On Fictional Therapists

 

Anyone who has sat with me and watched a television show or movie featuring a therapy session can tell you that I get pretty critical when a therapist breaches an important ethic.  Tom and Lynette’s couples therapist in Desperate Housewives invited them to see a play she was in.  Daniel in Ugly Betty slept with his therapist.  Jack Nicholson’s character in Anger Management breaches more boundaries than I can even begin to count.  And the list goes on and on.  Therapists in the media have sexual relationships with their clients, breach confidentiality, and engage in dual role relationships (any time a therapist has a non-therapy relationship with a client).  

So when I heard people talking about a new series starring Lisa Kudrow called “Web Therapy,” I thought to myself, “I’m probably not going to watch that.”  I like to minimize the amount of time I spend feeling angry, so much as other people might avoid a political conversation with someone who has rigid and staunchly different views, I avoid things that make a farce out of my career. 

It’s not that I don’t have a sense of humor about what I do for a living; rather, it’s that I think therapy has a pretty egregious PR problem, and it bothers me when things perpetuate that.  Talking to laypeople about therapy, it’s astounding how many people think therapy is “only for crazy people,” or that all therapists are complete nut jobs, or that therapists are “professional advice givers,” or that it would be appropriate to pursue a romantic relationship with their own therapist.  Some people think you can pop out of high school and hang out a shingle, while others assume you have to have a doctorate.  Misconceptions about who therapists are and what we do run rampant.

But a colleague recommended this show – another therapist, so I gave it a try.  In the first episode, Lisa Kudrow’s character meets with a therapy client.  It becomes immediately apparent that this client is someone she used to work with in her former career.  She tells the client/ former colleague that her therapy sessions are only 3 minutes long.  As they talk, it comes to light that she and this colleague had had a previous office flirtation, and her assumption is that he is coming to therapy to talk with her about how depressing it was when she discontinued their affair.  He insists that this is not why he is there, and goes on to tell her that he’s actually there to talk about something that is happening with his girlfriend, at which point she gets visibly upset that he has a new partner, tells him they are out of time and will “pick up here next week,” and mutes his video chat window.

I could go on and on with all the things that are wrong with this.  People have disputed whether the 50 minute therapy hour (or 45 minute hour according to new insurance regulations) is appropriate or vital, but Kudrow’s 3 minute session reminds me of this Bob Newhart bit.  And I could write for pages about why dual role relationships are unethical, though I think the episode actually does a pretty good job  demonstrating what can happen when a relationship between a therapist and their client takes on a second role in addition to therapy.  But my intention in writing this is not to critically review this particular show.

My intention is to encourage you, dear blog reader, to be a critical media consumer.  If I felt that this blog were likely to fall into the hands of producers of mass media, I would focus on encouraging them to research the careers of the characters they write so they don’t misinform their viewers.  But since you’re my audience, I want to instead urge you to question everything you watch and read, and to treat your brain as a filter rather than a sponge.  

It’s not just therapists either.  I’ve talked to lawyers who are annoyed that everyone thinks they’re Perry Mason, and doctors who cringe whenever someone compares their life to ER or Grey’s Anatomy.  Teachers strive to fulfill curriculum and state testing requirements and try to find a way in all the bureaucracy to still inspire a love of learning in their students, and then they’re faced with angry parents who want to know why they can’t be more like Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds.  The truth of the matter is that unless you have experienced a profession or have a close relationship with someone who has, you probably have a lot of misconceptions, and I'm sure I do too.  

I guess all I’m saying is if you think Web Therapy is hilarious, by all means, watch it.  The fact that it’s a comedy actually makes it less insidious than a therapist-centric drama, because it’s clearly intended to be over the top and not true to life.  But the next time someone you meet says they’re a therapist, please don’t assume that what they do (even if they practice online therapy) is anything like what you’ve seen on this or any other show.

