Alex Iantaffi: Hello gender stories, listeners and watchers, if you're watching on YouTube now, I as ever I am excited and delighted, because I always have the best guests, and today I'm really delighted to be here with Maeve Chevonne Duvally. Maeve is a transgender, multicultural communication specialist, storyteller and LGBTQ plus advocate. She spent the bulk of her career as a journalist and corporate spokesperson, most recently at Goldman Sachs. After a lifetime of working for large companies, she now consults for corporations and other organizations on communication strategy and diversity, equity and inclusion. Maeve also mentors transgender people. Is a public speaker and a frequent subject of press interviews on LGBTQ plus workplace issues. She was a managing director in corporate communications at Goldman Sachs over an 18 years career prior to joining Goldman, Maeve worked in Media Relations at Merrill Lynch. Before that, she was a financial journalist and editor of bridge news for nearly 15 years with teens in Tokyo, Washington, DC and New York. She spent 10 formative years in Japan in the 1980s and is fluent in the language. Maeve serves on the board of GLAAD, the night budget fellowship, a journalism nonprofit and connect connectica based LGBTQ plus health provider and incorrect Health Initiative. She earned a BA in English from Providence College in 1983 and was a ninth budget Fellow at Columbia University Graduate School in Journalism School in 1994 they published author a memoir made rising debuted through sibling press in August 2023 and it's a really wonderful book. Please check it out. We'll talk about it throughout the episode, but there will also be a link for you to order the book in the episode description. So welcome, Maeve. So wonderful to have you here in gender stories. Thank you for making time to talk with me today. I really appreciate it.
Maeve Duvally: Thanks very much for having me, Alex. I'm looking forward to the conversation, and thank you very much for the plug for the book. I'll take any plug I can get
Alex Iantaffi: I know what's that? What that's like as an author, we have to let the world know, let people know that we got books out. I understand that, and also it's a really wonderful book. And whenever people write a memoir, I feel it's such a vulnerable, personal process. And I'm always really curious about what moved you to kind of write a memoir,
Maeve Duvally: sure? Well, part of my my life was already exposed when I came out at Goldman Sachs, because I worked in corporate communications, I had a lot of relationships with reporters, and when we told the reporters that I worked most closely with that I was going to be coming out, a reporter for the New York Times decided to write a story about me. So you know, my very what could have been a very kind of private coming out experience at Goldman Sachs actually became very public. And when I in the aftermath of that story, the most surprising thing that I learned was that there are a lot of transgender people out there in various stages of coming out, or transgender people in universities who may be out already but are worried about coming out in corporate America who wanted to talk to me about My experience and share their experience with me. So I just developed this, this whole new, this whole new thing to fill up my life of talking to transgender people, mentoring transgender people, and I realized there's a thirst for people to tell their story. So, you know, I wanted to tell my story so that other people in the LGBTQ plus community community could identify with them and to take something from it. But also, you know, there's a lot of people out there who have never had any contact with transgender people. And you know, unfortunately, human beings when they don't know something about somebody who's different from them, you know, maybe they're a little bit skeptical. They say they don't, they don't really like that. But when they have exposure to to things, when they learn stories, when then they themselves can learn and identify with things, then you know that that tends to help people become more comfortable with people that are different than them, in this case, transgender people. So it was both to to educate and to help other people in the LGBTQ plus community.
Alex Iantaffi: Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense to me. You know? I think we do really connect for storytelling as humans. You know, it kind of helps us humanize each other and find those points of connections with one another. I want to come back to your memoir, but I want to say for a moment with that process of a very private journey, in some ways, right, that sure, there are kind of public aspects right for all of us, trans folks, there is that moment of like, telling people, presenting in a different way, right? Taking all those very vulnerable risks, which are often very private, but for some folks like yourself, that process becomes very visible early on. What was that like to add that kind of a little bit in the public eye? And I also want to talk about the corporate America piece, but let's talk about the visibility piece, because it can be a double edged sword, at least in my experience, that can be amazing kind of support and connection with community, like you said, and with people who are really encouraged and find really support for your story. But you know, there are also people who are maybe not as positive, and so I'm just kind of wondering what that was like to be thrown into kind of the public eye, so to speak, so early on in your process.
