0:00:00.0 Louie Marvin: Welcome to Resource on the Go, a podcast from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center on understanding, responding to and preventing sexual abuse and assault. My name is Louie Marvin, and I'm the training specialist at the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. This podcast is part of our male survivors series. Today, Michael Munson joins me again for part two of a two-part conversation on working with transgender men and trans-masculine survivors of sexual assault. Michael is the Executive Director at FORGE. And if you haven't listened to part one, I do encourage you to listen to that first since we're building on some of the conversation that we had in that episode today.

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0:00:55.5 LM: So welcome back, Michael.

0:00:57.2 Michael Munson: It's good to be here again with you.

0:01:00.1 LM: Yeah, so last time, we talked a little bit about transgender men and trans-masculine folks who survived sexual assault, and some of the things that have to do with socialization and stigma, and different things that advocates should know about trans men and trans-masculine folks. And today, we're talking more about services at sexual assault centers, and I just wanna start by talking about support groups. I know that FORGE has done some research on gender-inclusive support groups, so talk about how you did this and some of the things that you found.

0:01:36.6 MM: First of all, I really enjoyed our conversation last time, so that was really fun to have kind of that [0:01:42.1] ____ of trans men and trans-masculine folks and I'm looking forward to having a discussion today that really dives in more deeply to just some of the topics that advocates and other folks might find more practical in their work. So you mentioned that we did some research and we did. We were funded... We're so appreciative of the funding through Reliance in 2016-2017, and we were able to do a really kind of cool process of doing internet-based survey, and then following up with around 18 of those people that responded to the survey, and about 100 people that responded to the survey, and then 18 of them we found really captivating. And we did in-depth interviews with those 18 individuals. So the combination of the survey respondents and the in-depth interviews were all by people who were successfully running gender-integrated support groups, so support groups that included women and men and trans people and non-binary people, so literally any gender of anybody who was welcomed into their support groups. And we learned a lot in doing this.

0:02:54.6 MM: We learned simple things like it wasn't as hard as people thought it was going to be. 'Cause I think a lot of times people think, "Oh my God, how do I switch from an all-women's group, and it's usually all women, to something that's not all women?" And people overwhelmingly found that it was really pretty simple, and the benefits so much outweighed any of the challenges that they found in working through and getting buy-in and all of those pieces. So I think that's the biggest takeaway from the research that we did. But there are some bits and pieces that I can share with you that I think are relevant to trans men in particular, and trans-masculine folks. And I think the obvious is something that we all know who work in this field of like everyone deserves the support that they want and that they need. And for a lot of survivors, that's about being together with other survivors. So in COVID, it might be being together on Zoom, but that process of being together with folks can be so transformational in people's healing that you can't get it another way, you can't get it by one-on-one therapy, you can't get it by reading a publication. It really involves that human-to-human connection with peers.

0:04:11.9 MM: So that's kind of the preface of everything. And so our job was to look at, how can people set up these structures in ways that feel good for everybody, for both facilitators as well as for participants, so not just trans participants, but for all participants? And so what we really kind of looked at and found with that, having gender-integrated support groups really recognizes the full range of possibilities for people and their identities. So not just about gender, but it said, "Hey, if we welcome men into the space, if we welcome trans people into the space, who else are we welcoming?" So it kind of like opens this door to... We're being an expansive group, and that can mean we're expanding in lots of different ways, even though that's not talked about. The other thing that it's critically important for us is obviously the folks that identify as non-binary don't oftentimes have an option of going to a women's group or a men's group. So having a gender-integrated group really allows the largest portion of the trans community to feel at home in a group. So just a reminder for folks that non-binary folks make up about 35% of the whole trans population, whereas trans men, trans women are about 33%.

