Episode 154 - What Needs To Be Said with Alex Reegan Re-Release
This episode is a reminder of how prejudice can soften when we look beyond policies to see real people, and it feels especially important to bring it back now. In this re-release of a past conversation, I’m joined by my dear friend Alex Regan, a trans man, interfaith minister, speaker, author, and transformative spiritual coach. Meeting Alex changed my life because it replaced my experience of an abstract label with a real human being with a nervous system, a story, hopes, and fears just like me. Once you see someone clearly like that, it becomes much harder to ignore how they are being treated. My hope is that hearing Alex’s story will create that same kind of shift for you. Here’s what I cover:
How stories reduce prejudice by turning a “group” into a real person you actually care about
How good girl conditioning trains us to abandon ourselves and why that wiring shows up everywhere
Alex’s journey of unlearning evangelical rules and building trust in his own inner knowing
What it looks like to stop fighting for approval and let people be wrong about you
How community changes everything when you stop performing and start living as your real self
Find Alex here:
www.instagram.com/revreegs
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pages.sarafisk.coach/difficultconversations
www.instagram.com/sarafiskcoach/
www.facebook.com/SaraFiskCoaching/
www.youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333
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Transcript
Sara Bybee Fisk 00:59
This week's podcast is a re-release of one of my very most favorite episodes. To this day, I've only had two men on my podcast. One of them is my husband and the other is Alex Regan, and I wanted to share a quick just reflection. Meeting Alex changed my life, and I didn't realize how profoundly hearing Alex's story would change me. He wasn't trying to convince me of anything. We were not having a debate about politics or policy. It changed me because I got to know him, and Alex is trans. He was the first trans person that I ever got to have more than just a few passing sentences with and the way that our conversation changed my life stays with me to this day. There is a well-known idea in psychology called the content hypothesis, and it basically says that prejudice will decrease when people actually know someone from a group that they have been taught to fear or judge or misunderstand. When there's an actual human that you're talking to, instead of just interacting with an abstract idea, something shifts in the brain, and the story stops being theoretical, and it becomes really, really personal. That's exactly what happened to me when I met Alex. I didn't meet a, quote-unquote, trans issue or a trans policy. I met a person. I got a friendship out of it, someone with a life and a story and a nervous system and hopes and fears and dreams, and it was just like my life. Once you see someone clearly like that, it just becomes a lot harder to ignore the ways that they're being treated because now when I hear about trans policies being enacted on trans bodies and trans lives, I think about Alex, and now I know many trans people. I have trans people in my close family and among close friends. My hope is that this episode will help you see Alex clearly, and then it will become a lot harder for us to ignore the way people like Alex are being treated.Right now in places like Kansas where the driver's licenses of trans people were literally canceled overnight, policies are being passed that affect trans people in these really critical, kind of sweeping ways, totally ignoring their humanity, right?
Sara Bybee Fisk 03:39
How are they going to get to work? Are they going to get the things done that requires them to have mobility?And so that's why I'm re-releasing this. Regardless of where you land politically, these decisions like the one in Kansas are not abstract for the people who are living them. They land on real people with real lives, real concerns. So this conversation is my small way of pushing back against the distance that lets us turn people into issues and never see the people behind them. Stories close the distance and sometimes hearing one person's story is enough to change your mind. Here's the conversation with my good friend, Alex Regan. I have been so excited to have this interview with you, my good friend, Alex. And we'll get to my nervousness in a minute because this is going to be such an important interview, I think, for so many people. You have been so important to me. And I just want to make sure that I do you and your story justice and in the bigger picture of what we are trying to do as good girls, unlearning that socialization and the rules. This is just going to be fantastic. I'm so glad you're here.
Alex Reegan 05:00
I'm so glad to be here. I'm really excited.
Sara Bybee Fisk 05:03
This is Alex Regan, and Alex is an interfaith minister, speaker, and transformative spiritual coach who uses his intuitive wisdom to help guide people toward their own inner knowing. His journey has led him to sobriety, shamanism, and then seminary. That's an interesting path, which helped him reclaim his faith and trust in the divine.
Alex Reegan 05:27
And I'll just add in and the author of that nice new book that you're holding.
Sara Bybee Fisk 05:35
This is, I mean, we were going to have a conversation anyway, but then you went and wrote this amazing book, which I was sharing. If you can't see me unless you go to the YouTube channel and watch this video, I had to take out like three fourths of the tabs that I had in here because I knew I would never be able to find what I actually wanted to like really focus on your book.What needs to be said was just released. And it is such an incredible journey. It's your journey, but I found myself so much in the pages of it. I see so many similarities between dropping the good girl rules and finding who we really are and your journey.
Alex Reegan 06:22
I mean, that was like my biggest hope. You know, a lot of people even ask me, what's your hope that you get out of this, that other people get out of this? And one of the first things I said is that people see themselves. And one of the most amazing endorsements I got was from Sonia Choquette, one of the other big Hay House authors. And she basically said exactly that, that you'll see yourself in this story.And, you know, I've spoken to several other groups already. I was speaking to an LGBTQ church group and, you know, this woman piped up that she said, you know, I'm a lesbian. And when we first started talking, she's like, I was just like, oh, I'll go to this, but I don't know what I could possibly sort of get out of this, you know, kind of. And then she said about halfway through it, she started to realize that she saw herself in my story and she started to really understand herself in a different way. And I was like, bingo, that's exactly, that's exactly what, you know, I sort of have joked to, I challenge you to read this and not see yourself in it, which is I think really important right now.
Sara Bybee Fisk 07:19
I love that because on the surface, your story from a person assigned female at birth, and then through your journey to find yourself as a trans man, and the the journey of that experience doesn't seem, it seems very niche, right? Like only a very few specific people have that that journey.But I think that's true. And before we get into that, I actually want to back up for a second because you I don't even think you realize that the importance of the role that you played early on in my growth and understanding of humans under the label, right? We have lots of labels that get thrown around a lot today. And in some ways, I can appreciate that the brain wants to categorize as a way of understanding, right? Man, woman, child, adults, boy, girl, and I've spoken on the podcast before about my brother in law coming out as gay in 1998. And how just sitting with his story over years and years and seeing him and knowing him and loving him and watching his, his struggles and watching him grow into relationships really softened me and led me to think that not only was I wrong about some of the things that I had been taught to believe about people who are gay, but that my church was wrong.
Alex Reegan 08:57
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 08:58
And I will admit, here's, here's kind of where my nervousness comes in. The trends and the, the, the, the T and the LGBTQ was the last place for me of, of some confusion and fear. I didn't understand it. I didn't, I was afraid of the fact that you could think that you were different than who you were. And I had been raised to believe that there's two boxes. There's a mailbox and a female box and you check one of those. And it all depends on the sexual equipment that you're born with. And that's, that's that.
