can actually talk to people about the content of the book versus just, hey, everybody, I wrote a book.

Roger: Well, I feel like almost every time I log on to my social medias recently, I've seen you on the news and in different print and different conversations talking about the book. So it's truly an honor to be with you today and to learn more about not only the book itself, this amazing book, Gender Magic, but also your process and really your hopes for where you think this book can go. So as I mentioned earlier, my name is Dr. Roger Kuhn. I'm coming to you all from Pomo territory in Guerneville, California. Rae, I believe you are in Chicago, if that's…

Rae: I am in Chicago in the traditional home of the Council of the Three Fires.

Roger: Wonderful. Well, thank you again for being here. I want to start off with what I felt was really important, that in June across the US, oftentimes we celebrate Pride Month. And as I was getting ready today, I was thinking, wow, this is almost into Pride Month, and here we are with all the attempts at, and the upcoming attempts at enacting anti-trans and anti-gender affirming care across the US. Can you share with the audience what you think the benefits of Gender Magic are in a time that we are all living through right now?

Rae: Such a good question. I had to wrestle with this myself because I started writing the book in early 2021, and then was finishing up in early 2023. So earlier this year, and the landscape had changed so much between when I started writing the book and then when I finished it up and then had no more say in the manuscript. And I had this moment of, well, I just wrote this book all about gender magic and joy and euphoria and pleasure. And here we are in what some could describe a hellscape sometimes, especially when it comes to anti-trans legislation. And is this message still relevant in today's world? And I came to the conclusion that it must be. Being able to center and think about gender exploration and gender transition and whatever that means for folks in a way that centers joy and curiosity and connection and pleasure. That's absolutely essential because what else are we fighting for if we're not that?

Roger: Yeah. I love the, what do you call this? Like the little tagline? There's the title.

Rae: The subtitle.

Roger: The subtitle. Right. Okay. I love this. Live shamelessly, reclaim your joy and step into your most authentic self. And I thought just what you said, that, you know, just this, this perfectly sums all of that up here. The book, I had the pleasure of reading the book a little bit earlier before it came out. So I was so excited one day when I got this in the mail and I thought that, oh yeah, you sent me just the cutest little note with the book when I got that. And I loved the little card that you sent me as well. That was really, really sweet. So thank you. Oh, here it is. It's like, I knew I had it somewhere. You sent me this beautiful, beautiful butterfly and snowdrop. It was about hope. And I saw that and I thought, well, yeah, actually that for me is what a lot of this book is when I, when I read it, that it gave me hope, not only for, for folks who are experiencing any kind of a questioning or deeper inquiry into their gender or the gender of a family member or a friend or a loved one. We're really those of us that work in the field, clinicians, sex therapists, coaches, et cetera. This idea that this book offers a hope for folks. I really loved how you broke the book down into the three different sections, play, pleasure and possibility. And I wondered if you could just share a little bit about how you organized this book into those three sections.

Rae: Yeah. So the backstory is that way before the book ever came out, I was in a process. I was in a business coaching group and they ask us to create models from everything that was going around in our head. And so they kind of walked us through that. And as part of that, I sat around in my living room, surrounded by sticky notes and research articles and books and everything for probably weeks, trying to get everything in my head, the way that I was thinking about clients, the way that I was thinking about my own identity as a non-binary person, the experiences of the clients that I was seeing, and also current research in a lot of different areas, not only psychology, but education, human centered design, trauma, thriving, all of these things. And what I concluded and what I came to was this threefold model and these three pillars of play, pleasure and possibility, because those were the buckets of things that I felt I kept coming back to in my own life and also in the lives of my clients and was supported by research of these are the things that if we are able to focus on them and we'll come back around to them so many times in different ways, they are true pillars to guide folks to explore and transition gender and really just consider who they are and how they want to show up in the world with a lot more ease, with a lot more joy and curiosity. And so I wanted to create something that was accessible, that people could kind of grasp and understand, hey, these are not like a step by step thing, but here are some ideas, some ways that you can think about things differently and some tools to go along with those that will truly help.

Roger: I found that throughout the book, there are really great useful resources and activities, such as like writing a letter to your future self that I thought was really great. How did you come about those different activities that folks could use throughout the book?

Rae: Some of those I pulled from others work, the 10 year in the future letter I adapted from a human centered design person guru named Debbie Millman. There's also one in there called the worry date that is from this book, the worry cure. I pulled some from Lucy Fielding's work who is my twin flame when it comes to-

Roger: I love Lucy.

Rae: I love Lucy so much. So our work really informs each other's quite a bit. And then there were some things that I just kind of did with my clients naturally, or I noticed, hey, when we explored this in this way, it was helpful. But so much of it is building on the scholarship of others.

