Are you a part of the Trans or Gender Diverse Community? Maybe you support members of the Trans community? Perhaps you have family members who are Trans, Gender Diverse or Non-Binary. This episode with Tasha, a LGBTQIA+ Counsellor is for you!
In today’s episode Tasha explains who falls into the Trans and Gender Diverse community. We discuss why it is so important for Trans people to know that coming to therapy for mental health support is vital alongside of any medical interventions. We also talk about some of the misconceptions people have about the Trans community and how we as cisgender folk can show support.
Tasha Turner is a Queer Neurodivergent Counsellor, Advocate, wife, and chronic pain battler.
Many of her clients are neurodivergent, mainly autism and/or ADHD and are part of the LGBTQIA+ community. Tasha uses her lived experience to work with these individuals to connect on a deeper level as someone who understands many of the struggles and triumphs faced.
More details about Tasha and her practice can be found at https://www.facebook.com/TashasTherapeuticCounselling
Our latest episode is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all major podcast platforms. And guess what? The transcript is available below for your reading pleasure. Happy listening!
Transcript
SAM SELLERS:
[00:10] Hello and welcome to Inside the Therapy Room. I’m your host Sam Sellers. I’m a registered therapist, a wife and a firm mama and I am passionate about breaking down the barriers and stigma attached to therapy. I want to begin by honoring the traditional custodians of the land we live and work on. Today Tasha is on Yugurra land and Sam is on Gundungurra land. We pay our respects to the elders’ past, present, and emerging for they hold the memories, the traditions, and cultures of our First Nations people. We must always remember that the land below our feet is, was and always will be Aboriginal land.
Today we’re chatting to Tasha Turner. Tasha is a queer neurodivergent counsellor, advocate, wife, and chronic pain battler. Many of her clients are neurodivergent, mainly with autism and or ADHD and are part of the LGBTQIA plus community.
[01:10] Tasha uses her lived experience to work with these individuals to connect on a deeper level as someone who understands many of the struggles and triumphs that are faced. Today we’re going to be specifically focusing on transgender and gender diverse folk. Listening to hear Tasha explain the broad terminology used and how complex it can be even from within the community. Tasha shares what it is like for trans and gender diverse people inside the therapy room, including the privilege she has of witnessing people’s progressions towards their most authentic self. And as always, we are smashing more myths. And this time, Tasha is smashing one around gender transitioning. We hope you enjoy joining us inside the therapy room.
[02:05] Welcome Tasha. How’s your day been?
TASHA TURNER:
Thank you. Yeah, good. Thank you.
SAM SELLERS:
Amazing. It’s good. We’re recording on a Monday, so it’s nice to start the week nice and easy. Tasha is here with us, and we are going to chat about a wonderful and necessary conversation to have at the moment. You are a queer neurodivergent counsellor, correct?
TASHA TURNER:
[02:30] I am. Yeah.
SAM SELLERS:
And whilst you work with several niches around neurodivergence, chronic illness, trauma, all of those sorts of things, we are going to focus on transgender and gender diverse folk, which is going to be a great chat.
TASHA TURNER:
Great.
SAM SELLERS:
[02:50] Amazing. So, tell me a little bit about, I guess, who might fit into that category or what does that mean for people who are not used to the terminology or perhaps don’t have a lot of understanding, what fits into that category of trans and gender diverse?
TASHA TURNER:
[03:07] And that’s a good question because it’s not as straightforward as it might seem. And as many people know, even in my community, we have so many names, so many boxes, so many labels that are changing all the time. So, two big words, transgender and cisgender. Cisgender is when you’re born and there’s a gender put in your birth certificate. And as you grow up, you feel aligned with that gender. It’s like you’ve got female on the certificate, and you feel female. Great. Bingo. Transgender is when the agenda on your birth certificate doesn’t feel like the person you know you are inside, right? So, that’s transgender. Another term is gender diverse, which is quite interchangeable in the community with transgender. It’s like a whole spectrum. So, it’s this big umbrella. Some people don’t want to identify with trans because they think in their brain it means going from one point to another. It doesn’t. So, it just depends on the person.
[04:19] But when we’re looking at that community, I say to people, “right, if you don’t feel aligned with the gender on your birth certificate, well, you’re in this community.” So, I see everyone who falls into that area.
