Pilates for the Queer Community

What does it mean to facilitate Pilates “queerly”? In this episode of Pilates Perspectives, host Joy Puleo speaks with Sofia Engelman about creating more inclusive, trauma-informed Pilates spaces for queer and trans clients and for everyone who deserves to feel respected, supported, and safe in movement.

Sofia Engelman shares practical ways Pilates instructors can move beyond surface-level inclusion and create meaningful change in their inclusive Pilates teaching. Learn the importance of using pronouns on intake forms, avoiding gendered assumptions in group Pilates classes, and building trust around verbal and tactile cueing in LGBTQ+ friendly fitness spaces.

Joy and Sofia also discuss the importance of trauma-informed Pilates instruction, accessible movement practices, and the power dynamics that exist in Pilates and fitness environments. Sofia offers grounded advice for people who want to strengthen their empathy and compassion “muscle,” including doing their own research, practicing pronouns, seeking out education, and engaging with books and media that deepen understanding of queer and trans experiences.

This episode offers thoughtful guidance for creating inclusive Pilates studios rooted in consent, inclusivity, accessibility, and authentic care. Perfect for movement professionals seeking to build safe movement spaces and develop trauma-sensitive movement education that welcomes all bodies and identities.

This episode is powered by Balanced Body®.

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to Pilates Perspectives. I'm Joy, and today we have Sophia Engelman who will be here talking about Pilates for the Queer community and how we can update and improve our existing processes to create supportive, uplifting spaces for all. But first, let's check in. Let's take a second to talk about conventions, expectations, and moving past them. When was the last time that tradition or convention made you feel like you couldn't do something? How was that experience for you? And did you feel stifled or limited? When was the last time you felt like you could truly express who you are without judgment? Does your identity match how you outwardly present yourself to the world? If it doesn't match, why is that the case? Tradition and convention are not inherently bad or hurtful. Tradition can actually help us make sense of a chaotic and unbalanced world. It can bring us closer to the people we love through a shared structure. Conventions can help us make sense of what behavior is safe and appropriate in our community, therefore protecting us from harm or from harming others. That being said, sometimes traditions can leave us feeling stifled or misunderstood. And sometimes conventions leave vulnerable people feeling unprotected. And sometimes we learn and grow as a group, and those traditions and conventions, well, they evolve with us. When we look at tradition and convention through a lens that understands both its benefits and its drawbacks, we're actually empowered to move past what doesn't serve us while still holding on to what does. Let's reflect on how you express yourself. Is there something you do or would like to do that promotes self-expression? Uh, whatever it is, think about it. Is it something that excites you? Um, maybe do you hold it back because maybe it scares you? Or is there a little bit of both there? And what is the one small thing that you could do to cultivate that self-expression over the next few weeks? All right. As always, thank you for taking that time with me. Today we have Sophia Englan, a Pilates instructor and movement educator and choreographer based in Brooklyn, New York. Pulling from a multiplicity of experiences, approaches, and perspectives, Sophia works with queer and trans folks for a variety of purposes, including surgery, prehab, and rehab. She also works with allies, clients with hypermobility, chronic pain, and somatic reeducation. You can find Sophia at queerbodypilates.com or at Queerbody Pilates on Instagram. Let's welcome Sophia. Okay, welcome. This is Pilates Perspectives, and I'm here with Sophia Engelman from Brooklyn, New York. Sophia, so glad to have you here. Our topic today is Pilates for the queer community. So welcome. Thank you, Joy. I'm gonna dive right in. And for those who aren't familiar, can you give us a definition for queer? Yes. Um I'll preface this by saying that I think there's some like rub or friction just in the act of defining queer or queerness, because for me, inherently, queerness is about kind of like operating in a way that maybe can't be nailed down completely or like exists on some kind of spectrum or with some kind of fluidity. But for the sake of like education, I will answer the question, which is that queer typically refers to the LGBTQIA community. So lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, asexual, intersex questioning, and so on. But what I like about the term queer or queerness is that it's allowing one to kind of identify with the community as a whole and is sort of acknowledging that, like I said before, gender and sexuality can operate on a spectrum without having to kind of like pigeonhole yourself in one part. So um I love this. And let me take a second to sort of formulate my thoughts here. First of all, for all of those who are listening to me, I'm a little hoarse today. So if my voice doesn't sound sort of normal, um, it's just coming back after a long week of training. So bear with me. Um, so queer. Um so I'm just gonna say this from a personal perspective. When I came out, right, it was the LGBT and Q was just starting to come into the into play. And there was a part of me that felt like just by defining it through letters like that meant all of these things were separate, but didn't have a container. And so based on what you're saying about queer and queerness, is it sort of gives it more of a container for a community. Does that feel comfortable to put it that way? Yeah, absolutely. Um, and it's also saying there's an acknowledgement, maybe also inside of it, that all of those letters are referring to both sexuality and gender. And there can be intersections there where people are identifying with multiple ones of those letters, not just one. It's such a funny thing