Maeve Duvally: Yeah, that's a great question, Alex. If I take a step back and kind of look at the whole arc of my coming out experience, I realized I was transgender in October of 2018 and I didn't come out at work until May of 2019 so there was a seven or eight month period where I was out of my social life, but I wasn't out in my work life. And my work life is a very big part of my life. When you work at an investment bank, you're working you're in the office, 5060, hours a week and you're always on call, so it was a big part of my life. And you know, I found every step along the way of my coming out process, whenever I did something new, I had fear. And why do queer people have fear before they they do something, it's because they're worried that they're not going to be accepted. And, you know, every time I did something new, every time, like the first time I put on makeup, the first time I bought women's clothing, I always had fear, and I fought through that, and I had the experience. And after I had the experience, I was generally okay. And I find that my coming out experience right after Memorial Day in 2019 at Goldman Sachs was was exactly the same thing, although it was just bigger, it was a bigger stage, and I knew the New York Times was going to be covering it.
Maeve Duvally: They trail. They shadowed me for the first three days of me being out at Goldman Sachs. And yeah, I was very, I was very fearful of whether my co workers would would accept me or not. But, you know, there, there's fear, but there's also, at some point, I knew I couldn't I couldn't keep myself bottled up any longer. I just had to come out. So that need and that desire, that intensity to come out, completely overwhelmed any misgivings or fear that I had, and, you know, it, it allowed me to have a very good coming out experience. And you know, I was very relieved as the day wore on, as I saw that my coworkers were very supportive and accepting. That
Alex Iantaffi: is really wonderful to hear that there was that support. And it's, it's so relatable, right? As you were talking, I was thinking, I'm like, Oh yeah, I remember that fear of like, doing the thing for the first time, right, going out with the binder for me for the first time, right? Telling the first person that use different pronouns, that's it's always really scary. But the more you do it, I don't know, for me, at least, kind of the more those experiences of like, oh, actually, people are supportive. Kind of helped. And like you said, that overwhelming need, almost, I would say, to be ourselves, kind of just tramps the fear in a lot of ways. But yeah,
Maeve Duvally: and then, and then, I'm sure you experienced this, Alex, somewhere along the way, I pretty much lost all my fear. And it's like I have the right. This is me. I have the right to be here. I have nothing to be afraid of. And you know what, if those people don't accept me, that's their problem.
Maeve Duvally: It's not my problem, right?
Alex Iantaffi: Yes, oh my god, I'm so excited that you said that, because I was going to ask you, actually, my next question was, when was there a moment where the fear dissipated or got smaller? So I'm so glad you said that, and I love that you said that because I often talk to friends, but also clients, because I'm a therapist about how you know other people perceive us, or what they think of us as trans folks, is really outside of our control. At the end of the day, I. There's nothing we can do to control how other people perceive us, what they think of us, but what's in our control is here, right, in our romantic selves, being vulnerable, showing up for we are, and really taking that step. Because what's the alternative? Right? It's much worse in my at least in my experience, than not doing all of
Maeve Duvally: that, you know, incidentally, and I always try when I talk about educating non LGBTQ plus people. I'm, I'm I'm thinking about teaching them more about transgender people so they're more comfortable about around us. But I'm also one of the things I'm also after is to educate that in some ways, our experience isn't that different to the experience of any person in the wall in the world.
Maeve Duvally: Because if you think about it, you know, life is a transition.
Maeve Duvally: Everybody's going through transitions. Our experience is a little bit more noticeable, because a lot of times we change our appearance, we change our name, we might go through surgeries. But, you know, life is a transition. Everybody's transitioning. Everybody's trying to kind of get to this idealized version of self, which which is a lifelong experience.
Maeve Duvally: And I want people to know, from that perspective, we're really no different than anybody else.
Alex Iantaffi: I love that you framed it that way. I so agree.
Alex Iantaffi: I really, I often talk about how, like all of us, kind of change throughout our life journey, right? And even our relationship with gender, even cisgender people change how they present their gender. Usually, you know, I often say you don't present your gender in terms of expression, the same as you do a five years old as you do a like 30 or 40 or 80. I mean, maybe, but most people kind of change and experiment with what makes us feel comfortable, right, whether we're trans or cis. We also age, our voice changes as we age. I was talking to Renee yachtson about trans folks and boys, but also we were saying, but everybody's voice changes also as they age, right, not just trans folks. And so I think that giving people ways to plug in and see our existence is not like you said, not that different. We just have a slightly different journey when it comes to gender identity, but it's just really a deepening into ourselves and and you did all of that in corporate America, which is its own world.
