Drs. Mackenzie Steiner and Alex Iantaffi discuss their collaborative program, The Collective Alchemy of Gender Liberation. This is a new, somatic-based program created by trans people for trans people in service to our collective liberation. In this episode, they talk about how the program started, the values it’s rooted in, and how gender is an embodied experience. Mackenzie and Alex also talk about how their collaborative process is heart-centered and based in relationality, rather than product-focused and treating the collaboration as a mean to an end, as is often the case in dominant culture. While the program is by and for trans people, the episode has much to offer to cis folks as well in relation to a deeper understanding of gender and to what a collaborative process centered in decoloniality might look like.
Mackenzie Steiner is a reformed clinical psychologist with over 20 years of clinical experience specializing in attachment, gender identity and socialization, as well as addictions and trauma recovery. For 20 of those years, she worked with veterans facing just about every possible type of concern related to their identities, relationships and mental health, but particularly at the interface of addictions and complex post-traumatic stress. Mackenzie transitioned into private practice at the beginning of 2023 to stretch her wings and be free to practice with communities and in ways unencumbered by organizational constraints. At the heart of her work is building an attuned, compassionate and safe relational base from which to explore the challenging aspects of one’s history and how it intersects with the present moment. Mackenzie accomplishes this through a mosaic of attachment, mindfulness, emotionally and somatically focused approaches as well as parts-work perspectives that she has found most efficiently and humanely promote long-term change and deep healing. And she has found that nature can be a profound ally for this process!
On the more personal side, she is an avid outdoors-person who is most nourished by activities ranging from landscaping to hiking, climbing and backpacking. She is also a seeker of mysteries, having an insatiable curiosity to discover the knowledge and wisdom underlying our physical, psychological, relational and spiritual realities in service of promoting our health and authentic evolution.
Find out more about the Collective Alchemy of Gender Liberation and Dr. Mackenzie Steiner at the following links:
Website: https://www.gender-alchemy.org/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/collectivegenderalchemy/ @collectivegenderalchemy
Dr. Mackenzie Steiner’s website: https://naturesmosaictherapy.com/
Instagram: GenderStories
Hosted by Alex Iantaffi
Music by Maxwell von Raven
Gender Stories logo by Lior Effinger-Weintraub
