If You Can't Find It, Make It With Lasara Firefox Allen

Surprise! The menopause industrial complex would like to pretend queer people don't go through menopause. So author, witch, activist, and certified gap-closer Lasara Firefox Allen did what any reasonable neurodivergent genderqueer person would do — if you can't find it, make it. They wrote the book, built the course, started the cohort, and showed up on this podcast to talk about all of it. In this episode, Lasara and I get into why your gyno's eyes glaze over the second you say "they/them," what perimenopause anxiety actually is (spoiler: it might be your future self screaming at you to get your life together), why loneliness in old age is somehow deadlier than a pack-a-day habit, and how jasmine flowers are apparently the universe's answer to everything. Grief rituals! Jailbroken goddesses! Intergenerational co-mentorship in the Netherlands! It's a lot. In the best way.

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Transcript

Julia 0:00

Are you haunted by the thoughts that show up at 3 a.m.? Good. This is where we follow them. We're science meets

ADHD

Julia 0:08

what you're doing. Hey there. Before we get into the show, I want to ask you a question. Do you have multiple browser tabs open right now? Is there a to-do list somewhere that you started and absolutely did not finish? Did you sit down to do one thing and somehow ended up doing three other things and also none of the original thing? Yeah, me too. And also, I made something for us. I am hosting the Magpie Circle, a one-time virtual workshop for women, genderqueer, and non-binary adults with ADHD who are done pretending the neurotypical playbook works for them. In 60 minutes, we're going into the real stuff. Time blindness, the actual neuroscience of why you're always late, and somehow always shocked, it's Thursday. Emotional dysregulation. The part of ADHD, you know, that nobody talks about until you're like crying over a mildly passive-aggressive email. And shame because most of us have been quietly believing we're broken since about the third grade. And it's time to put that story to rest. No toxic positivity. No just use a planner energy, which ugh, I can't stand that when people say that, can you? Just honest tools from a coach who has ADHD too, and a room full of people who actually get it. It's Tuesday, June 9th, 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Eastern, live on Zoom, and you can absolutely stay off camera. Oh, and there's a replay if you can't make it live. The investment, I'm sure you're thinking, asking, is $47 or $37 with code MAGPI26, all caps, Magpie26 at checkout. But that early bird price expires on June 1st, so don't let your ADHD lose this information. But not to worry, I will put all of that into the show notes so that you can have a look. Spots are limited, mostly because intimacy matters, and also because I have ADHD. And managing a giant Zoom is genuinely chaotic. So, you know, I gotta be careful about that. Link again is in the show notes. Come find your people. And now let's get into it. Hello,

Opening Monologue

Julia 3:09

ladies and gentlemen, they're and thems. Welcome to the show. In the previous iteration of this podcast, Circling the Drain, my co-host and I tried desperately to fill the gap on queer menopause, but there wasn't a lot out there at the time. Now we were lucky enough to have Heather Corinna on, who wrote What Fresh Hell Is This? And they were pretty much the only queer voice in the menopause space until a few years ago. But finally, today's guest wrote the book we've been needing. Gender Queer Menopause covers the diverse menopause experiences of non-binary, trans, and other queer-bodied individuals who have been overlooked and actively invisibilized for far too long. And author, the Sarah Firefox Allen, is such a gem. I can't believe they agreed to be on the show. I really, really can't admit that. They are also the author of Jailbreaking the Goddess, Sexy Witch, and the Upcoming Magical Menopause. Their work explores intersectional feminism, sexuality, spirituality, health, and wellness, and has appeared in magazines, anthologies, encyclopedias, and literary journals, including Literary Fiction, Spooky Gates, Pulp Magazine, and Mountain Bluebird magazine. In addition to nonfiction, they also write poetry and micro-memoirs, and are the author of two poetry chap books as well as the anthology Disjointed. A witch, activist, non-for-profit, executive director, and menopause, and life coach Lazara continues to work as a co-conspirator for collective liberation. And honestly, they are truly awesome. I had such a wonderful time speaking to Lazara, and I cannot wait for you to hear this interview. So let's get into it. Hi, Lassara. Thank you so much for coming to the show today.

Interview

Julia 5:06 Lasara 5:06

It's a pleasure, Julia. I'm super excited to be here, honestly.

Julia 5:10

I'm glad you're here. We're gonna dive right in. I'm just gonna ask you to start by stating your name, your pronouns, your age, and what's been keeping you up at night.