0:05:33.3 MM: So it's not a huge amount different, but it's a substantial amount of people. So that's a cool benefit as well. Some of the other benefits are really about ensuring that survivors don't feel rejected. So somebody wants to access a support group and the agency says, "Oh, we're for women only," that's gonna be another set of rejections for folks that can't access that group. In other ways, this is kind of related to the feeling of rejection, but it's like, how do people feel included? So I think for trans folks in particular, especially trans men who grew up with the things that we talked about last time which were this dominant paradigm that violence and sexual assault happens against women, and so when a trans man has been sexually assaulted, either in childhood or adulthood, he might be wondering, "Do I fit in with other survivors of any gender?" And so having a group that they can be part of really does validate both their experiences and their feelings of isolation. So that's another one of those cool benefits.

0:06:43.6 MM: A couple of other things, if I can just share a couple of more things, is that we found that having gender-integrated spaces really reduced other forms of stereotyping and assumptions. So if people make assumptions based on gender, what other kinds of assumptions are they making, maybe about race or disability, or religion? And so if people are in this integrated space, can there be these discussions about some of the other things that people might hold as an assumption, as a stereotype? Because we all have them, and sometimes we don't even know that we have them until we start to talk about them where people share their experiences, and so those stereotypes kind of come out then. So it's very beneficial around gender, but it can also have these perks around what else people might be holding that they didn't know about.

0:07:37.0 MM: We also found that people were able to learn new skills, and they were able to recognize sexual assault, they were able to recognize abusive behavior in different ways. When folks are in groups that are of like-minded people, they may not see other ways of coping. They may not experience what it's like to be in somebody else's shoes. And so by being in these spaces, it allows folks to see, "Well, this person is healing in this other way. What is that like? Can I hear that? And I experience that too? Maybe I should look into that." And it also encourages people to think about, "What is sexual assault? What are healthy relationships? What does that look like when it's coming from a trans man's perspective? Is it the same as coming from a non-trans white woman's perspective? What are the differences and what are the similarities? And how can people learn from each other?" Because people can learn from each other, and that's I think one of the benefits in general about having support groups. And the last thing I wanted to share really briefly, to summarize this fairly large project, is that the facilitators really felt that they benefited as facilitators in this process of having gender-integrated spaces for all the reasons that we just talked about, and a lot of other reasons as well.

0:09:03.4 MM: So it really was a benefit to the survivors who is the primary audience for the support group obviously, but it also benefited the facilitators, and then when the facilitators feel more comfortable, it obviously then helps them be better facilitators in other groups. So yeah, it's really exciting research. It was fun.

0:09:22.1 LM: That is so exciting. I love the observation that there was this connection of, "Hey, we're being a gender-expansive space," and that just leads to that intention and doing that work around being expansive in terms of gender led to just an overall mindset of being expansive in a lot of other ways too. I think that is really exciting. And something that comes up a lot in the project that we're working on, we're talking really broadly about how advocates can work with male survivors of sexual assault, and so often we want to highlight ways in which rethinking things or doing things in maybe a new way to reach male survivors, hopefully, is something that can lead to new ways of doing things that benefit lots of survivors. So yeah, we definitely don't wanna say, "Change everything you're doing for men," but we do wanna say when you engage in some of this rethinking, what are the other benefits? And so I think you've really highlighted that in a really exciting way, so thank you. And I know you've also done a lot of work around trans men and trans-masculine folks running into the issues related to gatekeeping, so I definitely want to focus on that today.

0:10:44.9 LM: And so first, if you could just tell our audience, what do we mean by that term, what is gatekeeping? And then how does gatekeeping impact a sexual assault survivor? For example, what should advocates understand about gatekeeping and how it relates to trans men and trans-masculine survivors? 

