This past weekend, I attended an event called Transcending Boundaries whose stated purpose is to “serve our ever-evolving communities, including bisexual, pansexual, fluid, queer, transgender, transsexual, genderqueer, asexual, intersex, polyamorous, and kinky persons, as well as allies, those who prefer not to use labels, and those who are questioning their identities.” There were academic and informational panels, social activities, and an endless supply of interesting, lovely, and genuine people to talk to. As an ally to all of these communities and a therapist hoping to increase my competence to work with them, I attended the conference not knowing quite what to expect, and was overwhelmed by the consideration and acceptance I experienced over the course of the weekend. I learned a lot about many different things, and I’d like to share some of these nuggets with you.

1. There are as many ways to live as there are people living, and all of them – as long as they respect the rights of others – are equally valid.

My general rule has always been that if you are not hurting anyone physically or emotionally, and you feel good inside, the way you’re living your life falls within the spectrum of “you’re doing fine.” This point was driven home this weekend when I met a lot of different people who live their lives in a lot of different ways. I encountered very little that I hadn’t seen before in some respect, but being surrounded by so many wonderful people who defied convention really solidified this conviction that I already had.

2. GSRM is a thing.

First there was LGB (gay, lesbian, bisexual). Then transgender people became increasingly recognized and there was LGBT. And then the acronym grew from there and we had LGBTQQIA (to account for queer, questioning, intersex, and asexual people) and it got overwhelming and everyone had different versions of the acronym that considered other populations and some people just started calling it “Alphabet Soup.” So to solve that problem, the proper term became “queer.” I, for one, have never been completely comfortable using the term “queer.” It still holds a very negative connotation, and as a person of privilege, I don’t really feel that it’s my word to use. It’s also worth mentioning that none of these acronyms or terms account for polyamory, kink, or other relationship minorities. And thus developed GSRM, which stands for Gender, Sexual, and Relationship Minorities, which I think is a wonderful, broad, and encompassing term to discuss all of these groups and experiences, and which I had never heard before this weekend.

3. The proper use of “they” as a gender-neutral pronoun.

The following is something I already knew: Gender is not binary. What this means is that our society tends to conceptualize a male/female dichotomy, which says that people who have male genitals are male and people who have female genitals are female. Ok, then there are transgender people, and if a person can take a small leap of comprehension, it’s easy to understand that there are biological males who feel female and vice versa.

But what a lot of people don’t know is that just like sexuality, gender is a spectrum. Some people don’t feel completely male or completely female. I remember how baffled I was the first time I encountered this several years ago. Trying to be sensitive, I asked a then new friend what pronouns were preferred, and that person shrugged and said “either.” At the time, I didn’t get it. I thought that maybe he (I chose male pronouns, following the example of this person’s partner) felt male but didn’t feel comfortable asking people to validate that. It wasn’t until sometime later that I encountered the terms “genderqueer,” “genderfluid,” “gender variant,” and “gender nonconforming,” which helped me to conceptualize that this person felt somewhere between male and female, or maybe completely neutral and not even on that spectrum at all. But our language doesn’t provide pronouns for people like that. Some people have tried inventing them and use words like “zie” and “hir” but if you use those words, many people have no idea what you’re talking about. Others just prefer the use of the word “they,” as in “oh, that’s Alex. I met them a few hours ago. Let me introduce you to them.” The first few times I tried it, the word “they” as a singular pronoun felt weird in my mouth and really awkward to say. But after this conference, I feel confident saying that I feel pretty competent using these pronouns.

4. BDSM is not scary.

BDSM has always been the part of the GSRM community that I have distanced myself from. I haven’t gone to panels that cover related issues or talked to people in “the scene” about it because frankly, it has always made me uncomfortable. But talking to people at this conference, I’m amazed at the level of respect and communication necessary to negotiate a BDSM scene. It involves setting boundaries and parameters, being open about levels of comfort, and learning how to communicate if things have gone too far. There are still a lot of ways that people “play” that I can’t imagine ever trying myself… but I think that when laypeople talk about Bondage, Dominance, Sadism, and Masochism, the words that come to mind are often things like “perverted” or “depraved.” But if you take as a given that everything that occurs is consensual and set boundaries are respected, non-practitioners of BDSM could actually learn a whole lot about sexual communication from this community.

