Alex Iantaffi: Hello and welcome to another episode of gender stories. I know I always say that I'm excited, but I What can I tell you? I have the best guest for this podcast, and so today, I'm super excited to be welcoming Eli Lawliet at PhD, who is the dreamer and Weaver of the gender doula, in addition to a decade of experience researching trans healthcare law, policy and history, Eli is formal training as a full spectrum doula, breath work facilitator and tarot reader, as well as many years of surviving the world of poverty, wages and retail work. The broad scope of Eli's experience directly informs the equally broad spectrum of his work as a general doula. He has been seeing clients since January of 2020, and has worked with hundreds of trans folks nationally and internationally in sessions, classes and workshops. Though he was born in Oklahoma and raised in Missouri, Eli currently lives on Gabrielino, Tongva, Chumash and kichland, currently known as Los Angeles, with his partner, three cats, a dog and four snakes. I'm so excited to welcome you, Eli, because I love your work. So welcome to Gender stories. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
Alex Iantaffi: Yes, and apologies to you and the listeners. I feel like my voice is a little over the map at the moment. So this is what you get, dear listeners or watchers, if you're watching on YouTube and and I hope you can forgive me, this is what body minds do. They do their thing, and we just roll with it. So there's so many different things that I want to talk with you about, but why don't we just start from what is a gender doula for people who have never come across that term before?
Eli Lawliet: Yeah, so I like to describe gender doula work, or at least the work that I do as a gender doula, as full spectrum support for people who are questioning, exploring or transitioning their gender. And then I also provide support for family members, allies, partners and anyone really, and what that support looks like is really tailored to the specific individual. That's why I say full spectrum, because one person might need a lot of help with understanding, like, how to even start questioning or exploring their gender, where to go from the questions of like, am I trans, or like, Am I this label? How do you move forward?
Eli Lawliet: From that, how do you know? Or another person might need a lot of support around starting hormones or seeking a surgeon, and someone else might need help like finding a new wardrobe and knowing how to buy pants in a type of sizing they've never experienced before. Yes, many of us are familiar with that painful journey so.So really, the type of support I provide is very, very dependent on the needs of the person that I'm speaking to, which is also why I chose to call myself a doula, in part because doulas function in a sort of like medical adjacent capacity, ofte n in the room with doctors and as a part of the medical experience, but are not actually medical professionals. And so you have a lot of freedom and flexibility to function in ways that medical professionals couldn't but also you have a lot of, like, a large scope of different types of support that you can provide and ways that you can show up for people,
Alex Iantaffi: Absolutely. And actually, that was one of the questions I was going to ask for people who are listening and are thinking, Oh, I always thought there was, like, therapists or counselors that supported kind of gender transition, like, How is your work different, right?
Alex Iantaffi: And you've already said a little bit how you have a freedom that, of course, like a licensed therapist, doesn't? You know, I cannot go and shop with my clients, for example, and I don't know if that's something you do or could offer, if somebody was local or like, how do you feel that what you offer kind of differs from what maybe other healthcare providers can offer.
Eli Lawliet: Yeah, so in terms of a therapist, I do think that there's many ways that the support that I offer often looks like therapy. So like for many of my clients, we're meeting for a set amount of time on a regular basis, right? Which is a rhythm that many of us associate with therapy, you know, and we're spending a lot of that time talking often, right? So again, a rhythm many of us associate with therapy. And so the way that I like to sort of draw this distinction, or the way that has made the most sense to me, is that I'm not here to offer modalities, right? In terms of, like, mental health modalities. So we're not going to be doing cognitive behavioral therapy or EMDR, you know, we're not going to be doing these things in the session. If you come to me with a problem, I can hold space for that problem. I can also give you practical advice and and I think advice is, like, a big part of it, right? But like, if a client comes to me and they're like, I'm having a really hard time, for example, getting started with my legal name change because I'm just overwhelmed and I'm stressed out, and this is too much for me. I'm not going to come at that from a therapeutic direction of, how do we necessarily, like, address the anxiety and the overwhelm.
Eli Lawliet: I'm going to come at it more from like, okay, how can I support you here? Like, would it be helpful if I made you a step by step list that you can follow? Would it be helpful if I talk to you through your schedule, and we figured out exactly when you can do each step, obviously, with a lot of gentleness and grace for if you can't actually do it on that day, right? Would it be helpful if I you know this, this, this, right? So we're going to come at it from a more, I guess, like a more practical approach, and less of like a therapeutic approach. Of course, if a client, if I feel like they would benefit from therapy, and that's something they're open to, I can also help them find a therapist who's affirming, right? But it's very helpful that I do not have the same constraints that a therapist has on their practice,
Alex Iantaffi: Absolutely. And I think that also, I love that you talk about being a full spectrum doula, right? Because gender touches like, on every aspect of our lives. So I think we were saying that earlier, you know, and like, really, there is no aspect of our lives that I think is not touched by gender. And so do you find that that's true in your work, right? That people really come for, not just maybe what folks might think about transition, traditionally, right? Name change, you know, hormones, surgical interventions, if that's what people want, or even clothing or accessories or things like that.
Alex Iantaffi: Like, it's a really much kind of broader spectrum, and I'm assuming also changes across the lifetime, right? Like, I've been out as trans for, I think it's 16 years now, and I'm still kind of like, Oh, what am I wearing?
Alex Iantaffi: And also, like, our bodies change as we age, you know, and and our needs change. And so yes, like, have you had that experience where clients really come for things that are really much beyond what we think about when we think about transition?
Eli Lawliet: Absolutely, I have a very common experience with clients being like, I know this isn't really about gender, but and then they'll say, you know, whatever it is, which I agree with you, everything is at some in some way about gender, right?
Eli Lawliet: But it'll be like something about their job or their profession, or, you know, I've had a lot of clients over the years sort of organically shift into, like, spiritual support instead of gender support, which, obviously there's a lot of crossover there, but that's a thing that has happened. And you know, to that end, sometimes those things are very woven together, right? Like, we'll be doing gender support, but I'm pulling tarot cards, right? And so that can happen. I have clients who see me for both tarot and gender doula, sometimes separately, sometimes together. I have clients who, you know, I've gone through a whole journey with them over years of talking from, like, very baby trans, you know, like, Do I even want to do this to?
