As therapists of color who identify within the LGBTQ community, we work to depathologize what it means to be queer and trans, especially within mental health, and center our work around the celebration and affirmation of our communities and LGBTQ identities. What does it mean to build authenticity and a radical celebratory practice? Rather than centering narratives of pain and suffering, what does it mean to encourage our clients to see their queer, trans, + gender expansive identities as places of strength?

The event is a mix of reflections, Q&A, and lecture that calls people to critically examine the limits of identity politics, diversity and inclusion efforts within academia, and the way many of us have learned about power, privilege, and oppression that flattens people who experience marginalization into one-dimensional targets of violence rather than conceptualizing these communities as resilient not because of what we survive but because of the way we cultivate radical joy.

This event is meant to provide a celebratory and conversational learning space for therapists and providers who are committed to deepening their LGBTQ affirmative practice. Alex and nick will open with what this practice has looked like in their own careers and community-building efforts as event planners and artists active in the Chicago queer nightlife scene and then open the space for questions and dialogue. 

We invite you all to join us to discuss what it means to build authenticity and a radical celebratory practice alongside our clients. Please come with questions and your reflections on what it means to celebrate identities that are often reduced to the ways we face oppression, rather than holding the fullness of the magic, beauty, and strength that comes from these identities as well. 

Sliding scale discount available. Please inquire at chicagominds@gmail.com.

About the Speakers:

dr. nick alder, ph.d., (she/her/hers, they/themme/theirs) is a multifaceted creative, researcher, strategist, and emergent therapist making healing and liberation irresistible. dr. nick works as a psychotherapist at mindful life chicago. she is also the founder of radical resilience collaborative, an incubator for justice-centered queer and poc mental health clinicians. with more than ten years of experience in the mental health field, nick has trained and worked in private practice, forensic, integrative, and community mental health outpatient settings. they received their ph.d. in counseling psychology from loyola university chicago after completing their pre-doctoral internship at the chicago school forensic center. as a community organizer and cultural producer, nick creates spaces that privilege the Black queer, trans + gender-expansive spectrum, women of color, and other marginalized voices. through these spaces, nick is active in event production, digital content creation, and community building with the award-winning collective and cultural hub Party Noire. dr. nick engages her work grounded in her identities as a Black queer non-binary femme. intersectionality is the foundational element of their therapeutic exploration. from this position, dr. nick centers the voices of those often forced to society’s margins to create space for collective liberatory worldbuilding. 

Alex Jenny, the Drag Therapist, is a therapist at Mindful Life Counseling and a drag queen who centers the healing and celebration of trans femmes of color in her work. She is a licensed clinical social worker who specializes in trauma recovery, trans affirmative practice, identity development, and changing our relationship with our younger selves. As a drag queen, she hopes to model for others the love, authenticity, and radical imagination that is possible for themselves and the world. She has been doing anti-oppression work and community activism for over 10 years and is also an adjunct professor at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration. You can follow her work on Instagram @alexjenny_.