Pals, we’re stoked to bring you this interview with the incredible activist and stellar human Stevie Bees!

If you don’t know who they are, you’re going to enjoy getting to know them (we have links to their various sites in the show notes).

Stevie joins us to talk about pushing back against the gender binary and being true to oneself. We also discuss allyship and what it means to show up for people. What happens if we make a mistake? And on the other side of things, what happens when we expect perfection from our allies?

It’s a wholesome, informative, friendly conversation we hope you’ll love as much as we did. AND Stevie said they’d be happy to join us for another episode, so if you have questions or topics you’d like us to delve into, let us know.

Links to Stevie

Stevie’s website

Stevie’s link tree

Stevie’s Facebook

Stevie’s Facebook Group

Want more of Lara and Rowan?

Rowan is available for speaking engagements, and Lara has coaching spots available.

Transcript

(please note, we do not edit these carefully so there could be some errors)

00:00:00] Stevie: autism is a spectrum. Sexuality is a spectrum. gender is a spectrum. Allyship is a spectrum too.

And as long as we are going the same direction, they’re safe for you as long as people are.

Still committed to learning, and growing from that. Welcome to another episode of Unboxing It. I am Rowan.

[00:00:44] Lara: And I’m Lara.

[00:00:45] Rowan: And we have a guest today.

[00:00:46] Stevie: I’m Stevie.

[00:00:48] Rowan: Yes, Stevie. Yes. We’re so excited to have Stevie. We’ve been talking about having you on our show since like day one, I think. So thank you so much for being here today. I think it’s gonna be a great conversation.

So, I am going to tell you a little bit about Stevie, but mostly I want them to tell you about themself because I think, that is way more interesting. But Stevie Brocksom is an active community member, artist, author, queer and trans activist. A gender doula and oh boy, I cannot wait to get to what a gender doula is.

I think that’s gonna be fascinating for people. They see clients in the community to support them with social, legal, and medical transition. there’s a lot that you do. Stevie, I wanna ask you so much about, so many things you do, you make. Shirts, you make stickers, you help the community. you have a scholarship program.

you do so much. But most importantly here it says, Stevie is passionate about equity for transgender people in all marginalized communities, especially with regards to reproductive justice. And when you’re not busy with your advocacy work, you can be found doing art or spending time with your kiddos and husband.

So welcome, Stevie.

[00:02:05] Stevie: Thank you. It’s always interesting to hear when someone else reads it off. ’cause it’s like, oh yeah, I do a lot of stuff.

[00:02:12] Rowan: You are a very busy human being.

[00:02:14] Stevie: Uh, you don’t even know

the half of it.

[00:02:19] Rowan: So let’s start with. A little bit about why we wanted to have you on. I’m just gonna touch on that. We can come back to it after. But one of the things that we do on this podcast, the front and center thing that we do on this podcast is we try really hard to challenge societal norms and expectations because a lot of us mean, all of us really in.

Various cultures around the world, but right now we’re talking about, you know, Western culture. We grow up with these ideas, these imprints of who we’re supposed to be and how we are supposed to behave. And somehow this is supposed to be what leads us to contentment and success. And as we know, that is not always the case.

as somebody with a non-binary child and as somebody who for a while. When I realized I was not cisgender, did identify as non-binary before I figured out that I’m just a stinky boy on the inside. I think non-binary people are of particular importance when it comes to understanding gender constructs.

So I thought of anyone I know, Stevie, you would be the best suited to talk to us about this, but. Before we get into that, I wanna know a little bit about you. Like what are some of your favorite things to do in life?

[00:03:37] Stevie: wow. Okay. my favorite things to do, honestly, I just follow my kids’ lead.

I’ve got two kiddos, one just turned seven and the other one’s four. And, they don’t have those societal norms ingrained yet, so I just follow their lead all of us are grownups trying to figure out what our inner child is doing to heal and things like that. So, like I said, I just, follow their lead.

I wanna see where they’re going, what they’re doing. they’re challenging their own gender norms and it’s fascinating to watch when you don’t have someone of an oppressive view of the world who’s like, you know, steering you. so I’ve got one kiddo that. Half the days as a girl and half the days as a boy and is always wearing a tiara or a tutu and you know, like I just let them be because, you know, they’re figuring it out.

my favorite things to do though, like as a human, like, I don’t know. I like to follow the dopamine. That’s what all A DHD people do, right? Like.