you really realize the limitations of our language, right? Like, you know, uh pronouns also are our identity. Um, they're also gender, they're also just the way in which the language is organized. And so now we find ourselves struggling for the right language when actually it could be more simplistic and you know, um seeing more of a community, yeah. Um and as opposed to all the sort of individual variation. Is that yeah? I'm I'm I'm struggling really trying to give my own thoughts to it. I hear you. And I think there's something beautiful about like a catch-all term that then allows one to be like, well, this is roughly how I am and how I feel. And it doesn't have to be that way tomorrow or next year, but this is, you know, approximately where I am. And I don't I don't owe it to you to be any more specific than I I okay. So that's actually the next, the next piece of that I think is really, really cool is so first of all, queer, I'm gonna say back in the day was one of those terms where people like it could also do harm. It could also be used in a way to be hurtful. Um, and it's so it's more accepting today. And I think part of why I'm struggling with just making sure I'm comfortable with queer and queerness is because it wasn't always a comfortable term to use. Yeah. I mean, as a millennial who lives in Brooklyn, who grew up in like a New England academic town and went to a liberal arts college of the very different experiences. Yes, and study queer theory. Yeah, yeah. It's very comfortable to me. I think where I kind of stand with this is like just don't say it like it's a slur. And then the word good. I mean, but that's almost anything. You could be like, you could use the word dude and be like, hey, dude, or you could use the word and be like, dude. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like it's all so much um intention of how we show up. Totally. And I think intention is so important. We also can have all the best intentions and still cause harm. Yeah. Um, but I think if it's like said with love and maybe a little bit of nonchalance, even like there's like some beauty in the offering of the word. Um I'm also I'm thinking about I listened to the disability episode with Zebra Fish Neuro, and there was this question around like disability first or person first language. And sort of the answer was like in the movement, like in the disability justice movement, disability first language is kind of preferred. But if you're wanting to be safe, person first language, like person with disabilities or disability is like the safe thing. And I think this kind of applies of like I feel comfortable with people using queer, but if you're nervous about it, you can just say LGBT or LGBTQIA and you know, maybe practice that mouthful in the shower so you feel ready to say it. That's great. So let's first um let's take a step back and let's sort of give listeners a sense of you. Yeah. Um, and let's talk about dance and then also for you in terms of your thoughts on the intersection of dance and queerness. Yeah. I come from like a postmodern contemporary concert dance background. I love postmodern. Yes. I'm like, what's past modern? Yeah. We're talking like 1960s, really experimental stuff, like real like performance art adjacent. Um but I think inherent in a lot of that, I mean a lot of that kind of like early postmodern dance work was like created and initiated by queer artists, and the work wasn't necessarily about sexuality or gender, but the way they were experimenting and trying to create like new logics and worlds of ways of thinking was inherently very queer. Um, and I think dance in general tends to have a big role in the queer community because queerness and transness is inherently about embodiment, and dance is an expressive way to engage with that embodiment and question it. Well, and then that makes this link directly to Pilates, another I would say more mindful methods of movement. Um, because they're so much about awareness and embodiment. Um, is that where that intersection came for you? Absolutely. I mean, I after I graduated from college, I was teaching adult beginner modern classes a lot. And I realized that it was sort of adults who dance is not a big part of their world, but it's like something that they're wanting to engage with a little bit. They're interested in engaging with movement. I was really excited about that population, but you can't make a living off of teaching drop-in beginner adult modern dance classes. Yeah, I'm not entirely sure what that looks like in terms of like sales and marketing. No. No. And so I became interested in Pilates for a lot of personal reasons, but as I began to engage with it as a practice on my own, I pretty immediately was like, oh wow, this is my way that I can engage with ideas around experimental embodiment in a way that's accessible to the general public in a way that I can sustain myself. So let me ask a question as um, this is going to be one of these things. So I don't know that I really want to share this with everybody, but I just turned 60. And it's just blowing my mind a little bit. Just Well, congratulations. Thank you. Um and and I but what's what's actually interesting is in this conversation, I actually do feel the generational um shifts, um, gaps, and in our current political environment also whiplash. And and so I I I'm just gonna say this, and you help me define this. Over the years, or I have in the telling of my story often said um actually sexuality was the least and the lowest, or on the my ranking of reasons to make the change in my life that I did. Um, I was married, had an 18-month-old uh son at the time. I realized that this life didn't fit. And that's all those were the words I had is this life didn't fit. And when I think about queerness, um, and and certainly what we see happening with the trans community today in politics is over the years, the exterior container has become more invisible, and the focus on the essence of a person has become more front and center for me and how I talk about sexuality and my gayness, and and now as we talk about queerness and certainly start to really um have deeper conversations about the trans community. Um is that something that resonates with you? Because when I think of the like