Alex Reegan 09:32
Yeah, ironically, someone checks the box for you. It's not even that you check the box. That's true. Someone else checks it for you. Someone else checks it for you.
Sara Bybee Fisk 09:39
else takes a look and checks the box for you. And so when you and I met, that's kind of the state that I found myself in. And even today, I am still in a state of understanding and of relearning and unlearning. And so some of my nervousness today is I really want to honor you and your journey and yet I'm still learning.So here we are, I'm willing to show up and have a conversation with you, even though I might make some mistakes and you are willing to be here in conversation with me. And I think this is just such a beautiful, a beautiful thing, even though I'm nervous.
Alex Reegan 10:19
Definitely. Well, one, I don't want you to be nervous because I think that this is the natural state of where we actually grow and expand the curiosity and saying, I'm willing to have a conversation. I might mess up. I might not do it right. I might mess up. I might not say it right. But the truth of the matter is there's something powerful in the curiosity in that sort of like, I don't know what this will turn into. I don't know that I have all the answers. I don't know that I'll say it right or correct. I might be wrong. I might be willing to say, I'm not sure. And I think that's where the power is in our connection in all of us as humanity is when we're able to just sort of step aside from our own, like this is how it is. And I know what this is the right thing and instead have curiosity and openness to say, hey, I'm not sure what can I learn from you? And the truth is we can learn so much from each other from both sides. It's not it's not about that one person, I don't think has all the answers and there's only one way to do it. So yeah, don't be nervous.We're in this together. And you know, we'll we'll figure it out.
Sara Bybee Fisk 11:24
So you and I met at a Rob Bell event and the year has even slipped my mind. Was it 2018?
Alex Reegan 11:35
I think 2018 or early 2019, somewhere around there.
Sara Bybee Fisk 11:40
So Rob Bell, you can look up his podcast if you'd like, a really great voice and kind of, you know, this work of understanding yourself. And I, you and I, we're both living in Arizona at the time, you and Flagstaff and me in the Phoenix area, and we got on our plane. I don't think we, I don't even know that we talked at the event.
Alex Reegan 12:03
Maybe more than just, hello, how are you? A couple little just exchanges. It wasn't like anything that was like a full conversation, just some small talk like exchanges.
Sara Bybee Fisk 12:14
Yeah, pleasantries. And then we get on our plane. And you are seated next to me. And in the other seat is our friend, Andrea. And we pull away from the gate, John Wayne Airport, ready to come home.And there's a lightning storm. And we sit on the tarmac in those seats, sharing our snacks for the next three hours. And you just what I what I remember is it's like you just unfolded yourself to us in the most beautiful way. I mean, it's making me a little emotional now to remember just in that space. It feels like there was just like this little holy bubble. And I don't say holy, and necessarily a religious but like a sacred like the universe is saying, it's time, Sara, it's time for you to have an experience with a person under the label.
Alex Reegan 13:10
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 13:11
And that's what happened. And you began to respond to some questions in such a beautiful way.And I just want to say right now that it is not your job. And I think you know this, but to everyone out there who might be listening who is trans or black or a person of color, it is not your job to educate people who have questions. If it is something that feels good for you to do, fantastic. What was it like for you in that moment, Alex, to receive our questions?
Alex Reegan 13:45
You know, in that space of genuine, in the holiness, I think that's a great word for it, because I felt that too. And I had forgotten it even was a lightning storm. I couldn't even remember why it was we were stuck on the tarmac for three hours. And our flight was like 45 minutes or something. It was just like, we could have been home and on our way, you know, but it was like, literally we could have flown across the country by that time. And yeah, I think the holiness of the curiosity, the wonder, the like genuine, I want to understand and know you and questions from those heart spaces for me have always been just a no brainer. Like I'm always the type of person who wants to just like dive beneath the surface. If people are open to going, you know, deeper with me beyond the like, hey, how's the weather? What's going on with your job? Was it, you know, and really talk about deep life things and spirituality and self-development and healing work and all stuff like I'm in. And so I never feel phased by those questions. And I'm so open always to those kinds of conversations because I think one, that that's an important way in which we actually get to know people.I mean, I think this is what is sort of like confusing right now is there's a lot of misinformation. It's just sort of been, you know, taken, I mean, this happened also to the gay community. I mean, this always reminds me back in the nineties, like when Ellen came out on TV, on her TV show, the moment that happened, it was like, it opened up this possibility that this could just be your neighbor. This could be the lady you met at the PTA that's so-and-so's mom. This could be, you know, like this could be the guy at the grocery store. And all of a sudden society began to evolve into these spaces of like, oh, it is my neighbor. It is my friend to cry. It is my brother-in-law. It is, you know, and that unraveled this sort of monstrosity that had been sort of like, you know, it reminds me of Scooby-Doo when there's like just a guy hiding underneath the mask. You know, it's always just a guy. It's not like the monster, okay? And I think that's what's happened societally and trans people have sort of been the sort of next, you know, target of that. And it's just, there's a lot of confusion. So I think anytime you can answer genuine questions, I'm always open to that.
Sara Bybee Fisk 16:08
It was that openness that really allowed me to proceed. And one of the reasons I wanted to have this conversation is that a lot of what we're doing, unlearning these good girl rules, is that we are seeing I have been taught to be afraid of this label. I have been taught that this label is bad. I have been taught that this thing is bad. And that has come from an outside source.But once I have the opportunity to check in with myself, my own intuitive knowing and wisest part of me, what do I think then? And that's what I felt like came online that day in those airplane seats, as we shared Almond's and Apple's slice of this. And is that I had set aside, this is what I have been taught to think of trans people. And I am experiencing now this human with his warmth, with his struggle. And I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about that journey that you had to know yourself.