[00:04:37] Lara: It changes all the time, right? Yeah. Like you can’t have just one thing. Whatever happens to excite me that day, Rowan,

[00:04:44] Stevie: there’s like a zillion hyper fixations shoved under this desk.

I’ve got like embroidery, I’ve got stamp making, I’ve got watercolor, which I am never good at, but always enjoy doing. There’s always something. I have like a zillion journals that have like two pages filled out and you know, who doesn’t?

[00:05:03] Lara: I don’t know. Now I think maybe we’re the same person now.

[00:05:05] Stevie: Right?

[00:05:07] Rowan: That’s amazing. you’ve given your children the freedom to just figure out who they are, which in my opinion is a gift because a lot of us were. Told who we were and sometimes that fit and sometimes that didn’t fit. I would argue most of the time it doesn’t fit. It might fit in terms of gender or gender role for the person, but it might not fit in other ways.

You know, you have people who are sort of really pushed to go to university and they want to do a trade. You have, people who are, really pushed to do sports and want to do art, right? Like there’s all these different ways that parents try to interject and instill this sense of identity.

And for you growing up, were you told you were a certain way and if so, like how did that affect you?

[00:05:58] Stevie: I wasn’t told. It was never spoken, but there was expectations and. I hate expectations. because like you get yourself set on something and you know when it doesn’t go a certain way, there’s like actually an entire like cycle of grief that you go through when something doesn’t go to expectations.

It’s actually something that I really struggle with as someone who’s autistic and has the PDA profile, I get something stuck in my head and, when anything goes off the track. There’s like a whole period where I’m like thrown off. And, I think that’s what happened as a kid for me because like there was expectations of me, you know, everybody saw that I was doing really well in school.

Like I was your classic autistic afab, masking through life. Doing well in school and you know, social but didn’t really fit kind of thing. I see you nodding because like, I know everybody’s had this experience or like, not everybody, but there’s a bunch of us where. These are the expectations of you.

And you think you’re gonna go off to university and do something like nursing or teaching or something like that. And then, you find a point where you’re like, ah, screw the expectations. I’m gonna do whatever the heck I wanna do. , I always say f**k the expectations. ’cause it turns out that didn’t do any of those things. I am not a teacher. I didn’t go into nursing.

I didn’t even go to university. I went to college. and I think that, those people that had those expectations of me went through their own grieving process. and really struggle, especially like when I came out as a non-binary person. you know, I was always told growing up that like, we’re gonna love you no matter what.

We will always be there for you. And I think that they were prepared for me to be gay or lesbian. They were prepared for that. They weren’t prepared for trans. And even if I had come out completely as a trans man and completely transitioned, they probably would’ve been comfortable with that too.

They could have learned to adapt to that. But non-binary, where it’s such an uncomfortable topic for most people. ’cause you don’t know what to expect. It’s very hard to have expectations of a non-binary person. They can’t see a future, they can’t figure out, like, there’s no puzzle piece where we fit exactly in.

And that’s the entire point. and it makes a lot of people really uncomfortable because there’s no way to predict what’s next and that’s uncomfy.

[00:08:27] Lara: I think that that’s the whole, I don’t understand piece, right? Like you hear that a lot.

I don’t understand. Insert whatever. And yeah, I agree. There are certainly things I don’t understand. One of the things I’ve tried to get comfortable with is that I don’t always need to understand, which is difficult. I think we were taught, we should be able to understand. We were taught things are supposed to be.

Black and white, very binary. And so when things are like, Hmm, here we’re gonna introduce all these new shades of gray, you don’t understand. People are like, I don’t know.

[00:09:02] Stevie: think that’s why so many of us are on like the neurodivergent spectrum is because like we don’t see things as black and white.

We don’t fit societal norms. And so it’s so much easier for us to be non-binary because we don’t need to. Fit the mold that society has already created. There isn’t a space specifically for non-binary people or autistic people. There isn’t any space for us. and so here we are, millennials carving it out for ourselves and it’s making people uncomfortable.