Staying in the Here and Now

Stressful situations can make the most balanced people act in crazy ways.  A few weeks ago, I received an email from a friend who is worried about her relationship with her long-term partner.  She told me she’s been feeling very anxious.  She wrote:

I’m not really eating and sleeping is bad and sometimes talking…helps, but otherwise all I’ve got is that prayer from Alcoholics Anonymous.

I responded with some suggestions about how to manage anxiety, and with her approval, I would like to share them with you.  Here is what I wrote to her:

It sounds like you're dealing with some pretty hefty classic anxiety symptoms here (which are not inherently pathological - everyone in extreme situations has symptoms of anxiety) and like you said, you could really use some good coping skills. 

The best definition of anxiety I've ever heard is that it's any time you leave the present. In other words, if you're worrying about the future or trying to reinvent the past, you're going to feel anxious, but unless you're being chased by a bear, staying in the present very rarely induces that kind of fear-based response. So the best thing you can do to decrease your anxiety is stuff oriented towards keeping you grounded in the present.

A few suggestions:

1. Remind yourself about what's going on in the here and now. One very simple way to do this is to say about a hundred sentences beginning with the phrase "I am aware..." For example, I might say, "I am aware of the noise of the keyboard as I type. I am aware that my cat is trying to figure out how to get into a paper bag. I am aware that there is a mug of three-day-old tea on my desk. I am aware that the garbage can is overflowing. I am aware that my heart is beating faster than it normally does. I am aware of a tension behind my eyes." These should be concrete things that you notice about the here and now, rather than stuff about how you're feeling or what you believe, so not, "I am aware that my partner is a big jerk for making me feel this way. I am aware that I'm panicking about what’s going to happen the next time I pick up the phone."

The other important piece of this is to suspend self-judgment.  Notice that in my list, I didn’t say “I am aware that there is a mug of three-day-old tea on my desk.  That’s really gross, I don’t know why I let that happen and I really need to be better about housekeeping” or “I am aware that my heart is being faster than it normally does.  I wonder why that is – do I feel anxious or scared?  What do I feel anxious or scared about?”  This isn’t about observing and trying to solve new problems; it’s about anchoring you.

2. Mindfulness meditation is pretty awesome. For a while, I wrote it off as hokey, new-age silliness, but recently it's something I'm trying to integrate into my life more because its positive effects have been well-documented for all kinds of things. For example, in addition to helping control anxiety by - you guessed it - keeping you in the present, it's the only thing that has been clinically proven to generate new synapses in the brain in adulthood. It's also a core piece of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, which is the only thing shown to help people with Borderline Personality Disorder, a pervasive disorder characterized by inability to control extreme emotions in response to minor triggers.

Mindfulness meditation is easy to do - at least in theory. One of the things that always made me skeptical of meditation is that as someone who’s pretty down-to-earth, I don't really want to envision my spirit animal accompanying me on a journey through a dark forest. It just doesn’t resonate with me.  

Mindfulness can be done with guided meditation, but the way I practice it - and probably the easiest way for you to practice it is as follows: Find a comfortable position to sit in. Close your eyes and focus on your breathing. This is easiest to do, especially if you're new to this, by either placing your hand on your belly and feeling it get bigger and smaller as you breathe or by noticing the movement of air into and out of your nostrils. If you can, breathe from your diaphragm - though one of the problems with anxiety is that it can impair your ability to do that. If that's the case, no worries - just breathe as deeply as you can. Set an alarm for a period of time - maybe start with 5 minutes (I do 10 minutes per day) and focus on your breathing.  Don't admonish yourself for not doing it right, or for not being able to get as deep a breath as you'd like - just focus on your breathing.

At some point, you will start to feel your mind start to wander. When that happens, don't judge it - just gently bring yourself back to focusing on your breathing. In other words, if I'm doing mindfulness and I think "oh, crap, I meant to stop for milk," I don't follow that with, "dumb Jennie, you're supposed to be focusing and here you are thinking about groceries!" Instead, I think, "my mind wandered. I'm noticing that. Now I'm coming back to focusing on my breathing."

