Full Moon issue #11
Hello wonderful people,
I cannot believe I started writing this newsletter just over a year ago! I know I skipped a month here and there because, just like you, I’m human and sometimes balls are going to get dropped, and that’s ok, but I’m so glad I made this commitment to myself (and to you) to sit down and share parts of my own journey with you through writing. I’ve been so moved by the reconnections and connections this newsletter has enabled. I hope my reflections bring some value to your inbox and, if you come to any events I’m part of, please come and say hi! I may be super awkward when you do (*hello neurodivergence*) but I assure you that I treasure each interaction, question, and piece of feedback! Thanks again for being here! Now, let’s get to it, but, before we do, here’s a reminder and the agenda for this issue.
Please, as always, read on and feel free to hit reply to let me know what you think, or what you’d like me to reflect on in future issues. Even when I do not manage to reply, please know I read them all eventually. Your questions, comments, and, above all, YOU are always welcome here.
Here’s the agenda for what you will find in this email!
Reflection corner: What part of yourself are you hiding out of fear of being too much?
Events and Projects
Let’s support each other: fundraisers and mutual aid requests
Some things I am exploring in my free time
Bonus pics of me at a Pride Prom social dance at my local ballroom dance studio!
May this Full Moon illuminate our whole, tender, complex yet simple hearts. May we remember our own and each other’s humanity. May we deeply understand that our roots are deeply intertwined. May we be fierce and open-hearted in our relational dances, knowing that moments of misattunement and rupture are unavoidable. May we be a cacophony of undeniable wildflowers who are not afraid to bloom anywhere.
We are all essential, and that includes YOU too dear ones.
Reflection corner
What part of yourself are you hiding out of fear of being too much, and maybe also not enough?
I don’t remember much of my childhood that clearly, so it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when I started to feel like I was too much. I am sure my childhood trauma had something to do with it, but there’s more to consider! I do remember clearly feeling that I couldn’t do anything right, and that I was always too much and yet never enough when I moved to England in my very early 20s. In fact, I was around the age my daughter is now when I made that move. When I think about that, I can access so much more compassion for myself. So many moments in my 20s and early 30s still cause my heart to contract a little when I think of all the ways in which I felt too much while living there. I was too loud, too big, too clueless, too feminist, too stupid, too foreign, too “extroverted”, too angry, too mouthy, too Italian, too shameless, too different, too ill, too much. I was also never enough. I was never smart enough to get the academic job interviews that my Anglo peers seemed to be lining up at the end of their doctorate, even though my thesis had won a national award and I was applying to all the “right” jobs. I was never small and quiet enough to feel like I fit in around the dinner table. I was never straight enough or queer enough to feel at home (and relatively safe) somewhere. I was never regulated enough to be worthy of being heard. I was never pretty enough to be loved the way I thought I wanted to. I was never patient enough to “wait for my turn” when talking, or hoping for a promotion that would never come. I was never sick enough to be understood as disabled. I got used to living in the liminal space between “too much” and “never enough”. Maybe some of you can relate? Maybe it’s just me, and, if so, that’s ok, nowadays.
It would take years of unpacking, unlearning and relearning to understand the roles that misogyny, classism, white Anglo supremacy, xenophobia, protestant ethics, ableism, queerphobia, especially biphobia, fatphobia, colonialism, cisgenderism, catholicism, and sanism played in my experiences. During that time, and sometimes now still, I just internalized it all as a personal moral failure. I believed for far too long that there was something deeply wrong with me, obviously, and that my job was to eradicate it and become my best possible self. It wasn’t just exhausting, it was also painful and, ultimately, dehumanizing. Don’t get me wrong, I really tried hard to “heal” since I blamed my trauma for much of what I was experiencing. Again, it’s not like my trauma didn’t matter, it’s just that it was never the only reason, and maybe it wasn’t even the main one. Who knows, it’s not like we can weigh those sorts of things on a scale. I worked hard at making myself more emotionally regulated, I tried to speak more softly and quietly, I apologized over and over and over again. Guess what? It was never enough either because, like a wise therapist - whose name I wish I remembered- said to a group I was part of once, healing is not a self-improvement project, but rather a self-acceptance project. I heard that wisdom at the time, and shared it with so many clients, yet it would be years still before I could really take it in for myself.