Roger: I think that's really interesting for folks to understand that oftentimes theory or particular ideologies is built upon other work, other ideas that come from sometimes centuries long before we even got here. And this idea that we can transform and we can look back at the research, we can look back at the literature and say, what was missing? And I think the way we started our conversation tonight around the hope and how I know in my own work, I always think like, what hasn't been there? And can I add something? And I know that when I read your book, I thought there is this addition now that folks have that is building upon this way. And I love this idea of playing. We talked about the other day, you and I were talking about the book, and I was really thinking about how in that opening play section, you talk about mindsets and resilience. And I was thinking about your mindset and your resilience writing this book. You talked a moment ago about sticky notes everywhere. And I wondered if you would just walk us through a bit about your process in writing the book. How did you structure it? What did you do to make sure you met your deadlines? How did that all come about for you?

Rae: Oh That's so juicy. So I had the best team around me. And that I think if anyone out there is interested in writing a book, your team is your gold mine. So I had hired somebody to help me write the proposal to just kind of structure that. And I ended up hiring her to be a developmental editor for me on top of my like big editor at my publisher. And what she allowed me to do because I'm also the you know, the CEO, I run a group practice, it's I have to do things for that. So I didn't have all of my time for this book, is this person allowed me to turn in chapter drafts that were probably 85% done. And she would help me kind of structure it and make sure that the flow made sense, like do some developmental edits that allowed me to have this full time job and write a book at the same time. And she was also she was a cheerleader, but also a taskmaster. So she was very much a coach for me in this. And whenever I started getting stuck, I could talk to her. She had me on dates where I had to submit certain things, I had accountability there. All of that was tremendously helpful. How I generally structured my writing was I for better for worse, my brain works best in the morning. I'm not always happy about that fact, but it does. So I would get up probably like six 6:30 every day and write till about nine 10 o'clock when I would start my like day job. It also required you know, it was a sprint. So it was a lot of writing on weekends as well. I took a few times where I'd have a chunk of days where I was just doing writing. But to be honest, a lot of life happened for me in the middle of writing this book. And it was not always a walk in the park. Like I went through a large relationship breakup, my longtime partner and I split up. Before that happened, they had lost their father unexpectedly. And so I was, you know, a part of that grieving process for them as well. They were, you know, my, my company continued to be a company and continued to have stuff that would come up that needed my attention. We were in the middle of a pandemic. There was a lot that was happening for me. And so sometimes I had these really beautiful moments of flow where I'm like, this is great. I'm a writer. I'm one of my favorites. I went to Key West during the time to visit a friend of mine and Ernest Hemingway's house is there and he has this beautiful garden. And so I took my laptop and wrote like part of a chapter in Ernest Hemingway's garden in Key West with one of his little six toed cats sitting beside me. Other times it's like, y'all haven't showered in three days. Like we're just doing the best we can, but it, it got done. It got done.

Roger: Well, again, congratulations. I remember I saw, maybe, maybe it was on Instagram or Facebook. I can't remember which, your unboxing video, the day that you got like that box of, and I wondered if you could just share with folks a little bit about what that moment was like for you when you opened up that box and you were able to hold this book in your hands.

Rae: Yeah. So backstory here. I was the kid who came home on the first day of a kindergarten pissed because they didn't teach me how to read that day. I have always been a reader and this idea of, of writing a book was always a dream for me. I did not think it was a dream that would happen when it did. And so this moment of getting a box of my own books and being able to hold it in my hand. And if any of y'all get the book, the cover is really soft. Like the aesthetics of it are really nice. It, it was one of the best feelings I've ever had in my entire life. Like such a culmination of a life dream of my life's work of, you know, 10 years plus of being in this field and doing this work. And it, it's in a book and people can read it and that, and it will be, I hope building on these former conversations, but also the beginning of a lot of other conversations and that it feels really special. And I feel very honored that it's a book that has already made a difference in people's lives. And I hope we'll continue to.

Roger: Tell me a bit about this idea of finding your magic and coming into your magic. It's one of the things that we talked about in the book.

Rae: I do. One thing I noticed with a lot of my clients is that they would come in and feel very frozen about moving forward with any sort of gender exploration or transition. And a lot of it was because of all of this uncertainty that they were feeling. They didn't know what that end goal was. And it felt very big and very scary for them, which makes sense. What I found when it comes to finding your magic is that a lot of times we gather so much information about ourselves in the small moments, in the small actions. So I talk a lot and work a lot with folks to develop what I call tiny steps towards what makes somebody feel the most authentic to them. So finding your magic, it might not be knowing what your step 10 is. And side note, I always think that gender exploration is a lifelong journey. So I never really consider a point B. But wherever folks are heading, it's okay if you don't know what that is. Sometimes it's just about saying, well, what do you know for sure right now? You may not know what your gender identity is, but you know that it gives you a little flutter in your stomach when somebody uses they/them pronouns. You know that when you wear this particular thing, you feel really good and confident. You know that when you're surrounded by people who see you in this particular way, you feel really good. And so finding your magic is often about noticing what brings you pleasure. And I call it that gut yes. When you feel that gut yes, that is your data to take another tiny step in that direction. And so you're building on these tiny, tiny steps in a way that doesn't feel nearly so overwhelming.

