Just Ask SK - Episode 2

[00:00:00] Jess: Welcome to the Gender IQ Podcast. My name is Jess Romeo, and I'm a psychiatric nurse practitioner, psychotherapist, and endlessly curious soul. I'm also a trans guy who specializes in working with queer and trans folks every single day in my private practice. I created this podcast because in a world that seems hell bent on using gender identity as a wedge to divide us, I wanted this to be a space for thoughtful, unfiltered, and nuanced conversations that help us connect with one another.

If you're a healthcare or mental health provider like me, this can help you better understand the complexities of gender identity and support the needs of your trans and gender diverse clients. And if you're a fellow gender outlaw, you might find some of these conversations empowering and helpful to your own journey.

But for everyone, I want this to be a place that showcases playfulness, complexity, and just the messy humanity that we share within a topic that too often seems serious and divisive. So, wherever you are on your own journey, I'm glad to have you here. Let's dive in. 

[00:01:01] Jess: I feel like your presence is almost more important than ever right now. And I don't think, I think I told you, like, how I came across your account, like, I was encouraged to find your account when I started doing anything on social media, because somebody who knew what they were talking about was like, well, you're gonna need to manage hate comments.

Here's a person who does it really, really well, and that's how it started, but I'm just obsessed with. I'm obsessed with so much of your content. It really is just lovely.

[00:01:29] SK: Thank you. I appreciate that.

[00:01:31] Jess: I would imagine that, you know, even with this really nuanced upbringing, like, you've got the foundation there to be able to sit with all this with resilience and community, but I imagine it gets really hard sometimes.

Like, how do you cope when it gets really bad?

[00:01:45] SK: Yeah. I think particularly in the last month, it's been really bad .

Um, if you've been paying attention, you know why. Yeah. Um, yeah, it, it for years, I'm, I'm approaching four years. On the Internet sharing in the way that I've been sharing and progressively over time as my pages grown, it has gotten heavier.

It's gotten more serious. It's gotten nastier. But with that, I've grown and I've learned how to cope. Um, it was not always easy. It is not always easy. But I think that these, these chances of creating art, um, these chances of involving community and circling it back around and making it something productive is what keeps me going.

When I have particularly hard moments like in the past month or so, I lean on real life support. I have an amazing partner I have a wonderful community at the yoga studio. I work at with my mom with my family so I unplug and I connect which is a really important thing that everyone should do no matter what kind of Self internalized hatred or  messaging or external hatred and messaging, you may be receiving.

You do have to stop, um, and reconnect elsewhere when it, when it gets overwhelming.

[00:03:12] Jess: You absolutely have to. And like. As a mental health provider, one of the things that I know is that stress can actually make us social.

Oxytocin is a stress hormone too, and there are, so there are some kind of inborn impulses there that prime us to seek out support and connection in times of stress.

[00:03:32] SK: Sure, and I think that's a protective measure that's innate to us that allows us to continue. I think some of that is very unconscious, and I've noticed it myself. I tend to be pretty, um, pretty introverted, and I like that a lot of my queer community is online because I can turn it off and like be alone and read a book when I want to, and I don't have people calling me and like showing up at my door to hang out.

Jess: Yep, I like that too.

SK: I've always, I've loved that. But I've noticed that my lack of in person community in the last month or so has felt detrimental. And I'm getting this, like, innate sense of, like, I need to organize and I need to build right here in front of me, which I've been doing. And it's felt, um, protective and like a safety measure to give myself.

[00:04:19] Jess: I'm glad you're doing that and that you have that, um, it's incredibly important right now. Um, anything else that you would want to say about the current environment? I don't want to harp on it or focus on it too much, but if there is anything important you'd want to say, I want to give you the opportunity to.

[00:04:36] SK: Um, I think people need to hear it's okay not to have answers. I think it's important for people to hear that nobody actually knows what's next. Nobody has the answer. There's no one you'll turn to on social media, or media in general, who's gonna give you a perfect plan, or layout of what to do to feel better.

