Full Moon issue #12
Hello wonderful people,
I am finally ready to launch some of the ideas I have been brewing this year, but I need your help to figure out my timeline! Will you please take 2 minutes to take the poll below and let me know which of my projects you’re most excited about? Thank you!
Below are some of the programs I am planning to launch over the next few months. Some are for therapists, some are for the general public. The poll is super quick and just asks which of these programs would you be most interested in enrolling in, if any. The results will help me figure out which program to launch first! Thank you!
[POLL]
Which of the following programs would you be most excited to take and/or recommend?
Queer Thriving in Relationships - asynchronous online course (with optional coaching group) [audience: general public]
Remembering who we are: a journey of collective self-exploration [audience: general public]
Healing from Relational Trauma Together - transformational journey into intimacy with ourselves and others. [audience: general public]
Relational Systems Mentorship: a year long program for therapists, counselors, social workers, and coaches working with all types of intimate relationships. [audience: therapists, counselors, social workers and coaches]
Queering Sex Therapy: A year long mentorship program [audience: therapists, counselors, and social workers]
Open Office Hours - ad hoc consultation group
The embodied pleasure club: a membership community dedicated to nurturing embodiment, presence, and pleasure to sustain our liberatory work. [audience: general public and interested providers]
Cinema & TV Club with Dr Alex: cozy up for popcorn & perspectives. [audience: general public and interested providers]
Thank you!
Before going to the agenda for this newsletter, I also wanted to make sure you knew that there is still time to sign up for the co-created space that the wonderful Tristan Katz and I have been collaborating on: Holding Ground. It’s for any trans, nonbinary &/or gender expansive leaders! Find out more at: https://www.katz-creative.com/holding-ground We start on July 18th! Join us?
Here’s the agenda for what you will find in this email!
Reflection corner: giving ourselves permission
Events and Projects
Let’s support each other: fundraisers and mutual aid requests
Some things I am exploring in my free time
May this Full Moon illuminate all the crevices in which we stash away our needs and desires so that we can better understand, love, and express ourselves. May we give ourselves and each other permission to be fully human. May we give ourselves and each other what we need.
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.
Reflection corner
Giving ourselves permission
One of the things I have really struggled with over the past year or so is giving myself permission to make certain changes and do things differently both at work and in my personal life. One of the reasons for the changes is my diminished capacity and increased fatigue, which I believe I have written about before. However, I don’t want to talk about the why today, I want to write about the process of giving ourselves permission to change, to do things differently, to challenge the status quo in our own lives. Much as my values are rooted in collective liberation, claiming my own, personal freedom and agency has been much more challenging than I expected to be honest.
The ghosts from the past, such as fear of scarcity, judgement, self-doubt, trauma, to name a few, collude with the ongoing internalized ableism, the impact of colonialism, and the carceral logic we’re immersed in within dominant culture to create a seductive cocktail of… misery, quite frankly! Let me break what I am trying to say with an example. I need to work fewer hours per day because of my fatigue, and I have also been struggling with mornings, but I feel incredibly guilty when I start working after 10am or 11am, even though I often keep going until 6 or 7pm, if I can. I have tied my own worth to my productivity for so long that, as someone who is self-employed, I have become a terrible boss to myself! I have also been struggling with emails and even during weekends or in the evenings, I am constantly feeling guilty and cannot rest because I know there are things I “should” do that I am not doing.
Much of this is, of course, not just a personal struggle. It’s a reasonable response to the collective overwhelm, to the grief that is present everyday, and to the fear many of us minoritized folks continue to live in as the current regime keeps working towards our demise. Some of this is also neurodivergence: the inability to rest, the competing impulses between needing stimuli and restful quiet, the restlessness along with the exhaustion from navigating a neurotypical world everyday. I also know I am not alone in struggling with this. One of my partners used to feel guilty if we went out for lunch or coffee during the week, for example, even though they weren’t working! There are so many things we all feel we “should” do. Take a moment to think about all the shoulds in your own life… What are the narrow pathways in your life that you feel you cannot deviate from? I know there are many of those in my own life!
I used to be proud of having really tried to eradicate the word “should” from my own vocabulary. This practice invited me to distinguish between things I actually have to do, such as keep working and making a certain amount of money to pay the bills under capitalism, and things I can choose to do or want to do. When I say, I should exercise, do I mean that I have to, I want to, or I choose to? And of course, because life isn’t binary indeed, some things might be a mix of all those! I feel I have to exercise to stay strong and keep my healthcare providers happy, but I also want to exercise because it improves my quality of life, and I choose to exercise because it is a way to prioritize my health.
It turns out, though, that just changing your vocabulary is not quite enough to truly challenge deep seated habits living in the sinews of my bodymind. Don’t get me wrong, it is a great move towards it, but it wasn’t enough to truly claim my own power and agency, to give myself permission to build the life I want, need, and have the privilege to build for myself and my family at the moment. It takes more than changing my vocabulary and my thinking, it takes the practice of doing things differently, sitting in the discomfort when we do, noticing all the scary feelings that might arise for those of us living with trauma, and doing it differently over and over. Giving myself the permission to honor the circadian rhythm of my bodymind and not the clock of capitalism. Giving myself permission to eat what I can digest and tolerate sensorially, rather than judge every mouthful for not being well balanced enough. Giving myself permission to rest and let my mind wander with no purpose rather than extract every ounce of productivity from my tired bones. Giving myself permission to laugh, be, and connect with my family, with the land, and with myself instead of pushing through beyond my capacity because the needs around me are too great.