SAM SELLERS:
[04:33] Amazing. And there is a section in that gender diversity for those who perhaps don’t identify with either gender, correct?
TASHA TURNER:
[04:45] Yes, like me. So, I’m openly genderqueer. That means that for me, because not every genderqueer person has the same expression. For me, my gender can move around. Some days I have male and female. Some days it’s more male, less female. Some days it’s opposite. Some days it’s nothing. And then you have similar, you’ll have non-binary where people don’t identify with a gender. You’ll have people who are gender fluid. So, they will feel one day that they’re mainly one gender and then it will move. So, it’s, again, you can ask each person in that category, and they might explain it differently to me.
SAM SELLERS:
[05:35] Okay. And speaking of asking, another wonderful thing to be asking is people’s pronouns. Tell us about pronouns and why they’re important and why people tend to kick up a bit of a stink about pronouns.
TASHA TURNER:
[05:52] And it can be confusing because when you’re cisgender, you use the pronouns that match the gender on your birth certificate. When you’re transgender, some people decide that they don’t want to have different pronouns because it’s a personal choice. Some people feel very much, “no, I need the pronoun that matches the gender inside.” And it’s very uncomfortable when you feel, so for example, I’m what they call assigned female at birth. So, if I felt uncomfortable with somebody using, she/her, every time they use, she/her it means that even if I’ve explained that my gender is different, then they’re not listening to me. And it’s a bit like, it’s very disrespectful.
[06:44] And for many of us, we can understand it’s not easy for somebody else to change the pronouns, but when you have it again and again and again, you might have someone who gets what we call misgendered 20, 30 times a day. So, by that point, we’re a little bit over it. Or if we keep asking someone and then they don’t even try. So, that’s why we get upset because it physically feels uncomfortable. And then when someone doesn’t try, then it feels like you don’t even respect me, you don’t believe me. So, it’s the small words that mean a lot.
SAM SELLERS:
[07:22] Yeah, I think for me who does not have that problem, I identify with the pronouns that assign with my gender. I can only imagine the level of exhaustion and mental draining that it would take a toll on that individual to just be continually disrespected. And to be frank, I just think it’s common human decency to just, you know, my name is Sam, I expect people to call me Sam. It’s just sort of that basic human decency of another person. But I think it’s ironic. It’s just one of those funny things in the sense that those people who say pronouns don’t exist, or we don’t need to worry about pronouns and things like that. It’s ironic because if we started to call them using different pronouns that assigned their gender, they would suddenly have a problem with it. So, those who identify with those pronouns still want them to be used. They have preferred pronouns. So, it’s one of those ironic, funny things that is just like, “oh, come on, guys, it’s just basic respect here.”
TASHA TURNER:
I agree.
SAM SELLERS:
[08:40] Now, before we sort of dive in a bit deeper, you have the trans flag behind you, correct?
TASHA TURNER:
I do. Yes, I do.
SAM SELLERS:
Beautiful pink, blue and white. Can you tell us a little bit about what the flag means?
TASHA TURNER:
[08:54] Oh, now I may get this incorrect.
SAM SELLERS:
That’s okay. I put you on the spot here a little bit. Sorry.
TASHA TURNER:
[09:02] And I forget because there’s so many flags. So, the blue obviously represents the male gender, the pink represents the female gender, and the white is sort of whatever gender in between, right? Or no gender. Yeah, I may be wrong about the white. So, we might have to check the white. But I seem to remember. But like I said, there’s so many, there’s a gender queer flag, there’s a non-binary flag. So, I’ll probably get my whole community upset.
SAM SELLERS:
It is okay. If anybody’s out there listening and has a different idea of what the trans flag means, please let us know. And we will, I will put a post up on my social media because you’re right, there is a lot of flags, there’s a lot of terminology. And I don’t think we can expect anybody to have all the information all the time. But I am probably going to put you on the spot here again a little bit because there is a subsection of gender diverse called intersex. Can you sort of just a brief definition of what that is? Because I think a lot of people get confused around that.
