Tl;dr (quick summary): I know you just heard from me, but things are urgent and I’m hosting a webinar on good practices for working with trans and nonbinary clients experience post-election distress. I also wrote some stuff that might be helpful. Click here or on flyer to register. Please share with your networks - I would love for as many people as possible to know about this. (Full update and links to writings below flyer)

Hi everyone - we have entered a new reality since my official November update. With the election results and then the daily drip of horrifying cabinet appointees, we are facing a scary political future that is unprecedented in our country. The federal government’s recognition of trans people’s humanity is all but guaranteed to quickly be removed come January 20, and we have lost hope of federal resistance to state-level hostile trans policies, as Republican state legislators promise further and further violations of our rights. Trans people are not alone in being targeted. And many trans people also hold intersecting identities and backgrounds of groups that will be targeted, like trans immigrants and trans people who need abortions. And of course you need not be a member of a targeted group to be feeling the threat of unmitigated climate change and authoritarian creep. I won’t go on.

I just wanted to say, at the political level, things are looking bad for trans folks and for all of us. And it’s messing people up!!! Maybe you’re feeling messed up by this. Maybe you’re sitting with clients who are really struggling. Maybe both. What I noticed in the days following the election is that a lot of therapists were posting to social media to express exasperation and hopelessness at what they could possibly offer LGBTQ clients and especially trans clients. “So how are we supposed to sit with a trans person reeling from this? What can I possibly say to them?” This understandable overwhelm is partly emotional and partly practical — most of us weren’t trained in trans competency at all, let alone helping trans people manage distress related to very real sociopolitical threat.

I’ve learned a lot over the recent years regarding how to help trans clients navigate horribly oppressive conditions and believe I can help therapists feel more competent in supporting trans folks experiencing distress in this post-election world. It is 100% possible for trans folks to live meaningfully and fully in a scary and shitty political reality, and therapists are particularly well-positioned to help with this. So I’m hosting a webinar next Friday with about 90 minutes of content and 30 minutes of live Q&A. If you can’t make it live but want to watch it later, go ahead and sign up and you’ll get access to an on-demand recording. Also if you have trainees you want to show it to, I’m happy to figure out ways to do that at no extra cost - just email me. Registration is here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/4017316453172/WN_IJTRIFanRDiDlCQ4qnG5vA and I also created a page on my consultation website: www.transpsychologist.com/webinar.

I’ve just started advertising the webinar and already the response has been overwhelming. Clearly there is a desire to show up for trans communities and that has been incredibly moving to me. I just wanted to charge enough to cover costs of hosting and cost of my time, and I wasn’t sure how much interested there would be. Because of the response, I plan to donate a portion of the revenue to Campaign For Southern Equality’s Trans Youth Emergency Fund. I still want to make sure that I get the word to folks outside of my circles, so please share the flyer and link and encourage others to share, as well. It’s a webinar setup with a limited Q&A and no chat, so there’s no way for bad actors to disrupt or do harm to me or other attendees during the training, which is to say, I’m not worried about word getting out far and wide.

Recent Writings

I also wrote a couple things on substack since the election. The first is on radical hope, a concept from the Radical Healing Framework developed by Drs. Helen A. Neville, Hector Y. Adames, Nayeli Y. Chavez-Dueñas, Grace A. Chen, Bryana H. French, Jioni A. Lewis, and Della V. Mosley for healing from and living alongside racial trauma. I apply the principle of radical hope to trans people living in an anti-trans world and reflect on my experience of the TRANSA listening lounge event I hosted, which was a true source of radical hope for me.

I also wrote about experiencing and learning from despair in a post titled, “Hopelessness is a Feeling; It’s Not A Fact,” borrowing from a powerful statement from trans musician and artist ANOHNI in 2016.

Looking ahead

I will be launching one to two monthly paid consultation groups this winter and opening up room in my calendar for individual supervision. I am developing a slightly longer version of my upcoming training that I can hopefully attach 3 CEUs to, with a goal of hosting that in January. I’ll announce that on here and on my professional instagram. Also the day of my webinar (though again you don’t have to attend live), November 22, TRANSA will be released in full. Pre-order it, pre-save it on Spotify, sign up for the newsletter for extra insights, go to your local record store next Friday - just get it. I’m not directly affiliated; I just believe in the healing power of this project so much.

I feel so much love and appreciation for others right now. Thank you for the roles you are playing in building a survivable and worthwhile future out of some truly unwanted circumstances. Remember to rest. Talk to you soon.

Sebastian