Lasara 5:22

For sure. So my name is Lisara Firefox Allen. My pronouns are they, them primarily, although I'm finding some I'm moving into some inquiry about that. I'm real a real believer, a real believer in, you know, changing till we die. And let's see, I'm 54, I'll be 55 in May. So that's just around the corner. Are you a Taurus? And I'm a Gemini, just over the cusp. I have a bunch of Taurus though. And then and then what's keeping me up at night? Honestly, a really complex mix of personal concerns and political concerns, and the whole sort of sandwich generation reality of you know being caregiver to my parent while also, you know, having responsibilities toward my children and my immediate family. My children are grown, but you know, we still have responsibilities toward our children, regardless of how old they are. It doesn't really end. No, it never ends. And then, you know, and then the you know, the the the secret sauce of, you know, we're I know we'll talk about neurodivergent some today, but how all those stressors are playing on my on my diagnoses. That's what's keeping me up at night.

Julia 6:37

Yeah, I relate deeply to everything that you just said for the most part. Yes. And I we will definitely touch on the neurodivergent stuff, but yes, these times are very complicated. And I think Gen X, we've been doing a really good job of naming. We have really good names for everything. So sandwich generation is one of my favorite. Uh, it's very real. And like everything, I'm hoping that we are going to make things better for the people that come after us by naming it and hopefully figuring some stuff out. Figuring some stuff out.

Lasara 7:15

I agree. I I hope that as well. And, you know, I mean, I want to say too, sandwich generation in the last few years has grown to encompass a whole, you know, slew of millennials. So welcome to the team, millennials. And I want to give another really astounding name for some a phenomenon that's going on right now, which is the silver tsunami, which is the the fact that we are not prepared for the age, the age wave that's hitting with the you know, silent generation and boomers. And they're entering into the final chapters of their lives, and we have no infrastructure in place. And that is both a sociological and and cultural concern on my part and a deeply personal one. And so the silver tsunami is another, I think, just brilliant term that has been coined recently, just to describe what's coming with the with the wave of uh aging with no services in place.

Julia 8:14

Absolutely. Something I think a lot about, and I'll try not to to diverge too much from moving forward in our conversation. I'm actually on the search right now, listeners. Anyone, I really want to speak to a death doula. If anyone out there knows anybody, it's on my list. I do amazing. This is something I want to cover because as I'm sure you already know, death is not something we like to talk about culturally, but it's coming for everyone. And I agree we're not very prepared when it comes to not only ourselves, but our elders, our folks, you know, who are of the silver tsunami and what we're supposed to do. So not only social services, but it's like culturally, emotionally, psychological. All of it. Yeah.

Lasara 8:55

Family infrastructure, late-stage capitalism has made it impossible to create a caregiver scenario that doesn't jettison whole families. A bankruptcy is one of the only options. Like it's really bleak. It's very, very bleak. And as far as the death component goes, I, as you know, I really cover that pretty deeply in gender career menopause in a number of different spots because we can't enter into this period of our own lives without facing our own mortality. I don't think we can in a healthy way without really facing some of those elements that come up. How do we want to age? How do we want to die? And who do we want to be surrounded by? Exactly.

Julia 9:38

You know, uh, and I'm gonna put it. What is a good death? You know, because we're gonna we're gonna get into that a little bit more. And I don't want to I have one more thing I want to ask before we dive in. So as I ask everyone, I'm gonna ask you to tell me where you are personally in the liminal space of aging and identity and just some context that means, you know, maybe what you feel like is ending, what is beginning, or even emerging.

Lasara 9:58

Yeah, that's a really great, rich question. I could speak on that for a whole hour, I'm sure. I am postmenopausal by about, well, coming up on five years now, uh five and a half years. Um I am, you know, as I sort of alluded to, I'm the care manager for my mother who's elderly and relatively infirm and you know, physically incapacitated primarily, and you know, still trying to manage a career and or two simultaneously. And you know, I feel like what is emerging, and I talk about this a lot in gender per menopause as well, but what is emerging is the like the extreme need to prioritize my own well-being. And and I I would say if I have a keynote today, that would be it, the extreme need to prioritize my own well-being. And as a giver, as a caregiver, as a caretaker, as a problem solver, as someone who's been filling gaps all my life and you know, seeing a problem and solving it, it's it's it's it's a tall order.

Julia 11:13

It is. And I I find that a lot of clients who come to me in this phase of life, whether they're peri, in menopause, you know, post-menopausal, as in like just a few years, they're prioritizing them themselves for the first time in their entire lives. That's what I'm encountering. I don't know if you are in your practice.