TASHA TURNER:
[10:15] Yeah, because like you said, it’s about sex, not gender. So, there’s biological sex, which is related to your genitals and your internal workings, right? There’s gender, which is the gender you feel inside, which sometimes matches the outside. And then there’s sexuality, which is basically who you’re attracted to and want to have sex with. So, intersex is in the LGBTIQA plus acronym. And yet intersex is not included in the transgender umbrella because it’s not about gender. So, intersex people have lots of different combinations of chromosomes. And some of them are gender diverse as well. And some of them have diverse sexualities. So, it’s quite complicated. And for a lot of intersex people, it’s hard because they often feel they don’t belong anywhere. It’s like, there’s so much stigma around being intersex and it’s so hard to be included even in the LGBTIQA plus acronym. So, there are portions of our community that aren’t always supportive of each other.
SAM SELLERS:
[11:37] I think part of the conversation is that gender and sex get confused so often. And I think people just need to think that gender is about expression, not about body parts. But I think it is, like you said, even within the community, there is still a lot of division and things like that. So, I think people automatically think if you’re a part of the queer community or the LGBTIQA plus community, that there is a lot of camaraderie. And yes, there is, but there is still a lot of division as well and a lot of confusion around language and terminology and experience and things like that. So, tell me a little bit about what led you, I guess, to be passionate about this area of the community?
TASHA TURNER:
[12:30] It’s my community to start off with. So, I’m gender queer. My wife is binary transgender, so that means that she identifies as female and has fully transitioned. So, I’ve been living this life before I was a therapist anyway. And I was an advocate and an activist in the community for quite some time. And then part of my journey was becoming a therapist and realizing, hey, there’s this huge hole, which I already knew anyway, but there’s this huge hole of specific mental health support for the trans community because… This is another reason why I’m openly queer because I love being queer anyway, but we will only open up to people in our community. You can imagine if you’re talking to somebody about hormones, and I talk to people about probably the most personal aspect of who you are, then how do you know who to talk to? How do you know how much they know?
[13:32] So, I love working in this area because I follow people throughout their journey. I get to see people who they’re really meant to be. I get to be involved in personal parts of that. And it’s such a privilege. And for me, it’s so beautiful to see them grow. And I’m like, “wow, it means a lot to me.” So, I’m very passionate about it.
SAM SELLERS:
[13:57] I think beautiful is the terminology that came to my mind because despite the pain that may come with that journey, it would be a beautiful experience to see the progression from beginning to middle to the present day. I don’t want to say end, because it’s not necessarily an end, but beautiful is the only word that I can think of to see that progression and see someone become their most authentic self. I mean, that’s what we all want out of this process. That’s what all therapists want is people to be able to be their most authentic self and to feel safe to be that person. So, yeah, I think that’s wonderful. Tell me a little bit about, if those who are listening, who are either trans or gender diverse, tell me a little bit about what it might be like for those people inside the therapy room?
TASHA TURNER:
[15:08] The first appointment, as we know, most therapy, is completely nerve wracking. It’s terrible. It’s terrifying because especially for the trans person who often isn’t quite sure where they’re at with their gender, I don’t know who this person is. I’m going to go in and I’m going to say something out loud that I might have squashed for years. And then what? Then I have to do something about it. And then what does it mean? And then what if they don’t believe me? And then what are they going to say? So, it’s stressful, which is another reason why I’m open about my gender and my wife’s gender. So, everyone knows, right? Like it’s a very safe space and my clinic is covered in trans flags, rainbow flags. So, they know before they come in, you’re safe here.
[15:59] And then what happens generally in the first appointment for those of you, they get to understand where you are on this journey, because people come in at lots of different points. And if it’s right at the beginning, I always emphasize with people just because I love being queer, it doesn’t mean you come in, you express something and I go, “Oh, right, yes, you’re over here. And this is your path.” I don’t do that at all. I slow them down often and go, “Let’s just explore.” It’s like going on this journey with someone. It’s like, “what does this mean? What doesn’t this mean? Tell me about this. And what about this?” And so, it’s really getting literally in their head, right? And then following, like you said before, the journey. And that can be at times terrible for the client, because often the pain, the discrimination, which can be really, awful. And as we both know, the suicide statistics for trans people is the highest in the LGBTIQA plus group. And that’s because of what we have to deal with in society.
