Fertility treatment! Adoption! Craigslist sperm donors! Never in a million years did Gina think she would be a parent. Until she met Rae.
What does it look like to go through so many changes together? How do you navigate conflict in a long term relationship? How does this queer couple approach having and raising children? Hear it all on this episode of the Queer Joy Podcast; where two relationship therapists explore what it looks like to see joy in queer relationships.
Find Gina at: heygina.com or @heyginasena on Insta
Find Rae on Instagram @transpainter
Ethical Non-Monogamy Group: bit.ly/enmgroup
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Shop at As You Like It here: bit.ly/asyoulikeitshop
Connective Therapy Collective website: connectivetherapycollective.com
FB & IG: @connectivetherapycollective
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TRANSCRIPT
Gina: I was wandering the streets of Portland crying with all of my comrades who were also crying. And I got this phone call. From our caseworker, who said, there's a baby at the hospital. Do you want to go cuddle this baby? And it was like, that's the only thing I want to do! And so we entered into this really weird time where it was like the world is ending and our dreams are coming true at the same. . Keely: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to queer relationships, queer joy. I am one of your hosts, Keeley, C Melisa: home-ec. And I'm your other host, Melissa DeSegiurant Keely: We have an interview today super excited for Gina and Rae to be here. Melissa, would you like to do the honors to introduce yourself first? And then we can have our guests introduce themselves? Melisa: Sure. So I'm Melissa. I am white, bisexual polyamorous, able body, gender fluid, and a licensed marriage and family therapist and professional counselor at Connective Therapy collective. Keely: I am Kelly C Helmick. I am a queer sex therapist, owner of Connective Therapy Collective, non-binary. Single solo currently, non-monogamously dating. A white able-bodied and super excited for our guests today. So you all, would you like to introduce yourselves in however format works best for you? Gina: Sure. You want me to go first? Yeah. Okay. I'm Gina Senarighi. I am also a couple's therapist. I now work as an intimacy coach, mostly online. And I'm a podcaster and a writer. I am partnered to Rae and parent of two- w we are both parents of two preschoolers, so we have a very loud household. We share a tiny dog and a big garden. I'm a big gardener and a witch. I am white. We are living on the land of the Miami Pottawatomie and Kickapoo tribes, but a lot of people call it Madison, Wisconsin. And we've lived here for two years just during the pandemic, really. Chillin. Because we moved back here, this is where I originally grew up and we had lived on the west coast. Separately and together in Seattle and Portland for around 20 years-ish. On and off. Is there more? I think that's it. Rae: Yeah. For now I am Rae. Gina's spouse, and I also go by trans painter. I'm a, I'm an artist. And I'm a graphic designer by trade. I mainly focus on trans and non-binary representation because I'm a trans masculine person. I am white and able-bodied and I love what I do. And I'm excited to be here today and talk to you guys. Keely: Yay. Well, I'm so excited. I'm excited. Is that where the two of you met? Did you meet in Portland or where did y'all meet? Gina: Yeah, we met in Seattle. I dragged him to Portland after being like, I'm going to move to Portland and be single and do my own thing for a while. And then was like, no, come two months later, I was like, come live with me. Rae: Oh, yeah, I knew I had to let you just go do your thing. Gina: So the two of you have a Keely: journey you've been together for many years, and I know at some point there are moments. I mean, before kids and. Gina: We have stories we can share. We've been together a long time. I mean, you know, at this point, like we're there, I don't know a lot of long, long long-term many decade queer relationships are few and far between those of us who stayed together 12 plus we had 12 or 13 years now, 12 years. 2009, whatever everybody at home, do the math 2009 until. Melisa: I'm super excited to have you be able to share that story because I do have clients all the time asking, like, is it possible, like, can I be in a long-term relationship? So thank you. Thank you for being here. Gina: Yeah. And I think though that, like, there is something really unique about the queer long-term relationships that it is like, we don't do. You know, being queer as like, we don't do shit like everybody else. And there's like this default relationship setting. I know you two have hit on this before, but like, you know, that says, like we do this, then we did this and then it looks like this forever and ever. And I think like part of it is like circumstantially shit hit the fan many times in