0:11:03.8 MM: It's a great question, and it's something that I think folks don't oftentimes talk about, and don't oftentimes know what it is unless if they're really familiar with trans folks. So gatekeeping is literally what it sounds like. It's somebody else is kind of holding the gate shut and you have to pass the magic test in order to walk through the gate. So to be less magical about it, for trans folks, a lot of times if trans folks wanna access or need to access hormones or surgery or name change or other transition-oriented or gender-affirming care, the way our system has been set up is that people need to get a letter from a therapist, or a letter from a doctor that says, "Oh, I've deemed that your mental health is okay enough for you to take these other steps." So this is a huge systemic issue, and I don't wanna come down on either side of the gatekeeping model because it started from a really good place and a good intention with the Harry Benjamin standards of care, and that's morphed into the WPATH standards of care, and now into some other informed consent models.

0:12:13.5 MM: So it started in a really good place of trying to protect trans people, as well as trying to protect the providers who might have been getting some pushback about what they were doing and some legal challenges because of that. So it may have started from a good place, but it's really gotten transformed into this gatekeeping, uncomfortable process. What is systemic about it? I'll probably use the word systemic a lot because there are lots of ways that are keeping this process in place. So one of them is really our insurance companies for folks that have insurance, which obviously is not everybody, and for folks that have insurance that covers trans-related care, which is not everybody. So if you have insurance and it covers trans-related care, most of the time insurance companies are gonna require that letter from a therapist in order to access hormones. A surgeon is not gonna engage in a gender-affirming surgery if they don't have a letter from a therapist and a physician.

0:13:16.7 MM: So the system or the systemic challenges are not just, "Oh, this therapist believes this," or "Oh, this physician believes this." It's, "I want my insurance company to pay for this procedure because I don't have $20,000," or pick the dollar amount. And so the gatekeeping is kind of self-perpetuating in that process. So even if a provider is really invested in informed consent, those insurance companies are kind of holding that imbalance, the gatekeeping imbalance. So if we look at this, if we kind of broaden our scope or narrow our scope, when we look at any kind of provider, we know that there's a power imbalance, I mean any time a survivor I think is seeking services, there's inherently a power imbalance.

0:14:06.5 MM: When we add that gatekeeping on top of it, there's this heightened sense of power imbalance of, "What if I say certain things to this provider, are they still going to be able to write me a letter so that I can have life-saving, gender-affirming care in my medical transition, in my legal name change, in whatever it is that I wanna pursue as a trans person?" So a lot of times what seems to be happening is people are choosing to have more than one therapist. So they're picking a therapist that they can do gender-based stuff with, get their letters, get all their process stuff with, and then they're choosing a separate therapist for their trauma. And while that's inherently not necessarily a bad thing, what's oftentimes happening, what we're seeing is that folks are not sharing their trans history with a trauma-based therapist. And again, there's nothing wrong with doing that if that's what somebody wants to do, if that's an affirming thing for them, is to not discuss their trans-ness, that's cool.

0:15:14.2 MM: But for a lot of folks, that doesn't take into consideration their whole self, their whole body, their whole childhood experience which might be in a different gender. So having that split really challenges people's healing and really fragments folks in ways that they may not have been that fragmented beforehand, but in seeking care, they've ended up more fragmented because of how they're trying to navigate those systems. So those are some of the rules around gatekeeping. There's some standards of care that are a little bit more liberal, but then we go back to the systemic challenges.

0:15:53.5 LM: Yeah, thank you for laying that out and describing it for advocates who are maybe wanting to be intentional about not participating or perpetuating some of the negative consequences of standards of care or to not do gatekeeping. What are some of the things that advocates could do to challenge that paradigm and to be welcoming to folks who do want to share more of themselves in a trauma-related space? 

0:16:31.9 MM: Yeah, good question. So I think when we look at advocates, and I know I was really talking more about therapists and the presentation about what gatekeeping is, but a lot of times advocates are therapists, or therapists are advocates, so there is a blending of those two things. And advocates are oftentimes that intermediary person of connecting survivors to other mental health care providers. So I think some of the things that advocates can do, and anybody working with a survivor can do, is to really make sure that they're up-to-date on who trans folks are and have that educational foundation that they can work off of. So get informed, listen to FORGE's webinar trainings, not to self-promote, but we have 70 hours' worth of training, so there's no barrier for advocates to get access to trans-informed care and what they can do. So get informed is I think number one. Ideally, advocates for trans folks would also have trans-affirming providers on their referral list. So if an advocate is going to suggest a service, whether it's mental health service, a support group, even if it's a yoga group or something that's non-traditional but really, really helpful with healing, does that advocate know what the policies are of that organization that they're referring out to, what their trans policies are? 