Alex Iantaffi: And I have to admit that, you know, I worked in state universities, nonprofits, but never worked in corporate America, but I have friends who do, and my perception is that it can be a very kind of prescriptive in some ways world, right? There are certain expectations in terms of existing in corporate America, like how you present dress codes, right, even even the volume of work, right? And the volume of the way you need to be available, especially in certain roles. And so what was that like to just come out in in in that corporate environment, specifically where, you know, and I might have a misperception, because, like I said, it's not a world I walked in personally, I'm just really curious about what that experience was like for you in that world, Sure,
Maeve Duvally: great question.
Maeve Duvally: And you know, in the big corporate world there, there is definitely rigidity, and you referred to the rigidity. But I do believe, notwithstanding what's going on now in the United States socially and politically, that there, there are certain sectors of our economy and big finances, one big tech, entertainment, luxury goods. Those are areas of of the United States economy that I think are fairly open to diversity and again, notwithstanding what's going on right now, they still are open to diversity, and I believe they honestly believe that being open and welcome to as many different kinds of people as possible is a good business decision, because it makes it just, it's math, right? It increases the pool of available candidates, and the diversity of views and opinions that diverse people bring to the table also yields better decisions, because you have more inputs going into that. So I think a lot of places in corporate America recognize that, and they are firmly behind diversity and inclusion. I do think, because what's going on right now, a lot of those companies are probably going to become a little bit quieter for the time being, about that. But that doesn't that doesn't mean.
Maeve Duvally: That they still don't see that as part of their core value, absolutely,
Alex Iantaffi: and it's been really interesting to see as well, which companies or which which corporations have not gotten quieter, and which ones feel the need to appeal maybe to a broader sector of the population and maybe are a little bit quieter in their support. It's definitely a very interesting moment right now, talking about this moment in time, how are you accessing some kind of joy and support for yourself? I've been really asking all of my trans or minor or gender expensive guests, like in this rise of anti transphobic sentiment, how are you still accessing like joy and comfort and support right now, even even if it's in the smallest of ways, sure,
Maeve Duvally: there's a lot of inputs into that question. So yes, let me see if I can handle all of them. First, I have to acknowledge my privilege. I'm white. I worked at Goldman Sachs, and I live in the Chelsea section of New York, which I think is arguably one of the best places in the world to be an out transgender person. And so I don't have the problems that a young trans child in somewhere in the South has I just don't have those. My life is, my life is really, really good. You know, I talked about it in the memoir. I was an active alcoholic for most of my life, and in addition, I was very confused, very unhappy. So the life I have right now is so, so much better than that. It doesn't take very much to make me happy. And I know a lot of transgender people aren't as fortunate as I am, but that just you know, all of our experiences are different, but every, every day for me, I experience queer joy. I'm just I'm just happy to be alive. And since I found writing that that allows me an outlet to express some of that.
Maeve Duvally: And you know, as someone who was was an active alcoholic and wasn't very happy, I was very much in my head. I had all this stuff going on in my head, and writing provides me an outlet to kind of take some all the stuff that was in my head that maybe at the time, wasn't really constructive to me being a happy, productive person, but to use it in a positive way.
Alex Iantaffi: And I want to thank you for sharing that. I want to go back to the writing.
Alex Iantaffi: I think you made such an important point, which is, when we come into ourselves, we as trans folks, we usually do feel better generally in our life, right? I love that you talked about accessing queer joy, for example. And so let's talk about kind of what happens sometimes before we come out, which is often people do struggle with alcoholism, substance use, suicidality, we know all of those, rate depression, anxiety, all of those are higher in kind of trans communities, which makes sense given what's going on in the world. But I'm interested like in your own kind of struggle, if you like, which you do write about in the memoir as well, with kind of alcoholism and depression, and if you feel okay, to share a little bit about what that time before, kind of coming into yourself.