dance and modern dance, and it just feels so open where where in many ways the details wash away and the emotion is what comes forward. Yeah, I mean, maybe the difference between classical modern and postmodern dance was they were really like the postmodern dancers in like 1960s New York City were really trying to actually take emotion out of what they were doing. And I think that was a tool for them to begin to find ways of expressing themselves through movement that wasn't tied to linear narrative. I think they were the linear narrative, yeah. And I think that's kind of what I'm saying is like is like the linear narratives disappear. Yeah. And something else comes forward. What that something else is, you know, uh how you define it. I mean, that even could be open to the in interpretation of the receiver, right? Um interesting. So uh talk to me in terms of now Pilates and and what does it mean um for you to facilitate Pilates queerly? Yeah. I'll first talk about kind of like the basics, like 101 of that, which is like in my intake form, people have an invitation to share their pronouns with me. And I don't make assumptions about people's gender. And if I'm teaching a group class, which is pretty rare for me nowadays, but if I do, like I'm not gonna make an assumption. How'd you teach a group class from a bedroom in Brooklyn? Yes, this is true. But every once in a while someone pulls me. Yes. Or, you know, I'll teach on Zoom. And like I'm not gonna refer to the whole class as ladies, you know. So we're I'm trying to make choices around expectations and noticing like the habitual patterns that we can fall into and try to create a space where I think like what you were just saying, it's really about meeting the person in front of me and allowing space for all of the nuance that they might hold that I can't even see from the outside, um, and like welcoming the unknown of that. You know, I I find myself saying things, like realizing some of the things that I say, like I'll be like you guys. And I'm like, well, maybe there's another way to say that. Yeah. Does uh you know, how is that experienced when you're when you're thinking about pronouns and you're thinking about um meeting people where they're at? Like, how is that sort of those general throwaways, how do they land, do you think? Do you mean if I was like you say ladies to a group or I I think it's important to remember that even for people who identify with straightness or identify as cisgender, which means their gender identity and expression is in alignment with the sex they were assigned at birth, that even then all of this exists on some bit of a spectrum. And that even for a cis straight woman, being in sort of like the sensory place in her Pilates class, and she's like going deep and feeling her body, and suddenly ladies is thrown at her, that might actually feel out of alignment, um, even though she like identifies in a more normative way in terms of gender and sexuality, because you know, I think that all of us have different comfort levels around sort of like when ideas around feminity and femininity and masculinity enter the room and how we want to negotiate them. Right, right. And just based on how you said that, yeah, uh, you know, you were almost embodying it and you were taking your hands and bringing them to your down right down through your center. And then you said the word ladies, and you could almost imagine somebody who is actually really internally focusing, yeah, like like almost like a screeching halt, like being brought to a different awareness or a different attention. It's a representation of suddenly like societal expectations entering into the room, like slamming into the room. Right. And that kind of goes counter to really meeting people and the essence of where they're at. Yeah. Um so you describe your work as coming from a trauma-informed lens. Uh, can you tell our listeners what that means? Yeah. I really think about this largely in terms of cueing and both verbal cueing and the more obvious of tactile cueing and how that like relates to consent education. But in terms of verbal cueing, I'm really interested in how we can form verbal invitations that are like position themselves as harm-reducing and fear-reducing. Um I notice often with a lot of Pilates and movement educators that it becomes really easy to dwell on the like what not to do. And often when we're speaking so much about the negative of the what not to do, and we're not also accompanying that with the why of why we're saying that, suddenly we're actually like taking our clients or our students' autonomy away because they're becoming completely reliant on us. And there's a fear that comes of like maybe if my shoulders are lifting toward my ears, I'm gonna hurt myself. Or maybe if my shoulders are lifting toward my ears, you're gonna think I'm doing a bad job or I'm a bad student. Right. There's like a judgment associated with it. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm really interested in, I like to call it positive cueing, which is not in like a happy go lucky everything's okay way, but more so in that, like, how can we catch those cueing habits when we're saying what not to do and reframe it in a positive sense of what to do? So, like, I I I don't know I gave the example of shoulders away from ears, because I don't think that's a very interesting way of cueing into shoulder stability. But like for the sake of following through on the example, if that's something I was wanting to tell someone, you know, instead of saying keep your shoulders away from your ears, I would just I would talk about letting their shoulders drop down their back. You know, and I think that's that's like a pretty straightforward one, but you can start to think of a lot of different ways and just like pausing and listening to yourself as you're speaking and pausing and listening to yourself. No, uh, I really um and oh gosh, you want to talk about like feeling ancient. Like I remember in the beginning it was like Q after Q after Q after Q after Q. And very often it was don't do this, don't do that, don't do this, don't do that. And and you would see clients just trying to accommodate to this onslaught of information and actually the sort of just being present and watching