Alex Reegan 17:25
Yeah, I mean, it was, it felt like a long, long arduous journey because, you know, I think, as you know, growing up in any sort of like fundamentalist religion, I grew up in a very evangelical family. The denomination of our church as a whole was not super conservative, but my family and their immediate friends certainly were. And so I think in that you sort of learn, you unlearn your guidance system that is completely innate in you, right? Like, you know things that are right for you and everyone's sort of talking you out of that, you know? I mean, it reminds me back to like, you know, in the third grade being like, I have to go to the bathroom. I have to go to the bathroom. Like, I don't feel well. And they're like, no, no, sit down. You don't have to go. Wait till break. And I ended up totally throwing up on the teacher shoes because it was like, I knew, dude, I got to go to the bathroom, but they convinced you, no, it's not the right time. And I share that because I think that's what religion in a way did to me.You know, it basically made me sort of not trust myself until me internally, like you don't know. And whatever you think, you know, you probably are on the wrong track. So just kind of stuff that away somewhere and just ignore it. And so, you know, I think it took a lot of, you know, sort of, I mean, just tearing down everything I ever believed in and thought was true. You know, it's like, if you have a house and there's something wrong with the, with the foundation, you have to tear the whole thing out. And so that's really what I had to do in my twenties and even some into my thirties was just tear down everything. So, you know, when I came out or when I was outed to my family, like in my twenties, then I just decided like, I hate God. I don't want anything to do with God, anything to do with anybody who wants anything to do with God. You know, I kind of just ran away from it all because I had to, in a way, completely remove myself to figure out who I was and what I really wanted and needed in the world. And I remember, you know, I had a therapist in my late twenties who said to me, you know, it seems like we have to figure out what it is that you want. And so I want you to get a notebook. I want you to start writing down what you want. And I just had to tell him, like, I don't know how to even say that. Like, I don't know how to even write down something because what I wanted was not part of the equation. That was not an option. You know, that's not what they were teaching us. It was like, no, what does God want? What does your family want? Like, what are these rules want? This is what society wants you to do. This is a sign female birth. You have to follow all these rules and do all these very specific things that I noticed cis men not having to do at all. Like, I was always like, wait, what? You know, I tell a story in the book about being around six and my brother and some of the other boys in the neighborhood were out playing in the sprinklers and my mom comes running out and is like, you have to put your shirt on.
Alex Reegan 20:20
What are you doing? And I just remember just like looking at them, looking at me. And I remember just being completely baffled because first of all, I was like, why, why do I have to do something different? Like, why don't they have to put their shirts back? You know, like it just, my brain could not even compute it. Cause when I looked at them, I thought I was the same as them, you know? And I mean, I know cis women who have gone through similar things where their family was telling them to do these societal things, you know, cross your legs or do different things. Like, and it's just such a ridiculousness to have to like conform yourself to these weird societal rules that somebody just made up.Um, so yeah, I don't know. It was just a long journey of really undoing those things of stepping outside of those beliefs and kind of then trying to figure out for myself, okay, what do I want? Who am I without all of this? Where does my life go from here then? And, and that was, you know, I mean, that's still in the process. I suppose in a lot of ways, you know, I don't think it's a, it's a journey that ends. Um, but yeah, hopefully that gives you a little bit of an answer to that.
Sara Bybee Fisk 21:28
First of all, I love that story that I had highlighted to for sure and read because I think it is such a beautiful snapshot of how we are, how being a human, being raised by people who are not in touch with their own intuitive wisdom and inner guidance, how they just pass that on. And really, it's an education in ignoring red flags, like your stomach was sending you a red flag that day in class, like we're going to throw up and the adult outside of you is like, nope, nope.And that happens, that happens whether you are at first, whether you are male or female and being, you know, socialized male or female, because things happen. Like, I don't care if you don't want to give him a hug or kiss, he's your uncle, get over there and give him a hug. You're not sad. You're not hurt. That didn't happen. Go apologize, right? And so there's all of these ways in which outside authority, we are taught because we are dependent on the big people in our lives, and we want love and connection from them, we learn to ignore ourselves.
Alex Reegan 22:42
Yep. Yep. And we learned that we'll lose, we could potentially lose the safety, the security. They might not feed us. They might not pull those. They might not keep a roof over our heads if we don't follow.I mean, it's probably not usually that extreme, but it certainly can be. And so we learn, okay, in order to do this, I have to sacrifice myself, you know, in order to keep my safety, my food, my, you know, the big people. I like that, as you call it. Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 23:08
Well, and at that young age, living with disapproval, living with disconnection is just like living without a roof over your head. True. Yeah. It is essential.We cannot not have that connection. And so as we learn, oh, what I feel and what I want doesn't matter as much as what the big people are telling me matters. So we shove that intuitive red flag finder down. And I think religion only kind of adds another layer to that because now there's just a whole other set of authorities, God being God being the ultimate authority and all these people who say they speak for God and they are going to tell you what God wants from you. It just, I mean, no fucking wonder, right? That, yeah, that this becomes a process of untangling and unlearning.
Alex Reegan 24:07
Yeah, no doubt. And it's a long process. You know, it's not something you do overnight. It's not one therapy session. It's not one X, Y, or Z thing. You know, it, it, I honestly still believe that this will be something I work on my whole life is unraveling.Um, the, those, like the wiring in my brain from such young ages about how I'm supposed to be, who I'm supposed to be, what I'm supposed to do, and how you, you know, the good in you is what gets you to heaven or get to your parents approval or whatever the things are. And that if you're not that, you know, there are ramifications and repercussions and that's a lot of weight to live under.
Sara Bybee Fisk 24:47
And then we gather information about our expression. Is this okay? Is this okay with you? And sometimes we're met with rules like, no, not okay. Put your shirt back on, right? And then we experienced punishment or disconnection. And then we have to self abandon to reclaim that connection. We have to give in to what the big people want. And sometimes what they want is even done with love and concern for us. But then we are constantly living in that self-abandonment so that we can have the connection.But then eventually we can't do it anymore. Like that splitting from ourselves, pushing our own wants and our needs and desires down just doesn't work. And so we express again, and then we experience the rules or the conditioning. And then we experienced the punishment and the disconnection again. And we just keep going around and around in that circle. And I just want to read, this was such a tender part of the book. And I just wanted to read it because it's one of those moments where you expressed and then you got data, right? You said, the first time my mother lets me select my own clothes for school picture day, I come out of the bedroom looking like I just stepped out of the Miami Vice set. I am bursting with pride. I'm wearing a flower and a button up shirt. Oh, this is just so precious. A magenta suit jacket and a matching tie. So that's your expression. And then you get the information from your mom. My mother takes one look at me and looks like she wants to sink into the ground. Every bit of her body language screams that she regrets letting me choose my own outfit.
Alex Reegan 26:29
Yeah, yeah, my brother is a few years older than me and he remembers vividly the look on her face of just being like, oh God, you know, like, oh no, I don't. And I'm thinking to myself, I don't even know where I found like maybe the flower shirt, okay. But I don't know where I found a little magenta short sleeve like jacket and a tie that was matching color. Like I don't even know how I pulled that out of whose closet like, but yeah, that's what I came out wearing.
