An author's path toward authentic 'Gender Magic'

Rae McDaniel thinks you’re magic.

It’s the central theme throughout McDaniel’s new book, “Gender Magic,” which was featured in an online, Pride-themed discussion with Oblong Books in Millerton, N.Y.

The event was presented in partnership with Dutchess County Pride Center and featured a conversation with Ellis Light, an organizer with the Trans Closet of the Hudson Valley, N.Y., a grassroots organization dedicated to providing clothes, gender-affirming supplies and other resources to the region’s transgender community without question or cost.

Part personal narrative and part how-to guide for exploring gender in new ways, "Gender Magic" is well-sourced, deeply researched and uniquely supportive, yet it manages to avoid both the pitfalls of academic writing and the cliches that often plague self-help books. With a conversational tone, McDaniel breaks down complex ideas with ease, humor and warmth. All in all, it makes for a compelling and approachable read for transgender folks and cisgender allies alike.

That, McDaniel said, is the goal.

“My hope is that, no matter what their gender identity, readers walk away from ‘Gender Magic’ with the knowledge that the world is a better place when everyone is able to live as their most authentic, audacious, lit-up self, free from fear and shame,” McDaniel told Compass.

With more than a decade of experience as a certified sex therapist, coach and educator, McDaniel — who is nonbinary — explained that “Gender Magic” stems from an ongoing dissatisfaction with the way transgender narratives are often framed.

“I found myself frustrated at the vast majority of literature and research out there about trans folks. It mostly centered on the suffering of transgender people and how to mitigate risk,” they said.

McDaniel added that it’s important to understand the risks and difficulties of being gender-diverse; they explain throughout their book that they don’t want to “love and light” their way out of tricky conversations. But nevertheless, McDaniel found that for their patients, the traditional suffering-first narrative felt restrictive and failed to reflect everyone’s experiences with gender transition.

“I was hungry for information about what it meant for trans folks to thrive and how allies and medical and mental health professionals could support them in doing so,” they said. “I wasn’t finding it, at least not at the level I wanted, so I wrote it myself.”

McDaniel proposed the Gender Freedom Model, a path rooted in the queer joy that affirms transgender and non-binary individuals through play, pleasure and possibility. This model has proven itself as a useful tool in McDaniel’s Chicago, Ill., based clinical practice, they said, and it permeates throughout Gender Magic as a refreshingly optimistic approach to gender exploration.

In recent years, transgender rights have been the subject of debate and moral outrage, with the American Civil Liberties Union currently tracking 491 anti-LGBTQ bills in the United States. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law in May new restrictions on gender-affirming treatments for minors, bathroom usage and more. Tennessee passed in March a series of bills that amount to a total ban on transgender healthcare for minors and restrictions on “male and female impersonators” at drag shows, which advocates fear could affect transgender performers of all genres, too.

Two pieces of anti-transgender legislation have been introduced in Connecticut this year, according to the ACLU, both of which focus on prohibiting transgender student-athletes from competing on teams that correspond with their gender identity.

But the turbulent landscape nationwide proves that books like Gender Magic are necessary.

“So much changed in our legal and cultural landscape since I started writing 'Gender Magic' in early 2021. I had to ask myself at some point if a book about approaching gender transition with joy, curiosity, and pleasure was even still relevant,” McDaniel said. “I came to the conclusion that it has to be. Otherwise, what are we fighting for?”