Gender Magic by Rae McDaniel
An excerpt from an exciting new book
Hi everyone!
Apologies for the radio silence – Emily just handed in the manuscript for her next book and will be back as soon as she’s taken a breather. We take burnout pretty seriously around these parts.
Today’s post is a special treat. It’s an excerpt from a new book by Emily’s friend Rae McDaniel called “Gender Magic.” Rae is a is a non-binary therapist, certified sex therapist, coach, and transgender diversity and inclusion educator. We thought this intro was a great essay on its own and hope you’ll check out the whole book!
Gender Magic: Live Shamelessly, Reclaim Your Joy, & Step Into Your Authentic Self is available wherever books are sold!
Gendermagic.com • Amazon • And our local indie shop, Book Moon
Transition Isn’t the Point
When you grow up as the adopted child of fundamentalist Christian traveling puppeteer missionaries from the Deep South, becoming a non-binary, queer gender and sex therapist, coach, and speaker isn’t the outcome you expect.
The journey to my non-binary identity was like discovering I’d been walking around in shoes a half size too small. Until I was almost thirty, I didn’t notice how uncomfortable and constricted I felt in my assigned gender as a woman, but after decades limping around with blisters, my cramped toes screaming for relief, something had to give. Over the next five years, I started going by a different name, using they/them pronouns, taking low-dose testosterone, and I had top surgery.
Walking in shoes that fit was a revelation, but putting on the right-size shoes isn’t the point of this metaphor. The point is this: Instead of hobbling around trying to put Band-Aids on my blisters, I could finally dance and run and climb without pain. My feet weren’t distracting me from doing all the things I loved.
Learning to authentically articulate and express our gender in whatever way feels good to us deserves celebration as a fundamental part of personal growth and self-discovery. Throughout my journey and the journeys of hundreds of clients, friends, and community members, I’ve seen gender exploration and transition be a place of joy, pleasure, and profound intimacy with ourselves and the chosen families we build around us.
Whether you’re transgender, non-binary, cisgender, or any other diverse gender identity from across the globe* gender is a powerful force in life, dictating how we experience the world and ourselves. The power of knowing who you are and living as your true self without shame isn’t easy, and there’s a reason the societal narrative about exploring gender identity is negative, restrictive, and downright scary.
According to the Human Rights Campaign, thirty-three states within the United States passed or proposed over one hundred anti-trans bills in 2021 alone, with over two hundred anti-LGBTQ+ bills still in the works at the end of 2022, often targeting children who want to explore a gender that’s different from their sex assigned at birth.
As transgender individuals become more visible in mainstream media and the conversation about transgender and non-binary identity and rights advances in Western culture, there is a backlash from those who feel their sense of reality threatened by a new understanding of gender, those who have objections to the idea of gender identity as a cultural construct rooted in white supremacy and reductive understandings of religious texts, and those who are unwilling to update their understanding of gender because it causes the discomfort that comes with change. The hate that stems from fear and discomfort often, tragically, ends in violence directed toward transgender individuals, especially transgender women of color. While we are making great strides in visibility, this does not always equate to safety.
We contend with systemic barriers and gatekeeping in the medical and mental health fields, housing discrimination, workplace discrimination, microaggressions, and the constant gendering experienced of walking around in the world— all of which are a source of trauma and an exhaust‑ ing burden on trans folks. Additionally, many transgender/non-binary people live at the intersection of multiple oppressed identities, including but not limited to race, ability and disability, neurodivergence, citizen‑ ship, and class, and simply existing becomes an act of resilience.
I am not here to ignore these facts.
And yet. Gender transition does not have to center on anxiety, self-doubt, systemic harms, and distress. When suffering is the uniting banner for trans folks, it creates a culture where many transgender support groups, community discussions, forums, and even scientific research center on the experience of suffering. Is it important to help ease suffering for transgender folks? Absolutely yes. But if we focus only on easing suffering, we’re assuming that relief is the best thing a transgender or non-binary person can hope to achieve in their life. We lose out on the opportunity to connect on experiences like the joy of creative expression, pleasure in all its forms, laughing till we pee, and fiercely celebrating each other.
As a certified gender and sex therapist, I know from working with hundreds of clients that, while the barriers and discrimination we face are impactful and sometimes difficult to navigate, gender transition can be incredibly positive. For the clients I work with, discovering and embody‑ ing who they truly are is empowering. Transition can be a time to explore yourself and build community.