Sara Bybee Fisk 26:59
So, so much of our lives as little people is doing just this, like, is it okay? Is this okay? Is this emotion okay? Is this expression okay?And then we run into the rules, the good girl conditioning, the good boy conditioning too, which exists, you know, at that point too. And so,
Alex Reegan 27:16
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 27:17
It is, I see you as somebody deeply, deeply brave for being in the fight for who you are for this long. And you're just going to have to read the book, you know, if you're listening to the podcast, you're just going to have to read the book to really get a sense for how many times you, Alex, were told, no, no, that's not okay.No, that's a sin. Hell, eternal damnation, burnt in all the different ways that that messaging was sent to you in much the same way that as good girls, be nice. Don't offend anyone. Don't make waves. Don't do anything that will hurt anybody else. And other people's needs and wants for us dominated our lives for so long.
Alex Reegan 28:09
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 28:11
You mentioned in the book that your fighting time is over. Say more about that.
Alex Reegan 28:18
Yeah, I think, you know, this doesn't isn't something that will work for everyone. I know there's a lot of things that we could be fighting against. Still, there's a lot of there's over 400 and something anti-trans bills in the United States alone. Right now, there's a lot of racial inequity, poverty, you know, gender inequity. There's a lot of things still going on that we need to do better.But I think for myself, I just had to decide that I couldn't just be the one sort of like, you know, fighting against something. And I wanted to reevaluate about really just looking at what I was for versus what I was against. And just that has a different energy to it to to really sink into, well, what am I for? What do I stand for versus like, what do I stand against? And so that was part of it. And then I also think there was, you know, this aspect of myself where I started to realize that I was really in a place of judgment. Like I was feeling like I could very easily kind of say, well, like, I'm better than you, like I'm on the right side of history because I'm for I'm pro choice. I'm for like humans, you know, being safe. I'm against like racism, you know, and it feels really easy to sort of be vindicated in those ideas and to just say like, you know, this is the right way to do it. And I guess what I started to say to myself, and this is not everyone might not feel even comfortable doing this. But for myself, I started to challenge myself to say, for instance, with my parents who I have vastly different beliefs about a lot of different things. But I started to ask myself, what if I'm neither better or worse than them? Hmm. And they are neither better or worse than me. Because what I found is is my parents ultimately, they want me to be different so that they feel better. And if I want them to do something different, so I feel better, I am ultimately no different than they are. And so if I stop acting in that space, if I stop needing them to be a certain way so that I feel something and instead I just choose to like tap into myself, OK, how do I get to where I need to be? Whether that's peacefulness, whether that's, you know, even just being a little content, whether that's working through my own issues so that no matter what someone else is doing, I can be OK. And that is tremendously hard work. It's it's probably the hardest work I've undertaken because it's everything seems like it's dependent on all the things around you for us to sort of be OK. And that has I've discovered that's kind of a losing battle. Like I'm never going to, you know, I'm never going to get all the things I need so that I'll feel OK. And so I have to find a way to do that inside of me. So I think that's what the fighting days are done kind of meant that I'm just like I'm done fighting against all of that and deciding that I have all the answers and that you have to do it how I think it should be done.
Sara Bybee Fisk 31:23
That's so relevant to this, you know, that kind of the ongoing conversation that I'm in, which is, how do you disconnect from all of the authority figures and the people in your life, who you have depended on to tell you who you are and what you should be doing, and bring that back in house, right? And how do you make peace with the fact that they are going to continue to be who they are?They're likely going to continue to have the same opinions and the same thoughts about you and what you're doing as bad or wrong, if that's what they think. But how do you exist? Letting them be wrong about you? How do you exist? Knowing fully that because I have my own trust in what I'm doing, because I have my own affirmation that who I am is good and right. Like, sure, having yours would be great, but I don't need it.
Alex Reegan 32:25
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 32:26
I can drop the fight to try and get it because the fight means me always changing myself to be what you want so that you will reward me with the connection I'm seeking from you.
Alex Reegan 32:36
Definitely, definitely. And the thing I found too is the work always begins inside of us. Like that's actually where the change happens. We can never get someone else to do something differently just cause we want them to. And even if we could, one, it probably won't be lasting. They probably won't keep change, you know, doing it because we wanted them.And two, we won't feel what we think we're going to feel. It has to be inside of us that we change. And that's the thing we're kind of like, no, anything but that.
Sara Bybee Fisk 33:07
And what I love in your book is that you provide a way to do that in this way that you use these dearly beloved prompts. Now I acknowledge that a lot of people have a tricky relationship with capital G God, right?This man up in the somewhere who's watching, you know, he sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake, kind of weird thing. And I always.
Alex Reegan 33:36
it's a little too much like Santa Claus.
Sara Bybee Fisk 33:39
Right. Right. And but this was this was always confusing to me is he loves me, but he's going to punish me.
Alex Reegan 33:47
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 33:48
Like, how do I understand love in terms of potentially being punished and always thinking, I got to do more. I got to do more to please him, to earn his favor, to make sure that I am doing enough.And I want to get to the dearly beloved prompts in just a second, but what you wrote here on page 181 is so beautiful. You said, this work, this journey home to ourselves, begins to create deep new space within us slowly. We gain access to a place of renewal as if we had done a home renovation. And I think this is what you're talking about. When you bring the work inside the walls of our home, one sheltered us. Yes, that's why we built them. But now time has come for us to knock down the walls that no longer give us shelter, but instead confine us.
Alex Reegan 34:39
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 34:40
So gorgeous. The work is never complete.We have entered a constant becoming. So how do? First of all, I noticed that you use lowercase G in your description of God. Tell me tell me why that was chosen.
Alex Reegan 35:00
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, that kind of stems back to when I was in seminary. So I went to an interfaith seminary program. And, you know, so the first whole year was studying all the different world religions. And when we got to the month of Christianity, I remember being kind of like annoyed. Like I was like, I don't need to study Christianity. I spent two thirds of my life up until, you know, it felt like so much of my life studying Christianity. I didn't want to study that. And I remember my dean saying to me, I'm going to challenge you to enter this space with an open mind and to imagine that Jesus could be different than who you imagined him to be or who you were taught that he was.And so in the process of that month, you know, up until then, even I just wouldn't even really use the word God. I mean, so most of my 20s and 30s, I just wouldn't even use the word God. I just didn't even like that word. I didn't like people who were using that word, you know, it was really triggering for me still. So something in that, I guess I really entered into that space. OK, deal. I'm going to have a little more curiosity. I'm going to sort of try to set aside some of my judgment and try to look at this with a little bit of a like a beginner's mind, as they say in Buddhism, you know, to try to just look at this with new eyes. And I did that and I did start to see something different. I started to see the possibility of what if this isn't all bad? You know, what if it's just been manipulated like so many things have and there are positive things that I can take from this. And I guess in that I just started using God with a lowercase G. I just decided like I can kind of reclaim God because God with the capital G, it has a lot of connotations. Like you said, you know, it means a lot of things to a lot of different people. It makes people feel like they own God. And I feel like that's sort of one of the most predominant things I've found myself saying is nobody owns God. And I feel like making it a lowercase G, it's sort of like reclaims that. It's like, oh, I can call it God because I'm not saying it's your God. I'm just saying it's God. And and that kind of I don't know, that gave me some space to sort of evolve beyond what I had known and to kind of like what we're talking about at the very beginning, there was then a curiosity to say I can learn something here beyond what I had known. So I think that really helped me to do that.