3. Aside from those two things, the best coping skills are the things you know have worked well for you in the past. If you’re a writer, maybe journaling will help - not online or even in a word document, but actual pen-to-paper journaling. There's something visceral about the act of writing, and something that allows you to be more honest with yourself when you’re writing things down than when you're talking about them. None of what you write is stuff to be shared with anyone else in your life, or even to be reread by you, but rather just to get the stuff out of your head... if it stays in your head, it will continue to drive you crazy. If you put it on paper, it no longer has to live exclusively in your head. If you write something really deep or significant, you *can* share it, but don't write with that purpose in mind.

And then lastly, do things that make you feel good. Go for a walk, have dinner with friends, read a good book, take a bath. When I'm upset, I sing so hard I feel like my face might come flying off - whatever your thing is, that's what you should do. Unless your thing is to worry, in which case I refer you to the preceding body of this email.

Cultural Competence and Relationship Minorities

A friend approached me last week in regards to this article about things I learned at Transcending Boundaries, a wonderful conference I had the honor to attend whose purpose is to educate and provide a haven for people who are part of gender, sexual, and relationship minorities.  While she told me she enjoyed the article, she expressed some concerns that she had about my "newness" to some of these issues.  "If you're writing that you just learned that BDSM isn't scary," she queried, "how can someone in the kink community feel comfortable coming to you for therapy?

I answered her with one of my favorite therapy stories.  (The details have been changed to protect client confidentiality.)

A woman came into my office looking very nervous.  She was coming to therapy to explore anxiety issues, and since starting therapy can be an anxiety-provoking experience, she was visibly shaking as she sat down on my couch.

I gave her my standard intake talk about office policies, confidentiality, late cancellations, and other routine matters, and then asked what had brought her to therapy.  She began to talk about debilitating anxiety and some of the things it prevented her from doing in her daily life - things like grocery shopping, socializing, and engaging in hobbies.  She told me about the support system she and her husband shared, and then paused nervously.

"I should tell you... yes, it's going to come out eventually so I should just tell you.  My husband and I are polyamorous."

I smiled.  "Thank you for sharing that with me.  I have a lot of friends who are poly."  And the most amazing thing happened - her body visibly relaxed, and she was able to complete the remainder of the session with a much calmer, more natural demeanor.

I learned a lot from that experience about the importance of an open mind and a willingness to learn from clients about the way they live their lives.  Just like I don't need to be a tax attorney to do therapy with a tax attorney, just like I don't need to have experienced terrible trauma to help someone who has, I also don't need to have the same types of relationships my clients do in order to help them with their other problems.

Seeking therapy is scary for a lot of people, but for people in the GSRM (gender, sexual, and relationship minority) community, there's another layer of difficulty.  Unless they find someone who has a basic understanding of the way they live their lives, they could find themselves face to face with a therapist who wants to spend the first few months of therapy exploring how their polyamory is really just indicative of a fear of commitment, or how their interest in BDSM demonstrates that they must be repressing or reenacting a trauma history.

Being culturally competent means having a basic understanding of a community and a willingness to learn more from an individual - striking a balance between educating oneself about the way people live while also maintaining an understanding that each individual experiences things differently.  Most people talking about cultural competence are referring to racial or ethnic groups, but there are a lot of different types of cultures outside of that definition.  For example, I just read an article about being culturally competent to work with individuals in the military.

I would assert that cultural competence is also important in working with relationship minorities.  I have a fundamental understanding that individuals who are polyamorous or kinky are not "broken" and I leave it to an individual to educate me about what their identity in that community means to them.  I recognize that my polyamorous 3:00 client might "do" polyamory in a very different way than my polyamorous 4:00 client.  I understand that if someone tells me they're exploring kink, they might mean bondage, they might mean role playing, or they might mean something I've never even heard of.  I may need people to clarify terms for me - to remind me that a "switch" is sometimes dominant and sometimes submissive, or to explain to me that a "metamour" is the romantic partner of your romantic partner.  But at the end of the day, I have enough understanding to acknowledge the way my clients live their lives and to help them with whatever led them to seek therapy.