Alex Iantaffi: What was that like, in terms of those thoughts in your head, the maybe self medicating for alcohol, or, yeah,
Maeve Duvally: sure, this is a topic I'm very, very happy to talk about because I'm very passionate about it. And for me, my my sobriety and having realized my gender identity and who I really am. They're very, very intertwined, and my experience is a little bit different from a lot of transgender people. I didn't really have any conscious knowledge that I was transgender until I got sober in January of 2018 and I realized I was transgender rather suddenly in October of 2018 so you know, it only happened after I got sober, and I don't think that's any accident. Now, when I look back at it, and this is actually one reason why I wrote, I wrote, wrote my memoir, it's, it's because I now felt a compulsion to go back and look at my life now that I was sober, now that I know who I am as a sober, out transgender person, and see what my life looked like, and it looked very different from what I thought my life was when I was kind of in the midst of midst of all of that. And I. The nature of my gender dysphoria was I hated everything masculine about myself, but I hated myself, period. So I thought hating my everything masculine about myself was just part of my general hatred for myself. For example, I'll tell you that from about the age of 10 until the time I came out in 2018 I so that's a period of over 40 years. I didn't look at myself in the mirror. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror. So you know, that's the type of hatred I felt for myself, and so I and I do believe that this truth that I was transgender was always in me. The alcohol just hit. It, suppressed it, kept it down, prevented it from coming out. And once I got sober, it opened it opened me up to the possibility that I could really find out who I am
Alex Iantaffi: that makes so much sense to me, and also relate to that sense of, like, just hating yourself. I know I did a lot of work on just, like, just accepting myself. I thought it was like internalized misogyny, and I just had to accept that, you know, that I was a woman in air quotes, and that's how I was born, and it was just internalized misogyny.
Alex Iantaffi: And then I was like, this is not internalized misogyny. But, you know, it took me, like, decades to get to that point, and I think, I don't know, I think we're kind of similar generation, potentially the same generation that there were no role models, like, I didn't know any trans people when I was a child, right? Personally, like there wasn't any representation on TV in the 70s and 80s when I was and so I think it is different, also for folks who are kind of over 40 or 50, compared to kids who are coming out as like 1415 nowadays, where there are a lot more options.
Alex Iantaffi: You know, my oldest is always like, Oh, if it's not a queer TV show or a movie I don't want to watch. And I was like, how amazing that you have the choice, right? That's not it was all subtext, I think, in when I was growing up. And so I don't know if you also notice those differences with younger trans folks who are coming the importance of representation.
Alex Iantaffi: You know what I mean? And, yeah,
Maeve Duvally: and I wonder, Alex, if you watch the Netflix documentary disclosure, oh, yeah, and, and so, like, it showed all these shows that I grew up with, and I had, I had no knowledge I was transgender.
Maeve Duvally: The word transgender didn't exist. But you know that show, like showed movies like psycho where the main character stabs people, and the people talking about it were saying that, you know, you know, the message here is, if, if a man puts on a wig and pretends he's a woman, then he's going to become a serial killer. And, you know, all those messages were embedded in a lot of shows and films and everything. And I watched that documentary, and I go, wow, wow, that's what we grew up with, Alex, right, exactly.
Alex Iantaffi: And we internalized all those messages that somehow to be trans is to like, to be deceiving, to be dangerous, to be poor, a figure of fun. And I know even more so for trans feminine folks, for sure, you know, and, but, but that I don't know. For me, it didn't even come into my consciousness until, like, my 30s. You know, that was like, maybe that's something here, right? And then it still too committed to understand what that was. And, and I love how you talked about, once you stop suppress, you know, in a way, suppressing those feelings with alcohol, that you're like, Oh, there I am, right? And there's this moment of recognition, what was the most surprising things for you in this process, whether it's a process of coming out or the process of writing your memoir, which is kind of looking back at your life in a way from this different position?
Maeve Duvally: Yeah, I think what most surprised me was when I went back and looked at my life
Alex Iantaffi: and wrote my memoir,
Maeve Duvally: there were a lot of clues as to the person I really was. I just at the time they were happening. I just didn't choose to see them that way. I can give you, like, you know, one concrete example.
Maeve Duvally: There were like three years in a row when I was in maybe Junior High School, where for Halloween, I dressed up as some type of women character, and there was one year I dressed up as a half man half woman character, which is wow. And.
Maeve Duvally: When I look back at that, I go, Hmm, so you know, I do, you know, I kind of, when I started the process, I kind when I was talking to my therapist about this, and Alex, you said you're a therapist, yeah, so I'll give a plug for your industry. So anybody, anybody who is transgender and just trying to come to grips with it, I think the first step always needs to be therapy. It's, it's very complex. You have very complex feelings, and it's really, really helpful to talk to a professional who has experience with that to help you. I know, I know I needed it. And so you know when, I talked through all this stuff in therapy and when I wrote my book, I just really realized that my transgender history, which I didn't really think I had much of a transgender history, I do have a transgender history. I just was not able to connect it to the person I am now, until I did some introspective work.
