What if conversations about centered round pleasure and chance as an alternative of struggling?

It’s a query that , has spent greater than a decade exploring. As a licensed therapist, coach, educator, and nonbinary individual themself, McDaniel has guided many transgender and nonbinary folks via journeys of gender exploration and transition. Their first ebook, , out now, distills a profession’s price of knowledge — together with a radical breakdown of the Gender Freedom Mannequin, a pleasure-centric framework for gender exploration that McDaniel developed to assist ease and demystify the method. They information readers with easy-to-understand definitions, journal prompts, and sensible recommendation.

McDaniel is the primary to confess that we’re residing via a difficult time for transgender equality — particularly relating to restrictions on , which many trans and nonbinary folks pursue as they transition.

“The laborious issues are actual,” McDaniel tells SheKnows. “The Gender Freedom Mannequin isn’t about ‘love and lightweight’-ing our method via gender transition, or saying that it’s all the time simple. It’s saying that there are instruments and mindsets that may make it simpler on you.”

Beneath, discover our full dialog with McDaniel, who spoke about their progressive therapeutic framework and the way mother and father of trans youngsters residing in states with hostile legal guidelines can greatest assist their kids.

SheKnows: We hardly ever hear about gender transition via the lens of enjoyment. Are you able to stroll us via how and why you developed the Gender Freedom Mannequin?

Rae McDaniel: Thanks. The rationale I created it’s precisely what you mentioned: You don’t see it talked about that a lot with regards to speaking about exploring gender or transitioning your gender. I used to be actually annoyed that a variety of the literature I used to be seeing centered completely on struggling and anxiousness and all of the actually laborious issues that come together with being trans in our world at present. These issues are essential, and they’re completely actual, however I used to be lacking the opposite aspect of the coin. By way of exploring their gender, a variety of my purchasers felt higher than they ever had of their life, skilled nearer and extra linked relationships, and made large, superb modifications of their lives. 

We are also in a really specific time the place there’s a report variety of anti-trans laws, and it’s about to turn into one of many nice ethical problems with the 2024 presidential marketing campaign. So I wished to create a mannequin that might assist my purchasers work together with exploring gender in a method that facilities pleasure and pleasure and connection whereas not ignoring the laborious stuff.

SheKnows: What are a number of the largest misconceptions about transitioning that you simply’ve encountered in your work?

RM: Gender transition is about transitioning into essentially the most genuine model of you. Generally that features some type of medical transition, and generally it doesn’t. It actually simply will depend on the individual and what feels good for them. However folks get very caught on medical transition when there are numerous, many steps and issues to discover earlier than you get there.

The largest false impression that I hear is that it’s a must to know what the endpoint goes to be earlier than you are taking a single step ahead. What that does is it retains folks of their heads, feeling frozen and somewhat bit helpless. As a substitute, I place gender exploration as simply one other a part of self-growth. It’s one other method that we perceive who we’re on the planet and resolve how we need to present up, so we don’t need to have all of the solutions.

What I additionally train in Gender Magic is, as an alternative of getting caught in your head, take tiny steps ahead. Now, this doesn’t imply doing one thing that you simply’re actually uncomfortable with. However should you had been interested in one thing like taking hormones, for instance, it may be actually useful to take some steps to collect extra information. So, arrange an appointment with the physician and ask questions. Get details about what modifications you would possibly see in your physique on what timeline. Get your blood work completed, and be sure that all the things is nice there. That doesn’t imply that it’s a must to begin hormones, proper? You’re not beginning hormones till you really do. However you get to do a intestine test of, “How did it really feel to ebook that appointment?”

SheKnows: Gender dysphoria, which is arguably the reverse of enjoyment, is commonly positioned as a prerequisite for gender exploration or transition. Do you agree with that?

RM: That doesn’t make sense to me in any respect. I feel it’s wild that we’ve got created a story and system that claims it’s a must to hate your self in an effort to be your self. Some trans folks do expertise . Usually, a variety of that dysphoria relies on how different individuals are treating trans of us. I feel that is a crucial factor to call. And this has been my expertise: I didn’t hate my physique earlier than I transitioned. I selected to alter my physique in sure methods as a result of it felt extra aligned and genuine to me, not as a result of I hated myself. 

SheKnows: The Gender Freedom Mannequin incorporates trans folks’s intercourse lives and romantic relationships. Clearly, gender and sexuality aren’t the identical factor and shouldn’t be conflated, however one can have an effect on the opposite.