All of this is compatible with my own personal way of looking at mental health: "If you're not hurting anyone else against their will and you don't feel emotionally bad, you're probably doing ok."

5 Common Mistakes Made by Well-Meaning Allies

In every minority community, allies are an instrumental part of the fight for equal rights.  Becoming an ally is a choice and a commitment, as well as an act of bravery.  Unlike members of minority communities, who advocate for equality to better their own lives, allies do so in order to raise awareness of what they perceive to be an injustice that does not directly affect them. 

I recently presented at Transcending Boundaries about common mistakes made by well-meaning allies of the GSRM (gender, sexual, and relationship minorities) community.  This community includes transgender, genderqueer, intersex, gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, pansexual, polyamorous, and kinky individuals.  This presentation stemmed from the premise that allies have the responsibility to educate themselves and to have the humility and willingness to learn from their mistakes.  Following is the information from that presentation. 

1. Making Assumptions

Heteronormativity is the belief that people fall into two distinct and complementary genders, and that male people and female people have defined “roles.”  Additionally, it is the assumption that heterosexuality is the “normal” sexual orientation and that anything else is deviant.  This is not usually a malicious mindset, but it is one that most heterosexual, cisgender people hold until they think to question it. 

This often reveals itself when asking about partners – for example, asking a male-presenting person if he has a girlfriend or wife.  While these questions are well-intended, they reinforce a non-heterosexual person’s idea that he or she is part of an outgroup, and it is usually safer to ask about a person’s “partner” or “significant other.”  A person also has the right to define his or her own identity, and it might not always be what it appears.  For example, a male-bodied human who is attracted to other males is not necessarily gay – he may be bisexual, pansexual, or a heterosexual MtF (male to female) transgender woman.  Similarly, a woman not attracted to men is not necessarily a lesbian – she might be any of the aforementioned, or perhaps asexual.

Additionally, making assumptions about gender and related pronouns can be hurtful, and when in doubt, it is polite to ask.  This can be tricky, because this isn’t always the right course of action to take.  For example, you’re unlikely to ask the checkout person at a grocery store what his or her preferred pronouns are.  On the other hand, if you meet someone in a social situation where many gender-variant people are present, or if someone presents somewhat ambiguously, the best thing to do is directly ask the person what he or she prefers.  While some people prefer male pronouns and others female, still others prefer gender-neutral pronouns, such as “they” or “hir” and “ze”.

Perhaps the most insidious kind of assumption is stereotypes.  Being an ally does not give you the right to perpetuate stereotypes; on the contrary, it gives you the obligation to keep others informed that these stereotypes are not always true.  One common stereotype about this community is that everyone – especially gay men and bisexual individuals – is promiscuous.  While many LGBT people may be polyamorous or have open relationships, many are also monogamous.  The converse assumption – that everyone wants to pair-bond, get married, and have children – is also not always accurate.

2. Outing People

Allies often have many GSRM friends and acquaintances, and because of this it is easy to become desensitized to the level of sensitivity involved in a person’s coming out process.  The world of an ally is often a safe place where people are open-minded and understanding of a wide variety of sexual, gender, and relationship orientations, but unfortunately there are still a lot of places where that does not hold true, and where outing someone could seriously compromise their safety. 

Furthermore, coming out is a lifelong process, and something that people have to make a decision about every time they meet a new person.  When a person does come out and is met with a positive response, this can be very empowering.  If you out someone, you take that power away from them. 

Words can be warped as rumors travel, and once something is said, it can’t be unsaid.   For these reasons, it’s important to seriously consider the ramifications of your words before telling a third party that your friend is gay, transgender, polyamorous, etc. 