[00:04:58] SK: Um, we all feel confused. We all feel hurt and lost and, um, a variety of emotions that also include hopeful and, uh, strong willed and clear in our community. Um, and I think that mix of emotions. Should all be housed in you and you don't, you're not behind if you don't have the answers and you're not, um, going to be left behind or lost if you don't know what's right for your next steps.

Um, I think I've, it's been an interesting and unique position to be in to have people looking at me for answers when I'm looking at everyone else for answers to, and it's made me realize that. The people you see online are just people like you and. We're all very much on the same field in it together. I think there's solidarity in that rather than having this hierarchy of people who we can look up to to know what to do next. We're all right there together.

[00:06:01] Jess: Yeah, we are. And as long as we stay there, I feel hopeful - 

[00:06:06] SK: Me too. For the

[00:06:06] Jess: - for the future as well. Yeah. I'm not sure how long it will take for us to get where we need to be, but yeah.

I see that. No, because I think certainty, that's part of the problem. I don't know. I saw this growing up. My upbringing was a little bit different being in the South. I was maybe more influenced by just Bible Belt kind of, um, and that was really pervasive where certainty was an oasis that people really seemed to need in the face of chaos where I was always there just asking, but wait, why? Why? This doesn't make any sense to me.

Um, so I think that's. That's an important reminder that the desire for certainty isn't a political affiliation. That is a human drive to need to tell a story. Like when anxious and we don't have data, we make up stories about what's happening. Um, and as long as we know their stories, like I know that I like to understand the water I'm drowning in.

That is how I cope. I read books. I try to understand, but I know at the end of the day that I'm not going to have the answer.

[00:07:16] SK: And nobody is because we've no one has lived this exact moment in time before yeah, and and that's okay It's okay that no one gives us a playbook We get to write it and I think that that can be a really powerful thing that people maybe don't quite yet have the fire in their bellies to get to because we're still thrown back from what we've been hit with. 

[00:07:41] Jess: Still trying to get back up.

[00:07:42] SK: And that's okay We're going to get it and we're going to be okay.

[00:07:46] Jess: Yeah. I mean, in that way. We've never been here before.

[00:07:51] SK: Yep.

[00:07:51] Jess: We don't know what the future looks like.

[00:07:53] SK: Correct.

[00:07:54] Jess: So it's going to be a pretty queer revolution in that sense of queer being this combination of creation and defiance. Right. That's just uniquely us.

[00:08:06] SK: I think it's really cool that I think about how at all times this is true, but specifically right now. When 50 years from now 100 years from now people are reading about this time. This is a revolution We're in and whether you see it, we are actively participating in it Whether you're at home talking with friends and organizing whether you're running a GSA club whether you are having a queer book club or making art or infographics online or just calling your local representatives, whatever small little thing you're doing It's going to go down in history as something that has contributed to a larger revolution that we're all taking part in.

So no person is too small to make a change. No day by day action that you're seeing unfold. is small in the face of what we're facing. It is building. We will teach about this time in the future. And I think that that's a really cool thing to be a part of.

[00:09:06] Jess: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Like it's, it's rare, I think, because I've met a lot of people through doing some of this work and You know, you've got about 130, 000 followers.

So, you know, there's this way in which we can see people online and get a little bit starstruck, which is always funny to me because I'm just like, well, they're just a person, right? But people don't often live up to that. They're not always an accurate reflection of some of the stuff they post. And Oh my God, you are like, this is that person.

Like you are this person who - honestly, you do feel like this lovely hybrid of politician, lawyer, and like yoga studio, creative dancer. And it's all just queer all infused with queerness. Like it's just really cool.

[00:09:55] SK: I'll take that. I think that's what I was born to be. It's a really interesting thing. Like I'll look back at my childhood and be like, if I just had like, really open, queer, affirming, and discussing parents, like, I might have, like, not fought so hard to be this person.