and listening and maybe leaning in on what they're able, what you know, the ability. Yeah. Um, so yeah, it's a real, it's really hard to teach people, isn't it? It does a little. Yeah. Our job is not to shape people into a mold. And our job, I would hope, is not to, you know, if you're constantly telling people what not to do, and then you've sort of created a situation where to be successful in the space is to get really good at following rote cons rote instructions. What you've now done is taught people the skill of how to conform rather than the skill of how to have agency. Well, which then right from the very beginning of this conversation goes counter to, as we talk about, you know, queerness and and you know, agency of a of a community, right? Um, it really goes counter to all of that. It immediately goes right back into societally, societal con, you know, conf conforming to societal norms. Yeah, exactly. Um, and I'll speak a little to how I navigate consent and tactile cueing in terms of trauma-informed teaching. Um, I think for me, it's really important that the process of that starts actually before someone enters the studio, because even if I do not want it to be the case, there is inherently a power dynamic the second someone walks in to my studio and there's all of this intimidating looking equipment behind me that they don't know how to use, and I am now being positioned as the expert. And so if I'm then in that environment bringing up this conversation for the first time of how they feel around touch, there is a pressure happening. No matter how much work I do to undermine that, they are gonna feel a little bit more pressured to say yes to whatever I offer and to defer to my judgment. So I find that like in my intake form or in my registration form, that's a really lovely place to get that conversation started because then without the pressure of like, also, okay, I'm paying for the session and it's already started and I want to get going. And without the pressure of, I don't know how to use this equipment and this person is going to tell me how to do it safely, right? They get to take a moment to reflect and think for themselves about how they actually feel around touch. So do you have a question on the intake form? Is that specific around touch or questions? Well, I'll it's one question, but it kind of has like multiple parts, which is tell me anything you want to share about your relationship to touch. And then I give examples of are there certain areas that are off limits? Do you know for sure that actually this is something you don't want offered at all? Are you unsure, but you want a continued conversation about it? Sometimes someone might be like, I don't feel good about it at first, but I bet after a few months I will at circle back. Um sometimes people are like, yes, it's totally fine. That's what happens 75% of the time. Right. But great, now I have that permission. And even then, because also, you know, writing is not everyone's best way of expressing themselves. Some people do want that face-to-face conversation. If I'm working with someone for the first time, then the beginning of that session is still going to involve me checking in to see if they have any shifts they want to make to how they they had answered that initially. And then I confirm to them that even if they're giving me 100% permission to do whatever I want around touch, I am still gonna ask them about it before I do it at first. And like it's important to remember that consent is conditional. And the example I like to give is like, okay, if someone asked me if I wanted to eat three hamburgers in 20 minutes, and we're just gonna say my answer to that originally is no. But then they're like, but what if I gave you $50 to do that? And then I consider it, but my answer is still no. And then they say they're gonna give me $500. And I'm like, yeah, of course I'm gonna do that. Absolutely. Yeah, no problem. Here I go. Um, and I think that like similarly in the studio, someone might be super cool with me putting my hand on their big toe, but they're not gonna be happy with me putting my hand on their low back. So I wanna be clear about where I'm offering touch rather than assuming that it's just a blanket yes to everywhere. Yeah. Right. So there's continual check-ins and um that's interesting. You know, the the power dynamic, uh, you walk into a room and you know, there's so many pieces and elements there. Isn't there how many people are in there? Is the room private? Is it open? Is it um is it your personal space? Is it a public space? And then how you approach also from there. When when you check in, or or how do you make the determination of the difference between it's okay to touch their big toe, but maybe I should I should reevaluate how I touch their lower back? Some of it's energy. Like if I'm working with someone who expressly has articulated that they have a lot of trauma or dysphoria, or like there's something really closed off about how they're being with me, I'm going to be a lot more hands-off and a lot more, like I'm gonna stay in safer zones first. Right. Regardless, at first, I am gonna ask the question before every time. If I've been working with someone privately for at least a few months and I'm seeing them demonstrate like consistent skills of self-advocacy, which doesn't necessarily mean they're saying no to touch. Actually, like I'm only gonna move forward with this if they're being pretty consistent about being cool about touch. But if they're like asking me questions, if they're doing a really good job of expressing how something felt, or they're coming into the session with specific requests, if I'm seeing that they're able to really advocate for themselves to me, that's when I am maybe gonna move on to what I like to call self-narration, which is instead of asking before doing, I'm gonna just tell them what I'm doing. But it's still coming along with words. So it's never gonna be a surprise, but I might transition to I'm gonna put my hand on your knee, or I'm getting up to come around and I'm gonna put my hand on your knee, or you're gonna feel my hand on your knee. I know your eyes are closed right now, don't be scared, you know. So there's still a line of communication open around it, and we've