3. Invasive Questions

Allies are sometimes given very personal information about a friend, including details about a person’s sexual activities or genitalia, but no one ever has the obligation to answer questions about these things.  When asking questions of a friend, or especially a stranger, it’s very important to be respectful.  It’s very disconcerting for a person to become a case study, and subjected to a barrage of questions about what lesbians do in bed, or what is in a transwoman’s pants.

If you do decide to ask some of these questions, there are a lot of things to consider.  The first is whether you have properly built a rapport with this person.  Next, think about what you would be comfortable disclosing in a similar situation.  For example, if a person asked you to describe the most intimate parts of your body, how would you feel?  Lastly, if you are going to ask a personal question, acknowledge that you don’t have the right to the information by saying something like, “look, you don’t have to answer this, and if I’m overstepping a boundary, please let me know.”  And if the other person says they’re not comfortable answering your question, respect that.

4. Us/Them Mentality

In some ways, being an ally is a huge responsibility, but in other ways, it can be very easy.  When you’re with your GSRM friends, you’re able to talk about fighting the good fight, but when you’re at work, you can be just another straight guy.  But the problem with this is that it ignores the parts of you that are not 100% heterosexual.  Sexuality and gender are a spectrum, and a lot of people fall in the 99% range of heterosexuality and cisgenderness.  However, most people can acknowledge that there are parts of them that do have same-sex attractions or that stray from their “traditional gender roles.”  Acknowledging these parts of oneself can increase empathy for people within the minority.

Conversely, it’s important to recognize where you are “privileged.”  What this means is that as part of the dominant culture (in other words, the part of you that allows you to be “that straight guy” at work), you are afforded certain advantages that the people to whom you are an ally lack.  Peggy McIntosh developed a theory of race called the Invisible Knapsack, in which she listed 27 “privileges” that are unknowingly held by Caucasian individuals.  Many of these are adaptable to be relevant to the GSRM community, such as:

• I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my sexual orientation most of the time.
• If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure that my neighbors will be neutral or pleasant to me.
• I can go shopping alone most of the time (for clothing of my correct gender), pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
• I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my sexual orientation or gender identity widely represented.
• When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my sexual orientation and/or gender identity made it what it is.
• I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.
• I can swear or not answer letters without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals of my sexual orientation or gender identity.
• I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my sexual or gender identity.
• I am never asked to speak for all the people of my sexual orientation or gender identity.
• I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.
• If a traffic cop pulls me over, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my sexual orientation or gender identity.
• I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children’s magazine featuring people of my sexual orientation or gender identity.
• I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared.
• I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of sexual orientation.
• I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my gender identity cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.
• I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my sexual orientation or gender identity will not work against me.
• If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it has discriminatory overtones.

Additionally, we developed a few that are specific to GSRM individuals:

• I can have a child without being judged.
• I can hold hands with a partner in public without fear of discriminatory remarks or violence.
• I never have trouble knowing which bathroom to use.
• I can post details about my relationship status on Facebook without worrying about who will see it.
• If my partner gets sick, I can visit them in the hospital without anyone intervening.  If they pass away, I can rest assured that our children will remain with me.
• I can get married without it being viewed as a “political” act.

Because of this unique position of holding privilege but also being aware of the challenges faced by GSRM people, allies are able to form a bridge between these communities and those who are less informed about issues related to them.

5. Social Loafing

If you have chosen to be an ally, you have chosen to be an advocate.

In the 1960s, a woman named KittyGenovese was brutally murdered outside her Queens apartment while many of her neighbors observed.  This event resulted in the development of a psychological theory called “social loafing” or “diffusion of responsibility.”  What this means is that the greater the number of people witnessing an event, the less likely any one person is to intervene.  It’s easy for allies to view themselves as “just an ally” and not become involved, but advocacy is one of the most important roles of allies.  It’s easy to stand in silence in response to the “white guy nudge” when an injustice has occurred or an insensitive joke has been made, but it is the role of every ally to stand up for equality, sensitivity, and what is right.