And then because of that, I might have, like, not been able to harness the community I did. I think that everything really did lay out in a very specific way for me to be able to be the person that I am, but I appreciate you saying that you can see the authenticity in it and find the find the duality. I think it's - that is - that's what I hope to be.

[00:10:34] Jess: Yeah, no, it's absolutely there. Are there people, like artists, creators, who've shaped the way that you sort of see gender, humor, storytelling that have shaped your content?

[00:10:47] SK: For sure. Um, I actually took it upon myself to create A group chat on Instagram of all the creators that I've looked up to, um, people who do similar work to me.

And I literally just was like, let's be a little delusional and bring everyone together and be like, I like you all. Let's create a space to chat about what we do. And everyone was. So responsive and so beautiful and wonderful. Um, so I have this really strong group chat of people. Um, I'm happy to share some names and such with you that you can attach to this podcast if people want more resources, but there's a lot of people.

Um, but just people with different perspectives, all queer, um, who now are very much supporting one another's work and creating a stronger network, um, that has influenced all of our work really beautifully. Um. So without giving you specific names, yes, lots and lots of people that I can send you lists of for other folks to investigate and kind of see.

But also if you just scroll through my Instagram, I've done a lot of collaborative work with different people. Um, they're all tagged. You can find them all pretty easily.

[00:11:53] Jess: Yeah, no, I'm sure we'll put all the links to all the things on the page. Well, I think about like a younger version of yourself. Because I sort of tell this story to myself of, okay, dance, there was a lot of freedom in that, especially with neurodivergence, I didn't say this before, but this duality in the way that dance can be a language and a form of expression, that they're actually is a lot of authenticity in.

I know so many people that are like, spoken English is like my second language. I really wish that I could express a different way. Are there ways that you sort of played with gender when you were younger? Like, were you doing kind of fun things with stuffed animals or doing interesting things with dance that didn't get suppressed by the environment around you.

[00:12:34] SK: Yeah. In a weird way, dance, like I said, in the classroom was extremely binary and it's practice is extremely binary. So when I was training and training and training, I was taught how to be a female and how to be a good female dancer. But when we're on stage, all the rules go away.

So you fight so hard for these few moments where you're in front of an audience and you can play anybody. So I wore wigs, I wore dresses, I wore suits, I wore animal costumes, I wore beards, I wore curls, I wore pearls, I wore everything. In like the same year, I was 13, I played both Peter Pan and Belle from like Disney Princess.

So it's, I, and I was praised, right? When I'm Peter Pan, you need to be young, you need to be spunky, you need to be masculine, you need to be mischievous. And then literally three months later, you're a princess, you're an ingénue, you're soft, you're feminine, and not only am I praised for portraying these qualities and showing the differences, um, people are paying and buying tickets to watch me do it.

So it's this weird, like, when you're in the classroom, I felt so stifled, and I literally grew up in front of a mirror, which, it has its own, You know, body image and the way that you're perceived and the way that you're close by the way that your hair looks growing up being perceived as a, a girl who would be perceived to be a woman when she got older, that had mental health effects and the binary pressure of being in that technical space also had mental health effects on someone who was a woman.

Trying to understand their identity, but those few moments you get on stage where you're literally everyone's depending on you to play this role of someone you're not was so freeing that I like was addicted. I think that's why I just could not leave the dance world, even though. The moments for a few and fleeting in what other stage, like in life, are you able to be told to be different people every day and praise for it?

So that was like a really creative space and playful space for me. So I still am unpacking all of that, have mixed feelings about the way that I was raised in, in theater and dance, but everyone I've talked to who's neurodivergent or queer who grew up on stages. Has similar dueling feelings.

[00:15:04] Jess: Mm hmm. It is definitely true. And this feels like almost a Like a more simple Yogi Berra ism kind of paradox that pretty much everything we go through is more than one thing. 