Lasara 11:34

You know, I mean, I've done I've done a huge amount of work around learning how to take care of myself as a person who lives with, you know, a neurodivergent profile. You know, I've done an incredible amount of work to make sure that I know how to do triage and take care of myself as, you know, when I notice the cracks, you know, starting in the foundation. But I haven't aced it, you know, I just haven't aced it. And so, you know, it's just a it's it's an ongoing, it's an ongoing process to learn how to prioritize ourselves. And it's like right now, it feels like an extreme sport for me.

Julia 12:12

You know, yeah, yeah, I get that. I I often refer to it as a practice, just like meditation, just like anything else. It's nothing you ever perfect. It's something you can you consistently come back to. And not every day is a win. We do our best and we try again the next day, right? Right, exactly, exactly.

Lasara 12:30

And and the goalposts are constantly changing, you know, our bodies are shifting, our our you know, our our psychological composition isn't the same day to day, you know, even if we're postmenopausal, you know, depending on what kind of hormone treatment we might be doing. We have hormonal components, we have, you know, sleep and lack of sleep. We have all of the attendant, you know, concerns of peri and postmenopause to manage ongoingly. And that is a shifting terrain. That is not a static. We don't hit a static point five years into postmenopause. It's never said. Not in my not not, yeah, not in my experience anyway.

Julia 13:09

Same. No. Yeah, I don't think for many. I don't think for many, if anyone. Which speaking of, why are we here today, everyone? We are here to discuss this fantastic book, uh Queer Gender Menopause, which is this new book that Lassara has written. And I feel like it is really filling a gap that has been very open for quite a long time. The queer conversation around menopause has not been addressed, and there have been few practitioners out there addressing it. So I'm so glad that you have taken this on. Uh so your book not only feels I would say uh timely, right, and important, but I would say necessary. What compelled you to write it?

Lasara 13:50

Well, what compelled me to write it is that I entered into perimenopause in 20, well, I realized I was in perimenopause in 2016 while I was writing my previous book, which is called Shellbreaking the Goddess, and it's a feminist spirituality book. And I realized somewhere in that experience that I was perimenopausal. And I I've always been genderqueer identified, I've always been gender weird identified, you know, even before we had the language that we have for it now. That was my identity as, you know, as a small child, like I I dressed in like page boy caps and button-downs and and you know, ties. Like my parents were hippies, so where I got the tie idea, I don't know. But, you know, it but it felt affirming to me to dress that way. And and I dressed that way, you know. I mean, I was variable, I was fluid, so I dressed, I sometimes I'd be wearing dresses, you know, flouncy, like floor length, you know, have fun dresses, and sometimes I'd be wearing, you know, business casual suit, you know. So like I I was all over the place with my gender and not just sartorially, but also psychologically, emotionally, you know, gender roles-wise. I had a lot of responsibilities in my young life that were very sort of masculinized responsibilities, you know, partially due to, you know, male figures in my life not being able to step up in the way that they needed to. And I filled that space. I was happy too. I, you know, I I worked on cars. I, you know, we lived off grid. So, like, I, you know, when we needed to power up something for 20 minutes, I I would go out and connect the the invert you know the converter to the battery of the car. Like, you know, that I did all of it.

Julia 15:42

These are all great skills for the apocalypse, by the way. So I'm gonna be hopping in a car and driving out to meet you in California.

Lasara 15:50

I am I am the best apocalypse buddy. So yeah, I mean, you know, dressing out livestock, et cetera, et cetera. All of those skills, all of those things, those were those were my area, getting on top of the roof in a storm and tarping a window so it wasn't pouring rain inside, you know, and and I was very small when I was doing these things. So, in some, you know, I do think that there's a component of gender that is relational and sociological, at least for me, like not for everybody necessarily, but for me, I know that my gender expresses itself somewhat relationally at times. And so the necessity of me showing up in that masculinized space definitely interplayed with my own sort of naturally occurring gender identity. So all that to say, I've had a very fluid sense of gender all of my life. Before we had the terminology, it was still true. And then as as we gained cultural terminology around it, I used it. And I was I was calling myself genderqueer for a long time. And then I I entered into deeper into my gender journey during perimenopause, honestly, which I think is interesting. I think it happens to more people than we think. Um, and of course, there's no research about it, so that's all anecdotal, but but that experience of of uh chemical shifts in the body opened spaces for me that brought me deeper into my gender inquiry. And I was identifying as genderqueer and using they them pronouns, and I was existing in rural California, which if you don't know, there's a lot of rural California, it's under-resourced, it's just like the rest of rural America in a lot of ways. And so I didn't have access to gender-affirming resources, I didn't have access to really great menopause resources. You know, this was a long time ago now, you know.