There is nobody else who can give us that permission slip. Over the past three decades, I worked hard to learn that now, as an adult, I am the one who gets to decide what I want, what I need, what I do, even though, of course, I am not doing so in isolation from others. We impact one another because we have power. Too often, though, that power is obfuscated or distorted because of trauma, not just individual trauma but also collective trauma. Healing means also recognizing that power, in ourselves, in each other, knowing where my freedom ends if it takes away someone else’s. We’re the ones who need to give ourselves that permission slip, who need to evaluate and consider our needs, wants, and have tos within ourselves and our own ecosystems. Nobody else can do it for us, even though sometimes we desperately seek answers in others, or in places and things outside of ourselves. At least, that’s what I believe.
Lately, as part of practicing giving myself permission to do things differently, I have been trying to ask myself questions like:
what would I do if I wasn’t worried about [insert worry of the day / moment here];
what is the kindest choice towards myself, not just my current self but also my past and future selves;
what is something I haven’t tried before in this kind of situation; what am I not giving myself permission to do?
So, for what is worth, I share those reflections and questions with you. Maybe there’s something that you’re not giving yourselves permission to do… Is it resting because you feel you need to be productive at all times? Is it nurturing pleasure because you feel guilty with so much suffering going on in the world? Is it being gentler and softer with yourselves because the only motivation you have ever known was pushing through harshly? Whatever it might be, I hope we can all give ourselves permission to move towards liberation not only externally, but also internally, especially if the world has placed extra bindings on our freedom, because where we find that permission, that agency, we also find our power.
events and projects
I am still super excited about having had a short article published in the Psychotherapy Networker. As a long-time reader of this magazine, contributing to it has definitely been writing goals! If you haven’t had a chance to check out my piece on how the field is sometimes failing our minoritized prelicensure clinicians, you can read it here.
My wonderful colleague and friend, Tristan Katz, and I are offering a 3-months container for a co-created relational space for trans, nonbinary, and gender expansive leaders! We start on July 18th and I am so looking forward to being in this space with some of you! Want to find out more? You can sign up and/or read more about our offering here.
I am so looking forward to being in conversation with the fabulous Stuart Getty, author of How To They/Them, for an event at Zenith, an independent bookstore in Duluth, Minnesota, on August 28th. If you’re local, join us!
Alongside some great Portland colleagues, I am organizing a week-long sex therapy training in person from November 12th-19th, 2025. There will be a Foundational SAR, an Advanced SAR on Trans Sex, co-facilitated with the fabulous Lucie Fielding, and a weekend of trainings, networking and community in between the two. Details are coming soon. If you want to stay informed, please let us know by sharing your details here.
More collaborations and offerings are definitely coming in the Fall, so keep watching this space and also don’t hesitate to contact me if you’re interested in collaborating.
While I work on the upcoming season of my now seven-years old podcast Gender Stories, I launched a little YouTube series called Warm Take Wednesdays with Dr Alex Iantaffi. You can watch the first episode here, or listen to it wherever you listen to podcasts! I even made a proper trailer for it and I am looking forward to releasing more episodes soon!
Want me to speak about a particular topic on the new YouTube series or my old 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!
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 through this speakers bureau for speaking events, or check out my website for more information on speaking engagements alexiantaffi.com, or email me at admin@alexiantaffi.com Thanks!
Let’s support each other!
Remember: we keep each other safe, healthy and creative!
My beloved friend Billy Navarro Jr is still 26% short of making their goal, even after reducing the total amount of the fundraiser. Can we help them get through that finish line community?! 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 finally reach the goal!
If you’re starting to feel hopeless about the ongoing genocides, take some deep breaths, and refresh your commitment to care by donating to the Palestine’s Children Relief Fund or contribute to Project Rainbow Turtle, an Indigenous LGBTQ+ centered Mutual Aid Fund and Network, or just keep loudly reminding people that our struggles are not over until we’re all free!
If you feel moved to donate to trans-led organizations, given the ongoing rise of anti-trans rhetoric, legislation, and hate, 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 US 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!
I love having kids who share media with me! My daughter invited me to watch K-Pop Demon Hunters and we ended up watching twice!!! It’s so good y’all! I won’t spoiler, but I definitely sensed a little subtext around transness, alongside other themes of course, but, apparently, it was just me, at least in my family. If you watch it and sense that subtext, please let me know! Or maybe I just see a lot of things through the lens of gender, who knows! Anyway, if you love anime, you might enjoy this movie. I have to say that I also loved the catchy songs in it! Basically, a winner of a movie as far as I am concerned.
The same child, got me into Ginny and Georgia and I cannot stop watching it! I have laughed, cried and got really invested in the characters. I am now on the third and final season and I have been warned that I am likely to cry (which I already did at various points throughout seasons 1 and 2). Content note for childhood sexual abuse, intimate partner violence, racism, self-harm, systemic poverty and abuse, substance use, disordered eating, and violence. You might also rage against the patriarchy as you watch this. I know I did.
I can’t remember if I mentioned this in previous newsletters, but I have been listening to Michael Franti’s new album, Welcome to the Family, on repeat! I love his music and this album is no exception. All the songs are great but I particularly love Be Who You Are, Break Up with Everything, and Drop Me In The Water!
I have been reading more books in my mother tongue, Italian, and the latest read I am loving is Accabadora by Michela Murgia. It has been translated in English if you are interested in this slice of life in 1950s Sardinia but please note that this is not a light read! Content note (so far since I’m still reading it) for ableism, systemic poverty and abuse, assisted death.
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