[00:15:17] SK: For sure

[00:15:18] Jess: You know, that's useful to remember right now

[00:15:20] SK: Yes, it is.

[00:15:21] Jess: Yeah. I'm curious what you would say, not just to cis people, but also just to a sort of binarized culture that we grew up in.

What do you think people get wrong about gender exploration?

[00:15:36] SK: I've had really interesting conversations with my mom about my childhood. And I think that we come back to a similar point every time. And I've had it with some people online too. And I think we got to start really, really young with this conversation.

I think that there is a wave of parents today, and some parents from our generation, but parents now, millennial parents, um, who are very pro, my boys can do anything. If they want to wear a dress, they can wear a dress. If they want to go to dance class with their sisters. I let them like very fierce advocates for that, and they'll say the same thing about their girls.

You'll see it online too

Jess: Yeah, I see it.

SK: Like, parents so proud of their little girl riding a truck through a mud pit. And they're like, "I'm raising the best well rounded little girl there is," right. And that is a really almost to the point, um, idea that, like, thank you for trying. Thank you for doing what you believe within your binary system is best for kids, by being open to the idea.

But we're still missing the point. Which is that I tell people, and I've told my mom, you shouldn't have what you perceive as a boy, which is a child who was born with either XY chromosomes, or a penis, or whatever it is that you're considering boyhood, and say, it's okay if you like girl things. You shouldn't do the same thing with a girl and say, it's okay if you like boy things.

What we should be doing is having babies and telling babies that they can like baby things. Have a toddler, tell your toddler, it's okay to like things, to do things, to wear things. And it goes, maybe that's just a language thing for people - 

[00:17:30] Jess: I was going to say, I do wonder if it's a language thing -

SK: It can be.

Jess: - because I know a lot of parents - the mindset feels expansive, the language we have to describe that behavior and what we're okay with is binary and restricting.

[00:17:43] SK: Because it's still labeling things, right? The messaging is positive to tell a little boy who wants to wear an Elsa dress You can wear an Elsa dress. It's okay for boys to like girl thing. That is a positive,  evolving language that is, is good. It's on the right track, but instead to be very mindful of our words and say, you as the name of the child are allowed to like Elsa doesn't gender. The clothing doesn't gender the child and doesn't gender the activity. So there's no need to then deviate in the future and say "well, this son that I thought I had who's been dressing like a girl is now identifying as a girl." It's just my child became who they are because I never labeled things or activities or places or people or events or likes or dislikes. Yeah. Yeah, it's going one step further is the most important work you can do. And just not labeling things that don't need a label.

[00:18:46] Jess: Yeah. 100%. You might help me. You might be able to help me extend this metaphor and improve on it a little bit. Cause I've been trying to figure out ways of describing it. It's not like any good mental health provider. I have tons of metaphors for stuff, but thinking about binary gender, what I was telling someone recently, it's like, okay. When we're still kind of stuck in a binary mindset, it's like assuming that gender It's like a theater show where you have a ticket and you have an assigned seat. And that in order to sit in a certain seat, you have to be able to show your ticket and say to that person there, I'm sorry, I think you're sitting in my seat. Like I, I need to sit there. But that's not what it is. Like there are no tickets. There's not even really any seats. Right. It's more like going to a movie where you're not, there's nothing that's assigned here. How would you improve on that metaphor or change it a little bit? Or do you feel like it's good?

[00:19:40] SK: That is good. I haven't heard that one before. I like that. But yeah, to kind of make it seem like we're all going to see a show and instead of being assigned a ticket and then trying to find your seat so that you are following the rules at a movie theater, everyone still follows the flow of entering exiting being respectful.

They just - no one expected anyone to sit anywhere. So no one's wrong. If you don't place an expectation on a person to do something, no one ever has to deviate or explain themselves or make a different choice. They just are and they just are. They just be. And I think that's what we're trying to get out with gender.

