Homecoming
Homecoming
by Ria Ireland Drane
Note: I am a white, middle class (from working poor), transgender, lesbian, disabled, and neurodivergent woman. This is the lens in which I view my life and this experience. I want to be sure to say my lens is limited and it colors my perception. All of the communities I touch are not monoliths. Content warning for mild transphobia, lesbophobia, and mentioned racism.
I had a homecoming upon joining here at Modern Path, and I wanted to share my experience about navigating professional spaces as a queer and gender-diverse person, and why I am glad to be where I have landed and how I think we as mental health professionals do not share how our practices can be healing for us as much as it is for our clients, albeit in a different way. My journey began in a not-so-professional space, waiting tables.
I began my transition waiting tables at a southern country breakfast place in Kennesaw, a city in the outskirts of the Atlanta suburbs. You would think that would not be the most gender-affirming place for those that are gender diverse, and to an extent you would be right. The customers did sometimes look at me funny especially because I could not afford to stop working in the early phases of my transition. I could not begin the process and come back a “different person.” However, to those that have worked in food service, there is an expression that kitchens/restaurants are “like a pirate ship.” It is a crew of misfits and malcontents determined to have a good time working hard and playing hard. I felt so seen by my co-workers and was more affirmed than I could have ever expected in a space that reminds me more of the south of my grandmother’s generation than the modern diverse jewel Atlanta has become. That said, Atlanta has its issues: we are still growing and fighting for change, but this is being compared to a space that had down the street a store that specifically catered to white supremacists and a place that flies the rebel flag on city property. I had to leave the restaurant due to issues with my disability, and because I felt the call to make the world a better place. This was thanks to my time at DragonCon Disability Services and existing as a queer and trans person, so I decided I would spend $40,000 I didn’t have and go to feelings school.
My social work program at first, and for the most part, was everything I could have wanted. I learned that social work had in its code of ethics that social justice was something that we championed to the core, and that people are a part of greater systems and not just individuals. I also had some supportive professors, such as, Karen Zimmerman of Marietta Counseling, Dr. Steve King, and Dr. Carol Collard of CaringWorks, and so many more, but these three are mentors that still shape what I do today and of which I am grateful of their presence in my life. That said, it was not all roses, and was where I began to feel what I could only describe as a slow suffocation from the cisheteronormative world.
I felt this most at my internships, particularly my second one at a middle and elementary school. People assumed things about me because of the space I was in. My experience as a lesbian was erased every time I was asked, “Do you have a husband?” or, “Do you have a man at home?” My experience as a transgender person was sanded away by the literal, not figurative, hundreds of times I was asked if I had any babies at home, or if I was planning on having one of my own, and I had to say to most of them that I was infertile rather than I was transgender because that was just easier in a passing moment with a teacher that I did not interact with much. It infected my own thought patterns to an extent. I would often catch myself saying, “I need to get ahold of mom to…” Why did I assume the children I was working with had a mom let alone that she would be the one I inherently needed to speak with? I found myself in the evening more tired than I expected because a mask was forming and as a neurodivergent person I find masks suffocating. It lowered my bandwidth.
The mask was compounded by my interactions with my task supervisor, she meant what I am about to share with love and I learned a lot from her, but she wanted to mold me into someone that was acceptable. She saw some of the ways I was, too honest about myself, too quick to share my differences, and too loud as risks for me. She knew that if I did not put on this mask, I would run the risk of getting nailed down in the corporate/governmental world particularly around children. So, she helped me form a professional persona that did not, at least at a glance, ruffle any feathers. This trend would continue when I graduated and entered the professional world as a social worker.
I spent the first two years of my career in community mental health. There were some positive changes. At least to my co-workers and staff I could be openly transgender, queer, and neurodivergent. That said, these things became something that the wheel of industry could use to generate more for itself. I was encouraged to give free training to my colleagues concerning these identities as well as provide free consultations to them. Some of that came from me. I felt a duty to all the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, ADHD, autistic and queer clients my agency touched needed the best help they could get, and I ran myself ragged in the process ensuring my co-workers knew best. I have to own that part, but not all of it.
The mask was still a problem when I was working with clients; unless a specific part of me was relevant to helping them, I couldn’t share it. I actually lost some clients due to bigotry. When I was outed and while it was not explicitly said it was my fault, I was made to feel that I should have done better to manage myself in my client interactions. Then there was some of the leadership that treated me as though I was a wonder because of my identities and that I was just so interesting and different. I for some became Queer and Transgender Google. I felt used, and while it is not in the scope of this blog so I will spare the details, community mental health as a whole made me feel like it was only interested in wringing me out for everything I could give them and left me feeling battered and bruised. It was in this state when I began talking with Nick and Modern Path.
I was aware of Nick Marzo and Modern Path due to their reputation and connections in the community. As well as through Drew Thrasher, as we were briefly in school together. Most of my professional friends and colleagues knew I was burning out, and they knew that I wanted to serve the LGBTQIA+ community and almost all of them said I should reach out to Nick. I felt like Modern Path is the gold standard of LGBTQIA care in Atlanta, and I told Nick as such, and he set me up to begin the interview process. Then I met Karen Lill, and I felt a connection that I had not felt in the professional space from leadership, an alignment of energies. We seemed to be in agreement in how we thought about the best ways of client care and how to accomplish these goals. We had a similar wavelength on how we work, as in the logistics, and that put a smile to my face. Then I actually sat down and talked with Nick, and it was a similar experience. I could see the passion he had in the three arms of Modern Path, Counseling, Education, and Consultation/Supervision. He had done so much to enable our community and enable the next generation of clinicians to serve it.
Then I was part of the team! I slowly started to meet my peers. First from group supervision, then one on one. Grant Sparks reached out to me because he was excited to hear my history with DragonCon and the Atlanta geek community. Funnily enough, Peyton Waggener reached out at DragonCon and we hung out. It was such a fun and ultimately fulfilling experience to be interacting with these people. While not as chaotic as the pirate ship, the feeling of comradery I had lost was returning. This culminated at Sex Down South; where Modern Path sponsored the healing room and where I got to be social with most of the team in person. I was beginning to feel a sense of wholeness that I had been missing for a long time. I was being appreciated for not only what I knew or what I could provide but for who I am. The rushing crescendo of these feelings was after the final keynote of the conference by Goddess Amina Peterson concerning erotic embodiment.
Embodiment was the feeling that I was missing all this time. I was truly present, and in the place, I needed to be. I told Nick that I felt so grateful to not only be at the conference but also to be with Modern Path. I had journeyed for so long in spaces that did not fill my cup, spaces that left the cup beaten, scuffed, and dented. I was so grateful to be in a place that wanted to enable me to self-actualize just like I try to do for my clients. I actually started tearing up a little as I was sharing, and then he did as well. He had walked a similar road of community mental health, so I know he could relate. He said so glad I was where I needed to be. I have come home, feeling better than ever, and I am looking forward to all the good work I can do for our community.
If you are interested in working with Ria Ireland Drane, LMSW please see her contact information on our team page here.