Alex Iantaffi: I love that, because sometimes we, you know, I went for a similar thing looking back, I was like, Oh, I see things very differently, right? It's like, connect the dots almost. And I love what you said about also therapy being about support. I think so many trans folks, understandably, because of the history of our mental health field see going to therapy as part of gatekeeping in their transition process. And I'm always like, it can be, but it doesn't have to be. It's I think that everybody needs therapy through any life transition, including gender, you know. And so I love hearing that it was supportive. And
Maeve Duvally: when I talked about, excuse me when I talked about transition being a lifelong experience, a transition is self discovery and self actualization, and every human being goes through that.
Maeve Duvally: So to the extent you can have a professional help you with that, self discovery and that leads to self actualization, you becoming the person you were always meant to be. That's common to every single human being, and it's it's really the most important thing that we do in our lives.
Maeve Duvally: Absolutely,
Alex Iantaffi: it's kind of finding ourselves, finding who we are, funding our values. I think it's so, so incredibly important. And and I know you kind of went through this process of writing your memoir, and that kind of came out last year, but are you still writing?
Alex Iantaffi: And if so, what are you writing?
Alex Iantaffi: Because I you obviously have a passion for writing, and you talked about that process being something that it's really helpful for you. So I'm curious about whether you have other writing projects in the in the works right now.
Maeve Duvally: I always wanted to write all my life, and for a while I was a journalist, I got to do writing. It's very different from kind of a memoir or writing fiction, but I just couldn't do it while I was still drinking and didn't really know who I was, and I just kind of poured out once I came out and I got the memoir out. But you know, in retrospect, I needed to do the memoir, but the memoir was a stepping stone to fiction.
Maeve Duvally: I'd really like to write fiction, and I just finished my first novel. I've handed it to my agent, and he's going to try and sell it. It's a literary coming of age story with a trans main character. It's set in Japan and mass Cape Cod Massachusetts, both places that I love and there's a lot of Catholicism in there. So I guess on one level, it's, it's still dealing with some of the issues that I dealt with in my memoir.
Maeve Duvally: I guess I haven't got all that stuff fully out of my system, but I'm very excited. It's, it's a different creative process writing fiction than a memoir, but it was very, very fulfilling and satisfying, and I hope I can get it published and get it in front of a lot of people.
Alex Iantaffi: Yeah, I can't wait to see this book out in the world. And I was like, Oh, I'm already into it, like, already kind of across two countries dealing with Catholicism. We brought up Catholic as well.
Alex Iantaffi: Benny Jones, I was, but
Maeve Duvally: yes, yes, I was.
Maeve Duvally: And, you know, I actually have a I have a respect for organized religion. I consider myself a spiritual person. And to the extent organized religion is a pathway to spirituality. I have a great deal of respect, but for me as someone who had a lot of self hatred when I was going up the Catholic Church of the late 60s and early 70s had a focus on hell and sin, and that was a.
Maeve Duvally: Combination with, with how I viewed myself, it really was a bad combination. And there's a lot, there's a lot of good and organized religion, you know, the, you know, there's, there's a problem, obviously, with, with intolerance. And I have a big issue with that, that, you know, many religions around the world don't accept LGBTQ plus people, and that's, that's a rotten shame. And I hope that changes, yeah,
Alex Iantaffi: and I love what you said, also about like, it's how we interpret it, right?
Alex Iantaffi: Like, same, when I was brought up in the 70 there was a lot of emphasis on hell and punishment and, you know, sin, and I remember getting a lot of in a lot of trouble, when I said, I don't think the hell exists. I think it's just humans not feeling connection with God.
Alex Iantaffi: And, you know, the Nan's going, the hell's absolutely exist. You know, that's blasphemous, you know. But I think that we just see those, we take those beautiful spiritual concept, and then we put those human filters through it, you know, and that's when you get a lot of iterate, a lot of bigotry, a lot of smallness, where spirit could be so expansive, you know, and so much more encompassing, you know, when we look at it in a different way, Oh, that could be all out of rabbit hole.
Maeve Duvally: It certainly can.