like at that point have like a pretty good foundation of communication when I go there. It goes to trust and the foundation of communication. Yeah. Um, you know, you just mentioned uh dysphoria. So just first, can uh what is gender dysphoria? Gender dysphoria is when there is a feeling of like friction or not rightness around how your body is and your earn internal sense of how you feel your body should be based on your own experience of gender. And and based on sort of your communication style, um, how how does say imagery-based cues help support clients? Um what I'm most interested in is that I think if we're trying to rebuild someone's relationship with their body, that if we can find new ways of verbalizing how we're connecting to embodiment, we're going to be able to create kind of like a new space between the two of us where they're able to access sensation and feeling and their body in a new way. And so a lot of that has looked like for me because I feel like the whole kind of like ventral front surface of the body is so vulnerable and also so known because our eyes are on the front of our head and that's what we see in the mirror. But also that's like where a lot of like our sexual and reproductive organs are. And so therefore it's like a vulnerable engendered surface of our body that if I cue more into the whole posterior chain, I'm able to get people to still connect with all the good stuff we want around, like thoracic mobility and figuring out what the heck is happening with their hip joint without me having to ever reference their chest or the hips, which also like I have a lot of feelings about. I think it's when we say hips, sometimes it's really unclear to clients what we're talking about. Cause like, do we mean the hip joint or do we mean the hip bone, the ASIS and what exactly is going on? And one is a bony landmark, and one is a place that has movement. Um, and so just like the more clear we can be, and the more we I find like kind of speaking to like safer zones of the body, we're able to build a new relationship to movement. So it's interesting that um, you know, the the front of the body, right? You wanna, I'm chuckling to myself because I'm listening to all the times the references would be to parts of the chest and what should be up and what should be right and and um uh but turning that around and actually talking about you know through the lens of the back body gives access really um and actually opens the body in a much better than by Q. Yes, through the front. Yes. And like we can use so many lovely props and like apparatus to help people feel the back of their body and suddenly it's like a whole new world because they're feeling their body through a completely different lens than usual. You know, some some of what I get from you just in this conversation is sort of this, this really um, and you really personify it. And let me see if I could clarify it for those listening in, is is truly just an openness of your own, which creates sort of a sense of of oh, we're gonna enter into like um a journey, and um, you know, um, and you offer space for people to say, yeah, I trust this, I'm willing to take this, let's see what I can do. Uh it's it's it's so much of just how you show up in the space. Yeah. Um, so in many ways, modeling that. I'm I'm sure you model that for all the people that you work with. Um it does remind me in many ways of so I'm originally from New York and my training was in the city, and um, we did a lot of somatic work. Um, and so tell me a little bit about your experience and your background with somatic work. Yeah. My dance background, because I was I was like studying modern dance and postmodern dance and like choreography, like starting in middle school. Like by the time I was 14, like a lot of like practices that were drawing from Feldenkrais and Alexander technique and release technique and the Franklin method and like contact improvisation were all really like deeply ingrained in the training that I was getting. And what was exciting for me about all of these were just like they were all different lenses and they were all different ways to kind of modulate how we look at the big picture and the granular. And I think that's supported me then in Pilates to be able to teach the person who's in front of me and cater to them and have all of these different practices in my back pocket rather than needing like my my my number one commitment is to the person, and I'm doing this under the umbrella of Pilates, and I use so much Pilates in that, but my commitment not is not to like Capital P Pilates and the tradition of that. My commitment is to each individual who walks into the room. But you know, I I would say, and I I just really um as we struggle today to really identify what Pilates is, I I would say that um the Capital P Pilates is so influenced by that. You know, you know, Jake Joe came from Germany when the gymnastics movement was was rising. Um he himself was a boxer, comes to New York, and he meets the dance world and we had Feldenkrais and Alexander Technique, and you know, all of the uh uh Bartanya, Flauban, all of these influences were swirling around him at the time. And then the first generation teachers, many of them took all of those influences with them forward to meet the individual, that the somatics are so ingrained into the capital P. Yeah. That, but I think we sometimes train it out when all we look at it is from that sense of, well, Pilates gives you flat abs kind of perspective, you know? Yeah. I I think for me this way of looking at the individual and just like using the resources that you have to help them feels like truly about or like truly of what Pilates is actually about. Like the essence of it. Yes, 100%. And I feel like so deeply in attunement with that, and then aware that there is like that's not the societal expectation of politics. Exactly. So I mean it really is so parallel in a way to what we're talking about. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's great. I hadn't really ever thought of that until we had this conversation. Um just, you know, for listeners, how would you define somatics? Ooh. I mean, soma is of the body. So I mean, for me, somatics, I I really think of it as truly any body-based practice that is prioritizing someone's ability to like relate to the self and to their body. So oftentimes these practices have like a fairly internal focus. And even, you know, Alexander Technique is really about like the vision and seeing out into the space. But I think about this a lot in relationship to Pilates and like the beauty of Pilates is we're using props and apparatus to get to know ourselves better because we only get to know ourselves through contextualization and through feedback from the outside. Yeah. And so even in these sort of like deep internal practices, oftentimes there is sort of like a connection to environment that is part of them. Yeah. Gosh, I love that. You know, you you bring back some um some thoughts about we use the equipment not as sort of an external tool, but as a way to know ourselves internally better. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, interesting. Um, okay, so outside your studio, um, what do you do outside your studio in order to provide Pilates in a way that is accessible, evidence-based, and trauma-informed? And and the way the question was asked was decolonial. Yeah, yeah. Um, and and I highlight that because I'd love you to talk a little more about that. Yeah. I mean, for me, like I do have this dance background and I feel like comfortable in the like quote unquote mainstream Pilates world. But I I really think of myself as like the work that I'm doing is more so about bringing Pilates to my queer and trans community and less about trying to insert queer and transness into the Pilates industry, and like hoping that by focusing on queer and trans folks and centering them, that like the Pilates industry will come along and follow along. Um, but like yeah, I just think that like my community that is like those are my teachers, and there's so many folks who are in the queer and trans community who are figuring out ways to queer as a verb all sorts of other practices and industries. And so I feel like I learned so much by walking, watching how you know, I have like colleagues who are doing this in massage and body work or at magazines or in their like poetry practices, you know. I think that getting to know how people are doing this work of inclusivity in other modalities helps me better understand how to do it in Pilates. Yeah, I um you um are doing a really lovely job of articulating the service of um to queer the industry through service of the of you know um the individual, which is really uh which is great, which is great because I think that articulation is really necessary. Um it it again opens the door to the conversation as opposed to sort of showing up in in expectation that everyone's just just gonna follow. Yeah. You sort of you need to you need to really say, here's, you know, lay the breadcrumbs and be articulate about what each of them means. So thank you for that. I think that's phenomenal, phenomenal work. Um, and watching other industries is certainly gonna help us. Yeah, yeah. Um especially in uh in work that is so personal. Um along those lines, how do you think now of taking it to the industry side of things? How can Pilates and even other fitness modalities, right? How how can they uh serve as gender-affirming care? Yeah. I mean, I think there's like this really literal way, which is when people have gender-affirming surgery, like what they are trying to do through that surgical intervention is to better align their physical body with their inner self. And um, and so there's like this like straightforward like rehab and prehab support that can be needed in that. And I think a lot about like Eve Gentry, like in the 50s having like a radical mastectomy, and then Joseph Pilates was working with her after to heal and to get back to being a dancer and a moving person. And so quite literally, a lot of the classical repertoire was developed with the kind of idea in mind of helping someone rehabilitate after breast tissue is removed. And that's so much. Radical breast tissue is removed. Chest wall was impacted. Yeah. And so that's like so much of the work that I do is with people who are preparing for or recovering from um chest masculinization top surgery, where usually they're trying to really get rid of like absolute every little bit of breast tissue that is in there to make the chest as flat as possible. And there's a lot of different sort of forms of that surgery. Um but beyond that, like not all queer and trans folks have gender-affirming surgeries. But if they do, and if not, like one of the most powerful things we can do is use movement to help them become more aligned with their body. Like that's that's the whole thing. And that's what we do, just in Pilates in general, just not necessarily through that lens. Right. But we're already doing it. And so, how do we do it openly and in a way where we're creating a safer space for someone to be fully who they are in terms of queerness and transness? But like the work is already there, both in terms of like the rehab and prehab work and also in the way that Pilates and modalities like it allow people to know themselves better and feel themselves better and feel like they're building better connections with their body. Fantastic. I mean, yeah, yes, for the queer community, for everyone. If that that that that um approach to practice is just phenomenal. All right. What advice do you have for queer people who are interested in starting Pilates? I really would like to be like, look for the studio where the educators' pronouns are like next to their bios, or like, look for the studio where there's a little pride flag on their desk because there's A lot of those studios, but I've heard a lot of anecdotal stories about people going to those studios, and even if the like new client intake form asked them to share their pronouns, those pronouns weren't actually respected in practice. Um I think that at large the Pilates industry wants to become a more inclusive and affirming space for queer and trans folks, but sometimes these um more superficial shifts don't equate to deeper change. Yeah, well, I think that's I well so I think the first part of your sentence that that that the community is looking to be more positive and affirming, period, um, to all folks, all bodies, all, you know, um uh and then and then