Roger: That idea of when things feel overwhelming, you addressed that in the book, partially in this idea of, what did you say that the boogeyman of gender transition, and I wanted you to expand upon that. What is that? How would folks know if that sort of guttural yes is a somatic based embodiment feeling that we have? What does the boogeyman feel like?

Rae: Yeah, I think that's such an important conversation to bring in. And for those who haven't read the book yet, the boogeyman are fear of rejection, fear of detransition, and ultimately fear of feeling regret and being, yeah, just that feeling regret, fear of detransition, and then that rejection that would come from both of those. And I call them the boogeymen because they have really taken on this quality of the guy with the hook who is out to get the kids who are necking in the woods, this moral story of warning against immoral behavior. In our case, gender transition. That fear is super real for folks, and I never want to minimize that. And that can hit you in your gut too. I think we've all felt that gut fear. I get curious about where there is fear mingled with excitement. For me, that kind of scared-cited feeling. But in this chapter, I talk a lot about breaking down some myths about detransition, and I won't get into all of those stats, but I will share a general stat. There was a study that was done of a lot of transgender surgeons or surgeons who do gender affirming surgeries, and the clients that were a part of these surgeons' caseload, it was over 22,000 people. The number of people who expressed regret in any way or want a desire to detransition was, I believe, and I don't have it right in front of me, so I might not get this stat exactly correct, but it was very, very low. Under 3%, maybe even under 1%. And of the 22,000 people who had a gender affirming surgery, and the tiny, tiny amount of those people who expressed any amount of regret, only 22 humans expressed that regret because they felt that there was a change in their gender identity. And of those, we don't even know from this survey if it was a change in gender identity to a cisgender identity or to a non-binary identity. So there is so much that we are still learning about possibilities of medical regret, regret in general, and the transgender population, but I got to do this really, really nerdy deep dive into medical regret, which some people might not find interesting, but I was fascinated. And I learned some things about regret and ways to kind of work through that fear that comes up for folks, one of them being that regret is just a feeling. It is a feeling like happy. It is a feeling like sad. It is a feeling like fear or disappointment. It is not a feeling that we have to put on a pedestal. We can move through it just like any other feeling. And to take us back to the stats, I want to remind folks that the rate of medical regret for knee replacement surgery is astronomically higher than for gender transition. So when we're talking about medical regret, we're talking about medical regret that is understood in the wider medical community as perfectly acceptable, unless you're talking about gender. And that to me is very, very striking. One thing that I learned, which is helpful in working through that fear, is that we are much more likely to not regret a decision when we make it from a grounded place, which may sound kind of obvious, but it is really important because if we make a decision, any decision, but this was about medical regret from a place of, they call it a hot state, emotionally dysregulated place, we are more likely to regret that decision regardless of the outcome, which is really interesting to me. Another place that people get stuck is assuming that if they feel any amount of regret or uncertainty, it means that they have made a bad choice. But the reality is that most choices are pretty neutral and we have feelings about the outcome of it, but the decision itself, if it had turned out a different way, we would not think that was a bad decision. Does that make sense?

Roger: It does make sense. I'm curious for, I'm thinking folks that might be listening that they're thinking, yeah, this sounds great. Can you give me some examples of how to get into that grounded place? Like what do you do to find yourself into that grounded place that you can make those decisions from that embodied yes place?

Rae: This is great news for therapists because you already have these skills. These are basic grounding skills, right? Helping our clients learn emotional regulation, helping our clients get grounded in their bodies as much as possible, being able to be present in their bodies as much as possible, which of course is not always easy if you're trans and experience any sort of gender dysphoria or have a trauma background or various other things, chronic pain like I do. That's not always easy, but those skills are the same in this population as they are for any other population. Sometimes the grounding specific to trans and non-binary folks and gender explorers means going back to kind of what I talked to you before, these tiny steps, these what do you know for sure? What are those gut yeses that you know? What are your fears about this? Sometimes getting into a grounded place is about gathering more accurate information about the thing that you're scared about instead of ruminating in your head about it forever, which is what people tend to do. So I tell people a great way to get to a more grounded place is to go talk to a doctor about your questions. You are not committing to anything, absolutely anything by speaking to a doctor and having a consultation and getting some of those questions answered. Community is also a really great place to find that good information. I always recommend that people do both because there are pieces that the community is really amazing at and there are pieces that I think are important to hear from either the person you're interested in working with or somebody who has that expertise.