Sara Bybee Fisk 37:22
What I love about what you said is it's essentially the same process that I went through when I didn't yet know that I was going to eventually leave the church I grew up in, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons. But I remember that there was a time when I used to think that I got to God or that my relationship with God was through the church. And I had, like, God is up here on top, I'm down here below, and the church is in the middle, kind of facilitating all of it for me. And I remember it's almost like I took that middle piece, the church, and I set it off to the side. Like, I still appreciate what the church does for me, but what I have with God is mine. It is my own.And I don't need it to be facilitated or policed through this institution. Like, what God and I have, it's our own, it's my own thing. It's our own thing. And that was even revolutionary for me because growing up in a religion where there are lots of outside authorities who, you know, there's a prophet, and the prophet speaks directly to God, and then he tells us what God said and his word is as if it were God's word himself. And so,
Alex Reegan 38:41
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 38:41
that there's something very revolutionary about taking the authority out of it. And so for those of you who are listening, maybe you have a great relationship with God that you love, maybe you are restructuring it. But what I love about what Alex has done is redefining God to be the presence in your life that works for you. You can do that.You can do that. And in fact, you can benefit greatly from it. And one of the ways that I think you invite us into exploring the benefits is with these dearly beloved writing prompts that are throughout the book. And I'm just going to read you possibly my favorite one. At the end of every chapter, you just have a prompt and you say turn to the God within. And this is the one on page 179 and ask, how can I get in touch with the fact that my life is okay, that my life is not will be okay. My life is how can I foster a deeper faith in the universe, in you and in my own compass? Why did you choose
Alex Reegan 39:49
beloved. That actually comes from Liz Gilbert. So I was in a writing class back in I think 2017 with Martha Beck, who's just an amazing author and teacher. And it was like a six or eight week course that it was all over the phone back then. This was like before Zoom and all of that stuff happened. So, you know, she'd have like a weekly call, you'd go on the call, everybody was just listening, she'd give different tips, and then you turn in writing assignments. And on the Friday of each of the ends of the week, she had Liz Gilbert on, which is like one of her closest friends. So it was like amazing.You got like these two amazing authors and you got to like listen to them, talk about writing and all these things. And one of the things one day was Liz Gilbert started talking about a process that she does herself, which was she'd sit down in the morning and she'd write herself a letter from love. And she usually would start it off. Back then, this is what she, I think now she just says she just starts it off as from love. But she said, dear beloved, this is what I want to tell you. You know, and when I heard that, I just went, oh my God, this is amazing.And so for months, I just, every day I would just sit down and write and I would just wherever I was that day. So, you know, whatever that one is in that, that one that I wrote, that's from years ago, this is not even tied into the book. These happened well before the book was even taking much form. So if I was having a really bad, it would be like, dear beloved, you know, angry, frustrated, you know, suffering self, this is what I want to tell you. And then I just would let myself like tap into whatever you want to call it, the God within the divine, our guides, ancestors, whatever, and love as Liz Gilbert says. And I just would get these responses and they almost came through. If you notice in the writing, it's a different writing. It doesn't even sound like my voice per se, because it's like it came through in this almost channeled way. That was really this like message for me. And so I did that for months. I think I ended up with almost 60 of these dear beloveds. And so I always knew somehow, oh, this should be part of something that I share. And as I began, you know, putting the book together, I was like, Oh, this will fit perfectly. And hilariously, there was literally one of those for the ends of every chapter and ones that fit perfect.I mean, it's not like we, I mean, we edited a few things like my, the grammar and some things, but literally they fit perfectly with each of the chapters. Like you couldn't have made that up. Like it was literally just that synchronicity. So yeah, the beloved also felt important to me because of my roots. In fact, one of the Hay House editors that, Oh, should we take out beloved? We can put another word. Like that might be more accessible to people. I'm like, this is the one thing I'm like, please don't take that out. Because especially a lot of Christianity, there is this, the Bible talks a lot about us being the beloved, you know?
Alex Reegan 42:38
And so there was this part of me also that was reclaiming that, that was like, we are the beloved of the divine of God. I don't care who you are. I don't care if you're white, black, Jewish, straight, gay, trans cyst, the whole gamut of all of us. We are the beloved as a whole body of what I believe is the true body of Christ, not what's, you know, sort of taught as the body of Christ.And so keeping that beloved felt so important to me too, because it was like this healing energy for myself to just call myself that dear beloved. And, and then other times in the book, you know, I actually refer to the reader as dear beloved, you know, like that I just want them to know like we're, we are each other's beloved. Like this goes so much deeper and beyond, you know, the ideas around that kind of language and being sort of that being kind of gate kept gatekeeping away from people being the beloved because they're not part of the body of Christ anymore. And I, I just think we all fall in that there's no, there's no separation. Like I, that line I say where there's no place where you end and I begin.
Sara Bybee Fisk 43:49
That just is so beautiful because I think inadvertently, probably. I mean, I just have so much compassion for my parents and who were raised by their parents, right? Who none of them were taught like, hey, you are good.
Alex Reegan 44:10
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 44:11
you are good. And it's not that they weren't taught that. It's just that message, I think, gets blurred when, hey, close your legs, put your shirt back on, go kiss your uncle. You're not tired. You're not hungry. You're not going to throw up. Like it gets lost because now we just become this creature to please. And are people pleasing?I don't really believe our people pleasing is optional, but that's a separate discussion. Because it gets our needs met and it helps us to survive. But the programming that we get as good girls is that you need to fix yourself. You need to be better. You need to be trying harder. You need to be doing more. And that there's almost something fundamentally broken in us, which if we're going to talk about Christianity, it was Eve, right? Who messed everything up for everyone. And it was, there are teachings in the there's also teachings about how your body is bad and cover it up and you can inadvertently cause men to have impure thoughts. And so what I love about Beloved is that it, I think it brings us back to our essential goodness.
Alex Reegan 45:27
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 45:28
you are good, you are beloved, you are valuable, you are worthy and that the information that we are open to receiving when we think about ourselves that way.