0:18:00.3 MM: Do they know about the therapist and what their feelings are about trans folks and how welcoming they are? And I think also related to that, ideally, advocates would work with survivors and help survivors navigate finding providers or navigate finding the skills and the things that they need, and either helping share their trans data with other people, if that's desired by the trans person, or helping protect it if that's not desired, if they don't wanna disclose. But having that advocate do the job of being an advocate can be about the trans piece as well as about a survivorship piece or another component of their life.

0:18:43.7 LM: Yeah, thanks for laying that out. And you're saying all kinds of things that connect to something else that I wanted to ask you about, talking about the survivor or the advocate as intermediary and so forth, and it makes me think of the forensic exam setting, which is a really important setting for us to talk about in the context of working with trans survivors. So how can advocates better support trans survivors, particularly trans men and trans-masculine survivors in that forensic exam setting? 

0:19:18.4 MM: Yeah, I love this question, I love talking about forensic settings, and I think I do because it's a... I don't wanna say it's an advanced topic, but it's a topic that's really intimate, it's really about bodies. It really has a lot of different components to it than when we talk about trans folks just in general. So this has some very specific ramifications that we can talk about today or that people can learn more about it in general. I think I wanna start by saying that I think that forensic nurse examiners, so not... Well, advocates do, but forensic nurse examiners tend to really get it, they tend to do their work really well in a way that is trans-affirming in and of itself by asking open-ended questions, by listening to people's bodies by watching body language, by reflecting language, by... I guess by not making assumptions. So SANEs tend to be really, really kind of an open book of like, "I'm gonna listen carefully, I'm gonna reflect what I hear, I'm gonna see the survivor and what happened to them in a way that doesn't have any assumptions about it." So I just wanted to start with that piece of it, because the advocate is there, supporting the survivor within that interaction with a SANE or forensic nurse examiner.

0:20:43.4 MM: So I think that that's a helpful thing. So in some respects, I don't wanna say it's gonna be an easier advocacy role, but because the SANEs are so good at what they do most of the time, it doesn't make an advocate's job a little bit easier. So I think of the survivors who do wanna pursue forensic care, and obviously there's some challenges in looking at that because of how many trans folks have had negative experiences with medical providers, with law enforcement, I think a lot of people think that there has to be law enforcement involved if they go for forensic exams. We oftentimes know that people that actually make it through the door are making it through the door to get a sexual assault-related forensic exam, but they're also gonna have to see other people. So I think this is where the advocates can play a really good role. So I think most places, people are having to see like an ER physician, emergency room physician, or maybe there is a person that's cleaning the hallway that they have interactions with, or a person that takes their insurance card, if they're going to a hospital setting. So there are people that trans man or that trans-masculine person is gonna have contact with, that the advocate could help navigate some of those situations, because the survivor's in a state of crisis and that's like just an extra irritant that doesn't need to happen.

0:22:13.7 MM: So when we look at what advocates can actually do, we wanna keep in mind, obviously that we wanna be survivor-centered when we're working with folks, and what does that mean when we're working with trans men and trans-masculine folks, we wanna make sure that we ask that survivor in some way, "How would you like me to advocate for you? What is it that you would like me to do?" And sometimes that conversation might not look like that, or it might be just saying that and the person says, "Well, I don't want you to do anything," or "I just want you to hold my hand." But that trans survivor could say, "You know what, I don't have any spoons to come out to anybody else as trans. Could you do that for me?" Or the trans survivor might say, "I wanna tell my story. Do not tell anybody that I'm trans. I wanna be the one that initiates that discussion." So obviously whatever that trans survivor is saying is what the advocate hopefully will follow and do. But a lot of times, it does really relieve the burden if that trans man, that trans-masculine survivor knows that that advocate is gonna have their back and do what it is that they've asked them to do. So that's just one example of where advocates can play a pretty substantial role in relieving some of the extra burden for folks.