It’s challenging them. To think outside the lines. And I think there are a lot of like, you know, baby boomer generation who are really, really struggling with something that they haven’t grown up with, they haven’t, consistently had any representation or visibility. And now all of a sudden, Seemingly we’re everywhere because we’re carving out that space for ourselves, and it’s making a lot of people really uncomfortable. And I see it, I feel the pushback because we’re essentially trailblazing. we’ve been here forever, but we’ve never had that space to, color outside the lines.

Right.

[00:10:07] Rowan: Oh, and Stevie, you, . Are certainly putting yourself out there. I say this as somebody who puts myself out there, but , you certainly are helping to trailblaze here and one of the things that you have done is, now, correct me if I’m wrong, but in your work you have become a lot more visible than you ever expected.

[00:10:31] Stevie: Yes, that’s very true. I did not expect to grow to the point where I am. I get a little bit, of a high off of it. Unfortunately, like, as you know, that person chasing the dopamine. I do really struggle with the balance of self-sacrifice versus visibility. I think that’s something that I’m probably always going to struggle with.

It’s something that I’ve accepted of myself and I happen to have a really good circle of people around me that are helping me walk that line. so I’m grateful for that, but definitely I did not expect to, go viral at times or, um.Be as visible as I am. I can’t even go to the grocery store anymore without people being like, oh my God, you’re that Stevie Bees guy from the internet. Like,

[00:11:15] Rowan: yeah, yeah.

[00:11:16] Stevie: Sometimes it’s not that it’s a bad thing. I’m super, super glad that. There is someone that’s doing it. I don’t always wish it was me.

I wish there were more of us. but I also completely understand when I get the pushback that I get and when I take things off the chin, the way that I do, why more people don’t do it.

[00:11:37] Rowan: Yeah, it’s exhausting. as somebody who’s been doing it for a while, it is an exhausting thing. the dopamine high is over for me, my friend at this point.

I do it because I know that it has an impact and that I bring something unique and just like you bring something unique, right? Bring a certain, type of. Story about transness and about self-acceptance and about, resilience to the table and that it resonates and it helps so that other people don’t have to do it.

But it is hard enough, I think. In today’s world, in the year 2025, to be a transgender person, let alone a visible transgender person, and. You woke up one morning to find out that your really wonderful shirts, by the way, because you make amazing shirts. I’m a proud owner of one of those shirts, and Lara is as well.

But you woke up one morning to find out somebody quite well known was wearing that shirt, didn’t you?

[00:12:40] Stevie: Yeah. So I did do that on purpose. I didn’t expect that it would happen, for a while. I sold shirts just like in my close circle of people. and initially they weren’t even supposed to be shirts.

I made them a social media graphics because I’ve been on social media for a long time. and someone I was close to at the time asked for it on a shirt. And I have the capability of doing that. So I did. And when that person wore it on social media and tagged me more people wanted them, I wasn’t prepared to start a business.

I had a job. I was quite happy and comfortable with where I was at the time. And, I felt like I was contributing. In a good way to society. And then all of a sudden everybody wanted this shirt. So my husband and I cobbled together a website and I think we had three shirts initially. We had the, you’ll have to go through me.

you can’t erase us and protect trans kids. those were the three initial shirts. And then pretty soon after that we also added gender affirming care saves lives. ’cause we’re like, you know what? There’s some pretty confronting. Statements here. We wanna give people the comfort to show their support without being as confronting.

so we had this like, makeshift website. It wasn’t super great. My husband does do web design, but we had to do it quickly, because people wanted it. And, we didn’t have the luxury of like waiting until like everybody was. Ready. Like I didn’t have that at the time. Now, like I can make people wait like two months for something if I wanted to, but at that time I, didn’t wanna lose the relevance.

so, we made this website and it went viral kind of locally, which. Comfy felt good, felt nice, and was enough for me. this is like around the time that TikTok was starting to grow and take off, and I noticed that a lot of these TikTok influencers had their, PO boxes in their bio.

And so I started sending shirts to these PO boxes. I never included notes. I never included like who it was from. I never wanted people to, I didn’t want them to do any research on it is like, if you believe in the message, you’re gonna wear it. If you don’t, I already know how this is gonna go.

and people started wearing them and. That was really cool. and then, you know, virality happened again where like these influencers were wearing these shirts and none of them know where they’re coming from, which was like the best part for me because like, I didn’t want, that kind of attention.