Recently something has shifted though. I’m not sure if it’s age, knowing that I am neurodivergent, all the unlearning and relearning swirling together in the right pattern, nearly 30 years of being in therapy, the social experiment that is the Internet, or just sheer exhaustion, but I’m tired of hiding parts of myself from the world in fear that everyone will find out that I’m too much or not enough. Because, here’s the not-so-secret secret, every human is too much and not enough. We could never be enough by ourselves because we weren’t meant to approach the world alone. We’re always too much because our needs, and our essential humanity, cannot breathe and be met, or even viewed as legitimate, under colonial capitalism. However, white Anglo supremacy, colonialism, and protestant ethics would have us believe that if we do “all the right things”, we will be rewarded with success, belonging, love, good health, security, and even eternal life for the Christians among us. Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not knocking Christianity as a religion. I believe that spirituality is a core need and a central part of who we are for many of us. I’m pointing out that Christian supremacy, as an ideology, especially within protestantism, might have sold us the idea that our ethics are supposed to be driven by a potential reward in the afterlife, rather than by the recognition of the inherent sacredness (wholeness, if you prefer) of life. I’m also saying that white supremacy culture has sold us perfectionism, binary thinking, conflict avoidance, and more as ways in which we can keep ourselves safe and whole when, in fact, these strategies only lead to alienation, disembodiment, dehumanization, suffering, isolation, repression, and oppression.
I decided that I’m done curating parts of myself away for Anglo comfort, cis comfort, patriarchal comfort, abled comfort, you get the gist, right? Doing so only contributes to upholding the systems of oppression and control I’ve been working to challenge for most of my life. It can truly feel like filling a cup with no bottom, on a bad day. So, I’m done doing that, and it’s simply terrifying. Luckily I also realized that I’ve been doing this for longer than I give myself credit for sometimes, so it’s not all happening at once, since that is not how we work as humans, in my experience. In many ways, I’m just taking that next move on the path, that deeper breath, that risk of chosen (not enforced) vulnerability that often leads to deeper intimacy, with ourselves and one another. Maybe this is just how healing is unfurling. I don’t know, to be honest. In many ways, it’s just what it is (as simple and infuriating and factual as that statement is). Here’s what I know: this is a practice and not a one and done kind of deal. It’s the practice of not abandoning myself and meeting myself with the same care I would meet another. It’s the practice of knowing my ground and my right size, not as dictated by others, but as a knowing in my bones and breath and nerves that I am part of the web of life and trusting that there is a me-shape where I belong in the multiverse, no matter what, and that I can rest there. It’s the practice of feeling fear and discomfort as I strive to be in integrity with my values. It’s the stretching of the buds growing as new neural pathways form, reaching for the warmth of the sun in early Spring. It’s the dance of life, of connection to myself, to you, to this beautiful, infuriating, magical, exhausting, and life-giving world. I don’t have many answers, in fact maybe I have none, but I’m sharing this in case you’ve been making yourself smaller too, or if you’ve been puffing yourself up because the feelings of always being too much and never enough are unbearable. I share this as a practice of gratitude for all those who have opened up vulnerably through writing, and art, and dance, and music, and community care, and even social media, and who have reminded me, sometimes in the most challenging moment, that I’m whole.
events and projects
I have a short article in the new issue of the Psychotherapy Networker discussing why, as clinical supervisors, we need to challenge the way the field can alienate minoritized supervisees, leading to some of them choosing to leave the field. Writing for this magazine for therapists, which I have subscribed to and read for several years, is truly a dream come true and I hope to be able to write more for them in the future.
The Gender-Affirming Care Guidelines I co-edited and contributed to for AAMFT (American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy) are now out and free to download! They’re very much a labor of love by an incredible team of volunteers supported by our professional association. It was incredible to see such a large team of majority trans, nonbinary &/or gender expansive family therapists come together to create this document. I cannot wait for you to read them and tell us what you think (and yes, there is more being dreamed of and worked on at AAMFT so keep watching this space), thank you!
I’ve had the honor to be interviewed by my colleague Martha Kauppi for The Institute of Relational Intimacy. We’ve had a lovely conversation about trans and queer attuned therapy, which you can view on my YouTube’s channel here, thanks to Martha’s generous spirit.
I also had the wonderful opportunity to do a live on social media with my dear friend, teacher, and Internationally renowned musician and artist Alessandra Belloni about her devotion to the Black Madonna and her educational programmes she runs in Southern Italy every summer. You can see this on my YouTube channel as well here.