Alex Iantaffi: But you talked about your love for writing fiction, and this is a literary fiction work. Is that kind of the genre that you're most interested in or excited to write about? Or do you have a favorite genre when it comes to fiction and what you want to write in the future? Maybe, yeah, I
Maeve Duvally: already started book number three, and I think literary fiction is probably going to be my primary vehicle.
Maeve Duvally: I have written a kind of a trans dystopian sci fi short story that I hope to sell as well. And you know, science fiction's science fiction is a lot of fun because you get to create your own universe with its own laws.
Maeve Duvally: And yeah, that that's that's a lot of fun, so I might jump around. But literary fiction novels, I think that's going to be my medium, and hopefully I can make some money off it, which is kind of hard to do.
Maeve Duvally: It's hard to make, make a living of being a writer. If I could do it, that's all I would do. I would just write.
Alex Iantaffi: I hear that, yes, if I also, if I could make a living as a writer, I would just write. I have a few non fiction books out, but like you said, it's not usually books don't bring that much income, but what a pleasure it is to write them and go through the process, at least for me, right? It's a bit like the need of coming out. For me, that's like the need to write, right? It's just like, it's hard to kind of not do that when, when you're passionate about writing,
Unknown: what do
Alex Iantaffi: you have, like, a favorite book or TV show at the moment, or, like just media that you've been consuming? I'm always curious about what writers read or watch or listen to, yeah, anything that's kind of sparking that creative or spirit, or just nurturing that creative spirit in you right now
Maeve Duvally: or in the past?
Maeve Duvally: Well, I don't really, I don't have a TV I don't really watch TV. And, you know, in in our society, that's, that's a problem because you go out to eat with a group of people, um, what, what do? What does everyone want to talk about?
Maeve Duvally: What they're watching on TV? So that's always, that's always a problem for me. So I really, I really read a lot. And you know, if I could make a living from writing my my kind of second job would be as a proselytizer of the power of reading and when you when you publish a book, you realize the economics of publishing are just very, very challenging. I read a statistic, I think was in The New York Times, that 60% of Americans have not read a book for pleasure in the last year. And I find that very disappointing.
Maeve Duvally: And obviously I'm biased, but um, what reading does that television doesn't do. It allows you to activate your imagination, so you are the one in your mind, bringing the world that's on these pages alive. So I'm just, I, I love, I'm a preacher for for the power of writing and reading. So I read a lot. And one of my favorite authors, I lived in Japan for a long time, and one of my favorite authors is Haruki Murakami, who is, is a very popular writer. And I really like, I really like some. Of Japanese modern fiction, they have a lot of magical realism.
Maeve Duvally: So, you know, they'll, they'll have the real world, and then they'll kind of have like these, these parallel worlds right beside the real world where like, weird stuff happens. And I actually had that in my memoir, and I have a lot of that in my novel. I love that style. And Murakami uses very big, bold, powerful metaphors and similes, which, which I like as well. So he's, he's one of my favorite writers.
Alex Iantaffi: Yeah, that makes sense. I love magical realism too. In the Yeah, I love that style. And sometimes I wonder, a lot of trans folks and trans authors I talk to really love kind of either magical realism or science fiction or fantasy, kind of just that element where there's almost like Reality Plus. And to me, makes sense, right? Because, in a way, our lives are a little bit Reality Plus, like we have to match in ourselves sometimes before we fully come into being as trans folks, and so I don't know. I just think that there's a lot of us are really attracted to some just something more than just the reality of the day to day world. If that makes
Maeve Duvally: sense. In my in my short story, what I did was in the science fiction so short story, I could talk about it for ages, but really quickly, I talked about a medical advancement that allowed transgender people to to procreate and through Evolution, transgender people become kind of the superior people in society, and they begin to control society, and they're enlightened for a while, but then they kind of revert back to basic human nature and oppressed non transgender people. So it's kind of allegorical and satirical, but I think it's that type of stuff is interesting, that change of perspective,
Alex Iantaffi: absolutely. I'm a big fan also of ambitopia, right? There's like this utopia.
Alex Iantaffi: But is it utopia, or is actually, is utopia? I really think that's possible. And you know, that kind of space between utopia and dystopia is always fascinating, yes, well,
Maeve Duvally: it's very interesting.