And I think I hear the opposition of like kids, even the, the, the hate comment you mentioned earlier. Why can't kids just be kids? Why are we choosing genders for them?

[00:20:31] Jess: Right?

[00:20:32] SK: Exactly.

[00:20:33] Jess: Exactly.

[00:20:33] SK: Why can't kids just be kids? Why are we choosing genders for them? Um, and it's not to make children non binary. It's to make all children exactly who they are without us, um, guessing, and then them having to say yes or no mom five years to ten years to twenty years later.

[00:20:53] Jess: Mm hmm. No, exactly. It's, if, if it were, if we were able to reduce the expectations and queer and trans people were safer just at baseline, then it wouldn't feel like Such a high threshold and a high bar that we have to cross and there's a there's a lot there about just the medicalization of trans identities and all of that, but I really love that frame. We all know what to do in a movie theater Just the follow the flow.

[00:21:21] SK: And everyone does what they need to do and we don't judge anybody for choosing to sit closer or farther away Everyone has a different experience,  different things that they enjoy and they do what they need to do to watch the same show, but we're all watching the same show

[00:21:35] Jess: Yeah. It's about the show. It's not the seat. Exactly. Okay. That's really great. I was going to ask about how you started cause we talked about this last time a little bit.

[00:21:43] SK: Sure.

[00:21:43] Jess: Did you set out to be a content creator and create this following or how, how did this all start for you?

[00:21:49] SK: Yeah, no, I had no intentions of being an online figure of creating content.

This was not something I had in my radar. Um, I, when I shaved my head like we talked about earlier, I think I was 22, 23 years old. And immediately I - it's funny to look back on - I leaned really hard into like "women can do anything. Women can have shaved heads. Women can, women aren't defined by their hair. Women aren't defined -" You know what I mean? So I was like -

[00:22:22] Jess: So you've been there too. Yeah. When you talk to the parents, it's not from a, it's not from a high - you've been there.

[00:22:27] SK: And you know what it is? It's because I shaved my head and I looked in the mirror and I said, Oh. I'm not who I thought I was. I'm not the role I was playing.

So I had this like moment of like leaning really hard into like super like binary feminism because I, I literally never heard the word non binary before. So I was like, "yeah, women can do anything. Women are amazing and diverse." And that is true. But then I, I had a friend who in college, um, identified as a lesbian and then came out as a trans man.

And that was like the first time I had kind of heard that in adulthood. And I watched his journey through top surgery online and he just had like a personal account and just shared with like the very few people he knew, like 500 followers or something. And I remember being like, That was so informative to me, that was so insightful, and I learned a lot, and I knew at the time, I'm not a trans man, I'm not a cis woman, but I'd never heard the word non binary, but keeping all this in my mind, I heard the word gender diverse for the first time, and I was like, oh my god, like, that's me, and I was like, Going on like Tumblr.

So at the time was like very end of Tumblr. I was looking at that and looking at YouTube - big into YouTube - Facebook groups just trying to figure out what that was because that's where I felt like I lied.  Found the non binary community heard that word for the first time Gathered as much info as I possibly could about it and realized that's who I was. So I decided top surgery was something I needed to affirm that identity for myself and be comfortable in my body. And as I went on my top surgery journey of booking consultations and looking into it, every single person that I saw having top surgery, um, was trans masculine, or a trans man, or was on testosterone. Um, was having nipple graft, was getting very binary placement, using very binary language about the process. So I was under the assumption I could not receive top surgery and that that was not an option for me.

So I grappled with that for about a year and once I was like, "no, like, I really want this and I'll, like, tell my surgeon I'm a trans man if I need to in order to get this." That's what I thought for a while. And I went through that process. And I said, you know what, if I just share my story the way that my college friend had shared with just his personal friends and family online, maybe I'll educate someone, like maybe one of my like elementary school teachers or my neighbor from like high school, you know what I mean?