[17:11] It’s not because we’re depressed because we’re trans, we’re depressed because society can’t deal with it. So, sometimes it’s heartbreaking. And I’m someone who does get really connected with my client. So, if they’re going through something, part of me goes through that. And then also part of me goes through it when, like you said before, when they’re living their authentic self, and sometimes they’ll come back to me a few years later and be like, “Hey, I just wanted to like drop in and let you know what’s happening.” And sometimes I cry because like they’ve become this amazing person. And I never know how the journey is going to develop. So, it’s really lovely to go along that. And like I said, it can be exciting. Often, I’ll support the family members too, or the partner, because that’s hard, support people and understanding the community. So, and also as someone, if they take hormones and transition, that’s not a walk in the park.
SAM SELLERS:
No, I would imagine not.
TASHA TURNER:
[18:19] No, so there’s a lot of preparation for that. So, that’s my short answer.
SAM SELLERS:
[18:25] I would imagine that there is probably a much longer answer. But I think as you sort of mentioned that sometimes clients come back, one of my most favourite things is when a client who you’ve finished with might email you a couple of years later and just saying, “Hey, just checking in, just letting you know I’m doing really well. Thanks for everything.” And it’s just really sort of heartwarming moments to go. Not I was able to help that person, but I was able to witness that person become who they wanted to be and who they felt they should be. So, it’s one of those really wonderful moments. But I would imagine, you sort of mentioned support networks and things like that, that that’s a whole sort of another level of support that’s needed because it’s not just about support. There is an education aspect to it as well. I would imagine not just education about the community, but medical education, if they are going through a hormonal transition and a physical transition. So, I would imagine that there’s a lot of education, psycho education that’s happening in those sessions as well, not necessarily just conversational talk therapy.
TASHA TURNER:
[19:51] No, there’s so many levels because for many people going to a gender clinic, which are in the main capitals, there’s a huge waiting list. Because I live in rural Queensland, I support people all over and I don’t, like you said, just explore where they’re at on their gender journey. I’ll get people contacting me and it’s like, “Okay, there’s this symptom happening with my hormones.” So, there’s a kind of biological support. I don’t take the place of the doctor, but I’d be like, “Okay, this is completely normal” or “hang on a minute, I’m a bit concerned about that. Maybe you should reach out to the prescriber”, and then often I’ll help them as well. If they’ve had surgery, I’ll help them after surgery.
[20:38] Because when you’re talking about people’s genitals, like there’s not too much information so they’ll reach out to me and go, “There’s this thing happening and I’m embarrassed and I don’t actually know…” I’m like, “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s fine, let’s talk through that.” So, yeah, it’s so much more than talk therapy.
SAM SELLERS:
[21:03] We’ve got a nothing off limits mentality here. But I think it’s important for people to know that there is that level of support around medical stuff as well, because I think even just anything, we automatically think that we only can talk to our medical team about those things. And a lot of the time our medical teams just want to know if there’s any side effects or if things are improving and the medical stuff, so to speak. And so, there’s a whole emotional side connected with our body and with medical stuff. So, I think it’s important for not just trans and gender diverse folk, but their families and their friends and their partners to know, “Hey, I can go to therapy and talk about the medical stuff that’s going on with such and such.” So, I think that’s a really important thing because I would suspect that there are people who would not think that they would be able to do that, that therapy is just about emotion or something like that.
TASHA TURNER:
[22:09] Yeah. And I do make that clear when I see trans people, because I know if they have to wait several months to have another appointment with their gender clinic, I’m like, “Look, I do know a lot about hormones. I know a lot about surgery. So, you can ask me and if I don’t have the answer, then I’ll tell you to talk to somebody else.” But yeah, it’s making it clear that that is part of it too.
SAM SELLERS:
[22:33] Now, I asked you in advance, what are some things that you might want people to know about this community, about, or what might you want this community to know about therapy?
