Gender Exploration
personal + relational therapy for queer, gender-expansive, and questioning folks
You deserve space to be yourself
to explore
to grieve
to rage
to celebrate
You may be feeling really unsure if you even qualify to be on this page right now, asking yourself
do I fit in?
This is for anyone, no matter their label, who has one foot in the door of exploring their gender identity.
Requirements to start therapy only includes a willingness to explore - and the right to walk it back.
As someone who came out late in life and once went into therapy saying “I’m queer but I don’t want to talk about it,” - I see you. I don’t turn folks away for being ashamed, afraid, skeptical, or living in the space of questioning one’s own gender and sexuality.
As someone who when I realized I was nonbinary / genderqueer / trans, it created a sense of panic inside me that felt impossible to deal with - I see you. I don’t poke and prod at gender, but let discovery happen naturally.
The guilt you are feeling, the isolation, the panic - it is heavy to hold alone. The reality of living in this current political climate is hard to navigate without community. Therapy can be a space to practice that community, with a goal of eventually building relationships where you can feel safe, authentic, and truly cared for.
You don’t have to keep navigating this alone.
I don’t force you to explore anything you aren’t ready for. We will use Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Attachment work, and Bowen Family Systems Theory to provide you with support, data, and skills as stress shows up. If trauma shows up, we’ll process it using safe, grounded techniques, such as Narrative Exposure, somatic techniques, or DBT. It’s not your fault that this (gestures broadly at everything) is stressful. We will navigate the current state of the world and your personal history together to form a grounded approach to fight against the system.
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I am careful in documentation & navigation of the current political climate. I do not use AI for any kind of note-taking or clinical work. I do not document information about disabilities, neurodivergence, gender, sexuality, or specific traumas.
I also do not document a diagnosis unless there is an agreement between us that you’d like me to for insurance superbill purposes. We will decide together what diagnosis fits what is happening for you.
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I work with cisgender questioning, transgender, gender non-conforming, nonbinary, gender queer, agender, and gender expansive folks. I also have lived experience as someone who is nonbinary and trans.
I provide gender affirming care (WPATH letters, relational therapy, individual therapy) and make space for gender euphoria to coexist with gender dysphoria.
“Imagine you are working all day long, busy, and unable to think about anything else. You walk by a restaurant and realize you are hungry, that you haven’t eaten all day.
The smell didn’t make you hungry, but it helped you connect to your body and name what has been happening for you.” - Dr. Aydin Olson Kennedy on Gender Dysphoria Noise
Coming in to one’s identity can be a multi-facted process, one that starts with noticing and naming what is happening for you, and then safely inviting others in to your experience. The reactions or lack of reactions we get from others when we invite them in can bring up feelings of rejection, invalidation, and indifference. Sometimes even being celebrated can feel overwhelming, as you might start to think back on time missed. Sometimes we can even detransition to attempt to block out the gender dysphoria noise to feel safe.
Psychotherapy is a space to process what is painful and to share what is joyful. Just because you experience gender dysphoria noise doesn’t mean that I will become your Gender Only Therapist™ Your therapy is for you and for you to decide what is important. If you are being thoughtful in exploration or discussion of transition, please know this is a no-shame space and I will not push you to make any decision.
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I am a sex-positive, poly and kink aware, and LGBTQIA2S+ affirming therapist who is also queer. Together we can explore the queer joy alongside the anti-queer shit & homophobia we have to deal with.
*I am poly/kink aware and sex positive but I am not a sex therapist. If this is something you are seeking, will gladly help you find a sex therapist!
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Yes, I am a trauma-focused therapist that is aware of how fatphobia and disordered eating noise can get in the way of us making sense of our gender. I follow Health at Every Size (HAES) principles and work with fat and larger bodied folks from a body neutrality perspective. It’s important to me that we dismantle fatphobia and ableism as it comes up in relationships, and to make space to celebrate the body that carries you through this life.
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It is very common for LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, PoGM, and Disabled folks to experience identity-related shame. We live in an oppressive society and have been taught to cater to white supremacist and patriarchal values.
When our shame is rooted in belief systems that were placed onto us, reminders of being not good/perfect enough can replay in our minds. Through relational therapy, we can locate where this sense of shame grew from and how we want to tend to that garden.
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Yes, I work with anyone who is navigating religious or philosophical guilt. Many people come to therapy with beliefs about morality, faith, and punishment. Those beliefs can guide us towards a life we find worth living, but they can also sometimes trap us in a dichotomy of good and bad, right and wrong, and stop us from being able to make any steps forward.
*I have personal experience with scrupulosity (morality) OCD and was raised in Southern Baptist Evangelical Christian churches, so I have lived experience in this area. I am a nonreligious secular therapist, but please note that this does not mean that I dislike working with religious or spiritual clients. I love hearing about the joy, comfort, and perspective a spiritual practice provides for my clients. I continually seek out education around spirituality to provide competent care to anyone no matter their belief system.
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We’ll work together to understand it - if that’s your goal. If not, know that it’s okay to not know everything. It’s okay to simply sit with the fact that you are feeling pain, and to notice how it might be getting in the way of you living the life you find meaningful.
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Therapy can provide a safe space for reclaiming, retelling, and re-authoring your story. Rage, silence, panic, and overwhelm are all welcome in sessions. We will move through your emotional experience and welcome sensations, memories, and thoughts as they come.
We will work together to understand how the past impacts the present, identify the life you want to live, & make the changes you need to get there.
Identity stress didn’t begin yesterday. I work with clients who have experienced years of systemic, institutional, relational, and internalized harm that ends up impacting their bodies and minds.
We will work collaboratively while implementing real tangible skills to keep your head above water.
As we get closer to the life you find worth living, we’ll reconnect with the person you have always been, untangling the shame and guilt you have been living with for too long.