our relationship, but also like being queer people. We don't do it. Just like, you know, like we're a custom build. Yeah. And so there, you know, the few folks that I do know who've been together a long time. It's like, there really are pronounced eras of like, I understand myself this way now, and you understand yourself this way now, and then that changed. And then that shifted., there's like a lot more room for that growth. Like, and you have to be able to grow side by side. If you're going to do a queer relationship. I mean, We have certainly dialed that in. I would say, Hey, it's Cardinal. Your favorite celestial cephalopod, as Gina said to be in a queer relationship is to change together. Are you entering an era of understanding yourself as a non-monogamous person? Keeley and Melissa are hosting an eight week ethical non-monogamy education and support group that meets once a week, starting March 29th, 2020. Learn vocabulary around different relationship styles and ways to build non-monogamous relationships have weekly time to process with other non-monogamous folks around challenges and opportunities from an ethical non-monogamous relationship structure, develop communication skills and practice tools to help strengthen non-monogamous relationship connections. This group is a closed group, meaning once it starts, you can't jump in late. So go to bit dot L Y. Slash E N M a group to sign up today. That's bit dot L Y slash E N M as an ethical non-monogamy group. All right. Back to the show. Keely: well, what would you say a moment of growth is that the two of you would share with people, Rae: what should we choose? Cancer survival? Infertility survival? Of me transitioning Gina: several times. I mean, you have like enough, you get to your gender transition counts in a way that, because. You identify as trans, I would also say like, I've gone from like swingin high femme to this like Butch femme life that I'm living now in the Midwest. And your cancer then like meant that your, your healthcare, your treatment around your gender identity options were limited for awhile. And so like, you did a couple rounds of gender transition. Yeah I'm on round three or four now. Anyway, so we've done. We moved across the country. We adopted a baby. We had a baby. Yeah. We've done a lot of different areas in the 12 years that we've been here. Yeah, Keely: Well, why don't we hear the story about, you'd already been together for a while and started the journey, the infertility adoption journey. 'cause I think that's something I have people asking a lot about of wanting to have kids and, and, and how that looks in a queer relationship and hearing because you're here now. I know, I mean, I know a little bit about the listeners being able to hear it, the story through to where it's at now. Rae: Yeah. It was a long, was a long arc of a journey. Gina: Did you even think you wanted kids when we first got together? Because I Rae: didn't, I like, I had like this idea of like maybe someday, but it wasn't, it wasn't forefront until you and I w w we got married and then we both were like, oh, let's do this thing. Gina: 'cause when we started dating, we were both just hooking up. This is going to be a summer fling, no strings attached, just like easy-peasy good lovin. Making out at bars and then we like could not stop. And I was like in full rejection of commitment mode because I had come out of a marriage and was like, I will never settle down that. Yeah. Having two kids in a house in Wisconsin and it was like, NOT in the vision plan! Rae: Hey, we would not. No, Gina: no, no. I would have burned it all down. Burned it all down. Yeah. And yeah, but like I knew, I, I don't know. I had a thing happen. People say this thing happens my whole young adult life. I was like, I do not want to get pregnant. I took extreme measures to avoid pregnancy many times over. And then cut to, we were settling down in there. It was like, for me, there was like a switch that flipped that was like, oh, I want to do this thing with my body. I want to make a human being with this body. And I was very rooted in like we both were, we had like a really strong, like, you can envision anything. Kind of philosophy about what anything you envision could happen, if you believe in your true vision and align your shit and whatever. And we started trying with a good friend of ours. We auditioned a few sperm donors. I laughed because one, can I tell the story about. I'm going to tell her whatever you don't care. The when we first were thinking about where to get hers from we have like a ton of guy friends at this point, none of that. Creates from in their bodies, like none of them. And so we were like, we got to find someone and we don't know, we lit up, we don't know anyone. So I was like, what if... this was still when Craigslist had personals. I was like, Rae: did this, Gina: I mentioned to you. And then I was like, I just didn't want