Roger: Moving now into the second portion of the book, which is pleasure. One of my favorite sections, you talked about a couple of things and one of the things that I was really intrigued by was pleasure as an access point. As we're talking about this idea of ways that we can ground ourselves to, I'm thinking about how pleasure is actually a way that we can ground ourselves, ground ourselves in pleasure, understanding how pleasure feels in our system. Oftentimes, we project an outward expression that this is what pleasure looks like or this is what these things look like as opposed to this is how they feel. I want to hear more from you around this idea of pleasure as an access point, including pleasuring the self and unlocking the erotic mind that you write about.

Rae: Yes, pleasure is such an access point. A lot of people, you're right, they don't take the time to think about what does pleasure feel like in my body? How do I know when I am experiencing pleasure? I invite people to start out really small. One of my favorite exercises is a pleasure bath because you're already naked, so there's like that barrier is gone. You throw whatever you want in there, bath salts, some coconut oils. I'm a big fan of that. You light a candle if that's your thing. You put on music if that's your thing. You just allow yourself to explore your body with no agenda whatsoever. Notice does this touch feel good? Does that touch feel good? Some basic, if folks are familiar with sex therapy, some basic ideas behind sensate focus. That's what we're talking about. Even backing up further from that, having people develop a pleasure practice and a pleasure list of if they already know things that they know that they love, whether it's drinking tea or gardening, playing with their dog, going on a walk, going dancing, start to keep a list of that and notice when those things are happening and you're able to be present with them, how that feels in your body. What are those sensations?

Roger: I want to ask a personal question if I may. You said going out dancing. What is one of your pleasure songs for dancing? What do you love? What gives you a lot of pleasure listening to or dancing to? What songs or songs?

Rae: That is such an easy one. Whitney Houston's I Want to Dance with Somebody. Every time that is my jam.

Roger: I remember that when that song came out, I had a, I think it was my sister's probably, but it was like the old Walkman and I lived in a really small town in North Dakota and putting that song on and dancing down the street. It was such a joy. I still find that song absolutely wonderful. Thank you for that. Then would you say the same for unlocking the erotic mind? Is that the same idea behind, like when you were talking about the pleasure bath or pleasure mapping and those types of ideas? How would you expand upon unlocking the erotic mind?

Rae: Thank you for bringing that back. We know that a lot of trans and non-binary folks have a lot of barriers to feeling pleasure in their bodies, to feeling erotic in their bodies. Lucy Fielding does this really cool delineation of desirable and desire able. What she means about desire able and that I've experienced with my clients too, is that sometimes there's this idea of I am not worthy of desiring another or I don't get to have desires. I have to take whatever I can get, which is, we could talk about ideas around intimate justice and pleasure equity around that later. When it comes to unlocking your erotic mind, I'm an Emily Nagoskiite. I talk a lot about your brakes and accelerators. In Gender Magic, I kind of riff off of her metaphor and talk about riding a motorcycle, which is something that I learned how to do over the pandemic and how it applies to unlocking your erotic mind, which is when you're on a motorcycle and you want to take a curve. The way I'm conceptualizing a curve is anything that we can see coming that we know is going to pose a challenge to us in connecting to pleasure and connecting to our erotic self. What you don't want to do on a motorcycle is just go full speed ahead and try to white knuckle it through because you're going to hit a fence. You also don't want to slow down so much that your bike tips. You have to hit the brake before you're getting to the curve and accelerate a little bit going around the curve. I think there is a lot of room there to figure out what that means for somebody, but things like, hey, if you know, and I'll use a very concrete example, if you know that your chest is an area of dysphoria for you and the fact that your chest is bigger is an area of dysphoria for you when it comes to connecting to your erotic self and potentially connecting that erotic self to others. One way to slow down is to let your partner in on that information. First of all, it might be to decide that you continue to wear a binder during sex because that flatter chest feels a lot less dysphoric for you. That's a way that you can both hit the brake when you need to and slow down enough that you're going to manage that challenge safely, but also hit the accelerator enough that you are still moving towards pleasure.

Roger: Thank you. Let's talk about queering up relationships. I love this idea of queering up relationships and in particular, you talk a little bit about navigating the less than perfect family relationships. So I wanted to hear a little bit about this idea of queering up relationships and then how we can navigate not only family of origin, but even sometimes family of creation when those don't work out as well.

