We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Rae McDaniel a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Rae, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

As a gender and s*x therapist running a group therapy practice, I had always dreamed of taking my work with transgender/non-binary folks to a broader audience but wasn’t sure what that looked like. It had always been a dream to write and publish a book but it felt impossible given that I wasn’t internet famous.

So when a publisher expressed interest in having me write a book, I was flattered and shocked.

Backstory: I am a non-binary person and have worked with transgender and non-binary folks navigating identity and expression for over 10 years. When I started my own business in 2018, I signed up for a business coaching program. The coaching program taught me how to create intellectual property-a model- from the work I was doing with my clients, research in mental health and other fields, and my own personal experience as a transgender person.

I was frustrated that the dominant narrative about gender exploration and transition only focused on the negative and hard parts of what it means to be a transgender person in our world today. We can’t ignore those things, but I was also seeing my clients and community thrive and wanted to figure out how to make that thriving accessible for more people. I got curious and I followed that curiosity.

I sat on my living room floor for weeks surrounded by client notes, sticky notes, books, and research articles until I was able to get clarity on how all of the pieces fit together to create a framework for helping transgender and non-binary folks explore and transition their gender with less suffering and more ease. The outcome of this-The Gender Freedom Model-became a peer-reviewed journal article and the backbone of my book, Gender Magic.

Flash forward to the publisher expressing interest. I spoke with my business mentor, also an author, who felt that I was ready to write a book even though I didn’t feel quite ready. She encouraged me to slow down to find the best fit and the best book deal. I took her advice and worked on a book proposal for 6 months with a professional book proposal consultant before successfully pitching it to an agent and publisher. And Gender Magic became a real live book baby.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Rae McDaniel (they/them) and I’m a queer and non-binary Speaker, Author, Therapist, Certified S*x Therapist, Coach, and Transgender Diversity and Inclusion Educator. I help folks gain the sheer audacity to be themselves in the world through play, pleasure, and possibility.

My upcoming book Gender Magic is a first-of-its-kind practical guide to achieving gender freedom with joy, curiosity, and pleasure for transgender and non-binary individuals, gender explorers, and those who love them (May 2023.) I educate and speak internationally on topics related to gender freedom, audacity, moving through self-doubt and fear, relationships, and authentic business practices. I’m also the founder and CEO of Practical Audacity, a Gender & S*x Therapy practice in Chicago, serving over 300 clients yearly.

I grew up as the adopted child of Southern Baptist Missionary Puppeteers. Yep, you heard that right. It was a long and winding road to get to where I am today. I developed a love of psychology in undergrad at the same time as I was struck by the challenges I saw my LGBTQ+ friends experiencing as they navigated their identities, relationships, s*x, and coming out. I went to grad school to be a therapist in order to help others with similar struggles. My career has expanded quite a bit from that point, but my core mission has and always will be to help people live their biggest, best, most authentic lives. Because I believe that brings magic to the world.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I had a season while I was writing my book where my world felt like it was falling apart. I felt like my dreams were slipping through my fingers and I was overwhelmed, sad, and too in survival brain to even have the capacity to try to fix it. Frankly, I felt like a failure.

Over a period of six months, my partner’s father died unexpectedly and my partnership of five years ended. We had major staff turnover, staff/business/financial issues, and big conversations as an admin team about their capacity. I felt like my business was falling apart. Writing a book was one of my greatest life dreams and I was slipping my deadline by a lot. I tried a million strategies and nothing was working. To top it all off, I got a bad kidney infection and the vacation that was meant to be a recharging time turned into the vacation from hell.

Slowly, very slowly, things began to turn around. My admin team and I worked very hard to fix our staff issues and get back to a financially stable place. I asked for an extension for my manuscript and got it and was eventually able to write again. I write this about 1.5 years later from that extremely difficult time with a finished book about to be released, a stronger admin and clinical team than ever before, and from a place of pride for having made it through.

One of the greatest lessons I learned was letting trusted people in on my struggles. They didn’t need to have answers, but it was helpful to be reminded that I was not a failure (regardless of the outcome) and I was seen and held by people who loved me and were rooting for me.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Slow and steady wins the race. From the time I was a graduate student in psychology, I focused my work on becoming an expert in a niche within my field-the LGBTQ+ population, transgender and non-binary identity development, and s*x therapy. I read everything I could get my hands on and pursued training and clinical opportunities that would allow me to deepen my knowledge. I started teaching others what I knew in small speaking engagements, even though I was newer to the field. I started writing on social media and in blog posts. I went to conferences and networking events. I became known as someone who specialized in my niche very quickly and my clients and colleagues began giving me word-of-mouth referrals and opportunities.

My “overnight success” was ten years in the making. I decided very early on in my life that if I was going to bet on anything, it was going to be myself. I took considerable risk in starting my business and hiring employees and it paid off.

One of the greatest things that sets me and my business and work apart is that it is all unapologetically authentic. I share about my personal identity development as a queer and transgender person, I state the values of my company loudly and publically, and I’m not shy about sharing my opinions and standing up for what I believe in. I believe that authenticity is the key to success in business.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.rae-mcdaniel.com
• Instagram: @theraemcdaniel
• Other: TikTok @theraemcdaniel