Eli Lawliet: Like, now they're, like, fully launching into their lives, and I'm supporting them in totally new ways, right? So absolutely, it definitely shifts and changes over and then I also, I will say, I have a lot of clients who come to me who maybe transitioned 15-20 years ago, and now need to resolve the trauma of what it was like to transition 15-20 years ago.
Alex Iantaffi: Oh, absolutely. I mean, even 10 years ago, I Yes.
Alex Iantaffi: I mean, I've started working as a therapist when it was still gender identity disorder, and that's what I had to be diagnosed with to be able to access my own kind of, this transition services I wanted, and what I had to diagnose clients with for them, you know.
Alex Iantaffi: And I often talked about, you know, the you're not disordered.
Alex Iantaffi: This is just the portal that we have to walk through in the current system, right to negotiate access and support for you to kind of live your life fully. And so that makes a lot of sense to me, that folks will just want to, you know, really revisit kind of what, you know, and in a way, the diagnosis was maybe the most benign part of that process. You know, I also know a lot of horrific stories around I mean, you're gender judged by other people, not just professionals, right and expectations of that people out of gender, and expectation that people out of our sexuality. I mean, even just 15 years ago, somebody was questioning me at the Research Conference. Well, if trans men really enjoy having, you know, penetrative sex, if they're frontal, are they really trans, you know? And I was like, yes, like, you know, especially as, like, a trans, queer, masculine person, I was like, 100% and also this conversation feels so unsafe right now to me, on a personal level, as well as on a you know, professional level, even though I just presented on like there are many types of sexual identities that people have from my research, right? But it's just there's so much trauma in the field that people have experienced, and that is.
Alex Iantaffi: Something that often we don't talk about how some of the older trans folks have been really traumatized, how some of the responses sometimes that come through are really part of that trauma. And yeah, yeah, I'm really curious about what thoughts you're having as we're talking about this. I know for me, I'm like, oh my god, the floodgates are opening emotionally from all the memories my own and my clients.
Eli Lawliet: But yes, yes, yeah.
Eli Lawliet: Well, I mean, I my 10 years on T is going to be next March, so I'm like nine and a half years on tea, and I spent my whole 20s in this sort of, like, horrible nightmare soup of gender exploration that was just like, real rough. I mean, real rough, and that's part of why I do what I do now, right? But it was very flummoxing for me to tease apart sex, sexuality and gender, because I couldn't really understand why I felt gay. But I had always been sort of perceived as a perceived myself as, like a straight girl, because I was only ever attracted to men. And so that was actually a really confusing thing for me. And like, my 20s, like, Okay, I like, identified as bi for a while, but I've literally never been attracted to a woman. And so I was like, Okay, I'm only identifying as this because part I know I feel queer, but I couldn't figure out, like, why I felt queer. And then, you know, at some point it clicked for me, and I was able, and then I had to undo so many layers of like, I can't possibly call myself trans, like I'm just traumatized. I just wish I was cool. I just am delusional, like all the many things, I mean, you name it. I had the imposter syndrome, you know, like, it was really hard, so, yeah, like, that sort of gender exploration during that time period was really, really rough. It was, yeah, and I mean, things are rough now too, and in a completely different way. But it's interesting to hold the challenges of folks who are transitioning now in the context of the backlash that we're experiencing, and then folks who are transitioning, you know, 10-15, 20-25, years ago, in the context of all the things that are relevant. I mean, I joke about how every cohort of trans people is like, every two years.
Eli Lawliet: It's like every two years, it's a completely different experience to transition, you know. And so, like, as a person who's really studied a lot of trans history and who's lived a lot of trans history, I have like, a pretty broad perspective of, like, what all those different cohorts sort of are like at least in broad strokes, and that's very helpful for the different folks who come to see me.
Alex Iantaffi: Absolutely I feel like this could be its own conversation, like all the historical trauma and bullshit that trans folks have had to go through because of, you know, ubiquitous cisgenderism, and also because of just how the system was set up, right? And because of how the system was set up, it's really hard for a lot of us to, like, figure ourselves out. I even remember growing up going, I feel like, I mean, drag, but it didn't make sense, right? Because I was presenting feminine, and I was like, Well, I must, well, perform femininity if that's what's expected, and I always felt not very good at it, and like I was in drag, which now makes a lot of sense, right? And be much more like my community, where really gay men more than lesbians. Well, I guess I'm bisexual, but just attracted to masculine folks regardless of their gender identity. And it was just it was hard because the awareness many role models, or possibility models. I like that term better. But even with all the possibility models now, the increased visibility is its own challenge. Some I'm with you, I feel like I love that every two years, right? It's kind of almost like its own cohort of challenges for trans people, and it is different for and generationally, it can be very different. And also, if people come out now in their 60s compared to coming out in your 60s, like 20 years ago, or come out and when they're 15 now compared to 20 years ago, right?
Alex Iantaffi: It's so complex.
Alex Iantaffi: And I think that complexity really highlights why it's important to have also, like, maybe a team approach. I don't know if you've also ever, like you talked about being a doula.
Alex Iantaffi: In a way, it's a really great way to be in part of this kind of medical care team, and also for healthcare providers to understand what your role is, I'm assuming. And are you finding that you are collaborating with other healthcare professionals. When you are working with clients like or are you finding the healthcare professionals maybe are not as invested or interested in connecting with you, because it is seen as a more known mainstream alternative. I don't know what adjective we want to use here.
Alex Iantaffi: Kind of approach to gender transition.
Eli Lawliet: Yeah, that's a good question. I haven't done much collaboration with healthcare professionals. I've done some collaboration, quite a lot more collaboration with therapists. I think that therapists really see it and really get it. And there's several therapists who were like, quite close and professionally speaking, and talk quite a lot and share resources. And, you know, hopefully we'll be able to work together on doing like CEs and things like that to help improve, which I do also train therapists. And I think, yes, ideally I would also love to train healthcare professionals, but the sort of world of training healthcare professionals is specific.
Eli Lawliet: There's a lot of rules, there's a lot of gatekeeping, there's a lot of like, specific language.
Eli Lawliet: And I think that maybe someday I'll have the resources, and somebody on the other side of the equation will also be as interested as I am in that and want to collaborate in a meaningful way. But so far that hasn't materialized.