Rae: Yeah, absolutely. I am a huge, huge fan of very intimate friendships. For anybody who knows my backstory, I don't have a supportive given family. So chosen family has always meant so, so much to me as it does to so many people in the queer community. And so figuring out how do I and I'm also I'm, you know, a single person. And so those relationships are my relationships with my chosen family are critically important to me. And I noticed that what felt good was going deeper and being intimate in ways that our society doesn't always. How do I put it? condone perhaps in in relationships that are not romantic or sexual. And this is not a new concept, right? This is building on words of many others in many communities. But this idea that we don't have to save commitment for romantic or sexual partners. We don't have to save emotional intimacy for those types of relationships. We don't even have to save physical intimacy. And that might look different for different people and in different relationships. But I have gotten a lot out of being just physically affectionate with my friends. A lot of people don't don't touch each other. And that might feel fine for some folks. But for me, it is something that has been a very fulfilling part of my relationships. And I noticed with my clients that the more they were able to dig into queering up and thinking about new possibilities for what intimacy could look like, and who it could be with, the more they felt grounded in themselves and more that they felt connected on a super deep level to their community. And that said, these relationships are not always perfect. I was talking with this researcher, Lou Lindley, who talks about this idea of strategic gender expression. And I think that's an important piece to bring into this conversation. Because in families of origin, sometimes in jobs or other relationships, you might value those relationships for certain reasons, or not have a way that you can fully disentangle yourself from them. And sometimes the most authentic thing that you can do is to keep yourself safe. And sometimes that means that you are choosing to show certain parts of yourself and not others. And that can feel really bad, and often it does. But it does move it into a place of more agency when you're able to say, I am making the choice to show up in this particular way, because this is what is going to keep me safe in the ways that I need to stay safe. So I think that is really important. Trying to think of other pieces in there. I'll pause there and see if there's some more juicy stuff in there.

Roger: Well, I did have a question that's non-related to what we just said, but I keep seeing this little lovely creature in the background. Is that Gizmo?

Rae: That is Gizmo. That is my Gremlin.

Roger: The Gremlin, because you talk about it in the little bio in the back here. You say that they live in Chicago with their dog Gizmo, who's probably a Gremlin. And I kept seeing this little creature in the background. I wonder, could that be the now famous Gizmo?

Rae: The famous Gizmo. She has a bone. She's very happy.

Roger: That's good to know. I'm curious about your thoughts. For folks who may be in a relationship, a primary partnership, they could be in a multiple partner relationship, configuration, et cetera. And they are beginning to have that curiosity, or they're beginning to explore their gender magic. What advice would you give to folks who are experiencing that and how to share that with their partner in a way that may not always feel safe if they haven't had those conversations prior?

Rae: Yeah. That can be a really scary place to be. And a lot of folks come to me with a lot of fears around losing existing relationships. And first, I want to ground everybody in understanding which is not new, that anytime you shake up a family system, anytime there is a big transition in life, some people might grow with you and some people might not. And that's a reality. And that's also a reality when it comes to exploring gender, potentially transitioning gender within a relationship. So yeah, it can feel scary. Safety is always really important. I know we have to ground there of making sure that you are physically safe. Another piece of that is making sure that you are financially safe. If there is a question about how this might go and emotionally safe as much as possible. This is probably going to be a conversation that can cause some anxiety. So I tell folks to talk to their partners as soon as possible and bring them into that conversation. And what I've seen work really well and the partners that are able to really roll with the punches, are able to grow together through this, are the ones who do enter into it with this attitude of play and this attitude of what is possible. So yes, a lot of the things that you are familiar with might be changing. And where does that leave so much room for possibility in a partnership? Where does that leave room to explore sexuality and intimacy in a different way? To expand definitions of what that looks like and possibilities for how those needs might be able to get fulfilled. In a very concrete way, I walk people through kind of my who, what, when, where, and why of coming out, which also applies to partnerships and thinking about your why. Why do you want this person to know this information about you? What are you hoping that the outcome is going to be? Who exactly are you sharing this with? Is it just a partner? Is it a partner and children? Do you need them to be to keep this confidential for now? What's the likelihood that they'll be able to do that? The where and the how. A lot of times people, and I'll say my clients, have chosen or have this initial impulse to come out in a way that is the most comfortable for the person they are coming out to. I like to roll that back a little and consider what is the way that is going to be the most comfortable for you as the person who is giving this information? Do we want to take our partner's comfort into consideration? Absolutely, sure, but not to the detriment of your own. If you feel more comfortable writing a letter and reading it to your partner or writing a letter and letting them read it while you go on a walk or being in a place where you know you have a way to get out, those are really important considerations. And then the what is really important as well. What are you sharing with them? Which might seem obvious again, but what are you sharing in terms of your hopes, your fears, what your concrete asks are? Because this can feel like a really big conversation and it can sometimes help to nail it down to, I'm asking you to respect my name and my pronouns and I want to maybe explore different ways that we can connect to each other as the person that I'm becoming and the person that I am.