0:23:34.7 LM: That's great, thank you. Yeah, really tapping into some skills that we talk about in working with any survivor, kind of like how you're talking about with the SANEs and advocate provides options and listen and... So yeah, I love making that connection to, well, that's what you do for... And with a trans survivor as well, of course, and it might mean specific things. So yeah, that's great. So we're talking a lot about advocates in different settings, and we know that advocates just in general really wanna be helpful to survivors, that's why people do this work, of course. But thinking about that, what are some of the ways that you've seen or heard advocates who've had these really right or good intentions around working with a trans man or a trans-masculine survivor, but they actually had a negative impact on the survivor despite this really good intention? So do you have any anecdotes around how, even though there may have been a really good intention and there's maybe been an enthusiastic advocate wanting to do all this great stuff for trans male survivors, but didn't quite do that and maybe had a negative impact? I think that could be really instructive for our audience to hear from you about.

0:25:00.1 MM: That's a really cool question too, because I think that sometimes people are really excited, like, "Oh, I get this, I've had training, I know what to do," and then they end up focusing way too much on somebody's trans-ness. And I think that's probably what we see more often than anything of that, "I'm good with talking about trans stuff, let's talk about your trans stuff," and that is not why somebody is seeking an advocate, that's not why somebody is going to a forensic exam. It's not about their trans-ness, it's about what happened to them. So I think that the over-excitement that can happen sometimes by advocates who know a little or know a lot can really do some damage and some harm to trans folks. So I think that's probably the biggest thing that we see is just people that wanna be helpful and they're just kind of... They kind of go overboard and need to re-assess themselves and go, "Hmm, I don't need to know that question's... The answer to that question. Where am I? Where is my client? How am I gonna respond to their needs versus my need for curiosity, my need to try to say, 'Oh, I get you, I get you'?" So yeah, that's a good question.

0:26:10.5 LM: Yeah, so being like this maybe over-ambitious ally type of person. Yeah, I think that's a great thing to draw out is, yeah, how that enthusiasm can sometimes cross the line into harm. And I think that advocates for programs who are maybe thinking about some of these practices that they can do, or some programs that they can offer that we've been talking about throughout this conversation, a really important piece of all of that is, how do trans men and trans-masculine folks in a community hear about that program or get the message that these services that are offered at the Sexual Assault Center are relevant to them? So how are some of those... What are some of those ways that trans men and trans-masculine survivors might get those messages, might hear that the center is available to them and that the staff is able to serve them at their center? How might they find that out? 

0:27:22.2 MM: Good question again. You have lots of good questions. So I think when we look at things, this is another example of why it's really good to have best practices in place, and some of those best practices are things that a survivor might not really see but might be able to feel. So if we are picking up the phone and we're doing crisis work, or whether we're picking up the phone to do, like let's set up an appointment with somebody, when we introduce ourselves to somebody, do we say "My name is this and my pronouns are this, and would you like to share yours?" If we do that with everybody, that's a best practice, that's gonna really tip a trans man off to like, "Oh, they might get me here. They might welcome who I am in my totality in the space." If we have providers that do support groups and everybody shares their name and their pronouns, is that another best practice? Sure it is. How does that feel? So that's presuming that somebody's already in the door, but we know that a lot of times trans people will access services, they'll access it one time, and they'll go, "This is... These people do not understand me, I'm not gonna invest more of my time and energy, this is too hard," and so they'll leave.