Alex Reegan 45:38
Yep. That's so different. Yes. So different. Yeah. Yeah. And we don't have to any longer, what you're saying is great. Like we become performative versions of ourselves in this, right? When we're following all the good girl, good boy rules of this is how you do things. This is who you have to be. We become this performative version of ourselves. That's not even the real version of us. And so I think, yeah, stepping outside of that, pulling back into the truth of we're not broken. There's nothing wrong with me. And I don't care if you think there is, you know, that's on you to figure out and to recognize that we are that beloved. It's about calling ourselves the beloved, you know, it's about seeing ourselves as that. Like I am my beloved, you know, like, and loving ourselves and welcoming ourselves home, you know, because we can't just keep, it's just, we can't just keep playing this performance of it's like we're, it's like we're on always, we're putting on a show for everyone to make sure we get, like you said, when we're younger, to make sure we get our needs met, because we have to do it. It's you're right. It's not optional. It's a survival mechanism. It is literally sheerly survival. But then when we become adults and it's not any longer survival method, that's what I'm talking about in the sort of building, taking down the walls that are no longer service. Yeah. It helped us survive as children. Now it is keeping us captive in these spaces and we have to be willing to tear down those walls and say no more, you know, like I am not going to perform for you so that you feel whatever you think you need to feel by me doing this.
Sara Bybee Fisk 47:13
Yeah. One of the most fascinating parts of kind of my discussion and our ongoing discussion about this is how the rules changed for you after you transitioned.
Alex Reegan 47:25
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and it's, that's ever evolving because of you, I don't know if you, those of you who are not watching can't see, but I'm starting to get more facial hair here. And so like that's changing it even more, you know, like I'm noticing how I was in the store the other day and it was pretty older gentlemen. Uh, we pass each other and he gave me the very much like, Hey there son, you know, like he really like engaged with me. And in the past, like they, he would have just walked right past me, you know, there wouldn't have been like an engagement. And so I'm noticing interesting things like that where older men who wouldn't normally have engaged with me are now kind of seeing me as their peer and seeing me as the, this equal. And so I'm getting more engagement in some of those interesting areas.Um, but the interesting thing too, is that like I transitioned while still working for the nonprofit that I work for and things like that. So it hasn't necessarily changed. You know, I have some friends who have transitioned and then now they're in different jobs. And so now they're seeing potentially as just assist man. And they're totally having a completely different experience. You know, people are treating them totally different. There really are not the same rules that there are for people assigned female at birth. And so I have seen more and more of that, um, as, as like, I've just trained as my transition sort of continues to evolve and it's definitely, um, yeah, I don't, I notice, um, you know, even sometimes in, in work environments where the people as I'm female at birth were definitely treated differently and expected to like do more behind the scenes work and kind of, you know, like, Oh, you guys should eat, you, you ladies should eat in the office over here.And meanwhile, most of the assessment are out in the room with the like larger group of people at the conferences and things and just little weird things like that. Where I've noticed and, and now I think I'm sort of in this weird in between sometimes for them because maybe they feel weird being like, you should go in there with them, you know, kind of, I guess go out there where I don't know where to send you, you know, kind of thing. And just noticing the differences, um, and just also noticing how different, um, you know, I, I've been joking that I really want to write a graphic novel that's about bathrooms because first of all, bathrooms are a huge issue right now, right? That's one of the big things we're facing. Like, uh, trans people can't use the wrong bathroom, you know, all this stuff that's going on. Um, but I really want to just, because it is two different environments. I mean, you know, the women's restroom is very much like, there's a lot of talking going on. There's a lot of engaging. There's a lot of noise. There's a lot of like people at the mirror. Oh, can I borrow that? Oh, what are you doing? And you know, especially if you're in restaurants or out at bars or places like that, you know, the women's restroom was, is so interactive. Really. There's like a lot going on in there.
Alex Reegan 50:21
And it's also usually very clean. Let me just say, even though y'all might think it's not clean, it's very clean.And then there's the men's restroom, which is literally like your, it's like church. There's no talking. There is no talking. There is no eye contact. If you bump into someone, don't say sorry, or excuse me, because then they will look at you. We're like, why are you talking? You like broke the rule of fight club. Um, also they're disgusting. I just have to like, I don't know what's happened in half of them. So it's an interesting difference too. And the energy levels are just completely different. And you know, honestly, when I was still, before I transitioned, I was stopped by women going into the restroom. I was told you're going into the wrong bathroom. What's wrong with it? And I was like, do you think I can't read? Like I would walk with other women assigned female birth who are women themselves and identify as women into the bathroom with them. People would still stop me from going into the bathroom. Like it was constantly a trauma for me to ever use the bathroom in public.And now I never have a problem. Like men don't even look up. It's like, go in, go to the bathroom. That's it. Go out. There's no. And so that's just one of the interesting little things. It's just also my own differences in how I'm treated. I actually was treated worse sometimes by cis women in bathrooms and in places like that. Because I think in part that people pleasing and that performative, it's like there's also are assuming all women have to look like all other women do. There's a lot of judgment around if you look masculine presenting, there's just a lot of judgment around that you're not conforming. And that's like seeped so into all of our brains that we will literally judge other people saying you should also conform and do this performative thing so that I feel safe in the fact that I have to do it.
Sara Bybee Fisk 52:30
Oh yeah. And for, for a lot of the people that I work with, that's where a lot of our resentment comes from of like, listen, I am busting my ass to perform. Yep. Why, why the hell aren't you? Like we're all in this together where we all got to perform and pretend that we are not feeling bad or feeling sad or that we actually are happy to be here when we are not at all happy to be here.Like the pretending and the performativeness just is, is endemic in, in, in our, our, our lives as, as people pleasers. And so for those of us who are stepping away from conformity and stepping away from pretending and performing, there was a beautiful part in the book. Um, it's one of my gazillion tabs here where you talk about meeting Doris and, um, her band of, of people that you began to really think like, wait a second, these might be my people. You've met somebody who was trans. Was it probably possibly for the first time?
Alex Reegan 53:37
Yeah, that I knew of, yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 53:39
Yeah, that you knew of. And so one of the things the reason I wanted to mention that is for those of you who are listening, who are on learning and stepping out of performance and pretending and people pleasing.What role, Alex, do you think having people other people you connect with who are also undoing? What role?