More and more, I’m seeing people, both cis and trans, stepping out of the box they were assigned at birth and celebrating who they are. In media, trans and non-binary actors and identities are being positively represented on shows like Pose, Sense8, and The Politician. And—gasp—sometimes the plot isn’t even about them being transgender/non-binary! We get to experience the delight gender freedom brings when a Black woman who is transgender writes a New York Times bestselling memoir, when a cisgender man wears a dress on the cover of Vogue or to the Oscars, or when a non-binary individual clips earrings onto a popular talk show host.
Many folks are hungry to learn more in order to be supportive, both personally and professionally. We are finding new ways to better affirm transgender identities, and many people are beginning to understand that gender is not a binary.
It’s a revolution, and it’s ongoing.
In the United States, and many other cultures worldwide, society doesn’t celebrate the vast diversity of gender identities and expressions. Folks who dare to express their gender in unexpected ways are often ridiculed into compliance with restrictive norms of what we consider masculine or feminine. In many cases, people who are transgender and non-binary experience discrimination, are told their identities are invalid, and experience emotional and physical harm for simply existing.
The typical cultural narrative we hear of a transgender person’s journey to actualization doesn’t help. It goes something like this:
Once upon a time, there was a child. From a young age, they did things like putting on Mom’s heels, which was against the “rules” for their sex assigned at birth. Their parents shamed and punished them, and the child shut down a part of themselves, burying it deep. As the child went through puberty and their body changed, they felt like they were in the wrong body. Something was wrong with them, but they couldn’t quite put their finger on what. Anxiety and depression crept in as they struggled to feel comfortable and fit in at school, and they started cutting to try to manage their big feels.
The child grew up and realized what they were experiencing was gender dysphoria. They were transgender. This realization rocked their world, sending them spiraling into intense fear, self-hatred, self-doubt, and debilitating anxiety. Eventually, they medically, legally, and socially transitioned their gender to a binary transgender identity. Every step of the process was overwhelming and confusing.
“Post-transition,” the allies of the world called them “brave” and “inspirational.” But at the end of the day, they are alone, underemployed, and struggle to feel valid in their identity.
I’ve heard this story—or something very much like it—from dozens of my clients over the years. I don’t want to minimize anyone’s story if this is your experience. It’s real, and it happens.
But here’s the truth: This narrative sucks.
If lifelong struggle with no potential for joy is the only experience we have to look forward to, no wonder exploring and transitioning your gender is so anxiety provoking!
This narrative also assumes (again) that suffering is a cornerstone of transition and that all transgender folks identify with a binary gender and want gender-affirming surgeries, making those who don’t see themselves in this story feel not “trans enough.”
As a non-binary person and transgender inclusion and diversity speaker, I know the obstacles we face. I have a PowerPoint slide about the disproportionate rates of violence against transgender individuals, Black transgender women, and transgender women of color in particular. Every single year since I started speaking on this topic in 2016, I have updated that slide to say the current year was the highest year on record for violence against transgender people. Suicidal ideation and death by suicide is also disproportionally high in the transgender population. A study by the Williams Institute reports that 98 percent of study respondents expressed suicidal ideation after four or more experiences of discrimination and violence in a year (many transgender people experience four or more micro‑ aggressions or aggressions a week)and 51 percent of them attempted suicide that year.
Given these stats, it’s easy to see why harm-reduction strategies (by which I mean things like STI prevention, suicide prevention, housing, and anti-violence work) become the focus of support for folks exploring and transitioning their gender. These strategies are important and necessary. However, we need something more. We need a new model for gender transition.
Hell, we need a new model for gender.
One that acknowledges the intersecting identities and systemic oppression of marginalized groups and myriad ways that culture and a binary gender system make existence as a transgender or non-binary person difficult AND one that celebrates gender exploration and expansion as an exciting place of growth, individually as well as systemically. We need a narrative of gender exploration, expansion, and transition that is hopeful and full of ease, curiosity, joy, and pleasure. A narrative that centers on gender freedom and gives transgender/non-binary folks room to thrive.
Exploring gender is a natural, critical part of becoming ourselves fully, wholly, and authentically. And you, reader, deserve space and support to do that exploring and to be celebrated for who you are.
* Including but not limited to indigenous identities such as Two-Spirit, hijra, fa’afafine, and mak nyah.
©2023 Rae McDaniel – Gendermagic.com • Amazon
Questions or comments? Please email my very tiny team at unrulywellness@gmail.com
Feel free to say hello on 📷 Instagram, 🦤 Twitter and 🤖 Facebook – I don't always reply but I read everything.
Signed copies of Come As You Are can be obtained from my amazing local bookseller, Book Moon Books.
Stay safe and see you next time.