I just wanted the attention to be on the visibility of the message. and then, two years of doing this with like just sending them anonymously to influencers. I was like, okay, we’re gonna try bigger fish. We’re gonna try this. I have sent them to like, probably a hundred different celebrities.

I’ve spent a lot of my own money and putting them out there and doing this. it is a tax write off, but you know, I have to make sure that I’m comfy before I can do a round of them. and I knew that David Tennant had done something like that before where he wore a pin and it went viral.

so I was like, okay, we’re gonna try David Tennant. I got one in each design. and I put them all in a box. And this time I decided, you know what, we’re gonna put a note in. ‘ cause I think that that is going to give us the best shot. I had several friends, write fan mail. We included everything in this box.

We included, some of our stickers, we included one of each design. We included a hoodie, and we sent it off to his PO box. And then I forgot about it. I didn’t expect anything else to happen. ’cause like, that’s how I’ve been operating forever. You just send it off and you just don’t hold onto hope at all because, if you do, you get let down a lot.

And then I woke up one morning to a whole bunch of orders and I didn’t know where they were coming from. And then I started getting messages from people going like, look, and you know, like the rest is history. We had a silly amount of orders. it didn’t stop for about two weeks. and I wasn’t really able to process a lot for, quite some time.

And I think it was like two weeks worth of orders where we did like $50,000 in sales, which was nuts. and it was at a time when I was already donating $5 per shirt to the Greyson Jones Memorial Scholarship. ‘ Cause like we had enough visibility that we were still able to you know, I was still doing the scholarship myself.

I was usually able to find like one semester at a time.

[00:17:06] Rowan: sorry, can you tell us a little bit about that scholarship?

[00:17:09] Stevie: Yeah, for sure. So segue over here. Greyson Jones, was a trans activist here in Ontario. he went out,east for school,and, He’s just like one of the first trans people that was like in my circle that I could ask questions, I could go to, I could talk to.

and we kind of lost touch. And then one day I woke up and saw that he was gone. and after talking with his family, I found out that, it was a result of, I don’t know how much I can say. it was an overdose. We’re not sure if it was intentional or not. He was in a lot of pain because of a botched hysterectomy.

And yeah, I just, I didn’t want the person that gave me as much hope as I had to just be another name on a list, another candle. I was like, this person is important, and more people should know about him and what he does. It was about a year, like that was the first year that I attended a Trans Day of Remembrance, and I came forward and I got to speak his name and, and led a candle for Greyson. And about a year after that I was like, there’s gotta be something. Like I mentioned him in posts often, but I wanna do something. and I already had my not-for-profit. And I approached them and said like, I wanna do a scholarship.

I can fundraise it. I will do it all myself. I don’t need your support. It’s great if I have it, but I don’t need it. I will do this all myself. and I had all of their support to go ahead with it. I reached out to Greyson’s family and they said like, that sounds amazing. Yes. Please tell us what we can do.

And the first, like two or three semesters, I funded it myself. So, over the summer I donate $5 per t-shirt sold on my website to very godparents. and so I was able to fund like a thousand dollars at a time here and there for a semester. we would sometimes get community donors, but like never enough that it was like a whole scholarship.

But any who? when we went viral, I was already donating $5 per shirt, and because of the ridiculous number, I was able to donate $10,000 in that two weeks. so Greyson Jones is set up for a couple years now, and we’ve also had more visibility and more community donations since then. and now we have, I had a meeting this week, with a grant program, who is going to support, so I’m, really stoked.

I’m really happy for his family. I really hope that Greyson, sees and knows what’s going on, in his name. And I hope that he’s proud because every recipient. Is chosen based on characteristics that Greyson emanated in his life. so yeah, that’s a project that’s really important to me. and yeah, so we went viral because of David Tennant, which was amazing.

we haven’t really quite had the visibility like that since then. We do have influencers who, do give us a big wave every once in a while, and we’re super grateful and can ride that wave until the next one. business has never really slowed down since then. it ebbs and flows, but there’s never a lull to a point where I’m like worried, which , has been.

Very, like, I’m blessed.

[00:20:25] Lara: I love that. I think it’s great. And I will say I have the, you’ll have to go through me shirt. that is the first shirt, that my husband and I have matching. You know how some people do matching couple outfits? We don’t do that. But that has the first one where we did matching couple outfits, and I don’t think that there is any.