Roger: A moment ago you talked about this idea around coming out and I always think around any of us that come from communities where there's this somewhat expectation sometimes of coming out, right? It doesn't happen just one time. It is a continuous process and I found that that idea of coming out, it feels less for me and more for others, right? And so in my own research, I was doing some work around indigenous futurisms and there's an author, Dylan, who talks about this idea of returning to ourselves. And I thought like, now that to me makes so much more sense than this idea of coming out, right? Or this reclamation of ourselves and the coming out process is for the others, but the returning to ourselves, reclaiming ourselves is that's for us and for our own process. You were also talking a moment ago around possibility, which is the third section of your book. And I wanted to hear you talk a little bit about this idea of pride is taking up space.

Rae: Yes, yes. And I love what you said. I think that is so important is this idea that, yeah, coming out, you're right, is largely for the other person, but coming home to ourselves is really, that's really what we're doing.

Roger: Yeah. There's a lot of magic in that coming home to ourselves.

Rae: There is. There truly, truly is. Okay. I repeat your question one more time. I'm so sorry. I lost it.

Roger: My question was around possibility and you talk about pride is taking up space. And I just wanted to hear you talk more about this idea of pride is taking up space.

Rae: Yes. So I got a lot of folks in my office and even I struggle with this imposter syndrome myself of feeling like transness, non-binaryness, exploring gender was a burden on others that somehow we're putting them out by asking people to do basic things like call us by our name or our pronouns. But there's a lot of folks that I've worked with who have spent a lifetime making themselves so small. And a lot of times it was out of necessity. You're talking about this coming home to ourselves. I think about the definition of resilience, which is returning to our former shape when we are compressed, bent or stretched. And so, so many of my clients were coming in and people that I talked to coming in, I keep bumping this, sorry, everybody coming into the space, feeling compressed. And so pride as taking up space is it's returning. It's returning to the space that we are meant to take up in the world when we are the biggest, authentic, most lit up version of ourselves, because we can't help it. And that doesn't mean, you know, not everybody is going to be this huge extroverted giant person, but it's about returning to the space that you are meant to take up in the world that is pride and not being apologetic about it, not being shameful about it and deciding that it is your right that you deserve to be in this world as your full self in as many ways as possible.

Roger: I'm thinking about how pride is also about taking up space within ourselves so that when we begin to feel, you know, how it feels to put on some fancy jewelry to paint our nails, to really allow that experience within, to take the space of that pleasure, to allow there to be space for joy in our own systems. And then we take that outside into the world. And sometimes it's even just outside of our bedroom, outside of our bathroom, into another area of our home, if we have other areas in our home and then maybe into the street or into a discotheque or into our jobs, into our clinical practice to really take up space by taking up space. To me, I thought about that as I was reading that section about how we can take up space internally as well and that that is an act of resiliency even within itself is just for those that maybe if we go back to the idea of safety, that maybe we live in places where to be seen in their authentic self is not always the safest thing. And those of us in this work know that liberation can be a very dangerous thing.

Rae: Yes.

Roger: That if the only space that you feel pride is within, that is a beautiful space to be as well.

Rae: It is. It truly is. And that's where that strategic gender expression comes in. It might not be safe to be your biggest, most lit up, most authentic self everywhere in your life. And that's okay. That's hard. That is hard. It can be, but that is also okay. Find the place within yourself and find the places where you can be. Because I, even when I've worked with clients in kind of seemingly impossible situations, they have been able to find spaces both within themselves, but also in outside in the world that they were able to feel seen. And maybe it's a relationship with your neighbor who comes into your apartment for dinner. Maybe it's traveling across town to go to a meetup or out of state if you have that ability or online. There are ways to find that space, even if you are in an environment where it is not physically safe to be you in all the areas that you would ideally like to.

Roger: And safety is sometimes about an expression of vulnerability. And I was wondering about partially your writing process here around vulnerability to include parts of your own story and gender magic. And I'm wondering if you'll share that with us about what was that like for you to just share these little excerpts about your, I'm thinking about the dinosaur story at the play party.

Rae: It's such a good one.

Roger: Cause I'm thinking like, okay, dinosaur costume was one of those inflatable costumes. What are we talking about with this?

Rae: It was.

Roger: Okay.

Rae: It's an inflatable T-Rex.

Roger: That's what I was thinking.

Rae: To give you even more of an image.

Roger: I love those things, by the way. I think there's, they always bring me joy when I see them, those inflatable T-Rex costumes that people are wearing. So when you shared that story, I was like, that must have been hilarious the way that you wrote it. So I just wanted to hear a little bit about taking what I'm going to call the risk and sharing these vulnerable parts of your own story. What was that like for you and how did you make that choice?