Like someone will see it and like have an awakening and they'll just have knowledge. So I decided to go on a top surgery journey. Very like - no representation before me - and share about it. So I had surgery in 2020 and I shared a daily highlight on my Instagram to my like 900 followers of my recovery because people were asking me if I was okay, what was up? Why did I do this? Are you a man? Like just didn't understand so I was sharing as I learned and immediately, my Instagram just like blew up from the hashtags I was using. Um, I think I gained about 10,000 followers in a month. And I was like, what do I do? Do I allow people to have these conversations on my page? Do I facilitate them? Do I make my Instagram account private? Because this is weird and I don't know these people. But then I realized it was exactly what I had wanted for people to find community. It wasn't ever about me. It was about being kind of a facilitator for other people to build community because that space didn't exist five years ago, uh, as far as I was concerned.

So I allowed it to grow. And at a certain point, I think around 25,000 followers, I was like, "I guess I'm doing this." And I embraced it and it became more of an educational resource than just an experience sharing resource. And. It's been five years, four or four and a half years. So here I am.

[00:26:26] Jess: What are some of the biggest highs and lows of it for you?

[00:26:30] SK: Um, my biggest high by far is just the community. Um, I always wanted like one other person to find someone in me. that they could relate to, so they didn't feel like top surgery wasn't an option for them, but I never anticipated how many people I would relate to. And it very much, in reverse, like, I have 135,000 people in my phone that understand.

That, that I can't like fathom it sometimes. I'm like these people like, I don't really know much about them, but they're here. So unless they're like hate-following me, like they appreciate, understand, have some sort of reference point to me. And that's been such a beautifully overwhelming thing in my hard times.

And then the hard times go along right with it. I never in my life faced as much. Hate and death threats and just, um, the worst kind of humanity that you can find as I have being authentic on the internet. Yeah.

[00:27:32] Jess: No, it's really hard. It's, it's really hard when, and it's like people's inability to be free.

[00:27:39] Jess: Like, I see the chains that people are in -

[00:27:42] SK: Yeah.

[00:27:42] Jess: - with all of that hate. And I know you do too. That doesn't mean that's the first emotion that is salient every time you come across it. But it's just, it makes me sad, more than anything.

[00:27:51] SK: And you know what? It usually is.

Jess: Really?

SK: That usually is the first thing I feel. And I think it's because. My dad passed away two years ago, so we never really got to get to a point where I could fully be authentic and he could understand me, but he did try. And when I see people who mostly are rooted in ignorance, but it comes across like hate, I know the world that they grew up in.

I know the parents they had. I know the messaging they received. I know the media outlets they listened to that were in their houses when they were growing up. Because me too. And if I wasn't non binary and trans and queer, maybe I would be like them. And they're maybe not bad people. They just don't have resources or information or understanding to be empathetic people.

And my job on this earth is to be a positive example of someone who will not attack them back. And. If that is enough of a seed to plant to allow them to one day revisit the interaction and think maybe I wasn't so bad after all, that's enough for me. But yeah, it's generally rooted in they just don't have the life experience I do, so they don't know better.

[00:29:07] Jess: No, I can really relate to that. That was one of the things that felt incredibly resonant as I was growing up, like, my queerness was the reason I was asking questions.

SK: Me too.

[00:29:19] Jess: And I had a profound respect for the fact that people around me who just were able to fit in, like, why, why would you? Yeah. You know, so many things about this, they just work for you. There's not really a reason to. And so I can, yeah, I can get that too. Resentment comes at times. Sure. But that's also human.