Shirt. No, I know that there’s no shirt in like my life that so many of the people that I know also have, like I, when I posted a photo of my husband and I wearing it when we got it. the amount of people who I already know who are like, I have that shirt, I have that shirt, I have that shirt.

[00:20:59] Stevie: that’s so cool.

[00:20:59] Lara: Was really great. Like, it really resonates with a lot of people and I’m sure it’s partially you know, My bubble is particularly, prone to resonating with that message. But I think it’s really great. Like I certainly have never seen any other shirt be as well known and like have people be like, I’m gonna wear that shirt.

So I think it’s fantastic.

[00:21:24] Rowan: Stevie talk for a minute, if you don’t mind, about the importance of allyship for trans people, for non-binary people. you know, when people wear a shirt like that or anything else? I know we’ve talked specifically about your shirts, but there are a lot of ways people can show up.

As an ally, what does that mean right now? how do you do it? And what does it mean when someone in our community sees that allyship?

[00:21:53] Stevie: It’s everything. right now the world is a really scary place and it’s designed for us to feel alone. you know, these. Billionaire conglomerates are sitting in their offices and figuring out how to make you feel more alone so that you shop online more so that you, buy AI technology for someone to talk to or, you know, there’s, there’s so many ways that they’re designing society for you to feel lonely we all know that lonely is a scary thought. there are people in our community and outside our community who have dark thoughts, suicidal thoughts, and when you feel alone and you feel like nobody gives a s**t about you. And I mean, everybody in the trans community can feel that at any point. It happens often when the lawmakers are passing laws that take away your validity.

You feel alone. And the only way to break that cycle, the only way to push back is to show up as a community. And I have been particularly good at building communities for a long time. actually since I’ve had kids, like I started with mom groups. I created my own mom group where people could show up and like messy buns and sweatpants and nobody gave a crap if your kid was wearing pants or not.

Like I wanted to create those safe spaces where people. Could feel less alone. I mean, we had like mom groups in the area, but they’re like, mommy and me jogging and, it’s for like privileged moms who can afford to go and spend $600 on a stroller bootcamp or whatever. Like there are so many of us who are struggling and there isn’t anything for us.

so creating those safe spaces Has always been something that I’ve been good at. And the only thing that I can think of that makes me good at that is that I just show up authentically. I don’t give a s**t. I’m not polished, I’m not perfect. I don’t ever wanna be perfect. If anybody ever sees me being perfect, like call somebody, I’m not perfect.

I’ve been taken over by aliens. If I start showing up as perfect. I want other people to know that, you know, perfection isn’t even, like, it’s not a real thing. being polished online isn’t real. it’s fake. and I think that a lot of people appreciated that authenticity, that unpolished make mistakes be messy.

own it when you screw up. Show humility. I get humbled like every day. but I’m not afraid of that and I think that is what draws people in. I would

[00:24:33] Lara: love to share a story though, because I think Please do. First of all, it’s really, Important. I think for people who are cis-het to hear like it means a lot, right? There’s a certain part where you’re like, am I just making a stink? What am I doing? Like, what is the, purpose of me wearing a shirt like this? And you know that there are people who are going to be like, why do you have to do that?

Right? Like

[00:24:55] Stevie: make the stink.

[00:24:56] Lara: So my story is few weeks ago I wore the shirt and we stopped at a gas station slash Tim Hortons in a pretty rural area. And there was a part of me as I went into the, gas station that thought, am I inviting somebody to actually have to go through me?

Like, here we go. I’m inviting violence. Like there was that small piece of me that was like, oh, did, I mean this? But I pushed that aside and I went inside and then I ordered a coffee. And as I was about to leave somebody who was in the back, so they work at the Tim Horton’s in this rural area.

Somebody came out to say, you know, excuse me, I just wanna let you know I really like your shirt. And so like, I got chills, right? Like, you know that for somebody to do that it meant something. I don’t know if they were trans, like I have no idea. But it meant something and I think that.

Even if that only happens on occasion, the fact that somebody said something means that how many more people saw it and it meant something and they didn’t say something has to be huge. And I have other friends who have the shirt who will say things like, I was at Blues Fest and somebody came up to me and said, I love your shirt.

Like people are responding to it. And so just being reminded. That it does make a difference. Like, it’s not just like, oh, like why do you have to say that? Nobody cares. people care. They care. And being told that over, you know, having that message repeated so that we really believe it, it makes a difference, is huge.