Rae: You know, I figured if I was going to be asking everybody reading this book to take a bunch of vulnerable risk, then I needed to step up to the plate myself. And I think that people respond really well to stories and because of our line of work, there was only so much that I could share about client stories. You know, I give the caveat in the book about, you know, the ethics of all of that. And so my stories became often not a placeholder, but a story that I could tell with as much depth as I wanted to be able to illustrate something that I was talking about. And I've always been very clear about I write things that are therapeutic and not therapy. So I'm not writing things that feel exceptionally raw to me. They're usually things that I've worked through or like bring me tremendous joy like this dinosaur story, which is such a great, I almost peed my pants laughing. It was great. And it also felt good to share these parts of myself. You know, as a therapist, you don't often get the opportunity to do that. And so I really did. I was excited to bring parts of my story in. I will say the most vulnerable thing that I wrote in there was about my breakup in the middle of this book. And that was still a thing where I shared just enough that it gave context, but it wasn't the raw stuff. It was, hey, this is happening. This is what I'm learning from it. And that felt good to share. And now, you know, I'm a year and a half plus out, probably like two years out from writing that part of the book. So it feels way less raw than it even did then. But I went back and forth about did I want to share this part of my story or not? And ultimately, speaking of checking in with your intuition, your gut, it felt right to share it. And it was also something I shared with permission, of course, of the parties involved.

Roger: Now that this is out, and you may or may not be doing much clinical work now, or you might be doing some more in the future, what do you think that does for your practice? Right? You know, if many of us are sort of trained, you know, I do not buy into it personally, but sort of trained to be that sort of blank slate kind of clinician, right? Which again, is just to me, just sort of like, it does not work for me. Though, you know, when you put yourself out here in this particular way, even if it's snippets of your own story, or to say, here's what I believe in, here is a transformational tool for joy, it's going to attract some attention from folks that might want to work with you, right? How do you think that we can take our truth as human being, and also translate that into the clinical setting, into that clinical room?

Rae: Absolutely. So you're right that in the process of writing this book, and currently I'm not seeing hardly any clients, I just have a couple stragglers who are left over. I might see people in the future, I'm not quite sure exactly what that's going to look like. Right now I'm mainly managing the practice of clinicians. I've, you know, I've been very privileged and that I've had the opportunity to create my practice, Practical Audacity in Chicago, from the very beginning as a very clear value statement of this is what we believe in, this is what we don't, this is what we do, this is what we don't do. And so we've always had clients who have opted in to a practice that is not a blank slate practice. Like we have a clear set of beliefs and values that we stand behind. And that has always been true for my personal practice as well. And, you know, I was sharing on social media and in newsletters about my life and about some of my stories long before I wrote the book. And in my, my ethics and my line about it has always been that I will be a human out in the world. I will share parts of myself out in the world and gender magic on social media. And when I am in the therapy room, people, they might know those things about me and that might be why they come there. But that session is about them. And a lot of times people are opting in to work with me because they see me as a human, because they have some context as to who I am, even though that I'm not sharing stories about myself in session, it is truly about them. And I've never, I've never had an issue with it. Again, I think because people who, who might have a problem with that or that might not resonate with them don't opt in.

Roger: I am wondering, there's a few questions that are coming in. So before we get to those, I am wondering what is your hope for gender magic? Not just the book, but for like what I'm going to call like the movement that you are creating or that you have created with it. What's your hope here, Rae?

Rae: I, in my wildest dreams would love to fundamentally change the way that we speak about gender exploration and transition and change the narrative that has been so focused on suffering and pain into a narrative that acknowledges that because it is very important, but centers on joy and play and pleasure and exploration and gender exploration as a good thing and a necessary part of self growth and self actualization for everyone, whether they are trans or non binary or cis or identify another gender, I want it to fundamentally change the way that we think about gender exploration.

Roger: Wonderful.

Rae: Yeah. Oh, ultimately create a world where people are free to be this biggest, best, like most lit up version of themselves free from fear and shame. And I think a lot of that does come from shifting this narrative and this cultural understanding of what gender exploration is and what it can be.

Roger: And who do you want to partner with? Like who are some, I know we talked about Lucy, we have a good friend, Lucy in common, though, like who else do you think can be helpful to get this message out there? You talked about Brene Brown in this book and I was really thinking like, Ooh, I hope you get to be on Brene Brown's podcast or in some particular way wouldn't that be great? Though, are there folks that you think can hear this message and help get it to those that need it?

Rae: Absolutely. I mean, there's so many people that I would love to get to that I could just rattle off. I mean, of course, like Elliot Page is the top of the list. Folks like Janet Mock, Laverne Cox, folks who are really anybody who is out there and has a platform where folks are really interested in self development and bettering the world in this way. I would love to get on Glennon Doyle's podcast, obviously, Brene Brown, like, you know, sky's the limit. So if any of you all got connections, you know where to find me.