Alex Iantaffi: Yeah, that's real. I feel like medical doctors like to talk to other medical doctors and nurses, or nurses and all that, and it's much harder, I think, to get into the medical world and and even if you do, it's just like, it's a very different approach to to what we're talking about that I'm really glad that your clients have you on their side as a trans you know, really explore all these different aspects of their gender journeys. And I use plural gender journeys on purpose. I feel like I've been on many gender journeys in my 50 plus years of life and and on that, I kind of want to go back to something you said about some of the clients really blur those boundaries between like, are they coming to you for Tarot?
Alex Iantaffi: Are they coming to you for gender doula services? Both?
Alex Iantaffi: Because I think spirituality, I don't know it's been such a part of my journey. I know it's been a big part of the journey for a lot of other trans and non-binary and or gender expensive folks I've worked with. And so how are you finding kind of that integrating spirituality in people's kind of gender, gender journey, or even transness as a spiritual experience in a self and in a way, a lot of us experience our gender identity as a almost like a spiritual identity, for one of a better word, at least, I know I do, but
Eli Lawliet: yeah, I do as well.
Eli Lawliet: You know, I was raised by conservative Christian family in the middle of the country, and I was quite young when I realized that that did not work for me. I was like, and I sort of floated around in the gray zone for many years. And then in my 20s, I was like, I'm an atheist. And I was like, really hardcore about that. And then when I was in my PhD program, many factors culminated my I had a very intense chronic illness crisis.
Eli Lawliet: And also grad school is just hell on earth, and like, as you know. And I was like, I need a spiritual something, like, I need something, you know. And so I thought about it, and I was like, okay, like, I can't, like organized religion is not for me. I was looking into some of the like, sort of pagan options.
Eli Lawliet: And I was like, first of all, most of these feel like organized religion. A lot of them are white supremacist, and a lot of them are really, like, CIS sexist. And I was like, I can't do that. So that all got checked to the side. And I was like, All right, what can and I didn't want to do cultural appropriation of anybody else's religion or or culture or spirituality. So I was like, What can I root into? Like, what is there here for me? And the only thing that felt solid enough to root into was transness and so really starting at that point and ever since, I've been building a spirituality based on and in transness as a spiritual experience, but also as a lens that opens you up to What I have called sacred knowledge that is only available through this process and this gauntlet of walking in the liminal space, right? And being in that experience. And recently, my partner coined a term because I was reading about imaginal cells, yeah, which I'll explain for anybody who isn't aware, imaginal cells are like cells that exist in caterpillars, that hold all of the DNA information for how to turn into a butterfly. But when a caterpillar is in Caterpillar mode, those cells are actually seen as invaders and are attacked by the immune system.
Eli Lawliet: However, they're resilient, and a certain number of them survive. And when the caterpillar goes into its chrysalis and it turns into soup, those cells are the only things that sort of retain their function, and they tell the soup how to turn into a butterfly.
Eli Lawliet: And then that's how caterpillars become butterfly.
Eli Lawliet: Right? And so reading through this, I was like, you know, my brain is just like, popping up.
Eli Lawliet: And I was like, Oh, my God. And so I went to my partner, and I was like, trans people are the imaginal cells of humanity. Like this lines up so beautifully.
Eli Lawliet: And he was like, oh, it's like, trans imaginality. And I was like, that's the name of it.
Eli Lawliet: That's the name of my spirituality is trans imaginality, you know. So it's that very sort of like animistic orientation toward the world, and I use a lot of like animal and natural teachers as guides for understanding how I relate to the world and how transness is sort of this force that goes through all of nature and all of Earth, you know, sorry, now I feel like I've gone completely on a tangent.
Alex Iantaffi: But no, this is a great tangent. This is a great tangent. Keep going. Eli, no problem with this tangent. [both laugh]
Eli Lawliet: Yeah. So I just feel like in terms of how spirituality shows up in my sessions with clients, right? I never want to, I never want someone to feel like they have to believe what I believe. And actually, in fact, because of my allergy to organized religion, it's very important to me that my spirituality is actually a completely solitary and Individual Endeavor, right? Like there's much crossover with other people, because animism is inherently like we are all of this earth. We can all observe this earth, right? So that's available to everyone at all times, but my very specific practices are my own, you know, and I don't push them on anyone and and I wouldn't even tell anyone what they all are, because it's personal, you know.
Eli Lawliet: So I do have clients that come to me and they're, you know, maybe more in a place where they either don't really vibe with spirituality, or maybe it's just not a thing that resonates for them. And I'm not going to bring it into those spaces, you know, but many people at this point are starting to know that this is who I am, and so a lot of people seek me out specifically because they want that interweaving.And so in that way, I will weave spirituality in.
Eli Lawliet: And like I mentioned before, for some of my clients, that's become the primary type of support that they're craving.
Alex Iantaffi: This makes so much sense to me, because I feel now my brain is going in 500 different tangents. That's okay.
Alex Iantaffi: We'll figure it out. It makes so much sense to me because, you know, often there is a spiritual, existential aspect when we go on those gender journeys. And also, like pretty much most cultures across the globe, including the culture where I come from, have like a sacred role for what we would call from a through an Anglo current lens, trans, non binary gender, expensive folks. So if I think about, you know, the southern Mediterranean in Italy, and the femminielli, you know, where the keeper of the tradition of the Black Madonna, in the specific Black Madonna, Madonna di Montevergine. It was like on the mound where people think there was a temple to Cybele who was the Phrygian goddess who had the priest called the Galli. You know, where, what we would probably call trans feminine people right now, but not exclusively, right, almost everywhere in the globe, as those ideas of like trans, expansive, gender expansive, non binary folks as connected to the divine in some way. And to me, makes sense because of that liminality. You know, we know witches are edge walkers. You know, healers are edge walkers, and so, of course, to me, makes so much sense that a lot of us who are trans also feel this, like hunger for spiritual connection, right? Because we we feel it in our DNA, we feel it in our ancestry. We feel it in kind of the web of connection.
Alex Iantaffi: And and, yeah, it's so difficult because so much of even whatever pagan religions that might have survived beyond some indigenous traditions are so heavily filtered through Christianity. I even like in paganism, sometimes I'm like, That is like kind of Protestantism light, and there's some like values that kind of questionable, right? Cuz I'm, like, we should think about this a little bit more. I don't know if I'm making any sense, but I was just so excited about this because I'm, I think that is something that a lot of people are yearning for, that what I would call, like, queer spirit, you know, and and yet it's really hard to figure out, especially if people want to practice together, right?