And like that one moment, I’ve told this story so many times since then because I think it was so important to understand that just wearing a shirt, which you know, obviously is something, but it’s not huge. Impacted somebody enough for them to want to respond to it. And that made it so like, I’m gonna wear that shirt even more than I did before.

[00:26:50] Stevie: Those stories are why I keep pushing because there are so many times when I’m like, okay, I’m self-sacrificing enough. I need to pull back a little bit. But hearing another one, like there are so many stories just like that one. Or there are people within the community that find each other because of the shirts, or they both wear them at an airport and like one of them is like on a connecting flight or whatever, and they’re like, oh crap, I know where you’re from.

like that’s the coolest part of what I do is, , hearing the stories like that, but also seeing that people feel represented, that people know that there’s someone that they can be like. Hey, I really need to pee. Can you just stand outside the door? Like anybody wearing this shirt would absolutely say yes,

[00:27:32] Lara: You betcha

[00:27:33] Rowan: That’s right. That’s right. and I think you said something a little earlier on that I wanted to touch on as well. We went through an unfortunate time on the internet where I think a lot of us expected perfection from our allies. I mean, and perfection meant different things to different people.

Sometimes it was like, don’t say anything because then you’re talking over say trans people. no. If you don’t say anything, then you’re not speaking up enough. And that also makes you a bad ally. I mean, there’s all these different, you know, I was like, oh, you got this one thing wrong. You said this word wrong.

You’re a terrible person. You’re transphobic. And I think that that has scared. A lot of people in terms of perfection, like I don’t think there is a perfect ally because there can’t be because people are imperfect. Right?

[00:28:28] Stevie: Absolutely. I completely agree. I think that this is a lot of the reason why our community is always infighting and always fractured.

It’s because we all have different levels of brain salad and we all have different levels of like. Autism and, neurodivergence. And we also have different levels of progressive, new people fresh outta the closet who are not quite comfortable with who they are yet are not quite comfortable with other people speaking.

about them like directly or indirectly. and I noticed I did this, there was an entire year after I came out where I pushed everyone away from me because I was like, you’re either a hundred percent with me or not at all.

[00:29:10] Rowan: Right

[00:29:11] Stevie: And I alienated so many people that I was like, if you’re not willing to.

Be supportive the way that I need you to be supportive. It must mean that you’re not safe for me. And that’s not true. You know, autism is a spectrum. Sexuality is a spectrum. gender is a spectrum. Allyship is a spectrum too.

And as long as we are going the same direction, they’re safe for you as long as people are.

Still committed to learning, still committed to f*****g up and, growing from that. They’re not bad people. You don’t know what you don’t know. and we always tell people, don’t expect labor from trans people. Well, somebody’s gotta do the labor or you know, like these allies are not gonna learn on their own.

They don’t know where to look. They don’t know how to look. They don’t know what they don’t know. And so somebody’s gotta do the labor, somebody’s gotta do the work. and as long as those people show up authentically and are willing to make mistakes and be corrected, then they’re an ally. Allyship is always going to be a spectrum. There are people who are like fresh out of leaving the mega cult or like, all right, I’m gonna be a recovering bigot. They’re not gonna know anything, but you know that they’re going to try. And as long as they’re trying, who gives a s**t where they are on the spectrum, you gotta make space for them too.

if we expect perfection of every single person, we’re alienating people who are fighting for us. We are alienating people who are on our side and would stand at the bathroom door for us. Just because they’re not perfect or because they don’t say the right thing a hundred percent of the time, doesn’t mean they’re not your ally or your safe space.

If they’re, you know, doubling down or, not willing to hear that feedback. Then you gotta have a, a tougher conversation. You gotta talk about boundaries. You gotta talk about like what are your expectations of this person as a safe space? But as long as they’re moving towards the same direction that you are, stop alienating your people because they’re not perfect.

I did this for a whole year and like, I almost lost my parents. Um. Who, by the way, are not perfect, but they are moving the right direction and so I have to make space for them. I have to hold space and be comfortable with them not being perfect. I also have to be comfortable with, you know, they are uncomfortable.

I am not a comfortable person to be around. I do that on purpose. I don’t fit anybody’s expectations. I am very aware that I make people uncomfortable and I have to be okay with challenging them to, you know, be uncomfortable. I have to be okay with letting people sit with their discomfort and coming around.