TASHA TURNER:
[22:48] Oh, that’s a very interesting question. So, what I’d like people to know about therapy, for a lot of us in the trans community, we are petrified of therapy. So, people focus on the biological part. Well, if I want to take hormones or have surgery, then I’ll see my doctor for that. But I don’t need any mental health support because as soon as I do that, then all my dysphoria, which is all the pain around transition, that will go away. That would be nice. That doesn’t happen. So, I’m often here to go, “you’re probably going to need some support with that, and probably before you hit the wall.” So, in the trans community, I would like people to think that when they’re reaching out about medical support, then it would be an idea to engage with a mental health therapist as well. So, that we talk, or we don’t talk. The community outside our community talks a lot about de-transitioning. So, there’s this myth, right? That it happens more than it does.
[23:49] Now, often when you drill down into that, people who have de-transitioned didn’t have mental health therapy beforehand, or had like one or two sessions, and it was a tick flick thing. So, this is another reason why it’s so important, right? And also say to people, “I’m not here to tell you what your gender is.” It’s not you come in and you describe something, and I go, “oh no, you’re wrong. It’s over here.” So, that’s not what therapy is about either. So, it’s kind of clarifying what I’m here for is to help you along the journey and help you understand who you are. Because lots of the time, people aren’t confused about their gender. Like they know internally what their gender is. They’re finding it hard to express it. So, that’s another short answer. I hope that’s helped.
SAM SELLERS:
[24:45] Yeah, absolutely. I think it is, like you said, they know their gender often. It’s about fear and grief and other people’s opinions, and all of the external world that often is suppressing their gender. And so, yeah, I think it’s important for people, I think anybody, whether they are going to go through the medical system with their transition, because we haven’t mentioned, but not everybody who identifies as trans goes through a gender medical transition. But anybody who is going through that to have that mental support and emotional support alongside it and for their support network to also be involved in that process so that it becomes a network and a collaborative holding, if you speak, of this individual whilst they’re going through what is probably going to be one of the most exhilarating and terrifying journeys of their life at the same time.
TASHA TURNER:
[25:54] Yeah, and also something I didn’t mention is that people don’t realise that a lot of the gender clinics near me or even a bit further away, they know who I am. So, I work in conjunction with the prescriber, the endocrinologist knows me. So, that means that I’m part of the team. I don’t get in the way, but often the client will think, “Oh, hang on, if I reach out to my mental health therapist, they’re like separate.” No, I’m not. So, there is a transfer of information between us. So, just because I’m out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of rural Australia, but I am still connected to people. And then I was going to say something else, but I forgot.
SAM SELLERS:
[26:39] That’s okay. It might come to you. You mentioned the word myth and it’s probably one of the last things that we’ll chat about. But I asked you to have a bit of a think about a myth that you would love to smash. What is that?
TASHA TURNER:
[26:54] Yeah. And that was hard because I have like 20.
SAM SELLERS:
There’s so many, right?
TASHA TURNER:
[27:00] This is like Tash gets her chance to have a rant.
SAM SELLERS:
Yeah, go for it. Soap box away.
TASHA TURNER:
[27:06] I’ll go with one, the first one, which you’ve already mentioned actually, is that many people think that with our gender, whatever your gender is, say you realise, “Okay, my gender doesn’t match the one on my birth certificate.” You can know that internally. You never have to tell anybody else, right? You never have to do anything with it. Or you can know and tell people, but you don’t have to socially transition, which means changing your name, changing your pronouns, changing your dress. You don’t have to do that. Or you can do that. You can change your name, your pronouns, but you don’t have to take hormones, or you can take hormones. You don’t have to have surgery. Like there is no determined path and you can change your path. So, you might think you’re over here in the spectrum for a few years and then you might go, “You know what? This is about me exploring where I’m at. Maybe I’ll go over here. Maybe I do want hormones now.”
[28:04] So, a lot of people who aren’t in the community, not everyone who’s not in the community, you have to be careful not to stereotype, but don’t understand naturally that we don’t have to prove our gender. So, for example, with me being gender queer, right? I express them, okay? That doesn’t mean that I’m not gender queer. I don’t have to prove to anyone. I don’t have to dress a certain way. I don’t have to act a certain way. I don’t have to change my name. And I talk about this with my clients. I’m like, “you don’t decide my gender. Nobody outside me decides my gender, not even my wife. My gender is how I feel it. I don’t have to do anything.” And I’ve had some gender affirming surgeries and people are like, “Oh, okay. So, because of that, you’re along this journey.” I’m like, “No, actually, no. I had that surgery because I wanted to have that surgery and I feel better, but it doesn’t mean that I then have to do this. I don’t have to do that either.”