Alex Iantaffi: Because also, how do we practice together when we might come from many eclectic different traditions and different communities, because we don't have a place in our community of origin anymore. We're displaced, sometimes through colonialism, through all the ways in which we've been displaced, yeah, and it's and so for me, when I think about that, there's also an aspect of grief, and I know that worked with clients, especially indigenous clients, on the grieving part of like, what would my life have looked like, you know, in a whole, untouched by colonialism, right?
Alex Iantaffi: Community? And I don't know if you've come across that either in your own journey or with clients, but yeah,
Eli Lawliet: absolutely. I mean, I think that I'm still, I'm still untangling my own grief related to colonization, because it's very complicated. On my dad's side is, like, very much Irish, and then my mom's side is sort of the classic white person blend of European, but like, with a lot of Irish and British and other colonizers, right? And so like, like thinking through, or, like, working with ancestors in terms of, like, Okay, what does it mean to hold blood of like, colonizer and colonized, you know, like, I have recent ancestors who had to flee their home because of colonization and because of, you know, genocide, right through the famine. And then I also have recent ancestors who came to this land and stole land from Native people through various government programs, right?
Eli Lawliet: Yeah, and it's like that's a complicated thing to hold on to, and I think that this is where, because I'm a white person, and I think that all white people need to do very, very deep ancestor work, and need to really, like, sit with these things and allow themselves to be in the pain and the discomfort and the grief of it, because how are we? I truly believe that it's white people's responsibility to deal with all the problems that our ancestors have caused and to dismantle white supremacy and whiteness as a whole, you know, enterprise and so how are we going to do that work if we're not first, you know, tending to that grief and that pain in our ancestors and their the violence that they wrought upon So many different lands and so many different humans and so many different animals, right? Like, it's just the scope of it is so overwhelming that I think sometimes you need an entry point. And to me, the entry point is sort of like the ancestral right, and also it's very it's been very helpful for me to also relate to my Transcenders and to use that as another point of like ancestral connection, I lead a transistor sort of class, or it started as a workshop, became a class with another practitioner named Zell Amanzi, who's incredible. And we offered that last May, and we'll probably offer it again next year, called accessing ancestral wisdom, and that's been like such a generative space, because, first of all, having a collaborator in that space where we can talk about our ancestral and ancestral practices, and they're so different, but there's so much crossover, and then bringing that to trans people and being like, Look, you don't have to feel so alone. And like, you can build community with your Transcenders. And if humans are really hard for you, guess what? You have Transcenders who are animals, who are plants, who are, you know, different parts of the land, you know, like this is all available to you, and we can teach you how to find your way in. And like, what works for you, right? And so just honestly, like, first of all, having my own practice of trans imaginality and transistor work, and then bringing that to a teaching space where I can be like, Okay, this is what I figured out. And I'm joined by this incredible human who has so much wisdom to offer. And you know, we can, like, Hold cohorts through this. Oh, my God. Like nothing has been more healing to that part of me than that process.
Alex Iantaffi: Absolutely, I'm kind of actually, like tearing up a little bit as you're talking about this, because I am seeing kind of the emergence of, like, people really connected to transcends. I remember when my friend Dr Pavini Moray started talking about gender, blended, gender, blessed ancestors and Transcenders, there were not that many people talking about those things, especially here in the US and amongst white people.
Alex Iantaffi: And so it's really just so beautiful to see kind of this emergence of ancestral work, and I think it really speaks to our desire for collective liberation, right. Often say that, you know, to dismantle white supremacy, we've gotta let go of whiteness, and we gotta know who we are, and I feel very lucky, you know, to have belonging, to know what it feels like to be on land I belong to, to be brought up and. Practices, because I really see the disconnect and the damage of being disconnected from language, being disconnected from culture, have been it's been really interesting to get to know more trans Italian Americans and to just see the differences, you know, where there is that yearning, but also the white supremacy, like that illness, I really think of white supremacy as a sickness, has taken such deep roots that it's even hard to connect, even in a different way. And it's just, it's interesting, I think, for me, in the liminal space, right?
Alex Iantaffi: Of like having been brought up in this way, but now being here and feeling like, what does it mean to help people connect with their ancestry, not in a commodifying way, not in a spiritual bypassing way, but in authentic way where there can be that grieving, that can be then reconnecting, because it's Just so counter cultural to white supremacy, also to capitalism.
Alex Iantaffi: You know, when you were talking about animism, you know, being brought up very much. I feel like Sicilian culture is very much anonymous culture and like, all the time, like even in just small day to day things, right?
Alex Iantaffi: Just the way we treat things in in air quotes, right? Like, just the the care of like clothes and home and homes having a name, and the tending of things again, like, it's just very different, a very different feel and and I think there is so much hunger in the community, and so so excited when I saw that class, and I was like, one day I'll have some spaciousness to add something else and take one of your classes, because I'm very excited about all of that. But what I I'm curious about kind of, if you're finding also that during this time of yet another kind of anti trans wave, this is also helping people build some, you know, source of nourishment or a resourcing, or, you know, not maybe feeling so overwhelmed or alone. I know for me, when I feel like this is so heavy, I'm like, that connection to ancestors and to the larger ecosystem reminds me this is not the first time. This is, you know, that we're feeling this.
Alex Iantaffi: There's so much wisdom in how we resist and transform No, and I think that trans folks do. It's not an accident. They often, during the global rise of fascism, in lots of different ways, trans folks are targeted.
Alex Iantaffi: That's happened before. It's happening now, right? I'm saying a lot of words, but I think you know what I'm trying to get to so you find in your work as well that people are finding this as a source of like, joy, resilience, comfort, nourishment. I don't know whatever words we might want to use, absolutely, yeah.
Eli Lawliet: I made my my 2024, sort of theme was resourcing, yes, yeah. And which I actually there's an astrologer named Diana Rose, who I adore. All of their work is incredible.
Eli Lawliet: Everybody should check them out.
Eli Lawliet: But Diana did a class called By Jove which is a class all about Jupiter. And I took that class.
Eli Lawliet: I do a deep rest every January.