to do it as an experiment. So I posted on Craigslist personals and was like, here's what we need. Just your sperm. You're going to put in, in a cup, no sex involved. This is what we need. And then we don't want him taking off his glasses, just need this. Right. And I thought like, let's just see what sort of, what sort of interests this gets. So I posted it and I went to. And by the time I woke up in the morning to go to work, it was like six hours later or whatever. I had 78 responses. My God, there was a range of like I had just said, like, you have to do tell us what you think we need to know. And I thought like that would leave it open enough to see all. And I saw, we saw all kinds of stuff. We got everything from like Dick pics. Some people sent us pictures of their own children. And were like, look at the beautiful children I make. Some of them sent like detailed depictions of where they have thick body hair and where they have body hair. Very interesting, very sick social experiment. They were like, we, I will, I think I'm never going to meet someone who loves me. They were like 22. I'm never going to meet my true love. So I guess I should do this with you. And I was like buddy, you're 22!. Anyway. So that didn't work. I don't recommend. Finding a sperm donor through Craigslist personals. Nope. We did ask we addition to a couple of different friends and what some people don't, I mean, there's like lots of different ways people do it, but we auditioned a couple of friends. We took them out to dinner and we're like, Hey, you're a really cool person. Did you pay for the dinner? Yeah, we did. Yeah. Because these weren't very close friends. Well, one of them was really close, but lived far away. And the other one. Wasn't very close to us. Cause like I said, we did not know people who created from, in their bodies. We didn't know any of them. So we took this one friend of a friend out to dinner. He was really sweet. And then he was like, you know, I like to practice sex that is not protected on a very frequent basis. And I think that I'm not ready to open you two up to being in my. In my STI bubble. Like, I don't think that's what you would want for me to know. I was like, that is good information. And people don't talk about that as part of the conversation that has to happen. Like now we are all in a little, now we do a little bit more with COVID, but like we're all in a little STI bubble. If I'm literally putting your unwashed sperm into my body, that's what, you know, we didn't have to touch each other for us to cross contaminate a little bit. So Then this other good friend of ours used to come down. So we were living in Portland at the time we would pay for his train ticket. He would come down and spend the weekend with us in Portland. And he would take care of his little business in the bathroom. He was like super sweet and honored and like cried when we asked him. And it was like, I didn't know, he was single. He like a dreamboat guy. And a good friend., but yeah. And he used to come down. And it w we tried for almost a year, every month with him. And we were under some legal advisement that you have to pay and have a contract with the person, or you could get into legal trouble. I'm not a lawyer. I don't think your podcast is trying to do legal advice. So, but he, we signed a little contract with him and we paid him like a certain, like nominal amounts of money and paid for his train ticket. And he would come down. And then it wasn't working. And so we got a bunch of tests. I got pregnant with our little twins and miscarried at pride. And then we gave up for a minute and you got cancer, right? Rae: Yeah. That's like a condensed, Gina: I mean, this is like eight years of infertility. We did a lot of, there's a lot of timeline here. Rae: Yeah, we took a little break. We did try with. You know, using we had Gina: it shipped to us from the Spokane place. It would show up at our doorstep like this giant tube. PS people who are thinking about it. You have to, there you need space for the box. Tiny vial is inside this giant human sized box. Is that to keep it like, insulated?. Yeah. There's like a big tube of. Nitrogen or whatever it is. Yeah. You have to like unscrew the lid and like all this, you know, steam comes out and tiny little vile, like filed in your armpit. And then that didn't work. Then we tried some rounds with me, with drugs, and then we were like, fuck, this, this is super sad, but it is just not going to work. And then we were like, let's go down the road of trying to adopt. I had real strong biases. I did not want to foster or foster to adopt. so then we went to try and to adopt. Rae: We went through about a year. Of all of the training that you need to do. And, you know, and we ended up doing simultaneously, we did the adoption training program and we ended up doing the foster training program because it can boost your, you know, chances of getting