RM: You’re completely proper. That’s really the rationale that I grew to become a intercourse therapist. I used to be having a variety of trans purchasers are available in, and all of them introduced up relationships and intercourse. I wished to be extra outfitted to assist folks with these subjects. And the nice factor that I actually attempt to level to in Gender Magic is that relationships and sexuality is usually a actually unimaginable place to study extra about your gender, and to be affirmed. It may be a spot the place you may get linked to your physique, even when your physique isn’t all the time the best way you need it to be.

SheKnows: The tales you included within the ebook complicate the dominant, very linear narrative about gender transition: the traditional “born within the unsuitable physique, knew at an early age” storyline. Why was it so essential to you to point out extra nuance?

RM: I feel in at present’s world, we regularly need one reply that matches in a single field. And with regards to self-growth, self-discovery, and authenticity, there’s not one singular reply or path. So once we’re speaking about complicating the narrative and including nuance to it, we’re doing that as a result of it creates more room and freedom for people to discover themselves.

SheKnows: It looks like Gender Magic was written for trans and nonbinary readers. Was that your meant viewers?

RM: Sure, the first viewers is trans and nonbinary of us, or anyone who’s exploring gender. I additionally wrote the ebook very particularly so {that a} cisgender individual — an ally, those that have family members who’re exploring gender, or simply someone who desires to know extra about gender freedom and what it means to be a trans individual — can choose up this ebook and never solely study mindsets and language abilities that may assist them assist a beloved one, but in addition study one thing about themselves. Everyone, regardless of your gender id, has been put in a field of intercourse after which the gender assigned on prime of that at beginning. And it comes with this quote-unquote instruction guide that isn’t all the time helpful. Lots of people, whether or not they’re cis or trans, would profit from deliberately partaking with their gender and deciding, “How do I need to present up on the planet based mostly on what I learn about myself to be true?”

SheKnows: Let’s change gears a bit and speak in regards to the present legislative panorama. We’re seeing a deluge of , together with many payments that explicitly goal for youths. What are your ideas on this alarming development?

RM: I imply, these legal guidelines are horrific. They’re beginning with trans youth, however they’re . The agenda is to not quote-unquote “defend kids.” I feel Molly on Saturday Night time Dwell mentioned this rather well a couple of weeks in the past. They’re not defending kids; they’re taking away kids’s healthcare. And the laws that’s being handed is totally out of alignment with the precise medical pointers. This care may be very protected — like, protected for 30-plus years. As an example, puberty blockers give trans youngsters a possibility to make that call later. 

To legislate the medical choices of youth and their mother and father and their medical suppliers and their psychological well being suppliers due to a political agenda is so out of line to me. In Missouri, [lawmakers] try to say that remedies for medical transition are experimental, however that’s not true. And nearly all of people who find themselves on hormone alternative remedy are cisgender. There could also be some unintended effects for any affected person, however that doesn’t imply we ought to be taking away folks’s autonomy over their very own our bodies.

SheKnows: Why do you suppose gender transition has turn into such a politicized matter?

RM: Anytime there’s a social motion towards extra equality, there’s a pushback, so we’re seeing that occur. You may map that out traditionally. I feel the opposite factor is that when folks really feel that their foundational understanding of the world is shaken, they will really feel somewhat unsafe. These conversations are shaking up the foundations of how we perceive biology and gender. That makes folks really feel somewhat bit unsafe — however that feeling of unsafety doesn’t imply that they aren’t protected. We’re simply increasing our understanding. And that may be a good factor.

SheKnows: Do you might have any recommendation for folks of trans youth who stay in states with hostile legal guidelines however need to assist their baby’s gender exploration journey?

RM: I would like us to possibly collectively take a breath and know that no particular person individual goes to repair all of the laborious issues on the planet. That mentioned, there are issues folks can do. Analysis reveals {that a} supportive household and a assist system is the number-one mitigator of misery for trans of us. So, [parents] making a supportive, welcoming, and affirming surroundings at house actually goes a great distance. 

The opposite factor is advocacy. The parents who’re pushing these legal guidelines are actually loud, so we’ve got to be louder. Write the letters; make the calls; and present up for the protests. And I hate to say this, however it’s price contemplating, “What’s the high quality of life for my baby residing on this state?” I do know shifting just isn’t an possibility for everybody, however whether it is an possibility for you, it might be price contemplating some extra drastic motion. 

This interview has been edited for size and readability.