Eli Lawliet: And so during my deep rest of 2023, I was taking that class, and in that class, she talks about resourcing, and in this way, that was so transformational to me, because I was like, oh, like, I've been working with this concept, but I didn't put it into that frame, you know. And so that was, like, really fundamental to me, thinking about how to move into 2024 because, like you said, as we're seeing this rise of global fascism, as we're seeing this massive backlash, you know, I have a lot of knowledge about trans history. A lot of my PhD was trans history, and I've really studied so many different ways that these backlashes have come up. And so I have felt like that has been a protective, like insulator around me as a person who, I think in many ways must hold hope no matter what, for my community, right? And so having the installation of right? But my ancestors have been through this, you know, and like, seeing how they have managed these different waves and and knowing that backlashes are cyclical and that this is just one of, like, many cycles of this, right? All of that has been so helpful to me. And then taking sort of these concepts of like, resourcing and transistors and history and all that, and trying to, like, find ways to, like, give it back to the community, you know, like I did a whole class called Resource your trans self, and that was very, you know, steeped in resourcing. But honestly, everything that I do is because there's so many different ways to resource yourself, and I think that moving in. See the challenges of this year, knowing, hey, it's an election year, knowing things have been getting harder and harder for a while, and I don't know if we've hit the crest of it yet, you know, I'm not sure.
Eli Lawliet: And so it really brings up this need that, like, Hey, we've gotta move differently, you know. And the little baby trans folks like, they need people to be like, alright, baby, I got you, like, here's how you're going to bolster yourself, you know. And the people who came out, like, in 2020, which is a lot of people who sort of came out in a completely different concept context, and then got, like, tidal waves with all the hatred, you know, who are floundering now, a lot of them, right? It's like, okay, wait deep breaths. We're going to be okay, but we're going to have to learn how to move differently.
Eli Lawliet: We can't take for granted that we're safe. We can't take for granted that we have access to medical care, you know, we can't take for granted that we're not going to need to DIY our hormones, you know, like, we can't take these things for granted anymore. So how do we resource ourselves? How do we root ourselves? How do we find ways to like, even if it's just a teeny little bit? One thing that I use a lot in my classes is, does it make it even 1% better? Does it make it 2% better, right? Like we're looking to like, add together these little things and such that overall, in a holistic way, we're more resourced and more capable of meeting the moment, right? And so, I mean, I'm kind of also going off in a million directions, but I feel like this is sort of the most important thing to me, and the thing that undergirds everything that I'm offering, actually, certainly in this year, but also in general, is just like, how do we resource ourselves better? Because I want as many people as possible to survive this, you know, I've lost people. I'm sure you've lost people. Yeah, I don't want to lose more. And I have seen the profound difference that resourcing has made in my life, but also in clients. You know, I've had clients who are like, You're nuts. This is so ridiculous. Like, I do not believe this is going to make a difference. And then six months later, they're like in a completely different place. You know,
Alex Iantaffi: so, so true. I resonate with so much of why you shared. And I think for me, what that really highlights also it's like when we connect with the ecosystem, with ancestors. I think it also really highlights how important relationality is right? Because a lot of people came out in 2020 because almost there was this isolation and this insulation right from the pervasive cisgenderism, gendered expectation, all of a sudden people could maybe experiment a little bit more, but also they have a lot of time to be with their thoughts and their desires and inner worlds, right? And then this reality of the you know, if we look at those graphs where the anti trans legislation, like, shoots up in 2021, and up to the present moment, right, in this current cycle of history, it's, it's been a rough ride for a lot of people came out then because also, like, the insulation allowed them maybe to, like, you know, being in the soup, you know, of that transimaginality, but then also not having connection, not having community, necessarily, right?
Alex Iantaffi: And I don't know for you, but for me, community is such an important piece of it, right?
Alex Iantaffi: And I know that sometimes people are like, but I'm more comfortable being community with, like, trees and green Bloods and, you know, or non human animals rather than humans. And I'm like, Yes, and we also need the humans. And at the moment, I'm really on this train of, I feel like the queerest thing we can do is actually help people, especially white people, understand relationality and practice relationality, right? Because I feel like we have just part of the illness of white supremacy, is that taking away of kinship that really felt embodied sense of kinship relationality. And I think for me, most of my nourishment is really through relationship, not just with humans like but relationship with ancestors, right, relationship with spirit, relationship with the beautiful trees right outside my window.
Alex Iantaffi: You know that I feel so fortunate and privileged to like steward, you know? And so I'm wondering if you're coming across that push and pull sometimes with folks too, especially because as trans folks, we have been traumatized by people. So it makes sense that we don't want to be with other people. But I wonder if you find that resistance sometimes to people like maybe resistance, not the it's not a good word I want to use, but like hesitance, right? Oh, I don't know about being with other trans folks or being in community. Does that make sense?
Eli Lawliet: Definitely. I mean, I think that you know, as you've as you've mentioned, our community is comprised of people who are holding a lot of trauma in their bodies, and most of us have ruptured family systems, right? Because so many of us lose some or all of our family when we come out. Don't, you know. And then, even for those of us who don't lose our family, it's not always a good model. So there's like, 1000 different ways that we are sort of like, you know, for lack of a better term, fucked when it comes to relationships. Yes, you know, how are we supposed to build relationships that are sustainable and that will last and that are deep when we don't know how to be in relationship in ways that are healthy and that can withstand conflict and can withstand, you know, all the things that are happening right now and the stress and the pressure, right so you have this sort of perfect storm where we have this consistent narrative of like, found family and queer relationships and queer kinship, and how beautiful that is, and it can be, and there's so much dysfunction, and it's so hard, right, and so all of that is real. And I'm really into this idea of like weaving a basket big enough to hold the the fullness of a thing, right?
Eli Lawliet: Right? And so I think about, like, weaving a basket big enough to hold the complexity and the fullness of all of this and be like, yeah, all of it is true. You know, you're not crazy. If you feel like I can't possibly be in relationship with queer and trans people, right?
Eli Lawliet: You're not crazy. And also, we got to figure it out, y'all because we're all we have, right? And so when it comes to that, I do think that relationships with non human and more than human beings, can be a really good place to start right. Like, I think that that can be a place where you can heal, that can be a place where you can learn right. Like this idea of learning how to be in relationship, learning reciprocity, learning how to function as part of a web, right? Like that can definitely happen without another human.
Eli Lawliet: And also, I think that it is like humans have evolved to be in relationship with one another. And I think that there are needs that our bodies and that our spirits often have, that remain unfulfilled if we have no other human relationships. But there's also practicalities, like you might need somebody to drive you home from the hospital after surgery.