chosen as an adoptive family, if you've, if you're already doing fostering and, and stuff like that. So we did both of those. We did like 200 hours of training within a year Gina: maybe and whatever. And then we were like, Not getting chosen as an adoptive family and for a couple of strange reasons, but they, one of the things they said we could do is get some experience with kids. If we really want it. Babies. I really wanted to start a human from the beginning if possible. And we like, so they were like, you should do this respite thing where you take for foster care. You can take someone home for a weekend or a week while they're between homes or their families getting them certified or whatever Rae: the situation yeah. Sign up to. And Gina: so we were like, okay, cool. Let's do that. And then we were like, fuck everything. Let's go on this. We went on a vacation cause we hadn't gone on vacations in a long time. Cause we were trying to time everything around my weird cycle. So we took this big, long vacation, came back four days later, the last president who shall not be named was elected. And I was wandering the streets of Portland crying with all of my comrades who were also crying. And I got this phone call. From our caseworker, who said, there's a baby at the hospital. Do you want to go cuddle this baby? And it was like, that's the only thing I want to do! And so we entered into this really weird time where it was like the world is ending and our dreams are coming true at the same. I think that's actually when Keelan. No, he's our son. Yep. Yeah. I saw Keely: your little Q and Gina: yeah. Teeny tiny came to coffee. Yeah. Yeah. He used to come to my sex therapy group where we like sit in his little rocker and we would talk about people's erectile dysfunction and weird kinks. It was great. It was Rae: great. Yeah. And then, so we had him and we thought that was it. And then We are queer. And we had lots of queer friends. We had a set of friends who had done IVF, and they had an extra fertilized egg that they didn't know what to do with, and they didn't want more children. And they reached out to estimate. Do you, you know, is this something that you would want and both of us Gina: wonder what would happen if we hadn't tried IVF because I have mystery and fertility. And so you do all these other tests and you pay for pay for pay for tests all the way, all the money that anyone could have ever spent on. Yeah, but it's much cheaper. If you get an embryo donated, it is like a fraction of the price. So we have a daughter. I know I need a whole human with my body. Oh my gosh. With a lot of medical assistance. Rae: Well, and I'm like, like looking back on it now. I'm of course like so grateful because like, we wouldn't have gone to the hospital to hold a two day old baby. Had we gotten, you know, Gina pregnant or before then, you know, like our journey was. A lot. It was stressful. It was full of sorrow, and a lot of places, Gina: grief, serious depression, serious depression. Let me be very clear about Rae: that. Yeah. Yeah. And then now, like we have this beautiful family. So I think like if anybody is in that place where they're just starting out or maybe they've been trying for a long time and it's really hard to like, see. The big picture when you're in the middle of it, you know, and we could not have known how this was going to turn out. But I'm, you know, incredible grateful for our two little. Magical kids and I'm Gina: family. I'm grateful. And I love our family and I want to be very clear also for the people who are listening in are like, oh, I've never heard of queer people talking about their infertility struggles. Let me be very clear and you can correct me, but I think I'm right on this. Rae is not saying it's all worth it now. Or like, just hold on and it'll get better or whatever. But like, there is. There is, there are lots of options and there's lots of life on the other side with, or without kids, honestly. And they think Rae: No, that's a good clarification. Gina: Cause we got a lot of that along the way is not helpful, you know, try and relax and trust the process. And it's hard to work out Rae: in the middle of it. It's really it's every month is stressful. Every time you try as stressful and full of like all of this emotion, you know, that they're like holding. So, yeah. Right. You know, everybody's journey is different. Ours took a long time, but yeah, here we are. Gina: We also moving across the country. One of the things that made it a lot easier for us was reaching out to queer parent groups and like immediately getting into like, Play dates and like new parent groups. And even like now surviving a pandemic, like having online communities of queers who are either queer parents or queer families or queers that we met through infertility or whatever, like that has been saving us because I mean, our youngest still can't get vaccinated. There's a