[29:06] So, I try to show you can move around, and it’s this myth that we all have to have, or we even have to present a certain way. So, even if we have surgeries and hormones, “all right, you have to look hyper-thin”, “ultra-masculine”, or one of my clients said, “so, if I’m non-binary, do I have to dye my hair blue?” I’m like, what?
SAM SELLERS:
I love that blue is the automatic colour.
TASHA TURNER:
[29:35] Yeah, I’m like, I’ve missed that on TikTok, obviously, because I don’t watch TikTok. And I’m like, “No, you don’t have to do that. No.” So, it’s trying to get people to understand. But it’s like, “that doesn’t mean you’re non-binary. It’s okay. You can look exactly the same.” And I know that outside the community, that would be confusing because you’re like, “Oh, hang on a minute. How am I supposed to know who’s what?” And you’re not. It’s whether or not that person welcomes you into their gender, that is their choice. It’s none of your business. So, I’d love to explode that myth of there being a certain way to transition or not, or a certain way to prove you have to be a certain gender. Or someone, even a psychiatrist saying, “Oh, yes, I agree with you. You’re this gender.” They have a certain amount of power, but that still doesn’t mean if they say, “No, I don’t agree with you, you’re not gender diverse” that you go, “Oh, okay, then no, I’m not.” That’s not right.
SAM SELLERS:
[30:44] I think this is just this really frustrating part of society that feels the need for us all to fit a box or a list of classifications to check off that if you fit the feminine spectrum that you wear dresses and you get your nails done and you get your hair done and you present in a feminine capacity and you don’t wear pants all the time, that sort of let’s just force everybody to fit into a box, that square peg round hole mentality. Like “we just need you to fit because we need it to make sense to us” and it doesn’t need to make sense to you at all because this whole experience is rooted in flexibility and autonomy over self. We don’t need to fit anything. I like the “we don’t need to prove it”, I love that. It just is. It can just be. It doesn’t need to be good, bad, ugly, right, wrong. It doesn’t need to have a descriptive word. It just is and it can just be and just sit as that. I love that.
[32:02] I’ll join you in smashing the myth because it’s a shit myth because it just perpetuates misinformation, and it perpetuates that societal discrimination that you sort of alluded to not too long ago. It’s frustrating.
TASHA TURNER:
[32:22] It’s also dangerous in the community. So, you will have people who are like, “I can’t afford laser”, “I can’t afford facial feminization. So, that means that I’m not going to be, in my opinion, binary trans. I’m not going to get to that point and that makes me feel like a failure.” And even in the community, people compete with each other. So, people compete who looks more feminine or who looks more masculine and who’s had what surgeries, and how long have you been on hormones, and “Wow, well, you look great. I haven’t reached that, and I feel shame.” So, there’s already enough shame in the community. But then when we have these ideals from outside that we have to fit and then on top of the pain of gender dysphoria, you’ve got the pain of, “Oh, I’m not even going to reach that because I don’t have enough money to get to that ideal.”
SAM SELLERS:
[33:17] And I think we forget that that societal discrimination is not just in the cisgender heterosexual community. It is in our own backyards, so to speak. And for people to be able, and we are getting into a whole other topic, but for people to be able to even access that medical support to be able to transition is a huge privilege. And there is great privilege that is attached to that because of the financial cost and because it is not covered by Medicare and things like that in Australia. And so, it is a huge privilege for people to be able to access that. And it is not something that is afforded to a vast majority of people. So, I think people forget that or don’t want to acknowledge that privilege. And it causes a lot of division both within and outside of the community, which is heartbreaking for everybody involved.
[34:28] I’m going to ask you one last quick question, and I’m going to put you on the spot because it wasn’t one, I gave you in advance. But what can us cisgender, I’m obviously married to a woman, bisexual, but both of us are cisgender, what can we do as the community to support trans and gender diverse folk? What can we do?
TASHA TURNER:
[34:55] It’s quite simple really. Believe us.
SAM SELLERS:
Yeah, amazing.
