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You're listening to transm on 4zzz amplifying the trans and gender non conforming voices of Brisbane and beyond.

You're listening to Transmission. I'm Brody. My pronouns are they, them. And I'm here with a lovely co host and a very special guest. How are you today, Hazy?

I'm doing good, thank you.

Would you like to introduce yourself?

Yeah. My name's Hazel and my pronouns are she, her.

And we have an incredible guest here today, Tara from. Is that it? Authentic living? Authentically Living authentically, yes. How are you today, Tara?

I am. I'm upright and I'm putting sentences together.

We're awake. That's what we're doing. And what, what were your pronouns, Tara?

I use they and them.

Amazing. And so Tara is going to be chatting to us about what you do and the exciting workshops you have coming up fairly soon. And yeah, so it's going to be a fun filled little show. It is coming out of Radio Thon, so the subscriber light is still going off and that is very exciting. So it was a very big week last week for Radio Thon and if you'd still like to subscribe you can go to 4zzz.orgauforward/support. And before we go into the interview, I'm just going to play one more song and then we will jump back into the interview if that's all good with you.

I think it's great. I love how polite that is.

I'm so, I'm so polite.

We have to wait for everyone currently listening to text in to tell us that it's all good.

Yeah, tell me it's okay, please and then we'll go. It's the morning. I'm not a very big morning person. Not going to lie. I'm used to being here at 8pm at night. So it's always different being here this early in the morning. Amplifying the voices of the trans and gender non conforming community of Meanjin, Brisbane and beyond.

Transmission on 4ZZZ brings you the latest in trans community news, music and events.

Every Tuesday from 9am till 10am Join.

Our team of hosts for an hour of celebrating the unique perspectives of the trans community transmission.

Tuesday mornings from 9am 10am on 4ZZZ. You're listening to Transmission. I'm Brody. I'm here with Hazel and our special guest, Tara. Again, how are we now after that little sun break?

I'm feeling like a new person.

You are because I told you, life changing, a life changing game, didn't I?

Yes, absolutely.

Catching planes. So Tara is in the studio today to talk to us about Tara's business organ, what Tara does. So Tara is the founder of Living Authentically Counselling and provides LGBTQIA and neurodivergent affirming therapeutic services for folks age 16 plus. And so, Tara, could you tell me a little bit about yourself and how you ended up in this kind of world of it? I guess.

Yeah, absolutely. So for some context, I'm a qualified social worker and sex therapist. I have many identity things, so I usually just rattle them off in case I usually forget one. I'm an autistic person, an ADHDer, I'm queer and non binary and I have really wanted to do this specific type of work for a really, really, really, really long time. Before I did uni, I was a sex worker for quite a few years and it was a fantastic job. And I realised that, like, a lot involved in that work was therapeutic and I. That kind of like started like a passion in me wanting to learn how to work with people in a counselling setting, in a therapeutic session setting, to unpack things around like sexuality and kink and identity. And I just love talking about stuff that people don't enjoy talking about because they think it's too weird or too taboo. And that's kind of like, yeah, that's my happy place. So, yeah, I went to uni, I did social work. I love social work. I worked in the social work field for a couple of years and then I started branching out into my own private practise stuff recently.

That's really cool. And what do you provide within Living Authentically? So I'm looking at the full disclosure, I'm looking at the website right now because my memory is terrible. So Tara provides individual counselling and sex ed workshops and practitioner training. Oh, I'm all for practitioner training.

Hell yeah.

You've kind of touched on how your own life experiences and how your lived experience has contributed to you starting this. What do you think was one of the big moments where you were like, hey, this is probably something I can do? Like, you saw the need and you did it for you. What was the moment of that when you started facilitating all this?

I guess it was probably when I was working at Open Doors, actually, I was working with A lot of young people who would come in and they're like, I just really want to talk to someone about sex and relationships, but from a gender affirming lens and a queer lens and a trans lens, all of the. All of the lenses. And all of a sudden it sort of. It was that. And it was, I guess that combined with talking with a lot of like allied health professionals after I graduated about my experience being a sex worker because I was pretty much. I felt like I couldn't tell anyone about the job that I used to do after I got a degree because I felt like it was something that people. I kind of felt like the world would set on fire if I told anyone.

Right.

Does that make sense?

Yeah. Like, it seems like it's an invalidation of your professional side kind of.