Being an ally does not just mean saying you have gay friends.  It means helping to further the rights of gender, sexual, and relationship minorities so that they can enjoy the same rights and privileges that we do.

There's no place like...

I lived in a house in California until I was 5.  Then I lived in another until I was 18.  Then I spent the summer with my long-distance boyfriend in Georgia before starting my freshman year of college in Ohio.  I remember, upon arriving in Ohio, sitting down in front of a computer to lament on my Livejournal (a blog before blogs were a thing) that nowhere felt like home.  California was left behind.  Many of my valued people were in Georgia.  And all my stuff was in Ohio.  I remember pontificating on what I probably believed at the time were very deep thoughts about the nature and meaning of home, and how it was all three places, but simultaneously none of them.

Fastforward ten years, and at least as many living spaces.  In my four years of college, I lived in ten different places - three dorm rooms (first in Ohio, then in Georgia) and seven apartments with my then-boyfriend who was from a military family and had therefore never learned the benefits of housing stability.  Then I moved back in with my parents during graduate school, went to a "starter apartment" in Boston, and a year later moved to a wonderful apartment in the quasi-suburbs. 

The last of these apartments was incredible, and I was certain I would live there until I was ready to buy a house.  But then my partner and I received an unwelcome visit from our until-that-moment-wonderful landlord, who informed us that he had sold the building where we lived, and we had one month to find another home.

Why am I recounting such a personal story on a blog that is supposed to be about therapy issues?  Because this entire incident has me thinking a great deal about displacement, moving, and the associated stressors.  The moment we were told we had to move, I immediately felt homeless and unstable.  I had been floating comfortably among the top three layers of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (image below, more of an explanation behind the link) and now I was knocked down to level 1, wondering where I would sleep!

Then I went through a grief process, akin to the stages developed by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.  First I felt denial.  "Absolutely not!" I declared.  "We are staying right here.  We are not going anywhere.  I will magically stumble upon enough money to outbid the buyers and we will buy this house and we are going to keep living in this apartment!"  Then anger: "I hate the landlord!  I hate the buyers!  I hate the construction workers!  I will scream hateful words at them all!"  Next, bargaining: "I'd be willing to pack all our stuff, put it outside, then move it back in and set it up.  But I'm not moving to another place."  Then depression, where I became rather quiet and negative.  Finally, reluctant acceptance: "Ok, let's start looking for another place..."

(It's worth noting that grief can actually be much more complicated and individualized than the Kubler-Ross model, but in this case, it wasn't.)

So we found another apartment, and it's big, and it's quirky, and it has most of what we were looking for, and it's within our budget.  So that was good - we packed and moved all of our belongings, and we've been here for about a week.  But I still drive on autopilot to the old place.  When I'm at work, picturing myself relaxing at the end of the day, I picture my old living room or kitchen.  I'm sure it will feel like I live here eventually, but in the meantime, I'm just trying to navigate the psychology of moving and the instability and upheaval it brings, and to figure out how long it will take for it to feel like I live here.

I'm curious about other people's experiences... if you don't mind, I'd love to hear your stories about moving to a new apartment and how long it took for them to feel like home.  Please leave them in comments below.

8 Things I Learned at Transcending Boundaries

This past weekend, I attended an event called Transcending Boundaries whose stated purpose is to “serve our ever-evolving communities, including bisexual, pansexual, fluid, queer, transgender, transsexual, genderqueer, asexual, intersex, polyamorous, and kinky persons, as well as allies, those who prefer not to use labels, and those who are questioning their identities.”  There were academic and informational panels, social activities, and an endless supply of interesting, lovely, and genuine people to talk to.  As an ally to all of these communities and a therapist hoping to increase my competence to work with them, I attended the conference not knowing quite what to expect, and was overwhelmed by the consideration and acceptance I experienced over the course of the weekend.  I learned a lot about many different things, and I’d like to share some of these nuggets with you.

