As a queer and trans-identified therapist, I’m passionate about supporting fellow LGBTQ+ adults with the unique, ongoing challenges that affect our communities.
More and more, spaces where we get to freely be ourselves are eradicated and criminalized. Some of us with additional marginalized identities have never felt that freedom. Therapy with me is always a protected space where you don’t have to hide or defend who you are.
You can have a full, vibrant life that goes beyond coping.
Many queer, trans, non-binary, genderfluid, and questioning people learn early on that acceptance and safety come at the expense of denying our true selves. We develop wise, creative & brilliant ways to survive and cope with trauma, abuse, neglect, and conditional care. We:
perform normative roles and ways of being
minimize our needs and desires
play up or down certain personality traits
strive for perfection, over-achieve, and outperform
become hyper independent and responsible
people-please, over-extend, & take care of everyone but ourselves
We can read the (usually White, cis, straight) room and adapt accordingly—we have always been resourceful and resilient. The question has never been about whether we’re going to get through this moment.
The question becomes:
Can I get through this moment with the most precious parts of me intact?
In our wildest dreams, we dare to deviate.
LGBTQ+ adults can feel even more pressure to perform and keep it together because of oppressive systems rooting against us. We’re scared of what would happen if we break down and admit that we need help.
Our nervous systems get used to being in constant motion, through over-achieving, people-pleasing, being hyper responsible, and putting others first. We make earnest attempts to feel safe, secure, and accepted—but old coping patterns of erasing ourselves keep us at a distance from our intuition, purpose, and authentic connection to ourselves.
I believe that we all get to have full, vibrant lives where we feel intuitively connected to the guidance that comes from within each and every one of us.
In our work together, I invite you to turn inward for guidance and dare to dream:
Who do I get to be outside of your expectations of me?
Who do I get to be when I stop trying to get you to accept me?
Who do I get to be when I accept myself—strengths, imperfections, and all?
We get free together.
As an openly queer and trans therapist in Oakland, I have a deep personal connection to working with fellow LGBTQ+ adults, including folks of color and children of immigrants. Not only do we need each other more than ever, but also we all deserve a more loving, kinder connection to ourselves.
In my LGBTQ+ affirming practice in the San Francisco East Bay and online throughout California, I create an inclusive, engaging, and compassionate space where you can feel free enough to connect to your authentic inner world outside of what other people wanted or needed you to be. We’ll reclaim what was lost in trying to adapt to conditions where care was not offered freely but in exchange for self-sacrifice.
Highly present and dedicated to telling it like it is, I can support you with letting go of expectations that limit instead of enrich you. I’ll guide you into finding your emergent purpose and deepening your intuition.
I want you to delight in the richness of your beautifully queer life beyond simply getting by. I’ll be there with you along the way.
We’re dynamic, honey!
Having worked with LGBTQ adults and young people throughout the San Francisco Bay Area for nearly a decade, I honor that the path to freedom is different for everyone. The emotional playground we get to journey together is diverse and complex. In Oakland and online, we may explore:
anxiety about being openly queer & trans in this current political hellhole
coming out (or not), being out in some spaces & not in others
gender exploration, including trans & gender nonconforming identities, masculinity & femininity
loneliness from being invisible, minimizing parts of yourself, and suppressing needs
friendships & relationships of all arrangements
attachment injuries from neglect or abuse
family expectations, rejection, or estrangement
grief from having relied on coping patterns of over-achievement, people-pleasing, and perfectionism
sex, dating, desire, intimacy & pleasure
community building & loss of shared spaces
Wherever we go, whatever questions we shake loose in your path of self-discovery, we will find the way back to the vibrant, complex you that shines beneath the defenses you had to build in order to survive.
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LGBTQ+ affirming therapy is a therapy space that does not ask you to hide, dismiss, or silence the parts of you that make up your queerness. LGBTQ+ affirming therapy in Oakland and online in California allows you to show up fully as you are, with your queerness accepted, respected, and celebrated.
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LGBTQ+ adults have historically been mistreated, neglected, and abused by the major medical systems. Mental health has unfortunately been a site of violence and pathology.
As an LGBTQ+ affirming therapist in Oakland, I create an inclusive, empowering space where high-quality mental health support does not come at the expense of abandoning your queerness at the door.
I believe that it’s important to meet with an affirming therapist where you don’t have to spend your precious time and energy explaining or justifying your queerness. Working with an openly queer and trans therapist who has lived experiences of queerness and practices with cultural humility can make all the difference in feeling safe, understood, and empowered in your identities.
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As a LGBTQ+ affirming integrative therapist in Oakland and online throughout the SF Bay Area and California, I use a combination of:
I center a relational psychodynamic approach, in that I’m consistently attuning to the therapy relationship—I’m feeling into how we experience one another, how we flow in our connection, and how we navigate points of stuckness together.
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Many of my clients in Oakland and online throughout the Bay Area and California experience their queerness as one part of a complex web of their identities, while others experience their queerness as front and center. However you experience and relate to your queerness is more than welcome in my practice.
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Yes! I work with a diverse range of adults from different backgrounds and lived experiences in my Oakland Lake Merritt office and online in California.
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Great question! Living in the San Francisco Bay Area, especially Oakland, can be a wonderful place to experience community, and it can also feel like too teeny tiny of a world where everyone knows everyone or is at minimum 3 degrees separated from one another.
If we discover that we have overlapping community or social circles, then we will talk about what that means based on the degree of closeness between us and the third parties. We’ll also talk about how to navigate potentially bumping into each other at social events.
Part of being in shared community means that we get to navigate the sometimes joyous, sometimes uncomfortable reality of figuring how to balance the therapy work we do together and our respective lives outside of the therapy space. I feel confident that we’ll figure it out.
Queerness is about deepening complexity, not reducing it.
In my work with LGBTQ+ adults in Oakland and online across the San Francisco Bay Area & California, I invite us to explore queerness through a lens of expansion, abundance, and creativity.
Queerness is about asking: What else is here? What else is possible?
Book a 20-minute low-pressure consultation today, and let’s get to dreaming. Who knows what we’ll be lucky enough to create together?