It’s taken a long time for me to get to where I am. and I think it’s why I am the person that I am and why I teach safe space, because I understand that not everybody is going to get there You know, nobody has the same starting point, they’re all moving the same direction.

But you know, it doesn’t matter where you start, as long as the finish line is the same for everybody.

[00:32:18] Rowan: I love that. I think that is also true for trans people. Some of us come out really early. Some of us know from a really young age and don’t come out till later. Some of us don’t know from a really young age and come out later.

some of us never come out at all, even if we do know, some of us come out and decide, Nope, this is too much for me. And. Decide to go back to living the way they were before, to some extent. And I’m curious about your role as a gender doula. So, going back to my past, I was working way back in the day towards becoming a lactation consultant.

And I ended up taking a different path. I went into writing, but for a while I worked as a postpartum doula. So you have a birth doula, and I think most people know what a birth doula is. Somebody who supports you through the birthing process. You have a postpartum doula that’s somebody who supports you after the birth, maybe with breastfeeding or , chest feeding, other types of things that you might need at that time.

I know someone who is a death doula who helps usher people in and support their families at the end of their life, what is a gender doula?

[00:33:27] Stevie: So. I am not the first person to call myself a gender doula. There was someone before me who I followed for a long time and thought, you know what?

I can’t think of a better word. So I’m also going to call myself a gender doula. I was also a birth and postpartum doula first.

[00:33:45] Rowan: A-ha, there we go. Yeah. So you get it.

[00:33:48] Stevie: So a doula is not a medical professional. We are a support person who works with your medical professional and also with your own team that knows you.

So when I was a being a birth doula, I would tell people that like, listen, your partner knows you. I know birth, we work as a team. We’re good together. I’m also not a medical professional, so like I am not going to be doing cervical checks or listening to baby’s heartbeat. Like that’s not my role either.

I don’t do anything medical and I can’t give medical advice. What we do is provide education so that people can make informed choices for their, care or their birth, or the care of their infant postpartum. and so it’s the exact same thing except for with transition. so I support people.

I’m not a medical professional. I don’t give medical advice I’m not insured for that. And nobody will insure a gender doula anyway, because we’re just making it up as we go, but I can give you education so that you can make informed choices. I can make notes for you.

I’m not a therapist either, but I do have motivational interviewing so I can like, give you a sounding board. Most importantly, what I do is like, what do you need? How do you need someone to show up for you right now? do you need someone to listen while you cry and figure out what your gender is?

Do you need someone to sit with you through the grueling 10 pages of changing your name? Do you need someone to figure out, how to navigate the system? As somebody who. really struggled to get my mastectomy because my family doctor was not affirming and wouldn’t give me a gender dysphoria diagnosis.

So then all of a sudden I’m in the position of like, all right, well I know that I need a mastectomy, so like, what am I going to do? What hoops am I gonna jump through to get this for myself? and sometimes you need someone who understands the healthcare system enough to be able to jump through those hoops with you.

I can give you like all of the research and all of the things you know from wpath. I can give you textbooks, I can tell you about what surgeries are available. A lot of people don’t even know what the options are when you’re transitioning. Like they don’t know what, hormone replacement therapy.

Like for me, I went on testosterone for a very short time. Long enough to drop my voice long enough to do a few things that I wanted , to affirm my gender, but I didn’t wanna be on it long term. A lot of people don’t know that that’s an option. there are people that don’t know that when you have a hysterectomy that you can keep one of your ovaries so that you don’t have to be on HRT forever.

There are a lot of things that people don’t know or understand, and it’s not mainstream to know these things. So my job is to just the bug in your ear that is like, okay, what do you need from me? I will show out for you. You need help research, you need help. doing that 10 pages of, name change, I did my name change three different times.

’cause I screwed it up so many times like. it’s also crazy overwhelming to see a 10 page document. Like it took me a year to do my name change because I printed off 10 pages and went, oh my God, I can’t do this.

[00:36:46] Rowan: Me too. Right. It took, took two attempts to go through it. I needed help to go through it, and I’m not bad with forms exactly.

So difficult in the province of Ontario to get your name changed. It is a nightmare. when you were like, do you need help with this? Do you need help? In my head I’m like, yes, I would’ve needed help with that so I love that this is a service that you provide for people.