[00:29:40] SK: It is. It is. And it's, I'm not. A perfect practitioner of receiving a hate comment and saying. They just don't know better to leave make love out of it like yeah most of the time Yes, I'm at that point But there were times where I would spiral and I would be like why are people they just coming at me I'm just posting a picture in a dress because I like it and they're like they cannot fathom That I eat it and it comes down to it's in person to I've noticed it sometimes in a small town Which I'm just better at now When people stare, or they have something negative to say, they just are uncomfortable with your joy, most of the time, because they can't fathom living so far outside of the boundaries they were told exist.

That not only would I do it, but look joyful while doing it. They just, it just breaks their world a little bit. So I just have to remember that me breaking their world can make them in the moment, uncomfortable, but over time it opens your mind. And maybe I don't see like the fruit of my labor, but I know that I've started that process and that's.

Yeah. That's enough for me. Uh, most of the time, sometimes I'm mad about it, but that's just, that's just me being a human.

[00:30:52] Jess: That's just being a human. Yeah. Yeah. I like how you, maybe, maybe, maybe not accidentally kind of stumbled into very, what feels like intentional nonviolent resistance in the community on your page.

[00:31:04] SK: Yeah, it's intentional for sure. I think that again if I didn't have the upbringing that I had I wouldn't have that approach I think I'd be angrier but I I loved someone and I still love someone very deeply who was Misinformed and had very different opinions than me and he was not a bad man. He was a great man Who wasn't queer and didn't live?

The way I lived, so he didn't know and those people walk the earth and their fathers and their brothers and their sisters and their siblings and spouses and they. Are also good people who just have bad opinions or misinformation. So that helps me. We have, we have more in common than we have different.

Um, and if we treat people that way, we're, we get closer to actual liberation

[00:31:56] Jess: from both ways actually. And so I've been thinking about this recently as people have talked about like the current president and any leaders who are. Autocrats or wannabe autocrats that we actually forget the humanity of those people and the average just ordinariness of those people.

So I think, you know, when you say things like, I loved someone who was very different from me and we could still make this work and he's human. I think that doesn't only. breed nonviolence and peace, but it actually helps us to resist wisely and notice threats when they exist, because it's not a one note Disney villain. It's not a Bond villain or a monster that we're looking for. We're looking for like humans cause this harm. Um, so I think that's an important point too, about that.

[00:32:52] SK: It is. And it doesn't excuse the bad things that those humans do, but it does give you. It should give you pause to recognize that they are just humans and humans have a vastly different approach and understanding to the same experiences that other humans have.

Um, and when the humans who have vastly different approaches and experience than you do take power over your life, that's when there's intense conflict and issue. Um, but. We, it does almost ground me and bring me down to earth to remember they are just humans, those people that we're so terrified of that are causing such real life harm are human beings who have nuance and we have to like, not overwhelm ourselves, not completely panic and remember that, um, we're powerful in numbers and we have calmness and groundedness within us, even in our most chaotic of times.

[00:33:54] Jess: Yeah, we absolutely do. If the internet suddenly disappeared tomorrow, [00:34:00] what's the legacy that you want to leave behind? What's a message about queerness, gender, play, or however you would describe most of the essence of what you do, what would you want to leave people with?

[00:34:10] SK: I want, I would want people to know that they can absolutely choose their own path.

And my journey was born from not having the representation to show me that. And all I ever wanted to do on the internet was be the representation to show people that. A different approach, but the same message. You can be your own guide, you can forge your own path, whether that's gender, sexuality, identity, pronouns, religion, spirituality, it doesn't matter.

Every single person on this earth is different in all of those things. There is no box, um, there is no requirement. You can be exactly who you want to be and that is enough And I just hope people saw that in me and they don't have to be like me They don't have to dress like me look like me act like me, but I hope that they see that divergence is okay.

[00:35:06] Jess: In fact, it's pretty badass.

[00:35:08] SK: Yeah, we need more of it.

[00:35:10] Jess: We definitely do um, so I usually end with You know, asking about something that's giving people really good queer or trans joy. So I'd still love to ask you that, but you get your own special ending to this. That's a very on brand, just say, SK.