0:28:36.6 MM: So they make it in the door, let's make sure that they stay in that door. We just talked about this a little bit about the asking the curious questions, so best practice too is like, don't ask curious questions. Do you really need to know that information about somebody? No, I don't think you really do. So when people are curious about, "Well, have you had the surgery?" Well, first of all, there is a surgery that goes with the surgery, and it's none of your business, right? So we need to put our hat on of like, "Well, would I ask that to anybody else?" And then think about, "How or why am I asking that to this trans person that's in front of me?" So some of those best practices really go a long way in terms of how we can create an environment that is aware and friendly, and all of those good things.

0:29:27.7 LM: Yeah, I'm thinking about how someone might even find out in the first place that a sexual assault center is the type of place that they might even go, that it's even an option, that the services are relevant. Are there ways in which someone might hear about the center and its work that says, "Hey, we are a place that serves everyone, people of all genders, and that sexual assault and harassment are things that happen to people regardless of gender, they're issues for all of us and we're here to do that work"? Are there ways that they're avenues of reaching trans men and local communities that you can think of that might be particularly useful for programs to know about? 

0:30:23.0 MM: Yeah, I think that there's a couple of things. So one is really where are agencies advertising, and I don't necessarily mean paid advertisement, but are agencies reaching out to places where trans people might congregate, where trans people might be reading a zine or a publication or a website? Where is that outreach being done to? How is it being done? Are the images used in that outreach women only? All of those best practices again, with, how is information literally going out to the world? So trans people are gonna see it if it's out in the world. And what's really important that we know about is that it's important to be explicit in who's included. So rather than saying all genders are included, or everyone is welcome here, it's really critically important to list out, "Trans men are welcome here," or "People of all gender identities and gender expressions are welcome here." So to really state those things really clearly will go a farther distance than just saying, "Everybody can come in." We know too that agencies that do specific outreach to trans groups, to LGBT community centers or other LGBT groups, if there's no trans-specific groups in somebody's area, it's really important to develop those relationships and those alliances because trans communities are usually tight-knit.

0:31:51.9 MM: If one person knows something, they can share it with somebody else who's in need of it. So when agencies do make that personal connection with trans organizations or trans and queer organizations, it's gonna mean that those trans and queer organizations know about the sexual assault services and can share it with their buddies, share with their friends, and have that as a resource. We also encourage folks to think about where they can partner with trans organizations. So again, not every community is gonna have a trans organization. If you're in a rural community, that may not exist. But do you show up with folks and do cross-trainings? Do you say, "Hey, we'd love to come and talk to your trans organization, we'd like you to come and talk to us, let's have this mutual dialogue"? And again, that can be another process of building trust, increasing the positive reputation, and people are gonna say like, "Hey, I know who these people are, I'm gonna be willing to go to them because of that." So the other piece of that is we can cross-train and we can connect, and we can show up, and showing up is more than just training or making a phone call, but is there a Pride event?" And I know Pride gets a lot of attention, but is there a Pride event? And does that sexual assault agency show up at Pride, whether it's in the parade, as a table, wherever it is? Do people go to conferences, and table at those conferences, if they're trans-related conferences? 

0:33:16.9 MM: Do people do things where there can be a mainstream presence within that trans space? Are people showing up for rallies? And I know that that's a political thing that a lot of times sexual assault agencies or individuals don't feel comfortable doing, but there's a lot of places where people will do that from sexual assault agencies. So where can people show up, and how do trans people see that that agency is making a difference? So that's a piece of it. I think another piece is really about, when somebody is thinking about accessing an agency, they may kind of scope out that brick and mortar place. They may see what it looks like. They may see if there's a rainbow flag in the window, if there's a window. They may kind of peek through the door and see what it physically looks like. Are the walls painted pink? Not to be stereotypical, but does it feel like a place that might be welcoming of people of all genders? And again, so let's say somebody is willing to get in the door.