Yeah. And I think, like, there's. I mean, I know there's a massive stigma around being a sex worker and I was really worried that once I graduated with my social work degree, I wouldn't be able to like, hold both at the same time if that kind of made sense. But I started having conversations with people and they were really positive. So both of those things combined, I kind of. Yeah. Was like, I could do this myself. And I think also coming from a really neurodivergent, affirming perspective is really cool. Especially like being an autistic person and having been in therapy myself. And some of it's been really great. Some of it's been really shit.

Yeah.

Being able to provide therapy in a way that feels really affirming for folks on multiple different levels is really cool.

And I think that makes it even more powerful. As someone who also works in. I work in the mental health lived experience space as well, and I think having someone who gets it from not just the mental health aspect, but the neurodivergent aspect and then the gender diverse aspect, I think that makes it even more powerful and it's easier to connect as well. Do you have anything else to add, Hazel, at all?

I'm just. I think it's really, really interesting not just that you come from that perspective with your past work, but also that you're so upfront with it because it's incredibly important. And also I imagine for a great deal of people that's a. That's an experience or a perspective that having someone that can connect with you on it is probably greatly invaluable. Especially if we're talking about the world of mental health and everything like that.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I think, you know, obviously, you know, blah, Blah, blah, brave, blah, blah, blah, and so on and so forth. But also I just think it offers an incredibly effective layer to the work that you're doing, which I think is really, really interesting.

Oh, cool. Thank you. I think a lot of the time our identities get pathologized quite a lot. Like we walk into spaces in the context of mental health support and therapeutic care, and all of a sudden our identities and our lives and sometimes our work is pathologized 100%. You know, we're told that they're. That that's wrong or that's somehow bad and. Yeah.

Or like, even if it's someone who's an ally in many ways, in that context, it sort of becomes part of your list of symptoms or your list of things to be treated.

Yeah, yeah.

Whether or not they know they're treating it that way.

Yeah. And often they don't, which is really unfortunate. But that's where I'm hoping some of the practitioner training will be really helpful.

Yeah. So with the practitioner training and the sex ed workshops, could you possibly just give us a rundown on what those entail?

Yeah, definitely. So all of the workshops that. So we're just starting out in terms of workshops that we're gonna roll out. So for some context, the workshops are split between practitioner training workshops and then workshops for like the general community. So I guess I can talk about the boring stuff first and the interesting stuff next.

Yeah, do that, do that.

Yeah, the, the boring stuff. So the practitioner stuff is all around like neurodivergent affirming, trans and gender diverse affirming and queer affirming, like sexual health related stuff and understanding the intersection of things like kink and neurodivergence and all that good stuff. But more like from my background as a social worker talking to other allied health professionals, it can often be really helpful to bring lived experience into those spaces.

So it's cool that I preach that.

Hell yeah. I'm bad at talking about things that I'm doing, so I will just blaze straight on through.

Yeah, exactly.

You're on a run. Go for it.

In terms of the interesting stuff, though, I am also going to be rolling out a series of community based workshops called the Sex Ed that you didn't get.

Oh, I love this.

That's fun.

Yeah, it's all the stuff that no one, no one really like talks to us about in like a formal setting. It's stuff that we kind of like talk to our friends about or we read on, like random little Reddit posts.

At 3 in the morning, how we learn everything. Really.

Oh, my God. It genuinely is. So I wanted to culminate all of that and start some workshops both in person and online for accessibility. The first one that I'm going to be running towards the end of the year, hopefully around November, in person. I'm just trying to find a space that's wheelchair accessible and close to public transport. So definitely you're welcome to like, keep an eye out on my socials because I will post things once I've secured somewhere. The first workshop is on trans and gender diverse sex ed. Did you want me to run you through what that kind of.

Yes, please.

Yep. I wouldn't want anything else.

Cool beans. I'm also trying to bring cool beans back, so.

Okay.

I love it.

I just want to make that official.

Let's make it happen. Yeah, let's make it happen.

Cool beans. So the. The trans and gender diverse sex ed community workshop will touch on obviously gender because it would be super weird if we didn't. Everything to do with identity expression, affirming language to use, talking about social and medical transition options, talking about the changes that happen to our bodies when we go on puberty blockers or hrt, how hormones impact our libidos, our sexual desire and response systems, understanding consent and safety, and trying to make it not a boring conversation, but an interesting conversation.

Yep.

Going through some practical strategies to minimise dysphoria during masturbation and partnered sex. Exploring gender neutral and affirming sex toy options. Because there are heaps, which is cool. But again, it just. It's hard to find them.

Yeah, exactly.