Eli Lawliet: Yeah, you know. And so I think that, of course, there is a balance there, and I have nothing but empathy for people who are like, I cannot be in relationship with other humans, right, especially in this community where we're all holding so much trauma in our bodies. And also, I think that you can a slightly different approach. Would be okay. How do I learn? How do I let my non human and more than human relationships become the space where I heal right? Like maybe you can develop a relationship with grandmother Hawthorne, who both protects your heart and heals it simultaneously. You know, like just these different ways that you can be in relationship with the earth and with whatever plants and whatever animals are resonant to you, but that that can also, you can see this is okay, maybe I need to take a step back. And also, at some point I will need to take that step forward again when I'm ready, when I'm resourced, it's okay to need time. But I do think it's important to have relationships, at least on some level, with other humans when you can
Alex Iantaffi: absolutely and that's why I was kind of hesitating, like I was like, oh, resistance. That's not the right word, because it's so pathologized, especially mental health, right? It's like hesitancy feels better because and it makes sense, and yet, like, we need to move into this web of like, care and connection, which is also not easy, because, you know, to being you, to be in relationship also means to risk hurting and being hurt to there will be navigable raptures. You know, whenever I meet new clients, I'm always like so we're going to have a rapture or a misattube, another release at some point.
Alex Iantaffi: How are we going to navigate?
Alex Iantaffi: Let that. Let's talk about, what would I notice? How would you be able to communicate that or not, right? Because, let's face it, nobody's ever going to be completely attuned to another human rapture is going to happen. And then there is all this noise right? From kind of this more Western white supremacist model of mental health. This is the right way of doing relationship. This is the wrong way. And I'm like, it's so much more complicated than that, right? These people over here are like, irredeemable, you know, because this is just so they are like, narcissists dinner quotes, right? I have a lot of feelings about how things are framed in a way that's like, irredeemable for some folks, I'm like, That's not helpful. It's all trauma in my books, but and we need to heal, right? And I think that's why I'm so passionate about relationality, because I think that's how we heal. It's also how we build community in a different way, right? It's like, how do we move away from this more carceral policing ways of relating to each other, into more like true community of. Need rather than community of convenience. I love that differentiation. I've learned from one of my beloved friends, Susan Rapha, was like, Is this a community of need or a community of convenience? And I think a lot of us are used to communities of convenience, where we can move in and out, and I think we actually need to learn how to be in a community of need more and more you know, as those things change. And I love that you offered learning, not just one on one, but in a group setting, right? And like you do classes, because I guess that's also a way for people to practice right, dipping their toes into being in relationship with community. And that's kind
Eli Lawliet: of it's funny that you mentioned that, because I love teaching with third generation teacher, and I have formal teacher training, right?
Eli Lawliet: Like I'm a PhD, and I've taught classes at like, the university level, and all of that sort of informs how I show up as a teacher. And so I love it, and it really feeds me, and also, I have been historically quite terrified of allowing my classes to exist outside of the classroom, right, in a way that's in relationship with one another. So I'll have, like, here's the contact sheet if you want to get in touch like you, y'all can do that yourselves, you know, but I but people are like, oh, I want a community. I want a community, and I'm like, no, because I'm so scared of that, but it's been such a consistent ask. And so when we did accessing transester wisdom, there was a really strong desire for folks that wanted to stay in touch. And Sal and I chose that we were going to do a group chat, and we and it was obviously like, you didn't have to opt in, but you could opt in, and then you could be in that space. And we had very specific boundaries for the group chat, and it was fine. And I was like, Okay. And so now I have a class of coming as steak medicine, which is going to be starting in early September, and I've chosen for the first time ever to have like, a group chat for that class. But I am moving toward, like I'm doing the research process right now in terms of platforms, but I'm moving toward creating a actual community that people will be once they've taken snake medicine, and there will be, like an alumni community. And it feels like a really scary step to me, but I agree with you. It's like we all have to push at our growth edges if we're going to start changing the thing. And I've worked a lot around how to be in community, how to handle conflict and things like that. And I think at this point it's like, okay, like, maybe I can trust my own self enough that I can create a container with adequate boundaries, that things will be, at least we understand how we move through conflict, you know, we understand how we handle rupture, and so then hopefully things will be relatively, you know, cohesive, and that is a really scary and vulnerable thing for me personally to do.
Eli Lawliet: But I also think it's worth it.
Alex Iantaffi: I think so too. I think it's beautiful because, and you know, if there aren't spaces, you know, where we can practice the skills, right?
Alex Iantaffi: Because not everybody's going to have, like, trans or queer or spiritual community available to them. And you know, as long as we have this beautiful magic of technology, of the internet, where we can connect, right?
Alex Iantaffi: That's where we get to practice.
Alex Iantaffi: How do we make agreements? And then how do we live by those values and agreements, especially when it's hard right, and we're activated, which then brings in this essential piece of the somatic skills, right, that the need to know our false sense of relative safety, knowing our nervous system, knowing when we're activated and when we're going into flight, flight, fight, freezer fun. I was like, wow, this is, like, my everyday, like, bread and butter, and I'm like, tripping up on there, but I'm so excited about this. And so I'm wondering also like, how do you bring that into your classes and your work, that piece of like embodiment and nervous system, which can be so challenging for many of us trans folks, because many of us have survived through dissociating, which is also a gift, and because sometimes we've had to do that To survive, sometimes we still have to do that survive in certain environments. And I definitely, as a trans, disabled person, that's a very useful tool that and we and it's part of our human experience. And I also know that I need to be here in my body and present to connect and heal and and be the integrated life I want to live.
Alex Iantaffi: And so I'm wondering how you bring that embodiment piece into your work as well?
Eli Lawliet: Yeah, in terms of classes and group settings, I think that it's really helpful to, well, there's, there's quite a few tools that I use for this one is sort of having, like a grounding in moment, you know, so doing some sort and then also giving a lot of space for people to do that differently, right?
Eli Lawliet: Like, I'm going to close my eyes, I'm going to say some words, if you want to use this time to, like, move around the room or do a little dance or stretch or whatever, like, love that, you know, if you want to lay down, that's great, right?