Alex Reegan 54:01
that play? I mean, I think that's life-changing. And I think the thing I'd say first to that is you will find those people as well. Like it almost becomes like a magnet because I think when you start that process of pulling back, when you start the process of like, I'm not going to just do this to please you anymore. I'm not going to follow your stupid rule just because you had to follow them and you want me to follow them too, you know, whatever the nonsense is like passed down through generation to generation. There's a lot of fear in that moment of that pullback, like sort of as you disconnect, it's like recut in the umbilical cord again, I think in a way. And you're like, yeah, no, I'm not going to fall. I don't care that this is what you all have done for ancestry down the line. I'm not going to do it. There's a lot of fear in that initial thing.Like I will be abandoned. I'll lose my own community. I'll lose it. And you might. And yet when you move far enough away from that, you will start to like draw in like magnets, the other people doing this work in the world, people who are no longer, you know, like submitting to, I have to follow these standards and these rules. I'm going to be outside of the binary or outside of gender norms or outside of the good girl norms outside of this is what you have to do to be good for God. Whatever all of those things are, you will find other people on that journey and you will find each other because I have found that over and over and over again. As my life has gone on ever since I actually kind of pulled back and said no more almost as soon as I did that, I started to find other people doing this work and you will, you will find community and it matters that it will be helpful because you'll also meet people kind of further down the road than you who've like been doing this a little longer than you. You know, sometimes I meet people who are just newly deconstructing from Christianity and I'm like, shit, I've been doing that for like 25 years now. Like, what do you want to know? You know, like, let's talk about this. And they're like, I've been out of the church for two months. I'm like, Oh God, okay, where are you? You know, and I think it's nice to know that you'll then meet people that maybe have been doing it a little longer or further down the road. And you can kind of say, Hey, how did this work for you? What I'm at this part where I'm really stuck where how did you get around this part? And, and you really can find that space in those communities to help you really unlock that more and find yourself then in that process.
Sara Bybee Fisk 56:29
Absolutely. And because we are humans who are meant to be in relationships, in communities, in groups, I love that you say that you will find it. It's almost like when I started doing the work for myself to love and accept myself and to deal with the fear of punishment, the fear of disconnection and to connect to myself. It's all I, I liken it to kind of like I started sending out a different frequency. My frequency was no longer who do you want me to be? What can I do for you? How can I please you? How can I fit into your plan for what you think my life should look like to? Yeah, I am a sovereign being. And that frequency attracts a different type of no doubt, a different type of person. And so I love that you say that.What, what is your hope for what your book will do in the world?
Alex Reegan 57:30
I mean, I think, you know, it partly just goes back to that idea that I hope people will see themselves in my story. You know, it's really easy to think again that we're so different. You know, we spend it's not just a societal thing. I think it's also just how our egos are built. And we sort of spend our whole time just sort of identifying the other, you know, like whether it's because people have different color skin, they have a different religion, they have a different dialect of language or they sound different, they have a different accent, whatever the things are that we really have like pinpointed. In fact, I kind of think there's something to the way that we've manifested this world that is such a like multifaceted, diverse place. There's just so many different people from so many different walks of life. And the fact that like we have the opportunity to learn to see each other in each other as opposed to seeing each other as the other is like that is the it's like we're given every day a thousand opportunities to do it over and over again and to keep and to choose the sort of I don't want to say the right answer, but to choose love, to choose to see one another.And so I think that's my hope is that right now it just feels like we're really in this space where there's a lot of confusion, a lot of misunderstanding, a lot of misinformation, a lot of fear mongering, which, you know, always is a big red flag to me. You know, if people are pointed at someone else and saying they're to blame for your lot in life for whatever is wrong in your life, that's usually a red flag. And so I think I hope that people, you know, my challenge has been to several people. If you think you can't find yourself in my story, that's sort of this trans man who grew up in an evangelical household who came through and got rid of Christianity, went through addiction, went through weed smoking, went through finding shamanism and became an interfaith minister. If you think you just cannot find yourself in this story because it feels so different from you, I promise you, like I challenge you to read this book. And and I don't believe that you'll come out on the other side of it without seeing yourself in some piece of yourself in this, because I truly wholeheartedly believe that we are oneness. I believe that we're all connected. We all know what it's like. You know, the surface level of the story might be different. But underneath, if we excavate beneath the story level to our emotions, we all feel the same emotions. We all feel we all know what it feels like to want to belong. We all know what it feels like to want to be worthy. Most of us know what it feels like to probably feel like we are a sinner or we're not good enough or we haven't done it right. You know, we all are running through the same current of wanting to connect and belong. And I think, you know, that's my hope is that people will find that sense of belonging even in something that they think, you know, is not is not for me.
Sara Bybee Fisk 01:00:30
Well, I see myself in your story and it's why I wanted to share it with, uh, the people who listened to this podcast and it's not that the circumstances are the same, it's that the journey is the same to find who you are, to be seen for who you are, to stop the pretending and performing that gets in the way of being seen for who you really are. I mean, the most common thing that, you know, middle-aged moms and women who I talk with, they say, I just don't even know who I am.Like if you take away the kids, the job, all the things that I do for others, like who am I? And I think that that beautiful yearning just, it doesn't seem to go away.
Alex Reegan 01:01:18
No.
Sara Bybee Fisk 01:01:19
to be wanting to be seen and known for who you are. And so I love that I see myself in your story and I love that other people now have the opportunity to do that as well.And to make that easier, I am gonna be giving away five copies of Alex's book. And I just wanna say right now, here's how you can get yourself entered into the drawing for it. So Alex is on social media at RevRiggs, RevRiggs, R-E-E-G-S, that's his handle on all of the social media platforms. And if you follow Alex, that will get you an entry into each of his social media platforms. You can also follow me on my social media platforms, Serifis Coaching or Serifis Coach, it's one of those two. So follow on social media, you can also follow the podcast, that would actually be fantastic and rate it. And if you just screenshot that, DM it to me, I'm gonna take all of these names and put them into an entry, send you a book. And then Alex, tell them what you're gonna add to that.
Alex Reegan 01:02:28
So I realize it's too complex and complicated to try to have you send me the book so I can sign it and send it back to you. So as long as you send Sara your information, we'll get you at least I'm going to make some placards that I can sign and I'll send it to you and then you'll be able to stick it in your book so that you have a signed copy of the first edition.
Sara Bybee Fisk 01:02:46
Beautiful. So sign up, follow, screenshot it and DM it.And then I would love to put one of these books in your hand. And if one of these books does not end up in your hands through this giveaway, they're the the softcover is available now anywhere you buy books. And please, once you read it, write a review. Um, Alex, is there anything that we didn't cover that you really wanted to say?
