RAINBOW TRANSFORMATIONS
Coaching, Recovery & Community for Trans & Gender Fluid People
Our Mission
Rainbow Transformations was created to offer those within the LGBTQIA+ space, and especially trans and gender-fluid folx, end-to-end coaching services (both identity development, mental health and addiction-driven) and trans support groups. Not only that, but also more casual digital and in-person community. Families with LGBTQIA+ members are an integral contributor to the wellbeing of their LGBTQIA+ loved ones, and as such we offer family support groups too.
Rainbow Transformations is proud to help individuals work through challenging issues which arise in the context of their mental health, addictions (chemical and process, such as sex & love addiction) as well as disordered eating. We also work with those who simply want someone to talk to - for support, validation or a conversational journey towards discovering their authentic identity.
We offer a suite of services which includes everything from individual and family coaching to acute, crisis-level mental health/substance use interventions and stabilizations, case management and continuing care. We also ensure our clients tap into online and in-person communities. This is important for everyone, of course, but particularly for LGBTQIA+ folx who aren’t lucky enough to live in thriving queer spaces.
IS LGBTQIA+ SPECIALIZATION NECESSARY?
Absolutely! We have a LGBTQIA+ and transgender mental health crisis on our hands which disproportionately affects LGBTQIA+ youth and adults. The same is true of substance use, misuse and abuse where quality LGBTQIA+ addiction treatment facilities are few and far between.
LGBTQIA+ folx are not intrinsically at risk because of their identity. Rather, it is a combination of external stigma, family rejection/inability to adequately support, as well as internal experiences of identity development.
Many LGBTQIA+ folx are/were unable to experience their formative years in the way their cisgender, straight counterparts were. This creates a delayed adolescence and what some call Peter Pan syndrome. While immaturity in certain life domains is a component of many people’s stories - parts of us stopped maturing when adverse things happened - it is pronounced within the LGBTQIA+ community. It interacts with existential turmoil, external stigma and social signaling which shows up in choices made by such folx in adult life.
The trans community experiences unparalleled societal discrimination. It also has its own unique challenges from an existential and physical perspective as the road to alignment of body and gender expression is paved with financial, psychological and social upheaval.
These issues are many. For example: access the gender affirming care; living in states and with families affected by rampant anti-trans legislation and culture; constant invalidation through misgendering (real and perceived); lack of chosen family; unrealistic or non-existent role models; impatience in light of the pressing need to “pass”; hyper-fixation on the body; transition’s impact on social circles, employment opportunities, and one’s dating life…the list goes on. It’s critical, therefore, that you have someone who gets all this on your team.
TRANS & GENDER FLUID FOLX
The trans and gender fluid community is facing unprecedented discrimination across the world. An anti-trans legislative agenda is spreading. Only a handful of states are considered safe places to be trans. In the first week of 2024, over 120 anti-trans bills were filed, at more than double the pace of 2023. Gender affirming care options are being eliminated. Utilizing the bathroom of one’s authentic gender is being criminalized. Legal recognition is under attack. Corporate sensitivity training is being undermined.
In this climate, it is almost impossible for trans and gender fluid folx not to experience mental health distress. Leaving the house can be hard for us. Being in public is distressing. Without like-identified community it can be excruciatingly lonely. Growing up in traditionally conservative and religion-led parts of the world can cause even family members to reject us. Trans folx are anywhere between 4 and 8 times more likely to live with depression, anxiety and drug-use can quickly become the only viable coping mechanism.
I meet this growing transgender mental health crisis and need with the offer of coaching support and digital community to transgender and gender fluid individuals and their families. Transgender support groups are a critical forum in which individuals can explore their individual identity and challenges with the opportunity to connect and relate to other people with similar identities. Every coaching engagement looks different. One thing doesn’t: limitless compassion, resources and my extensive availability to those for whom there may be nobody else.
CHEM-SEX RECOVERY
Unless you have experienced chem-sex or party ‘n’ play culture, it can tough to empathize for whom it is a component of their recovery journey.
Sex for the LGBTQIA2+ community conceals layers of nuance, both beautiful and complex, healthy and less healthy.
For many in the community compulsive, often anonymous, sex can be a feature of our lives, maybe even bordering on sex and love addiction. It sometimes stems from having missed out and feeling the need to make up for the formative intimate experiences our heterosexual, cisgender peers. For some publicly heterosexual people, it can help them have sex while coming out isn’t an option.
Overcoming the shame of queer sex created by society’s misinformed historical messaging requires a layer of drugs for some. This can lead to those people not wanting to have sex without the aid of substances such as alcohol, cocaine, meth, gamma-hydroxybutyrate GHB, gamma-butyrolactone GBL and mephedrone. This can lead to IV drug use quite quickly.
I have navigated this path. I know and can expound on the joys of sober sex and the intimacy that had so long eluded me. This is one of those areas of coaching life where self-disclosure is critical when handled correctly and is off-limits for most licensed therapists.
Insights around sobriety protocols when navigating the online, app-driven dating world are important. Finding LGBTQIA+ community outside of the hard-house thump of boystown is essential to forging deeper relationships with self and other. I can help.