inside of that, how does how do we how do we align with the individual, truly align with the individual in front of us? I think this goes back to what we were saying earlier, like just stop and listen to yourself, you know? Like there, it's so like, you know, a lot of Pilates educators are like teaching, which means basically talking nonstop for 25 to 30 hours a week. And to survive that job, we like occasionally have to go on autopilot a little bit. And that's okay. We need to be generous with ourselves because like that I think is allowed for us to get through. Um, but without as an educator, without making yourself crazy, if you can just like commit to just like a few hours a week while you're teaching, to just like listen a little bit more to the things that are coming out of your mouth. And like maybe after a session, just take a moment to write some things down that you heard yourself say that you're having some questions about and you want to circle back to later, or you ask your client if it's okay for you to record the session just for your own self to be able to listen back. Um I just think that there's like deeper patterns that need to be disrupted for us to be able to align those superficial shifts with the actual change that we want to make. Right. Yeah, because it needs practice. Yeah. It needs practice and it needs self-awareness, right? It needs all the things we teach our clients. Yeah. Right. And this is like this is us not just working against like maybe what we were taught in our teacher trainings, but it's also like us working against like everything we've been taught by our society. Like that's a lot of that's a lot of work, that's hard work. So like I think that also you get to be generous with yourself and with the caveat that if harm happens, we do have to take responsibility for it. We are allowed to make mistakes, but we need to um have like some sensitivity to how the ways we've been taught to teach might potentially impact people. And yeah. Yes, the language we choose, the tone of voice, the the you know, and we talk about inclusivity as it's one thing. It's so many things, isn't it? Yeah. With that, what advice would you give for queer Pilates instructors? Well, okay. Liberation is not assimilation. So there is like there is a time and place for the closet, you know, like we have to we have to prioritize our own safety and we can be different amounts of ourselves with different people. Maybe there's a client where you have one foot in that closet, and that's just like how you need to cope with the situation, and you're there's something about them where you're not feeling totally secure in being or showing all of yourself, that's okay. I think like a lot of sort of like the Pilates educator-client relationship is like therapeutic, and therapists do a really good job of talking about how they sort of modulate how much of themselves they show the people, like their patients. Um but the more that within the realm of safety we can be ourselves, the more we are being our own representation. And that's going to create a call for change and allow our own clients and students to feel like they can bring more of themselves to this practice. And, you know, like that's so sad that there are people entering the Pilates studio and they feel like they have to hide parts of themselves. Like, how do they get like all of the juice out of this work if they don't get to bring all of themselves and they're hiding part of themselves? Good advice. Uh, good advice, good advice for everyone, right? Um it is interesting. Uh, I I'm sure if we all just think about it for a second, how we do compartmentalize ourselves and we we show up in each space with one foot in the expectations of others and one foot in who I am inside of this environment and um finding the places to be liberated and to be fully expressive. Um, dance, certainly now I'm seeing the cross for you between dance and Pilates a little bit more clearly. Um, okay. Do you have any do you have um advice for instructors and clients alike who would like to be more supportive of the queer community? Educate yourself. Um, you know, like practice people's pronouns while you're in the shower before you go to bed. Um I think it's important for us to practice pronouns. Yeah. I know for myself, I default so fast if I'm not taking the time. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's another slow down. Yeah, it's another, it's a moment to slow down. Yeah. Yeah. Um, like take time for yourself to like do your research and to do your practice. Because like the most beautiful gift you can give is to not put all of the onus on queer and trans folks to educate you. And yes, when they're down to do it, please listen to them. But that is exhausting labor to have to constantly, constantly like be the one that's trying to like beg people to understand them and respect them. Right, right. Yeah. Right. Um, and where would you recommend people do their homework? Is there any are there any good books that come to mind? Any movies? Um, there's a book called Who's Afraid of Gender by Judith Butler, which is really great. There's also a bunch you can research like really lovely picture books about queer and trans identity for like young children. Um, so that if you're a parent, you can help your children from a young age um understand kind of like the multiplicity of identities that they might come across in their lives. Um, I also really loved the documentary Will and Harper that came out a year or two ago from Netflix. I haven't seen that meaning to. Yeah. Um just like this really lovely road trip across the country that's documented. Um that's with Will Farrell, right? Will Farrell and I don't remember Harper's last name, but she was a longtime writer on head writer on SNL and wrote a bunch of movies that Will Farrell was in outside of SNL. Um, and she comes out, I think, during the pandemic, and her and went before she transitioned, before she was out, she had really loved going on solo road trips across the country and felt that now that she was living more visibly as a trans woman, that that wasn't safe for her to do. And so he essentially, he with a documentary crew accompany her because the idea is that like basically his fame is like her shield. So