0:34:23.0 MM: So they're still looking for things, they're still... They're calling, they're checking it out. What are their intake forms like? What are people seeing when they get asked questions, whether it's on a paper or verbally? What's their website's contact form like? Does it include spaces for trans people to share their pronouns in a website contact form? So those are some of the things that I think people are gonna be looking for when they're looking for an agency to potentially connect with. So that said, [chuckle] when agencies are open and welcoming and available to trans men and trans-masculine folks, trans men are gonna be a lot more likely to receive services, 'cause they're gonna check it out, they're gonna know they're gonna have some good feeling ahead of time. I did wanna point out a couple of places in particular that people may wanna try to reach out to and connect to. So the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs is kind of this national umbrella that doesn't really house individual organizations, but people can belong to this coalition. And I think there's around 44 agencies right now, it might be a little bit more than that, spread across the country, and these are LGBTQ anti-violence agencies that specifically and intentionally work with queer and trans communities.

0:35:42.7 MM: So just about every state has at least one LGBT anti-violence program, so if you're looking for services, you may wanna call that anti-violence program in your states, or in a nearby state if you're close to a border, and say, "Hey, who are the cool people? Who should I go see? What agencies have you had good experiences with?" And they might have done the leg work for that survivor ahead of time, because they just know who's in the world and in their realm. So that's one place that I think people... It's under-utilized, the AVP chapters. I think that another thing that's really happening with COVID is that it used to be that these isolated places that would have gender-inclusive or trans-affirming groups care pick your kind of service, there's more of an availability to those services now because of COVID, and we live in a world right now where it's virtual, and so people are able to live in Wisconsin, where I am, and access something in Washington, DC, for example. So that really has opened the doors for a lot of folks. So again, that's gonna be, "What are you seeing on social media? How are you connecting with your friends? What do you know and see about, and what can people share with you?" So if you know about a group that's really cool, share it with somebody else so that they can know that it's really cool.

0:37:05.3 MM: I think that there's two more things that I'd like to share in terms of where people can either find support or find services that are overtly trans-masculine-welcoming, trans men-welcoming. And I don't wanna plug just one organization, but I'm going to because they're cool. So Men Healing is an organization, and I'm biased because I'm on their board, but they run Weekends of Recovery, and they run Days of Recovery for men. And when they say men, they mean anybody who identifies as a man, anybody who identifies as masculine, anybody that's in that masculine spectrum of things. And I can guarantee folks that you will have a good experience if you would like to pursue that. And I know their cost is not a barrier for folks. So if a weekend to recovery, something intensive is really where people are at in their healing, I really encourage folks to check out Men Healing as an organization.

0:38:05.8 MM: And the second overt resource is for just resources, which is kind of... I don't mean to self-plug again, but we do have many resources that might be comfortable for trans men and trans-masculine folks and feel really supportive, whether it's accessing one of our larger print guides, like how to access therapy and navigate some of those challenges that we talked about before, or what's a typical trauma response, and understanding those neurobiological processes that people may not understand that what they're feeling is normal and active. People find support in connecting with FORGE Online and social media. And so it sounds really simple sometimes, but just knowing that somebody has your back, that they understand a little bit about who you are can really go a long way in terms of people's healing. So that was the plug. But again, if that's where people find support and access to support, that's where they find it.

0:39:07.1 LM: That's so great. Thanks for all that, laying all that out, Michael. Yeah, so often we talk about how it's great to be ready, and have services that are ready to work for any group of people you're talking about, but they have to know about it, too. So I think you've provided such a great range of options and different ways that people can get the word out about other their programs and say, "Hey, we're here to support you, trans men, in our community." So thank you for joining us again today, Michael. And you joked about self-promoting, but we love hearing all those resources, there's definitely no shame in doing that, we invite it. And so we do invite listeners to learn more about working with male survivors by checking out links in the show notes, including links to some of the resources that Michael mentioned.

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0:40:13.1 LM: Thanks for listening to this episode of Resource On The Go. For more resources and information about understanding, responding to and to prevent sexual assault, visit our website at www.nsvrc.org. You can also get in touch with us by emailing resources@nsvrc.org.