Eli Lawliet: But just like, giving people space to like do what their body needs to do, but also to like ground in and like, Okay, we're coming into this continue together, right? Another one, like, very simple, but giving people a break in the middle of the class, right? Like, allowing for that break where people are like, okay, it's been this class is halfway over. Now I'm going to get a chance to refill my water and go to the bathroom and look out the window and whatever, right? That's very, very important. And I think also like giving an agenda, like, Hey, this is the stuff that we're going to do today has been a really helpful piece, because then again, people know what their bodies need to be prepared for, and that's a really helpful piece in terms of, like group settings, also having very clear expectations of for behavior and how things will be handled if things go badly, or if there's some sort of rupture. Is is a really helpful and important way of settling people's nervous systems. I also give a lot of space so like you do not if we're on Zoom, which all of my classes are, you don't have to be on camera. You don't have to, you know, interact. You can change your name and be, you know, totally anonymous, right?
Eli Lawliet: You can specify if you don't want me to read something from the chat, right? You cannot show up in person at all and just watch the recording, right?
Eli Lawliet: Like, there's 1000 different ways you can give people space to manage their own experience, and that's also an important piece, is like having the agency to manage your own experience, right? I think huge part, honestly, a huge part of transition, right? Yes,
Alex Iantaffi: absolutely. I was going to say that's essential to transition, feeling that agency, absolutely, exactly, it's the most important thing.
Alex Iantaffi: And then in one on one, I mean, the sky's the limit, because when I'm working one on one with someone, I can really respond in the moment, right? But one thing that I really enjoy doing is helping people get in touch with their bodies in ways that feel accessible to them. And that's a highly personalized process, because trans people tend to be very dissociated, and we tend to hold a lot of trauma in our bodies. And so, you know, we start so, so, so, so, so slowly, you know, and I really try to impress on people that were doing the smallest possible version, like, if it feels almost too easy to be worth doing, that's where we're starting, you know, like, absolutely building from that, right? And so that might look like, you know, different somatic exercises, different breathing work, but ultimately, it's a process of starting to build the bridge between your body and your sort of conscious brain.
Alex Iantaffi: Yeah that's a relationship too, you know. And it's a relationship that often we have, not the the space, the privilege to, like, explore in the same way assist folks, you know. And it's a relationship that's also not encouraged by, like, white supremacist, capitalist colonial culture, that it's like, oh, you have a cold, take the spill so you can get better faster and get back to producing, right?
Alex Iantaffi: Just so that, like, now the CDC is like, Oh, your children have lice. You don't have to send them home. That's okay, because otherwise parents miss out on work, right? And I'm just like, What? What is happening to us all that we cannot like rest and recover. You know, I go to sometimes I do group consultations for organizations, and people are like, Oh, I have covid, but I'm here. I'm like, so you can be here if you want to, but I will take no offense if you want to like rest and please. You know, all the things you said, please get the camera, take, turn the camera off if you need to lie down while we're talking and listening, you know, to each other. But we live in such a culture that's just has such expectation of us not at being in deep relationship.
Alex Iantaffi: Because if we were in deep relationship with our embodied selves, I don't think we would be so ready to, you know, to basically live the lives that we keep being pushed to live, right, which requires some level of dissociation for all of us, I would say, in order to commodify ourselves in this in service to capitalism, which, of course, to some degree We all need to do unless we're independently wealthy, which most of us trans folks are not. But you know, yeah, that's, that's a lot. Ah, so talk about sling down. I'm going to take a breath. And I know it's so nice when we can, just like, take a moment to feel that spaciousness. I. Started doing that even before I do speaking engagements, and really noticing the shift in the quality of the engagement over the past few years since, like introducing, like a grounding practice, which sometimes a little like Alien in some environments, but it really helps. So when I slow down. I'm just feeling the richness of this conversation and the beauty of this conversation, and I feel like I could talk to you for another four hours, but actually I'm gonna be respectful of our body minds and not wear us down just in one conversation. But I am gonna ask you to just take a moment, if you will, to just you just mentioned that you have a class starting in September. And I wonder if you could just say a little bit more about the class, just in case people who are listening or watching are like, Well, that sounds I like, what Eli's talking about. I want the medicine has got to offer. Tell
Eli Lawliet: Yeah, so the class that I'm offering, I offer every us more about this class.
Eli Lawliet: fall. This is my third year teaching it, and the class is called Snake Medicine. It is open to everyone. So it is absolutely for trans folks, but it's also for everybody. And this class is a class where we use the snakes shed cycle as a roadmap for moving through personal transformation and also all the hard parts of life, right? Grief, loss, change, rage, joy, everything, right?
Eli Lawliet: This class, we basically so let me back up a little bit. The way that I have come to this medicine is through my relationship with my snakes. I tend to two snakes. My partner also has two snakes. So there's four in the house. And my two snakes, you know, we got, actually, all four of our snakes in the sort of height of the pandemic in 2020, and it was like a very, you know, it was that weird time where we were all finding new ways to be in the world. And one of our ways was by having snakes. And so I had these little hatchling snakes, and I was watching them go through, you know, shed after shed after shed, because hatchlings shed quite a few times, because they're growing right. And as this was going on, I was also working on a dissertation, and I was also dealing with multiple chronic illnesses, and we were also dealing with a pandemic, and I was watching them shed, and I was watching myself, and I was like, oh, there's a resonance here, right? And I hadn't realized that shedding was a process that had sort of these, like discrete sections or like phases, and when I started to put those things together, I started to really see the the roadmap effect of it, like, Oh, if I can orient toward this experience as a process, I can know that I will not be in it forever. And I can also develop a set of tools that when I realized, like, oh, energetically, I'm here, I know what to do when I'm here, right?
Eli Lawliet: Yeah. So at the time, I was in a doula mentorship, and I brought it to my fellow doulas, and I was like, I think I've got something here. And they were all just like, this is incredible. And I was like, Cool. I'm going to sit on this for like, seven years, and then I will teach it. But then it was actually the next year, I think in 2021 no 20 was in 2022 so it's in 2022 that I really had this strong message from my my folks is what I call, like, my spiritual everybody. So my folks were like, You need to teach snake medicine this year, and I was like, but this doesn't like all my content is about gender like this doesn't mean nobody's gonna want this, you know? And they were like, do it. And I was like, alright, so I did, and I'm so glad, because it's such a rich like experience, and it's just been such a beautiful thing to like deepen into that material. Year after year, it's brought me so many beautiful relationships, and now it's my third year, and so it feels like this is more than ever such an important like when we're talking about having different ways of moving or orienting toward the times we're in, Snake medicine is exactly that. And I'm so relieved that I'm not teaching it for the first time this year, you know? So that's the class. It's 12 weeks, because each module is so rich and has so much in it. So we have six modules, and that also includes, I didn't talk much about being a breathwork facilitator, but I am, and so snake medicine also includes four group breathwork sessions.