lot of limitations on where we can, we feel safe going as a family and having. Queer folks that we met right away through being new parents here. And then. My community has saved us so many ways. Yeah. I've Melisa: heard so many families who are pandemic, like brand new parents and talking just about that, about the lack of access to community, and then not knowing what milestones, you know, would maybe naturally be happening if community are happening the way it was before the pandemic. Rae: Yeah. The way that our kids are socialized, I mean, our five and a half year old had all his opportunities to go to like kids singing. Day on Saturday morning or whatever. In our two year old, it is very clear. She had not had that. And so when she is in public, she'll be like shouting at people. She like loves people and wants to meet them. And she'll just be like, hi to like everybody, because she doesn't have. Gina: I've walked her through arrest and she like shouted across the room. She's in there. She's a Leo doesn't happen with our Scorpio. Well, Keely: so tell us about what it's been like for the two of you as a couple through this. Where you're at now. I mean, what I'm seeing and you know, this is kind of this, not that this is the end of your journey, but the, the final piece of this part of your journey, and you're going to this next piece and you've got, you have the kids you're in the home life, you're doing the thing. How did you make it through it as a couple? Like so many people don't get to this point. So we'll like add this point with a two year old and five and a half year old. Denzo Gina: the worst. Rae: What do you say? Okay. Well, I mean, I think that, you know, queer people do this rather naturally anyway, but I think it's important for anyone, which is. We from the get-go we're like trying to divide up the workload of especially new parenting and not knowing what the heck we were doing. And, you know, sleep deprivation is a real thing and drives people crazy. And so, like, we, we've always done this thing where we trade off nights, like Gina will do a night and then I will do a night. We've now switched it up to actually two nights on highly recommend. But like that way we each get. Sleep and can function like normal human beings, you know, like without sleep, it really does. Like your brain actually like brain science, you know, you when you don't have enough sleep, you actually stop recording short-term memory. I mean, like if there, you know, there are all kinds of ways that being a young, a new parent is. Tiny children is really challenging. And we've, I think we've done a good job of communicating with each other about like, I need to get out of the house when I need you to take the kids. I will be back in two hours, you know, like Gina: we've tried Rae: to just communicate really with each other about like what our needs are and, you know, give each other as much leeway, I think, as we can, you know, as far as like, Why don't you go for a walk? I'll take the kids when you're in the thick of it. It can be really challenging. Yeah. Gina: Yeah. I think that we like prioritize. Household management share stuff really well. And we like check in all the time about that. Kind of like, are you still good with this? Are you, this is how we've been handling it, but it's not feeling a balanced, I feel like I'm doing not enough of this. Or you feel like you're doing too much or whatever. Like we check in a lot about like, does this still feel like it's an okay. Yeah, maybe weekly, there's some version of one of us being like, are you good with this? Are you good with that? And then it doesn't have to be like a huge, like overhaul of all of the systems, if we've just like, you know, in general, like, oh, we checked in about who's going to do this and okay. You're handling it and okay. Fine. Rae: And making sure the only thing I would add is that we've made sure to give each other and encourage each other to spend time with friends. Gina has this weekend coming up where she's going to go, you know, with these childhood friends that she's been friends with her whole life once a year, they go on a trip together and they just they're all. Parents. Yeah. And you get away from your kids for your spouses, get to like, hang out and be with each other. And, you know, you encourage me to like go out for a beer with my friends every now and again. And I forget, I mean, he gets so busy with everything that we're doing and kids and mom. And so like, that's also been really important, I think is like having outside relationships. And that has been hard with moving across the country and a Gina: pandemic Keely: then the pandemic, like just combined. Yeah. Gina: Well, it's just like, we're really United. Like I'm trying to think. I am now like the couples counselor in me is like, thinking about that. Like, what is it that we do? That's different. So part of it is we, we like both take