New Webinar Updated for Spring 2025

Plus other updates and reflections on the both/and of these days

Author

Sebastian Barr
April 25, 2025

Registration is now live for my updated training on supporting trans and nonbinary clients with (understandable) sociopolitical distress, happening on May 16. This webinar is for mental health professionals who want to better support trans and nonbinary clients during this harrowing and uncertain political moment. I’ll share tools, clinical approaches, and frameworks that are rooted in both research and clinical experience. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by what’s happening politically and unsure how to respond in your work, or if you’re looking for ways to deepen your commitment to trans clients in a practical and grounded way, I hope you’ll join me.

While some of the material will be the same as or similar to what I presented in November 2024, I’ve made significant update to speak to the reality of the current situation and what lies ahead - and to incorporate what I’ve learned in the nearly six months since the election.

This webinar is available live or recorded (but you must register in advance to access the recording), free for trans clinicians, and sliding scale for everyone else. There is also the option to increase your impact by including a donation to trans-led/centered orgs. (Note: if you paid for the November webinar, you should have an email from me with a discount code for the May webinar.)

Please share this information with colleagues you think would be interested, your listservs, etc. I have limited reach and want as many folks as possible to know this is happening. I keep seeing memes about how lost therapists are right now, but there is so much we can offer affected communities.

More updates follow, but first…

Some housekeeping: If you’d rather not read this or receive future updates, I totally understand - We all get a lot of emails! You can scroll to the bottom of this email and unsubscribe. I use this newsletter to update folks about once a month on my writings, offerings, and other career updates.

Reflections on the Both/And of it All

A neighbor recently gave me a bumper magnet that says “The Despair is Never Ending, Yet I Remain Silly,” after I admired a duplicate they had on their car.

This magnet now sits next to my Mary Oliver bumper sticker which reads “Honk if you’re letting the soft animal of your body love what it loves” and aptly features a drawing of a goose. (The reference is to Oliver’s poem “Wild Geese”)

Bumper stickers/magnets are a funny thing - one of our few opportunities to communicate messages to total strangers. What do we want people who see our car to think about and what do we want them to know about us? Proud parent of a honor roll student, Lakers gal, poodle lover, fan of an obscure band…

My bumper decor is not surprising because these days I just want to remind as many people as possible that we can hold grief- and rage-filled awareness of how terrible life can be and is, while also finding meaning and even levity in living. I talked about this very important both/and back in September when I had the honor of speaking to Imara Jones about mental health during the presidential election campaigns (that episode of TransLash is here), and I think about it all the time. Being alive includes undeniably horrible experiences. Loss. Disaster. Illness. Pain. Violence. Cruelty. No one makes it through life untouched by at least some awfulness. Those of us whose luck and privilege have thus far kept us comparatively insulated still bear witness to suffering and trauma beyond what feels imaginable, with no guarantee of future protection. And yet.

And yet.

And yet spring blooms have appeared and have transformed the landscape in ways my winter spirit forgot were possible.

And yet ice cream tastes amazing on the first hot day of the year.

And yet I recently spent more than two hours on a disco-ball-lit dancefloor with old and new friends.

And yet a local cafe (Coffee Counter) saw how meaningful Trans Day of Having a Nice Snack was and offered to give us free snacks every month, so now I’m hosting a monthly trans snack day!

And yet many of us have bodies that can move freely and we all have brains that somehow take in stimuli, recognize symbols or sounds, discern letters and words, and comprehend broader meaning while associating to existing knowledge and memories (WTF?!).

And yet the stars and the moon on a clear night.

And yet laughter.

And yet the sun rises and sets, often among stripes of strikingly beautiful colors.

Two house finches made a nest in the wreath we forgot to take down, and because it rests right against the small window at the top of our front door, we’ve had a clear view of it all—from five speckled eggs to five fluttery, wide-eyed baby birds. Incredible. I come out of sessions and pull my stool over the window and peek out, experiencing such delight in watching the nestlings change day to day and bumble around atop each other and open their mouths wide hoping for food.

As we continue to face either the collapse of our democracy or a democracy teetering on collapse (depending on whom you ask), and as many of our communities face violence and losses of rights or threats of this, and as we witness ongoing destruction abroad funded and supported by our government, etc., etc., I hope you can tune into all of your “and yets.” There are innumerable amazing experiences that help make this short run on earth manageable and worthwhile, even alongside the horrors.

Writings Since Last Update

Hey if y’all read my substack and like it could you “like” it on there? It shows other folks that what I’m writing is worth something to others and then increases engagement and exposure.

Music-Inspired Writing

General Writing

As a reminder, I’m teaching a 15-hour CEU course on Affirming and Effective Work with Trans and Nonbinary Adolescents and Young Adults this July. I’ve learned even more since I taught this class for the first time last year. I can’t wait to be in the classroom again. The course is available online and in-person (on Cape Cod) and you can use BARR20 for a 20% discount! Full details and registration here.

Solidarity until next time, my friends and colleagues!