[00:35:26] SK: SK Okay. I think currently my attempt to make in person connection is some queer joy for me.

I have been going out of my way - I work at a yoga studio. Um, everyone has been wonderful there, but I've gone out of my way to be very open about my identity. Um, when usually I just exist. And if people assume they assume, and if they don't, they don't. I've corrected myself or have corrected people on my pronouns, my identifying language.

Um, I've led - uh, like almost inclusivity training for the staff volunteers. These are things that put me outside of my comfort zone that usually I would panic about, but I feel strong about doing them and it feels, it fills my cup to be able to offer that for people. Um, so that's been a really joyful thing for me recently.

[00:36:18] Jess: Hmm. That's really lovely. And again, in person community,

[00:36:22] SK: I really need that right now. 

[00:36:22] Jess: We do. That's great. So let's see, we've got, if your gender were a weather pattern, what would it be?

[00:36:29] SK: I've actually done this before on my page. I didn't use one for myself. If my gender were a weather pattern, I would want to do that, like, rainshine, you know, when it's like sunny and raining, but before the rainbow comes out. I think that that's really beautiful.

[00:36:42] Jess: Rainshine. Okay, again, duality. I see this. Okay. If your gender were a type of food, what's on the plate? Are we a chaotic charcuterie board? Are we a welcome bo's dish? What are we?

[00:36:54] SK: We're like some sort of like. Plant based, like, salad bowl, but we got all the colors. There's like a little bit of everything, lots of different textures. It's a little crunchy, a little bit smooth. Nice dressing. A glaze maybe?

[00:37:10] Jess: Yeah, it's like you gotta have a dressing or a glaze to sort of pull things together.

[00:37:13] Jess: Yeah.

[00:37:14] SK: Yeah.

[00:37:15] Jess: Okay, I like that one. What about if your gender were a piece of furniture, what would it be, and why? I guess it doesn't have to be why. Yeah, if your gender were a piece of furniture, what would it be?

[00:37:26] SK: My, like, initial thought was, like, one of those, like, three tiered lamps with, like, the different colored heads.

[00:37:34] SK: I don't have, I don't have an explanation, just that.

[00:37:37] Jess: Yeah, yeah, okay, no explanation needed. What about, let's see, if your gender were a celestial body, where would it exist in the universe? Planet drifting between different galaxies, yeah.

[00:37:48] SK: Oh no, go ahead, continue.

[00:37:50] Jess: Like, yeah, planet drifting between galaxies, a star that only shines sometimes, a black hole, like we got endless options here.

[00:37:57] SK: Nice, I would want it to exist somewhere that hasn't yet been discovered.

[00:38:02] Jess: That makes sense. Yeah.

[00:38:04] SK: Yeah. I was ready for that one.

[00:38:06] Jess: Mm hmm. There are more, but I think that's a really good one to end on, actually. Okay, great. Somewhere that's never been discovered. Well, thank you so much for taking the time. This was, this was a conversation I didn't know that I really needed right now, and I think it's one that a lot of us need.

[00:38:24] SK: Yeah, you're welcome. I feel that way too. So thank you for chatting with me and giving me a little more virtual but face to face connection that I need as well.

[00:38:32] Jess: So thanks so much. And that is a wrap on the conversation with SK. Really sad to wrap that up because it was such a beautiful conversation. I think we both really needed.

[00:38:44] Jess: Again, you can find SK's stuff on Instagram at just say SK. And that's a wrap on the first couple of episodes of the GenderIQ podcast. I'm so excited to be able to bring these conversations to y'all. I've been working on this for a while. So if you like it, please rate, review, subscribe, share this with someone.

Because these feel like the conversations we're not having, but we need to be. You can find show notes, transcripts, and links at mygenderiq. com slash podcast. And remember, we weren't made to fit into boxes. Take a deep breath, live your truth as best you can, and take up all the space you need to. Until next time, hope to see you soon.