full responsibility for a functioning household. The other part is like, where you. We're United about valuing each other's self care. Like we'll say, like, I don't think about like, what do I need? I, I look at like, what do we need as a unit? Oh, you haven't had any movement in a while or have you at all check with you to see if you did, because I haven't done. I'm going to need that. Or you haven't have you left the house today? Have I left the house today? Like we just, I kinda like see it that way. I think you, I see you doing it too. It's just like, Hey, you haven't, you got a couple of real rough nights when so-and-so was getting up. Why don't you take this extra nap? Or why don't you, you know, like I w I think we see our shared energy level as like, as United resource, instead of like an either or being an adversaries about it and the whole system, and like, what's going Melisa: to help make us all. Gina: Yeah. shitty times when we don't see it that way because neither of us have slept and that's when we get bickery. You know what I mean? Like I think we tend to see that as like, oh, that's a signal. We haven't been on a date. Somebody hasn't slept, one of us need to sandwich. But when we start Rae: fighting, we're like, oh, it's because we haven't had a, an adult conversation when we're both awake in two weeks. You know what I mean? Like where we can hear each other talk we have, yeah. That's. Gina: Yeah, but it's not because you're a jerk or because I'm a failure or whatever that other kind of narrative might be. It's just like, oh, let's look at all of these other, all of the other reasons the factors going in here probably are the reason you were short with me. I know the fights are Rae: always like about dumb stuff, but just like, you know, we'll realize it in the middle of it usually and be like, oh, We don't take shit too Gina: personally, either. Like, even right before, right before we got on here, I was like, are you trying to start a fight with me right before we hop on here? Like, cause like, you know, in some relationships people would hear it because there'd be like a history of like me blaming you or being whatever that could sound like. What's wrong with you starting to fight. That's just me being very direct about how I asked that kind of question and you know that, but like, you know, we could very easily get into bickering fights or whatever. It just like any other couple, it's not like it's that far away. It, we keep it at bay. By doing these other things. Does that make sense? And you're Melisa: naming it for what it is too. And recognizing the context that's creating it rather than making a Gina: lot of meaning about it. Yeah. Thank you. Right. That's that's maybe what I'm thinking about too. Like we have accepted that. We are not perfect human beings a long time ago. That ship has sailed. Nobody expects perfection around here and that's helpful. Melisa: I love the way too, that you modeled like your check-ins, because I feel like we've talked about it a lot in the podcast. I talk about it a lot in sessions, but it can feel so foreign and like, it needs to be some long formal drawn out process, which maybe in some circumstances there does need to be a longer conversation, but just those simple, like, Hey, you good with this? Like, That's what it's about. It doesn't have to be this big, scary conversation, you know, maybe preferably, so that it's just organic as to part of the way you communicate Rae: day to day. Yeah. And I think there's just ways that We can kind of we'll check in about tone. A lot of times, tone of voice is a thing and that we've now figured out. It took us awhile. We've gotten in dumb fights about this, but it's because somebody like super tasky has two kids yelling at them and then I'll come in and yet ask you a question Gina: and you're like, don't fucking ask me one more question. But I got three things, Rae: And then I'm like, are you upset with me? And then I'm like, no, Gina: I just want you to handle it. I've got screamers. Rae: Yeah. We've had to figure out like, doesn't necessarily mean upsetness. I don't need to get personally offended. And, you know, and vice versa. Like we I'll be short sometimes and not realize it. Gina: Yeah, I was going to say something else next. And now I can't remember. He made me think about like, when I'm like so overstimulated and like my nervous system, Rae: there's a lot of like parenting young children where it is. It's like your, your nervous system is shot and you're like overstimulated because there's like so many things to manage and children usually being very loud, our children very loud. I don't know if everybody's still on, but I feel like our house is like loud all the time and it can be really overwhelming and it can be hard to like operate from your frontal cortex instead of like just survival, like get through whatever. Keely: Yeah. So are the two of you, you know, you