TASHA TURNER:
[34:59] Believe us. When we tell you this is our gender, believe it and respect it. Welcome us in. Don’t push us out. Remember that we just want to live our life like you. It’s like, leave us alone. People say, “you’re shoving it down our throat.” Well, we’re actually standing up for human rights. You don’t have to stand up for your human rights. Like every time my wife tries to use a public bathroom, we get discrimination. That’s a human right. So, of course I’m going to be in people’s face about it because it’s a human right. You don’t have to fight for your human right to go to the bathroom. That would seem absurd for you. So, of course I’m going to get in people’s face. So, believe us and welcome us, then leave us alone. It’s really not hard.
SAM SELLERS:
[35:49] I love that. I love it because it is so simple. I think we tend to think even people with diverse sexualities who don’t fit the heterosexual image, I think even within that world, there is just this, it’s very simple, just believe, respect, and go away. I think you’re right. I love that. I love the go away bit because we often talk about, you can tell I’m an introvert, I like the go away bit. You know, it is that simple with everything. I think when it is an innate part of who we are, just believe and respect, and let us live our lives, I would imagine. Just let us go about life the way that you get to go about your life.
TASHA TURNER:
[36:47] Yeah, exactly. It’s simple and so many people can’t do it.
SAM SELLERS:
[36:52] Yeah, I know. It is. It is. I mean, we laugh because if we don’t laugh, we’ll cry all the time. But there are people out there who are crying all the time because of it because that’s their reality and that’s their life. And they may not be personally getting discriminated against, as in they’re not having insults hurled at them, but there is the societal discrimination that is still affecting them. The things that you see in the media and on social media. And never go into a comment thread because you will just see straight white men who are having way too many opinions than they deserve, quite frankly. So, I think it’s heartbreaking and just ridiculous.
[37:50] Ridiculous is the only word that is coming to mind in terms of just how simple it is, and yet there are people out there who can’t manage it.
TASHA TURNER:
[38:01] Yeah. And people who escalate to a point that they want you dead. We’ve had to move house twice because we’ve been attacked. So, I understand this when my clients are talking to me, and they know what I’ve been through. And I’m like, “I know how bad this can get.” And what happens is, like can just mention then, we have a community grief. So, what will happen often when someone is killed that’s in the media or we get these rallies that we’ve had recently where we’re being publicly attacked, you end up with like, I know that for me, I’ll have days of feeling so heavy because you feel the grief of the community where we’re in distress. And I haven’t seen that happen with another community. It’s like, do you know what it’s like walking around thinking that people want you dead and they don’t even know who you are? And this is a big fear for the people who come into my sessions and know they’re trans and they’re like, “Is this the life that I’m going to have? Where there are people out there who might want to kill me?” And I’m like, “Yes, they’re a very small proportion. They may never come anywhere near you, but I’m not going to tell you they’re not there.”
[39:17] So, that’s where you go when people bang on about it being a choice. It’s like, why would you choose this?
SAM SELLERS:
[39:35] Yeah, absolutely. I’ve even said that myself about marrying my wife was not an easy process by any means. And there was lost community and lost friends and just difficulty in even finding vendors and things like that for our wedding. And so, you sort of do sit down and go, why would anybody choose that path? Because society makes it so difficult. Why would somebody choose that path? Yeah, I feel like I could talk for hours with you about it, but we don’t have hours, unfortunately. But I think that that’s a really wonderful intro, I guess, for people to what it looks like in the therapy room. And I think really to understand that there is nothing that is off limits. I think that’s the takeaway, nothing off limits. You’ll hear all of the stories, all of the lingo, all of the nitty gritty things that go on. And I think that that’s the biggest takeaway for people in that community is there is a place for you in therapy, there is a space for you, and it’s safe, and it’s affirming, and that there is nothing off limits.
[40:50] So, I think that’s the important bit. But thank you. It has been wonderful chatting.
TASHA TURNER:
A pleasure. Thank you.
SAM SELLERS:
And I hope that it lands in the ears of people who need to hear it.
TASHA TURNER:
Thank you.
SAM SELLERS:
That’s my hope. Thanks, Tasha.
TASHA TURNER:
Thank you.
SAM SELLERS:
We hope you enjoyed joining us Inside the Therapy Room. Thanks for listening.