Alex Reegan 01:03:14
Hmm. I think, you know, I just want to say, you know, thank you to hopefully, I mean, to you, first off, but I think hopefully my hope is that the listeners also will understand the opportunity in this moment, which is to be open and have curiosity to something that you might not understand something you might even have fear or anxiety around something that seems so foreign to you. And so outside of your realm and your life, and to just like have curiosity to be open to something new and to learning something beyond what you know, because I think the beauty is, is that you don't know who you could attract into your life and who you could meet and what could change, you know, just like Sara saying, when we met, you know, we could have just like met and passing at that event, talked, chatted and gotten on different planes and gone on with our lives. And a lot of us do that in our lives. You know, we don't end up in that moment sometimes. And I think partly the reason we don't end up in those holy moments where you actually get that opportunity to have that little bubble experience where you learn something and expand and grow is because we don't have enough curiosity is because we just aren't open to possibilities beyond what we think we already know and what we think how things are.And this is, this is it, this is how it is. And so, you know, I just hope that we all would take that opportunity in our own daily lives, you know, to just have a little more curiosity, have a little more open heartedness towards each other towards a stranger at the grocery store, you know, the cashier that you're talking to or the teller at the bank, it doesn't have to be some huge, you know, broad thing, but it can just be some simple little meeting that we have with each other where we're willing to see each other and to see, I see you, you know, because I think the truth is that we're all here to be seen. That's what all of us want. We want to be seen for who we are. We want to be loved for who we are. And we can give that to people if we just open up our hearts and have a little more curiosity and understanding that, you know, we don't know everything, but we're willing to learn and expand and grow.
Sara Bybee Fisk 01:05:21
beautiful. And I just want to point out something that we don't have to understand each other to see each other.We don't have to understand deepest, you know, inner workings to just extend seeing to each other. And so I'm kind of in my mind seeing like like a continuum, like the first step is just to see below the label, like this is a human having a particular experience, I don't have to understand it, to see them and to understand that they are a human who has rights and who has who, who is entitled to the same opportunities that I want for my life. And so as if you are listening, and this is your first time lists listening to someone who is trans curiosity and and seeing is enough.
Alex Reegan 01:06:15
Yeah, great place to start.
Sara Bybee Fisk 01:06:17
But if you follow that a little bit longer along the continuum to actually becoming a friend, or maybe even an ally, that is an amazing opportunity to then step in front of some of these people who we see are brothers and sisters who are tired of fighting, who are tired of trying to just carve out a place to exist in the world of dignity, of access to health care, access to the things that, you know, those of us who present at, you know, this head and to put our bodies in front of their bodies in terms of legislation, calling people, standing up for them in our circles of friends. Like, that is work you can do if you want to.It's not essential to just see and have curiosity about someone. But I do just want to acknowledge that what you have enabled me to do, Alex, is be you and to see the similarities in our lives and that your life and your journey is, we're the same. And it has influenced me to step up and advocate and write and call and that has been such a beautiful gift that knowing you has given me.
Alex Reegan 01:07:51
Well, I appreciate that. I mean, that means a lot to me. And I think, you know, what you're saying is so right. You can start at the very basic part of just being willing to see people as humans. And, and I love what you said about that next space of putting art, putting yourselves in front of these bodies. And that goes not just for LGBTQ people, but for people of color and anyone who's fighting against oppression and is seen as a minority in this world. And I think this is how we heal the world together. We do it together.We don't do it just like one person standing, fighting, screaming at the top of their lungs when nobody might even be hearing us, we have to come together and do this work together. And I would challenge people. There are a lot of these bathroom laws and a lot of things like that happening. Keep your eyes open for people. Keep your eyes open for persons that you might see coming into the bathroom that might look like they are presenting. Maybe maybe it's the women's bathroom and someone's presenting. Maybe they look a little bit like me and keep an eye out for that person. Like watch and make sure other people aren't being mean or trying to harass them. Cause like I said, that was something I faced for decades in my life long before I ever transitioned. So, you know, we can keep an eye out for each other and we can look out for each other and know that we're, you know, I see you and I'm standing beside you. It doesn't mean that you have to like literally physically confront someone or get involved in a situation that might be uncomfortable. It might just be about like Sara saying, you might step in front of someone into the, like the sinks just to separate something where you see something that doesn't feel right. You know, like use, use your privilege, whatever privilege that might be to try to like hold space in the world for folks who don't necessarily, you know, have that privilege right now.
Sara Bybee Fisk 01:09:39
Yeah. I love the definition of privilege and I wish I could remember where it came from. It's not mine, but it's privilege is whatever you don't have to deal with.
Alex Reegan 01:09:51
Hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 01:09:51
right? I don't have to deal with being mistaken for any gender other than how I present.And so that privilege where I can just walk into spaces that are for females and no one questions me, I just don't have to worry about it. And so privilege is a loaded word for some people, but I like to think of it as just whatever you don't have to deal with. And so I love the idea that I can use the part of my life that is easy to advocate for and take a stand for people whose lives are not easy when it comes to something as simple as just walking into a fucking bathroom.
Alex Reegan 01:10:30
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Sara Bybee Fisk 01:10:32
Alex, this conversation, I just I wish we could talk forever and we will, you know, off offline.But is there anything else that you want people to know about the work that you do about working with you in some way?
Alex Reegan 01:10:51
Yeah, definitely. I mean, one thing, if you belong to a church or a spiritual community, I do a lot of speaking and guest preaching spots. So if you want to have me, you know, come and talk somewhere, you can contact me on my website and reach out that way. I also do a lot of, I still do some one-on-one coaching. I also do some workshops and smaller group things as well. So feel free, you know, my website's just alexregan.com, you know, you can feel free to reach out to me there, email me, you know, and we can set up a time to talk and figure out what it is that I can do to help you or your community.I love to be out there in the world talking about not just my story, but also just about the things that I've learned along the way that I really think, you know, one of the things I put in the book was I really tried to give you workbook things, you know, like actual sort of homework that you could do yourself, things that have worked for me in hopes that they might work for you as well. And so, you know, any way I can, you know, support a community you might be in, if it's other LGBTQ groups as well. But even, you know, I think one of the things I'd certainly feel called to is coming into spiritual communities and spaces that are open and affirming and talking to them because I've gotten a lot of great responses from people, people who, you know, like Sara is saying that it just helped them to see a new frame of reference and it really helped them open their hearts and their minds. And that's like where I think, you know, I can be of great service to people. So yeah, hit me up.
Sara Bybee Fisk 01:12:21
Well, it's certainly where you shine because I have had the privilege of being in the congregation when you preached and when your wife Doris sing just the most gorgeous songs. And so, yeah, Alex, thank you so much for your time and for writing this book. It is a gift to the world.
Alex Reegan 01:12:39
Thank you. Thank you. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. I'm glad to be here.