I am thrilled to be one of the plenary keynote speakers at the upcoming AASECT conference. For the Engaging Diversity Plenary, I will be giving a talk entitled The Future (and Past) of Sexual Liberation Is Neuroqueer, Disabled, Mad, and Deviant. Hope to see some of you in Las Vegas! And if you’re local to Las Vegas and you’d like me to do a community event there, please let me know and I will do my best to make it happen!
Dr Sophia Graham and I have created a course on mapping your relationship ecosystem! Interested? I will email all newsletter subscribers with a discount code when it’s launched so watch this space! It’s pretty much ready but we are having some folks beta test it first!
I have also had the absolute delight to spend time in person with my new friend and colleague Dr Mackenzie Steiner and we will be bringing to our community a wonderful class called The Collective Alchemy of Gender Liberation. Watch this space for a link to our website soon! I promise it will come!
A new season of Gender Stories is coming later this year! Can you believe that my little, independent, labor-of-love podcast has had over 112,000 unique downloads so far? While you wait for the upcoming season, you can listen to any episodes you’ve missed wherever you listen to podcasts. Want me to speak about a particular topic on the podcast, please let me know!
My process of mapping out my commitments is ongoing and dynamic, so if you want to collaborate or bring me to your community, please let me know!
I will be around the west coast of the so-called US in the Summer and on the east coast in the Fall, all being well.
Get in touch if you’d like to organize something where you live!
Would you like me to do an event at your local, independent bookstore or hire me to speak somewhere? Please contact me directly for bookstore events or media queries, hire me throughthis speakers bureau, or check out my website for more information on speaking engagements:alexiantaffi.com Thanks!
Let’s support each other!
Remember: we keep each other safe, healthy and creative!
My beloved friend Billy Navarro Jr is facing some hefty medical bills and has a fundraiser still going to meet them. He’s one of the most generous people I know and gives so much to the community, especially children and young people. I hope we can show up for Billy as he keeps showing up for everyone around them everyday! Let’s bring the community love friends, and help this fundraiser reach the goal as soon as possible! If so much money can be giving to racist white women, surely we can do better and support our community members through the hardship caused by systems of oppression. Right?!
A project that I hope many of you will contribute to is the recently launched Project Rainbow Turtle, an Indigenous LGBTQ+ centered Mutual Aid Fund and Network.
If you feel moved to donate to trans-led organizations, given the ongoing rise of anti-trans rhetoric and legislation, check out the Transgender Law Center, which has several, amazing projects going, including an Action for Transformation Fund, as well as the Trans Justice Funding Project, which supports trans-led grassroots efforts in the so-called United States and Occupied Territories.
Please let me know if there is a fundraiser, either personal or for an organization, that you would like me to lift up in this section! Thanks!
Some things I am exploring in my free time
Please note that none of these links are sponsored. If I ever advertise something as an affiliate, I will make it very clear! Thanks!
My wonderful friend Tristan Katz was interviewed about gender-affirming care for this brief, yet impactful, documentary created by Ani Ceccacci and you can access it free on YouTube here!
I finally managed to watch the fabulous, award-winning documentary Framing Agnes a couple of months ago. It’s hard to describe how moving and insightful this documentary is! Please watch it if you get a chance. You won’t regret it, honestly!
My fabulous friend Mackenzie, who watched Framing Agnes with me when I visited her, introduced me to Abigail Thorn and the incredible play she wrote and performed in, The Prince. IT’S SO GOOD THAT I AM USING ALL CAPS FOR THIS. Honestly, watch it if you’re able! Totally worth the time, especially if you’re a Shakespear and gender nerd like me!
Finally, I have so enjoyed binge watching North of North, a comedy TV series with a fantastic Indigenous cast, including the wonderful Inuk actress Anna Lambe. I am so excited the show has been renewed for a second season! If you haven’t watched it yet, this show has so many layers and it’s so incredibly moving and funny! It’s one not to miss, truly.
If you made it this far, thank you! I hope you have found this interesting, useful or enjoyable in some way. If so, feel free to pass this on to a friend or, better yet, pass on the link to subscribe directly! Thank you for being here!
And here is me, as promised, trying to look fabulous, despite being really tired honestly, at the wonderful Pride Prom themed social dance night at my beloved studio North Shore Ballroom. It was so wonderful to be able to attend with my daughter as well. Truly a special evening of dancing fun! And yes, I am wearing a tiara on my head because why not?
Let’s keep opening our hearts to one another (with consent and when it’s safe enough to do so) and transform our perspectives together!
Alex