1. There are as many ways to live as there are people living, and all of them – as long as they respect the rights of others – are equally valid.  My general rule has always been that if you are not hurting anyone physically or emotionally, and you feel good inside, the way you’re living your life falls within the spectrum of “you’re doing fine.”  This point was driven home this weekend when I met a lot of different people who live their lives in a lot of different ways.  I encountered very little that I hadn’t seen before in some respect, but being surrounded by so many wonderful people who defied convention really solidified this conviction that I already had. 

 

2. GSRM is a thing.  First there was GLB (gay, lesbian, bisexual).  Then transgender people were recognized and there was GLBT.  And then the acronym grew from there and we had GLBTQQIA (to account for queer, questioning, intersex, and asexual people) and it got overwhelming and everyone had different versions of the acronym that considered other populations and some people just started calling it “Alphabet Soup.”  So to solve that problem, the proper term became “queer.”  I, for one, have never been completely comfortable using the term “queer.”  I do, because many people who are very near and dear to me fall under this umbrella, but in less savvy populations, it still holds a very negative connotation.  It’s also worth mentioning that none of these acronyms or terms account for polyamory, kink, or other alternative relationship and family styles.  And thus developed GSRM, which stands for Gender, Sexual, and Relationship Minorities, which I think is a wonderful, broad, and encompassing term to discuss all of these groups and experiences, and which I had never heard before this weekend.

3. The proper use of “they” as a gender-neutral pronoun.  The following is something I already knew: Gender is not binary.  What this means is that our society tends to conceptualize a male/female dichotomy, which says that people who have male genitals are male and people who have female genitals are female.  Ok, then there are transgender people, and if a person can take a small leap of comprehension, it’s easy to understand that there are biological males who feel female and vice versa. 

But what a lot of people don’t know is that just like sexuality, gender is a spectrum.  Some people don’t feel completely male or completely female.  I remember how baffled I was the first time I encountered this several years ago.  Trying to be sensitive, I asked a then new friend what pronouns were preferred, and that person shrugged and said “either.”  At the time, I didn’t get it.  I thought that maybe he (I chose male pronouns, following the example of this person’s partner) felt male but didn’t feel comfortable asking people to validate that.  It wasn’t until sometime later that I encountered the terms “genderqueer,” “genderfluid,” "gender variant," and "gender nonconforming," which helped me to conceptualize that this person felt somewhere between male and female, or maybe completely neutral and not even on that spectrum at all.  But our language doesn’t provide pronouns for people like that.  Some people have tried inventing them and use words like “zie” and “hir” but if you use those words, many people have no idea what you’re talking about.  Others just prefer the use of the word “they,” as in “oh, that’s Alex.  I met them a few hours ago.  Let me introduce you to them.”  The first few times I tried it, the word “they” as a singular pronoun felt weird in my mouth and really awkward to say.  But after this conference, I feel confident saying that I feel pretty competent using these pronouns.  

4. BDSM is not scary.  BDSM has always been the part of the GSRM community that I have distanced myself from.  I haven’t gone to panels that cover related issues or talked to people in “the scene” about it because frankly, it has always made me uncomfortable.  But talking to people at this conference, I’m amazed at the level of respect and communication necessary to negotiate a BDSM scene.  It involves setting boundaries and parameters, being open about levels of comfort, and learning how to communicate if things have gone too far.  There are still a lot of ways that people “play” that I can’t imagine ever trying myself… but I think that when laypeople talk about Bondage, Dominance, Sadism, and Masochism, the words that come to mind are often things like “perverted” or “depraved.”  But if you take as a given that everything that occurs is consensual and set boundaries are respected, non-practitioners of BDSM could actually learn a whole lot about sexual communication from this community.