it's like this really beautiful kind of like demonstration of allyship. Um and yeah, it's just like really powerful and it's wonderful to see like her relationship, Harper's relationship with her children. Um, and I think just like in a very lovely way, like heartwarming and also like cool to see how middle America does and does not accept the two of them as they journey across the states. You know, the uh I I ask you for that because I I do think that the the really working the empathy muscle and the compassion muscle and and um as well as truly the inclusivity muscle is stories are some of the best ways of of seeing people. Yeah. Um and and that's also where I think our studios are really helpful um in in developing all those skills because we if if we do just take a beat and listen, the stories always do come out, don't they? Yeah uh in in one shape or another. And and um so so having ways in which we can hear the stories and see the stories and relate to the stories in media in some capacity, I think is really really powerful. Um okay, some rapid fire questions. What is your definition of Pilates? You're gonna know I don't want to define something. I'm gonna do it. I think that's the perfect answer. Totally legit. Well, I'd I'll I'll I have something, which is just that it is movement inspired by the teaching of Joseph Pilates, and I like to say his disciples, the first and second generation teachers, which centers values of connection and integration and attention. Fantastic. That's lovely. Um and as the definition goes, very nicely open. Thank you. Uh what is your favorite piece of Pilates equipment, big or small, and why? I have to go spine corrector while saying that it does have the worst name of any of them because I'm not interested in anything that involves correcting or fixing. So I'm so there's a guillotine. That's true. Fair enough. Fair enough. I always because I have the foam one from Balanced Body, so I just call it the arc to my clients. Um, but just like that supported like spinal extension and lateral flexion and just like getting to lay on it, I feel like can be mind-opening for so many people. I'm with you. I'm with you. I feel you. I I yeah. Okay, what's one misunderstanding about either Pilates or your profession that you wish people understood? Pilates doesn't have to have anything to do with how the people who do it or teach it look. Oh, say that again. Pilates doesn't need to have anything to do with how the people who teach it or practice it look. Okay, what's one habit that you do regularly that complements your Pilates practice? I'm a really big sleeper. Yeah. Yeah. My watch is telling me I'm not, so I think I need to pay attention. Yeah. Um, yes, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep. Anything else? Um my movement practice is important to me. I I am lucky because I have my Pilates equipment in my own home. And so I spend, I try to spend a soft six days a week engaging with Pilates or some cardio or some weight training. So as a as a as a dancer and a teacher, do you prefer those moments to be um uh on your own and self-reflective, or or do you prefer to have an instructor in the mix or a combination? For the most part, it's alone and kind of meditative, but every once in a while I love to go to someone else and just let someone guide me. And I think like for me, a lot of what attracted me to like the teaching of Pilates was just like those magic moments where someone says something in a new way, and you're like, wow, you were talking about like my knee melting, and now this whole new thing is happening with my shoulder, and like any opportunity to like get those nuggets from other people is wonderful. I've already asked you about books and movies. Um, but if you were to turn off, so I'll rephrase this differently. If you were to just like turn your brain off and you wanted to like sit in front of a good movie or a book, what would be your go-to? Oh my gosh. Um my favorite author is Rebecca Mackay, and I have put off reading her very first novel for a long time, and I am right now about to finish it. I will finish it on the plane home, which feels sad, but I know more will be coming. Um, but actually, I have some more recommendations. Oh, go for it. Yeah. Um, if someone is interested in like an introduction to queer theory, I really love The Queer Art of Failure by Jack Halberstam. He uses Pixar movies as a way to talk about queer theory. So it's a really lovely way in, and it's not too long a read. Um, for Pilates folks in general who are interested in kind of like questioning a lot of the ways we've been taught to associate aesthetic and function in the studio. There's a book by Doran George called Um The Natural Body in Dance and Somatics. And it's really looking at how in dance and somatics, and I think Pilates too, I think Pilates is really both of those things. We have a tendency to kind of moralize easefulness, and that that then essentially demonizes people that because of marginalization or oppression or trauma might need to hold more attention. Um so I think that book is really interesting if you're a Pilates person and you're interested in kind of like getting into the nitty-gritty of like questioning um how we've been taught to read bodies. I'm just thinking on that for a second because I I I think that's very important, right? Um we make an assumption everybody needs to let go and and that doesn't always that doesn't always suit, right? No, yeah. Um okay, so and then before we end, can you tell our listeners where they could find you? Yeah, um you can find me as queer body pilates, q-u-e-e-r body pilates. Um, that's my dot com. That's my Instagram. Um I mostly work with people one-on-one, but you can also I do like seasonal continuing ed workshops online, and I also do one-on-one mentorship and more in-depth like apprenticeship with Pilates educators or educators in training who are wanting to kind of deepen the way that they're exploring inclusivity and gender-affirming um kind of lens into their work. Fantastic. Um, well, this has been really a wonderful, wonderful conversation. I want to thank you for joining us. Uh, also want to thank all of you listeners for joining us here again at Pilates Perspectives. Thank you, Sophia. Thank you, Joy.