Eli Lawliet: This year, I'm adding new elements. I'm adding Tarot spreads for each module. Each module has a workbook with journal questions and reflections and exercises.
Eli Lawliet: There's guided meditations, there's Tarot sort of meditations, I guess, or like essays that I've written. And there's also live group.
Eli Lawliet: Meetings where we talk through each phase, and I weave in some myth. We talk about anonymous descent into the underworld.
Eli Lawliet: That's a part of it. And yeah, it's just, it's such a rich class. It's so beautiful. It's 12 weeks. It starts on September 9, and the signups end on September 6. So folks want to get signed up, they can go to my website. There's also a bitly link. So it's bit dot, l, y, slash, snakemed, and the S and the M are capitalized, but you can find it, I'm sure in the show notes, oh,
Alex Iantaffi: I will definitely put in the episode description all the links. And I'm I'm so excited I and I was smiling when you said, then my folks were like, You need to teach you this year. Because I was like, oh, yeah, I'm always arguing with this story because it's like, well, you need to do this and this and this. And I'm like, That's great. So I need some cooperation here, because we have so much capacity, and I need you to help me prioritize, you know? So I was like, that makes sense to me that they were like, you cannot sit on this medicine for seven years. This is what we need now. And like you said, so glad you're not teaching it for the first time, because the need is definitely it's initial it sounds to me like it's initiatory medicine too, right? Because in a way, you know, it is a transformation. And so it makes sense using the Inanna story, you know, with all the shedding at every gate, you know, and the letting go and we go through, I don't know, in my experience, in my life, I feel like I've gone through so many initiations, sure, some of them formal, so to speak, but most of them informal. And I often say when I work with initiates, it's like, I don't believe that, like when we choose initiation, bad things happen to us. I believe that life initiates us all the time, and sometimes we recognize it, and we look for the support and mentors and teachers that we need. But you know that, because sometimes there is almost that kind of Christian fear, like, well, if I choose initiation, then difficult things will happen. I'm like, no difficult things happen all the time in my experience, in our lives, right?
Alex Iantaffi: At the very least on the collective level, even let alone on the individual level, right?
Alex Iantaffi: And then, if we're lucky, we get that support, that medicine that we need. So thank you for offering that beautiful medicine to community. And it sounds like whether folks are like trans or cis or any gender identity right, can access this?
Eli Lawliet: It's one of my one of my offerings is actually open to everyone. If folks want a closed space, I do group breath work monthly on the third Tuesday called breath work for trans liberation, and that is closed to trans and gender expansive people. So that's and honestly, every other thing I've offered this year has been closed. So this is rare opportunity, if you are not trans identified, to be in one of my spaces. But it is a space that centers like transnationality, as I explained earlier, and it's always been that way. And honestly, every year it's just been so beautiful.
Eli Lawliet: It sounds amazing. I know I was like, when I saw it, I was like, Oh, I'm going through so many transitions that I want to take this class. But also, it's a really busy fall, but who knows, maybe, maybe spirit will will be like, take the class this year.
Eli Lawliet: Even though I'm planning to take it this year, we'll see. I'm giving myself some spaciousness to think about it. Because even hearing you talk about it, I was like, yes, yes, yes, do all of that right? And I remember even being little in sizzling finding snakeskins right as they were shedding, and always being so fascinated and and I almost didn't want to touch them. I was like, it was like, I felt like such a sense of reverence, and I would just like sit with it and imagine, like the transformation and what it would feel. And now it makes so much sense, now that I know I'm trans, but you know, little seven year old me sitting with that, you know, like that little snakes came going, Wow, and just contemplating this mystery of shedding and transformation, right? There was something in me already vibrating in that trans imaginality, and it's just beautiful. There's so many, I don't know if that happens with you or your clients, where I know for me, there are so many moments where I look back and I'm like, Oh, how do I look at this for a translance, it has a different meaning.
Eli Lawliet: yes, absolutely. Yeah, there was a we did a breath work for trans liberation a few months ago where we realized that multiple people, myself included, used to identify as a cat when we were children, and like, thought that we would actually turn into a cat. And I was like, This is so like, I always thought this was my funny story, and now this is, like, half the room has the same funny story. Yeah.
Alex Iantaffi: I mean, I, I'm so, so many of us are, like, really into, like, shape shifting, or, you know, I was really into panaman, all the transformation stuff, right? Or, like, and it makes sense, because we feel. Of that in our DNA, that transimaginality, right? That we know we are shape shifters, right? And I don't know I think of us trans, non binary gender, expensive folks as shape shifters, because and the gift that that shape shifting brings to our communities, right? Yeah, yeah.
Alex Iantaffi: So thank you for offering that.
Alex Iantaffi: Well. I all good things must have a punctuation point. I'm not going to call it an end, but I always ask all my guests, is there anything else that we have not touched on that you were hoping to talk about today.
Eli Lawliet: Oh boy. You know, this has been such a rich conversation. I think we've covered all the ground that I intended to, but I also agree we could talk for like hours upon hours. So definitely, I'll be happy to come back in the future, and I'm just this has just been lovely.
Alex Iantaffi: Thank you. And likewise, I feel so nourished.
Alex Iantaffi: You know, it's like towards the end of my day here, and I was like, a little tired when we started this conversation, but this is such a great example of like, how a connecting and community can bring restoration and energy, at least in my life, yeah, you know, even as an introvert, but I still feel like, Oh, I I feel like this refilled my cup. So thank you so much, Eli, well, well, thank you for the beautiful work you do, for this wonderful conversation, for helping me refill my cup today, and to you wonderful gender stories, listeners and watchers now if you're watching on YouTube, thank you so much for just tuning in like episode after episode. I could not believe that there are over 70 episodes out there. You know, when I started this in 2018 I could never imagine they would just keep going. But thank you so much. And if this has resonated with you in any way, you can find out Eli's work from like their website, a gender doula on Instagram, Facebook and Tiktok, I think, as well. And all the links will be also in the episode description. But for today, please take care of yourselves and make sure that you make maybe a little bit of space for breath and connection in your life until next time.