[00:37:09] Stevie: Yeah.

I don’t charge, because I don’t think that our community is in any position to be able to pay for that kind of help. I. Take donations if people want to pay, most of the time I’ll just tell them to make a donation to the Greyson Jones Memorial Scholarship or buy a t-shirt. a lot of that has been twisted.

So there are systems navigators in Ontario where I don’t charge money, but if someone wants to make a contribution in some way, I will say, you can purchase a t-shirt. And so it’s been twisted so that people say like, you have to buy my merch to get my service. That’s not true. it never will be true. I very often pay for people’s name changes because they can’t afford it themselves.

and I’m in a position to be able to do so.

[00:37:55] Lara: I a hundred percent understand where you’re coming from.

I also know that there are some people who like to be contrary about everything, so that always is gonna exist. But as you’re talking, one of the things that I kept thinking was, do you offer this service to the parents of. Trans kids because, I can think of a few people that I know who could use that kind of support, right?

Like, because whether it’s yourself or you’re trying to support somebody else, that whole like, I don’t know how to get through this form thing. It’s real for an awful lot of people, no matter

[00:38:27] Stevie: I would call this afternoon with a parent whose kid just came out, they’re 16 and they don’t know how to start.

[00:38:33] Lara: I love it.

[00:38:34] Stevie: That’s, like almost 99% of what I do is sit with parents of trans teens and just like walk them through the process. I can give you like book recommendations. I’ve also worked with, a lot of brands online that while they’re good brands, and they pay their people a living wage, which makes their products a little bit inaccessible for most people.

So things like binders and gaffes and you know, I’ve reached out to those brands one-on-one and they’re small enough that they have a good customer service. and So I’ve worked out where I’m an affiliate with most of those brands and can give discount codes to my clients, to make those things more accessible.

I also have my own binder bank, where, there are people that just, can’t get their hands on a binder, and that is the difference between. Going to school and not going to school. There are so many things that trans people need that society doesn’t account for, and so I’ve made it my job to understand those needs and navigate it with them.

[00:39:35] Lara: I think that is so important because I really do believe a lot of parents want to be supportive, but don’t know what to do. Right? Like you’ve just. Put me in a position where I am like, ah, like, okay, but like what? And so to know where people can go and get that kind of support is fantastic. I think, you know, it’s amazing.

I think we could probably do whole other episode asking more questions. I have a million of them because I think that’s where we’re at, is this is. New for most people, we know trans people have always existed, but we haven’t been talking about it. We haven’t had the information available to have learned from.

And so, although we don’t always have to understand, the more we do understand, the better prepared we are to support people. And like you said, somebody has to talk about it. Like we can’t just be like, figure it out. Because then they’re definitely gonna get it wrong.

[00:40:35] Rowan: Yeah. Stevie, we’re going to have to have you back.

There’s no question. We are gonna have to have another conversation with you because you are phenomenal. I consider you a friend and I’m so grateful to have you in my circle, but I think the world just needs to hear more from you because you’re just a really loving, kind. Human being and, you know, regardless of gender, which is what people really need to understand.

And in fact, maybe perhaps because you have embraced who you are so authentically that you’re able to give to others, where can people find you you know, until we have you back.

[00:41:10] Stevie: so if people are looking to, interact with me. Facebook is it? if you want to like, interact, be part of my community, look for Stevie Bees on Facebook.

I don’t have a check mark ’cause I’m not giving any more money to Facebook. I do have a private group where like all you have to do is request to be added. but it’s a lot of parents looking for support. I also have a link tree in my bio on Facebook with links to like other podcasts that I’ve done.

I have like book lists and stuff that you can look at there. I have some TikTok videos that are linked there. I do have a, website, www.steviesafespaces.com. that’s also linked in my link tree, so if you don’t remember it, that’s totally cool. I am on Instagram, I am on TikTok, but if you’re looking to interact with me, majority of my stuff is on Facebook.

That’s where I go.

[00:42:00] Lara: And we’ll put all of those links on our substack, so if people wanna go and find it there, we’ll put those all in one place for people to go and find you.

[00:42:09] Rowan: Stevie, thank you so much for joining us today. We just adore you.

[00:42:13] Stevie: Thanks for having me.

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