5. Coming out is hard.

I already knew this intuitively. And I’ve been, alternately, a shoulder to cry on and a bulldog protecting perceived threats to my friends for years and years. But here – try an experiment. Write down on a piece of paper the ten most important things in your life… the things that get you out of bed and make your life worth living. It can be anything, from people to activities to your career to a cup of coffee. No seriously, give this a try – it’s meaningful and important. Come back to this article when you’ve completed that task.

Ok, done? Now cross off three things from that list. Did you do that? Think about how you’re feeling, having crossed those things out of your life. Alright, now cross off three more. Did you do it? Was it harder? Check in with yourself – how are you feeling right now? Ok, now cross off three more so that there’s only one thing left. How do you feel?

We did this experiment in one of the workshops this weekend, and I’ll tell you – it was hard. I crossed off my first three without too much trouble. Then my next three were harder – I found myself crossing off most of the things that make me who I am – interests like musical theatre and scrapbooking that are an enormous part of how I define myself and how others define me. I looked at my list, and all I had left were my partner, my parents, my friends, and singing, the last of which feels like my very core. And when the activity leader told me to cross off three more, I stuck my pen in my ponytail and crossed my arms. I absolutely refused. But when I thought about it later, I thought to myself that I probably would have kept singing, because it’s such a part of how I express myself that I would need it to genuinely process the loss of everything else. And that’s a tame reaction – other people in the room were sobbing at the thought of these losses.

Here’s the parallel: A person who is thinking about coming out has a perceived loss of all of the important things in their life. They won’t necessarily lose these things, but they feel that they may. And so every time they are open about who they are, there is a fear that other important pieces of their life will be lost.

6. There is still a lot of fighting ahead.

Advocating for the rights of marginalized groups is such an important thing to do. Massachusetts recently designated transgender individuals as a protected group when it comes to housing and employment, but there’s still a lot left to fight for. In the transgender community, for example, public accommodations are still a big issue. Gender-neutral bathrooms are not widely available, and a transgender person can be asked to leave any establishment where management is not comfortable with a person’s non-conforming gender presentation. I even met a woman who told me she was fired from her job because she came out as polyamorous.

I’m confident that with people like Gunner Scott, Ignacio Rivera, and Lorelei Erisis advocating for these causes, changes will be made, but there’s still a long way to go.

7. A family is not always two people plus children.

At this conference, I really came to appreciate the notion that polyamory is more than just a desire to be “promiscuous.” It means a mindset in which you are open to being in a relationship – be it romantic or purely sexual – with more than one person. I met some incredibly family-minded individuals at the conference who defined family differently than how most people think of it. Four people who love each other all raising children together, or two committed individuals in a primary relationship who both have partners on the side to fill needs – whether those needs are sexual, social, or something else. It’s a mindset wherein people don’t depend on one person to fill every single need they may have. Some people talked about being an introvert with an extroverted partner who likes to go out a lot, and the value of that person having other partners to go to some of those events so that the introvert can have “alone time” and sit on the couch and read without their partner feeling neglected. I still think monogamy is for me (and I’m pretty sure most poly people wouldn’t hold that against me) but I’ve definitely broadened my perspective of what makes a family or a relationship.

8. Community and supporting one another are key.

The theme of this year’s conference was “bringing us all together.” This reflects the importance of community not only among transpeople and among poly people and among kinky people and among gay people and among asexual people and so on, so forth, but also the importance of being supportive of other communities. I learned a lot by venturing outside my normal “comfort zone” and was pleasantly surprised at how welcomed I was. It’s so important to question biases, educate yourself, and be there for other groups. I also learned that an ally isn’t just someone who’s privileged in every area and supportive of marginalized groups, but also someone who is part of some of those marginalized groups but advocates for the rights of other groups where they themselves are privileged.