Alex Iantaffi: It's just very rich, right? I think that's where humanity is between utopia and dystopia. That's where we live, isn't it so messy? Oh, I feel like I could talk with you for a long time. I'm just looking at my little list to see. I was like, oh, what were we gonna talk about? I don't know. I kind of forgot all the questions and went with the beautiful conversation we're having. Well, we talked about the most surprising thing was there anything that you know as you're writing, as you're kind of embracing your life as you in the last few years, right?
Alex Iantaffi: Anything about yourself that, apart from gender, of course, that you've also discovered that was maybe new or unexpected or maybe that you couldn't fully embrace before, right like so apart from the gender piece, sometimes I find that I don't know, for example, as I've gone through my own gender journey, I've been really embracing my creativity more, which is something I was told I wasn't very good at growing up. Right now, I'm like, well, actually, art is just something that you feel compelled to do as an artist. It's not about being good, and of course, you can improve. You can study. But right? So, were there any aspects of yourself besides gender that had also been maybe pushed aside in your life?
Maeve Duvally: Sure. That's an interesting question. And obviously, once you kind of are open to and embark on the adventure of self discovery and self actualization, just as soon as you feel like you get someplace, something else kind of comes up. And so, you know, not surprisingly well, I was an active alcoholic and a very confused and unhappy person. I was very introverted for most of my life. I was very isolated, spent a lot of time alone, and so, you know, once I, once I came, got sober and came out, I realized I, you know, I, I didn't have to be that way.
Maeve Duvally: However, I, you know, I've, I've come to believe that while, um, my happiness can be manifested in in maybe more an externally, I smile more, I laugh more. I never smiled him laughter most of my life. But you know what, just given the person who I am, I am not ever going to be the life of the party type of person. And there was a part of me early on who said, you know, I want to be that person, that exuberant person, that every.
Maeve Duvally: Buddy talks about they're allowed and but you know what?
Maeve Duvally: I've come to realize that that's just not me, and I can evolve a little bit to be a more exuberant person, but I I have some there's some raw materials that are me that's not going to ever allow me to be that person.
Maeve Duvally: So what type of person within the parameters of who I am, can I be? So I want to be a little bit more outgoing, but, you know, I've kind of decided that, you know, I want to be the kind of person who's thoughtful when I speak people really listen to what I say, and I want to be the kind of person who projects calmness and serenity, and when people around me, they feel more calm and serene and hopeful. So I guess my message is that I think at least for me, that you it's, it is possible to change who you are, but to and and act differently and behave differently in accordance with who you want to be. But there are some you're somewhat limited by your raw material. So
Alex Iantaffi: it's,
Maeve Duvally: it's a process figuring out how that manifests itself in your life, and that's something I really think about a lot. If that makes sense, it
Alex Iantaffi: does. It makes complete sense to me, at least I feel like, you know, in a way, it's, it sounds like it's part of that deeper acceptance of yourself, but also the idea of, like, what do I want to put into the world? Right? It's like, if we co create the world, what I've been thinking a lot about, that actually, as the world does what it does, like, how do I want to show up? What do I want to put out in the world? What kind of person do I want to be?
Alex Iantaffi: And I love what you said about I want to be a person that's like, calm and just like, really people can connect with and talk with, and kind of it's okay not to be like the super loud, extroverted life of the party. I think there's a lot of value we put on extroverts in our world, but there's a lot of value in being introverted, or what's the ambivert when you can do a little bit of both. But yes, that makes a lot of sense to me.
Alex Iantaffi: And I think that it makes sense to me that once you come into yourself in every way, you're also finding those parts of yourself, oh so beautiful, you know, like I could keep talking with you, but I want to be respectful of your time, and I'm thinking about what you said at the beginning, when we were talking about this fear, right?
Alex Iantaffi: And finding that the need, or the desire of being yourself kind of was bigger than that fear. If there are people who are listening and maybe are struggling with that fear right now of being themselves, whether it's being themselves in regards with gender, or maybe it's being themselves with regards to other aspects of themselves, right?
Alex Iantaffi: But if people are dealing with that fear that can feel so overwhelming, yeah, is there anything that you would want to say to them or share with them about that moment of finding a way through the fear, so to speak,
Maeve Duvally: I think the most important thing is not to suffer alone in silence. And there are a lot of people like me and a lot of people like you who I'm sure are very, very open to sharing our experience and sharing our insights on our experience, so that they may help inform other people. So it's extremely important to reach out and talk to people who have had similar experiences to you, so So you know that, you know, a lot of times when human beings suffer in silence, they have the tendency to believe that what they're going through is totally unique to them, and they're the only ones experiencing it the way that they are. And they're probably not there. There are, there are millions of us out out out there, and there's a good chance that a lot of us have had similar experiences to somebody else. So the key is not to suffer in silence.