don't have to go in detail, but like, are you still connecting? Because the other piece that I think when you're saying all of this is like, yeah, these themes of like community and working as a team and then are the two of you getting your connection. Gina: Yes and no., I mean, very real, like, it looks entirely different. All those people who I see in my office were like, well I don't want us to forget about each other when we have kids, I'm like, you are so it's so cute. It will never look like that again. It will never look like that again! It won't! You can go places with just the shit in your pockets, you know, like that is never gonna happen again, you know? And so like, life is going to change. It looks really different. And that's part of the ebb and flow and evolution of the relationship. I think Rae: We've ended up like prioritizing. Now, now that thank God we, we moved to the Midwest so that we could be near Gina's amazing family, particularly her amazing parents who really want to help us out with childcare, which has been amazing. And so like, they like feed us. They're they're fantastic. They're amazing. And that I'm incredibly lucky to married into this family. Anyway, we have prioritized going on a weekend a date, you know, like what Chicago is not far away, we'll drive down to Chicago for an overnight and leave the kids with her parents. And even though we're not getting like necessarily day to day, The connection time that I think we need and we want, because we're tired, usually, you know, overwhelmed. So we've tried to prioritize taking weekends here and there taking a, you know, a couple of days in the middle of the week when the kids can be at school, but the grandparents can take them in the overnight. And, you know, that's just been within the last year that we've been able to start doing that, but it's been a game changer because. It is like the day-to-day connection is a lot harder. It's just, it's a lot harder to make. But we, you know, as long as we can get those, like, like, you know, a little, I think Gina: I talk about it. Like, it's like micro-dosing to the, with my clients, I refer to it that way a lot. Like, there are plenty of times, like after this podcast we're going to go to, we have a hot tub, we're going to go. But like, there are plenty of times Rae will pick up lunch for the two of us in the middle of the week. Right. And like, there is a certain amount of class privilege that we now have worked our asses off for, in some ways, but have also just earned, but the or were given but so that we have flexible schedules that we can like, let's go for a walk and we have to use the kids being in childcare as like a time when we can use that. So it ends up being day, dates or afternoon delights, or bring in each other fancy snack plates or whatever. That feel like tinier moments of connection or like quick five minute check-in while we're both making lunch in the kitchen, but Rae: like you're right. It's a balance of both. Yeah. Like having some dedicated time is just for us. And then like the little snapshots when, when and where. Piece them together. Gina: But also I think just normalizing that we're not going to connect in the same way is huge because if either of us gets like, butt-hurt about something, we're like, oh, well it's because we haven't really hung out in a minute. And like, I can understand that. And you know, like, okay, let's get it back in balance or whatever. But if we, if either of us clung to some kind of rigid, like, oh, we have to have our connection with the same way that it did before. But two human beings relied on us for their being alive. I mean silly. Keely: Well, it has been such a joy talking to both of you and getting again, getting to meet you Ray. Cause I've had plenty of opportunity to hang with Gina and love talking to both of you. And like, maybe it will have, I really feel like we'll have to have you on again to hear more of your story because you both are a delight to listen to. Gina: I love doing that. I love talking about us cause I always, whenever we do these, we used to do on my Instagram feed. We would do like the couples work workbook that I wrote. We would like work through a section of it together. And it's always so nice. Cause I, it is like, you know, when you're micro-dosing connection and a busy life with your partner, like sitting down to talk about how great I love it. We get a lot from it too. Yeah. Well, Keely: listen, we're always joking. Cause the list Melissa is like not wanting to date right now. So like, I don't know. Part of the thing about the podcast is that I totally solo single. In the very beginning dating era again, and Melissa like, oh, I don't need a date. Melisa: I have like one partner in a different state. Like that's, that's my comfort level right now dating, but I get so much out of listening to everyone. Else's stories. It fills me up. Keely: Yeah. It's almost