Roger: That's right. That's right. That would be amazing. And when that happens, please let me know because I want to participate and I want to listen in here. Just my final sort of thought for those of us that are clinicians that are working in the field, whether also coaches or even educators, therapists or aside from that, how do you think that they can introduce this, the book and the work within the book to their clients? What do you think is a way that you can, you know, because I'm always like curious about like, you know, it's like, oh, hey, I've got this great book that I want to recommend to you, right? And so how do you do that in a way that feels therapeutic and not like, you know, hey, read this book, read this book, right? Even though it's a great book.

Rae: Yeah, thank you. I think one of the best ways is to grab a copy yourself to read it and to take some of the exercises from it or some of the ideas. And if those are resonating with your client, share, hey, just so you know, like, here is this book that I got it from that I think you might resonate with if you resonated with this conversation or with this tool or with this way of thinking about the work that we're doing.

Roger: And then on a personal note, I just wanted to thank you because you reached out to me. I don't even remember when it was, Rae, a year ago, a year and a half ago or something like that. Because I think that you heard me speak somewhere you went to the workshop that I did or something like that. And you wrote me an email, you introduced yourself and you said, I'm writing this book. And I wanted to talk to you about Two-Spirit people. I wanted to make sure that that was included. And I just wanted to personally thank you for that, because it's very meaningful for me as a Two-Spirit person, that that aspect of gender fluidity and gender variance, as it's been seen here in these lands, when you call the United States, prior to colonization was mentioned in gender magic. Because I always find with my clients that I'm working with around this gender exploration, to be able to share with them the story of what we now call Two-Spirit people. And to say, hey, here is this beautiful culture, this rich, lovely culture where we as Two-Spirit people had roles within our community. And we were sacred. And so bodies like ours, in these lands, they're sacred bodies, whatever word that might mean to you or to anyone that's listening. But just to know, personally, I felt very touched when you reached out to me. And I wanted to thank you because we don't always get included in these conversations. So Madhav, thank you for that.

Rae: Thank you. And it felt very, very important to include Two-Spirit voices and in particular to include yours. And we were talking about this when we spoke earlier, but I fought so hard to get more of your interview in that book, and I failed. But I did get a good chunk of it. And if folks are interested in hearing more, really the whole interview, it's on the Gender Magic website. So you can listen to the whole thing. There's a transcript there. So folks can really get the full beauty of that because that was such a highlight of my book writing experience. So thank you for being a part.

Roger: You're welcome. You are so welcome. When we were talking the other day, you said that the idea behind this was not gender transition. That gender transition, sorry, that gender transition was not the point. That freedom, freedom was the point. And I'm wondering now that this is being recorded. This is going to live on the internet for however long things live on the internet. And someday some young kid, some adolescent, some young adult, some midlife adult, some elder is going to be in their gender inquiry. They will be in their gender experience. And they might be looking for something or someone to help them or to guide them. And if they stumble upon this interview and you can share with them one more thing, what is it that you want them to know?

Rae: Roger, you're going to make me cry. I would share with them that yeah, gender transition, it has never been the point of the work that I do of gender magic. The point is gender freedom. And more than that, it's freedom too, right? We never have freedom period, right? We always have a freedom too. And so if I could leave people with one thing, it would be that the world is a better place when we all get to be our freest, most lit up, most authentic versions of ourselves. That we all deserve that. And I am excited to see what kind of world we can create when we have that sort of freedom. And that's always been the point, right? Is that we are free to do the things that we want to do. Yes, show up in our careers and our passions in different ways. But maybe even more importantly, we get to show up for ourselves in a different way. We get to be humans in a different way. And that is just pure magic.

Roger: Rae McDaniel, gender magic. Thank you for being with us this evening. Thank you to the CIIS Public Programs team for inviting Rae to be here with us this afternoon, this evening, wherever you may be tuning in. To Rae, a friend, a colleague in the field, I am so honored that I was able to spend the time with you tonight. And I'd like to say to everyone listening, thank you, good night, and be well. And spread magic out into the world.

Rae: Thank you, everybody. It was such an honor.

Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live. Podcast production is supervised by Kirstin Van Cleef at CIIS. Audio production is supervised by Lyle Barrere at Desired Effect. The CIIS Public Programs team includes Izzy Angus, Kyle DeMedio, Alex Elliott, Emlyn Guiney, Patty Pforte, Nikki Roda, and Pele Shalev. CIIS Public Programs commits to use our in-person and online platforms to uplift the stories and teachings of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color; those in the LGBTQIA+ community; and all those whose lives emerge from the intersections of multiple identities.