Alex Iantaffi: I love that. I love that the the key is not to suffer in silence and connect, right? What I really hear is also like that peer support, that connection, so beautiful.
Alex Iantaffi: If people wanted to find out more about your upcoming literary fiction when it will be published, I'm just confident that it will be where could they follow you on social media? Or do you have a website that people can go to to find out whether. Are, you know, obviously your book made rising.
Alex Iantaffi: Your memoir is already out, and I'm assuming people can order it from any independent bookstore or anywhere where they get books. But yes, if they wanted to find out about your upcoming writing, where could they go?
Alex Iantaffi: Yeah,
Maeve Duvally: as a natural introvert, I'm not generally disposed to to be very active on social media, but I was wondering, I have become, I have become more active, given my experience in corporate America, I'm probably most active on LinkedIn. I do a little bit on Facebook. I haven't really done that much lately. You know, when you write a book, you get you get very inwardly. I've been very inwardly focused, you know, for the last the last few months. As I finish this off, I do have a website, maveto valley.com, I think it is. It's not really up to date. I'll bring it up to date. But I'm most active on Facebook and LinkedIn,
Alex Iantaffi: yeah. So people can find you and, you know, maybe in like six months or a year, they'll be like, let me see if that literary fiction, but Maeve is out. But in the meantime, they can read Maeve rising your wonderful memoir.
Alex Iantaffi: And listeners or viewers, if you're watching this on YouTube, I really recommend it. It is a beautiful memoir and and I hope that you enjoy it as much as I have, well, Maeve, this is delightful. And I always ask all my guests, is there anything we haven't talked about that you are hoping we would talk about, or anything else that you would like to share with the gender stories listeners,
Maeve Duvally: I will, I will just say one thing i I'm very hopeful for the future.
Maeve Duvally: Sometimes, when we look at the political environment, it's tempting for LGBTQ plus people, it's tempting to be a little bit pessimistic. But on on the state level, all those negative LGBTQ plus bills, a lot of them didn't pass. So it's it's really not despite the fact that politicians keep bringing it up, it's really not a winning political issue. And then the other thing that gives me hope is that the statistics show that amongst the younger generations, there's a much higher percentage of transgender, gender queer, gender non conforming and LGBTQ plus people than there are in my generation. And as long as that generation can be convinced to vote, you know, I think the future is is bright for our people.
Alex Iantaffi: I couldn't agree more. I know that it's a scary time, or what one of many scary times that we've gone through historically, but I'm with you.
Alex Iantaffi: I see the the pushback. I mean, I'm fortunate to live in a trans refuge state in Minnesota. But I also really see the change, right? I think it was 30 or 40% of Gen Z identify outside of the gender binary. And
Maeve Duvally: crazy the statistics, I can't believe wild
Alex Iantaffi: Exactly. Yeah, it's, it's just, how can you not have hope, right? When you see that, well,
Maeve Duvally: the good thing is, they just don't care. Like, gender is not an issue. Like, wow, yeah,
Alex Iantaffi: absolutely. Like, regardless of political, regardless of political affiliation, I find the younger folks are like, Oh, okay, those are your pronouns, great. Like, and then the just, like, you know, role.
Maeve Duvally: I had this, um, 10 year old niece who I'm very close with, and she completely treats me as a woman or anything like I asked her, like, what do you think about the fact I'm transgender? And she just goes, I just didn't care. And it made me almost embarrassed to have brought it up.
Alex Iantaffi: Yeah, I think the younger folks look at this so very differently. I can't even imagine, like, in 50 years time or 100 years time, where we will be. And that's wonderful, right?
Alex Iantaffi: Because, like, I love that the future is open and I am with you. I think that there is there is hope. Well, thank you so so much for spending this time with me and with the gender stories listeners. And dear gender stories listeners, thank you so much for listening as usual. And please remember, I know that the fear can be great no matter what you're facing, but you don't have to suffer in silence, and there is always a way to connect with like other people and and and hope. And I hope that you can find that support and hope wherever you are, and until next time bye.