5. Coming out is hard.  I knew this in my head, obviously.  And I’ve been, alternately, a shoulder to cry on and a bulldog protecting perceived threats to my friends for years and years.  But here – try an experiment.  Write down on a piece of paper the ten most important things in your life… the things that get you out of bed and make your life worth living.  It can be anything, from people to activities to your career to a cup of coffee.  No seriously, give this a try – it’s meaningful and important.  Come back to this article when you’ve completed that task.

Ok, done?  Now cross off three things from that list.  Did you do that?  Think about how you’re feeling, having crossed those things out of your life.  Alright, now cross off three more.  Did you do it?  Was it harder?  Check in with yourself – how are you feeling right now?  Ok, now cross off three more so that there’s only one thing left.  How do you feel?

We did this experiment in one of the workshops this weekend, and I’ll tell you – it was hard.  I crossed off my first three without too much trouble.  Then my next three were harder – I found myself crossing off most of the things that make me who I am – interests like musical theatre and scrapbooking that are an enormous part of how I define myself and how others define me.  I looked at my list, and all I had left were my partner, my parents, my friends, and singing, the last of which feels like my very core.  And when the activity leader told me to cross off three more, I stuck my pen in my ponytail and crossed my arms.  I absolutely refused.  But when I thought about it later, I thought to myself that I probably would have kept singing, because it’s such a part of how I express myself that I would need it to genuinely process the loss of everything else.  And that’s a tame reaction – other people in the room were sobbing at the thought of these losses.

Here’s the parallel: A person who is thinking about coming out has a perceived loss of all of the important things in their life.  They won’t necessarily lose these things, but they feel that they may.  And so every time they are open about who they are, there is a fear that other important pieces of their life will be lost. 

6. There is still a lot of fighting ahead.  Advocating for the rights of minority or marginalized groups is such an important thing to do.  Massachusetts recently designated transgender individuals as a protected group when it comes to housing and employment, but there’s still a lot left to fight for.  In the transgender community, for example, public accommodations are still a big issue.  Gender-neutral bathrooms are not widely available, and a transgender person can be asked to leave any establishment where management is not comfortable with a person’s non-conforming gender presentation.  I even met a woman who told me she was fired from her job because she came out as polyamorous.  I’m confident that with people like Gunner Scott, Ignacio Rivera, and Lorelei Erisis advocating for these causes, changes will be made, but there’s still a long way to go.

7. A family is not always two people plus children.  At this conference, I really came to appreciate the notion that polyamory is more than just a desire to be “promiscuous.”  It means a mindset in which you are open to being in a relationship – be it romantic or purely sexual – with more than one person.  I met some incredibly family-minded individuals at the conference who defined family differently than how most people think of it.  Four people who love each other all raising children together, or two committed individuals in a primary relationship who both have partners on the side to fill needs – whether those needs are sexual, social, or something else.  It’s a mindset wherein people don’t depend on one person to fill every single need they may have.  Some people talked about being an introvert with an extroverted partner who likes to go out a lot, and the value of that person having other partners to go to some of those events so that the introvert can have “alone time” and sit on the couch and read without their partner feeling neglected.  I still think monogamy is for me (and I’m pretty sure most poly people wouldn’t hold that against me) but I’ve definitely broadened my perspective of what makes a family or a relationship.

8. Community and supporting one another are key.  The theme of this year’s conference was “bringing us all together.”  This reflects the importance of community not only among transpeople and among poly people and among kinky people and among gay people and among asexual people and so on, so forth, but also the importance of being supportive of other communities.  I learned a lot by venturing outside my normal “comfort zone” and was pleasantly surprised at how welcomed I was.  It’s so important to question biases, educate yourself, and be there for other groups.  I also learned that an ally isn’t just someone who’s privileged in every area and supportive of marginalized groups, but also someone who is part of some of those marginalized groups but advocates for the rights of other groups where they themselves are privileged.