selfish. Like, oh, there's hope. There's hope. Great relationships. Well would either of you like to start off sharing your queer joy, it doesn't have to be exactly from this week. We always like wrap up with a queer joy Gina: I mean, ours will likely, always be about our children, but I took the two kids by myself to a cave like a park this weekend because it is cold here. Y'all it is really cold, but underground, it stays warm. And so they like ran around with their little they both had little headlamps they're like running around through there and like loved it. We learned new words and like, I could hear them like giggling and shrieking through a million different caverns. It was amazing. So great. Yeah. So queer joy in the caves. I Rae: will piggyback off of that because Gina took the kids. As an example, so that I could stay home and paint. I haven't been, I, I I'm a painter, but I don't always get time to do that I've been sick, like a whole bunch of this year. And so I got to spend time in my studio just painting and it was so wonderful. And I was able to do that because I have a partner who was like, I will take the kids so you can go do the thing that you like to do. And my appreciation. Keely: So on this other realm, but I'm excited to say it because, well, so I went on a date and my parent chose, like not only did I like went on a date and was very well taken care of when the dates, but got to go to this. The Kit-Kat club has a all genders, all bodies night. Hmm. And so it was just so. Fucking queer to be strip club. I mean like dirty, like talking about dirty quote unquote good stuff. And I'm like hey my queer joy! Naked bodies!, Rae: that sounds fantastic. Keely: Yeah. So shout out. Thank you, sir. To the person who took me out. Um, Yeah, it was a great, great time. Great. Just getting out there and honestly staying up way too late. I do not normally stay up that late, which is great and then paid for it for like two days afterwards. That's my queer joy. Melisa: I feel like our queer joys often, like the way that you just describe your dating lives, like we're joys go really similar. Cause like. Fun. Like I got out like met people and I'm like, I have cats and plants legit, my queer joy again. And I'm celebrating the one-year adoption anniversary of both of my kittens. They were two, two separate days and shelters, but this week is that week. So I am giving them lots of extra love and attention and trying to keep them from attacking my plants, which is now the new thing at my house. Keely: Well, the two and before we end today, do either of you want to, I would love for listeners to know a little bit more about Gina, your podcast and your work. Just plug that a little bit and Rae you both do awesome work. So just a little snippet. If people want to like reach out and contact you and get to know you. Gina: Yeah. Well, my website is, Hey, gina.com and I'm Hey, Gina Sena and all of the social media. But I also have a podcast called Swoon that's similar in some ways to y'all's where there's two sex therapists who talk about all things love and relationship every week. So those are my big projects right now. This guy, Rae: uh, Gina: I it's a famous artist. He doesn't brag enough. Rae: I Gina helped me coin the term trans painter, because my name isn't as easy to spell a different name. So yeah, you can find me a trans painter.com or on Instagram, a trans painter or Facebook. And I. You know, many years ago just saw, just had a realization that like I've never walked into an art museum in the portrait gallery and seen a trans person. And I was like, oh so that's where I've dedicated my work. I focus on trans and non-binary representation and just you know, seeing ourselves up in a portrait gallery and an art museum, this is my goal. And so I've traveled all over the United States with these paintings and continue to do that. And my paintings are coming a lot slower nowadays we have two kids, but it's still happening. So it's fun. Keely: Oh, beautiful. So beautiful. Well, thank you again for joining us today and I definitely want to hear more of your stories. We'll have to bring you back on and listeners, thanks everyone for joining us today. And I hope all of you have a queer joyful week. Thanks for listening to queer relationships, queer joy, a podcast by the Connective Therapy, Collective hosted by Kelly C Helmick and Melissa DeSegiurant with audio edited and produced by me. Cardinal marking intro music is by a bad snacks. This week's guests were Gina and Ray Senarigi find Gina at Hey, Gina Sena on Instagram and Ray at trans painter on Instagram links are in the show notes. If this episode made you smile or think, tell us about it, if you hated it, tell us about that. Review us on iTunes or Spotify, or send us an email at info at Connective Therapy. Collective. For more queer joy, visit our website at www dot Connective Therapy. Collective dot com. Love ya. Bye.