And it's hard to. Yeah, sometimes actually, if you go into a sex store and ask, a lot of the time the people that work there are quite good and they can point you to the right things and then talking about STIs and prevention and. Yeah. And then it's also a space where community can just like share things that have worked for them and have general chats.

Yeah.

So it's not just like a facilitated workshop, I guess it's also a peer led, essentially workshop that you can share what you know, as we were talking about before off air, like peer reviewed, you can share your peer reviewed tips that you know have helped you and they may help other people. So I think that's really cool. Not just being a professionally like lived experience led workshop, but being a peer led, peer reviewed. You know, I like that term, peer reviewed.

Hell yeah.

Being like I peer reviewed this.

So yeah, that's great. Peer reviewed and cool beans.

Yeah.

Let's make it happen. We are going to make it happen. Yeah.

They sound really exciting for the people who are interested in catching those and looking into them. What would your social. What's the best socials to look at for that?

That is a very good question. So I'm on Instagram and TikTok under queer social Worker. It was something sex related, but I got banned from that username almost immediately.

Whoops.

So feel free to chuck me a follow. I will post things more about them as they come up.

Cool. But yeah, so that's Queer Social worker on Instagram and the TikTok and the TikTok the Clock app. Wow. Wow. You're with the youth.

I am with the youth. Cool beans.

Cool beans.

Cool beans. Cool beans.

Coolest of beans.

So we were talking to Tara about the sex ed workshops and how they are developed from a lived experience and peer perspective, especially focusing on gender diversity and trans folks and. Yeah. So if you wanted to tell us a little more about that, I guess what some tips that you're going to mention in there, but make it suitable for radio at 9:45am Yes, a radio suitable.

Buzzfeed top 10.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, it's a challenge, but I'll take it. I have a couple of, I guess like tips that I can share around minimising gender dysphoria when we're engaging with our bodies in a sexual. Yeah, we've been saying sex.

Yeah, we've been saying sex.

Yeah, that's fine.

In a sexual context that bands have had sex in their name.

That's true. Okay, cool. It's still a safe word. So I've split them up, I guess between some tips around self pleasure and some tips around pleasure with other people involved. So in terms of some ways that we can minimise some dysphoria when we're touching ourselves. The first way that I like to recommend, and this is actually an element of a particular type of sex therapy called sensate focus, is to experiment with touch on our bodies with either with our hands or with different like fabrics and textures in places that aren't dysphoric. So I guess finishing doesn't need to be the goal of touching ourselves or it can simply be finding ways that we can touch or engage with our bodies that cause us to feel pleasure. So figuring out what that could look like in maybe some cool creative ways. This is usually where I give some examples. But obviously because dysphoria is so different for every single person.

Yeah. So like focusing on the parts of yourself that you don't feel that strong dysphoric reaction to.

Yeah.

And I guess is the intention there to sort of broaden that experience throughout your whole body?

It is, yeah. And to kind of, I guess to kind of learn through experience that pleasure can be found in other areas of our body.

Yeah. Gotcha.

Yeah. Because it feels really nice to have our skin touched in other places. I've been saying the word skin a lot lately, so I really need to. Really need to not do that.

Cool bean pyramid.

Along the same line. One of my friends actually told me about this tip a while ago and I love it and I will bang on about it until. Until I die. A really good one is when we're in the shower, that's already context where we don't have any clothes on typically. Right. And it's a context where there's a barrier between our hands and our skin. So we've got like the water coming down and it's somewhere where we can turn the lights off and not necessarily have to like see our bod or look at our body. So that could be a time to potentially experiment with touching ourselves. And if the hand to skin sensation is too uncomfortable, we can look at maybe using something like a shower glove that provides an extra kind of barrier, which might be helpful.

So a shower is a very accessible space where you can more comfortably experiment with things that could be dysphoric to you.

Yeah. And I guess it's also a context where being naked is sort of like a prerequisite.

Yeah, it's a space where it's. You don't feel like there's a pressure attached to it. There's not sort of any of that stigma attached to it or anything like that.

Yeah, that's very interesting. Yeah, I agree.

I'm glad you brought it up.

In terms of, I guess some tips when it comes to engaging in a sexual context with other people. The big one that I always like to talk about is it's okay to ask people things. I am a very, very big believer in talking about sex and asking a lot of questions. And the more that you practise talking about it, genuinely the less awkward it becomes. I know it's one of those things that, you know, it sounds like it's not a real thing, but I promise with practise it gets better.

True, I agree.

So it's okay to ask and I encourage people to ask which areas of the body they like to be touched and which areas might cause or heighten dysphoria for them. And it's also very much okay to ask people what language they feel comfortable with when they refer to different parts of their body. Because again, this is so different for everyone. And if we assume there's a very good chance we could get it wrong or accidentally cause someone to feel a bit uncomfy or very uncomfy, depending. Yeah. And it's also okay to have sex with clothes on. Clothes can help with dysphoria to cover certain areas during sex. And clothes can be really gender affirming. So if we think about wearing like lingerie or boxes or a mankini, if you will.

I don't know, just anything really that you feel comfortable in.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Gender and clothing is really linked. So clothes during sex is totally okay.

I find it kind of interesting that these are obviously like very, very important and very distilled processes for like being able to. We've got more subscriptions coming in, by the way, throughout this episode. We've just kind of on and off been having subscriptions coming through. We love the subscriptions up for zzz4zzz.org ausupport if you want to support us financially, we love you. But what I found interesting about the tips that you're suggesting is that they're also like, you can see them popularised in sexual contexts a lot, like with, you know, the shower or different types of clothing and all that kind of stuff. They're popular in a lot of different ways outside of this sort of like more therapeutic approach to it. So I find it very interesting that you can kind of see the way in which people are already drawn to that type of thing, but that it can be sort of part of a healing process or part of a self exploration process as well.

Yeah, it's kind of like similar thing but different font maybe.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And I think it's such an important conversation to have especially for our community as the trans and gender diverse folks. Like there's things that we may get told are this is how you do it. Whereas for us it's probably completely different, you know, like, I think it's such a so important to have these conversations and have safe spaces to have them as well. And I admire. I'm very excited to see where these workshops go and what goes from here because in an ideal world it would just be normal.

Like yeah, we would be talking about it in school, we would be talking about it to our GP and all of these things. But often, often people's idea of sex ed, like this part goes inside this part and baby.

Yeah, exactly. You Just get taught, you know, what everyone thinks and that's not the truth. It is. There's so much more to it. And if I would love a world where we get taught this always, not just like, you know, oh, I'm going to go out of my way and learn about this where I think everyone should just get taught it full stop.

Well, there shouldn't be a need for these workshops.

Exactly.

I think.

I think that's what I was trying to say. My words were just jumbling. Yeah, I think it's. Yeah. So important and especially within a. The context of a social worker as well, like working within mental health or neuro or disability, essentially. I think there's so much opportunity for these things to be highlighted within there because they can increase, well, I hate that word wellbeing, but they can increase well being within the community and I think that's so important. So thank you so much for that. Was there anything else you wanted to ask Hazel or Tara before we.

Well, on my side of things, I feel like you've been very comprehensive, Tara. I've very much enjoyed learning about what you're doing. And of course it's queer social worker on Instagram for the people interested.

It is, yeah. Thank you so much for having me on. It's been a pleasure. It's also been really cool to be in a radio station, so.

Yeah.

Thank you.

No worries.

Glad we could help. Yeah.

You've been incredible. Incredible guest. And thank you so much for coming in today even though it was early and we're already established. We're both not really not morning people. So thank you so much. We appreciate it a lot and so I hope you've enjoyed. And you can listen back as well.

Yep. Also a final shout out to the subscribers and a recommendation that you do subscribe. I would say, you know, like, mental health care is a fantastic thing, but you can shortcut your way to personal nirvana and feeling completely secure in yourself if you just support for triple Z 100%.

It's mental health care in itself. By supporting 477, not gonna lie.

I endorse this message.

We love this.

Just kidding. Of course it's additional, but you know.

It has been peer reviewed.

It's been peer reviewed.

Yes, exactly.

Of course. Those beans. So cool.

Are the coolest. Sorry.

This is beautiful. Yeah. So goodbye for now and maybe we'll see you next week. I probably won't, but someone will. Someone from the transmission.

Transmission will see you next week, to be clear. But whether or not it's individually us.

Exactly.

Time will tell.

We will be here next week. I won't be, but.

And you might not be either. That's up to you, really. We hope you are. We want you to be.

What are you going to be doing next week?

Yeah. Let us know.

Should be listening to.

Call us.

Up to us.

Yeah. Well, that's us for today. Thank you for listening to transmission. We love you. Bye. Bye.

See us next week.

Thank you so much for listening to transmission. See you next Tuesday, 9 to 10aM on 4 triple Z.