Julia 17:42

Yeah, things like it, it's like it wasn't that long ago, and yet it really was. It really was when you really think about it. Yeah, I mean, it's it's pre-me too, it's pre-COVID. You know, menopause is such a hot topic now. There's like a whole community around it, and it was just completely different.

Lasara 18:01

Right. And so I would go to the gyno and I'd be like, My my pronouns are they them, I'm genderqueer, and I would prefer that you don't use, you know, female pronouns for me, or like, you know, try to accommodate that. And their faces would just like gloss over. They'd be like, you know, and then they'd be like, you know, my ladies this and women that, and you know, talking about perimenopause and whatever, whatever information they had for me, but they they could not contextualize that a non-cis person was going through menopause. And so I had to do a ton of self-education in order to advocate for myself. I, you know, and and in those moments, right? And this leads to, you know, the the origin story of my of my training for providers, but in that moment I had to decide every single session. I had to decide, do I take this moment to educate this healthcare professional at the risk of getting worse care because they feel car called on the carpet? Or do I eat it and take the care that I can get even though it doesn't fit? And so I was constantly facing that question in my in my care sessions. And so, you know, come coming through that period of time, I started listening to a lot of media, reading a lot of media, and I found myself like it was almost like a cartoon, you know, like where I would erase female or women or whatever and put people or, you know, like, you know, it was like this auditory experience of blip, you know, and overlay, you know, and I was like, this is really a lot of work. And I'm not the only one going through this. And there aren't, you know, when I first started, there wasn't what fresh hell is this, and there wasn't the queer menopause website, you know, none of those things existed yet. So I really was without resources.

Julia 19:55

Yeah.

Lasara 19:56

And and so I, you know, when I, as I said earlier, when I'm, you know, when I see a gap, I close it.

Julia 20:03

Yeah, I appreciate that. I I feel very called to do similar. I mean, I I started going through perimenopause during COVID. I was in line at the grocery store, you know, all masked up, waiting for some sliced meat. And I started getting the meat sweats, I always say. I just started melting like a furnace, and I thought I was dying of COVID. And it turns out I was just in perimenopause and having my first atlash. But similarly, I went looking and looking. And at that time, it was whatever. I don't even what is time? 20, 20, whatever. I just there just, and and being a cisgendered woman straight, like should be easy for me to find information. And I still couldn't find information. So I cannot, well, I can't imagine how difficult it would be looking for this information as a queer person, given, you know, I've worked in this sort of in the menopause, as they say, and trying to find resources, trying to get people to talk to was very difficult.

Lasara 20:56

It this is a political uh fight that you have to be willing to have in order to make that shift. Yeah.

Julia 21:05

Right.

Lasara 21:06

Yeah, it's crazy how everything had this has become so politicized. It would be phenomenal if, you know, if folks who were, you know, taking space in the metasphere were to start using affirming language. That would be phenomenal. Right. And it's happening. It's happening. I have to say, it is happening bit by bit. And my provider course is, you know, I I started my so my provider course is called gender affirming menopause care certification course for menopause care providers. It's, you know, and and it I've included I've increased it to include not just menopause care providers, but also gender affirming care providers, because the intersection of menopause and gender affirming care is really what I'm what I'm going after. So I really am including both those who have gender affirming practices and those who have menopause practices in in the surge. Of crew. I my first one, my first cohort was small. It was like it was four people. This cohort is seven. I have another cohort starting in the fall, and I already know it's gonna be at least 10. And I have a cap of 15. So I'm so bit by bit, people are becoming deeply educated. It's an immersive course, it's eight weeks long, it's you know, you learn from A to Z. Like, you know, and and it's not specific to specifically focused so much on on the mechanics of menopause, although there is we do have a definite focus on that, like the intersections of MHT and GATT, for example. So gender-affirming hormone therapy. So, because myself and my friend Dr. Kristen Gionellis just published the first article on standards of care for gender-affirming menopause. Amazing. Um, so right, so so we're doing that teaching in that space. I have Kristen come in for one of the sessions. And so that whole experience is rippling out because those providers are actually using gender-affirming care. And when they're in spaces that are menopause specific, they are inviting others to think about it. Right. And so that the ripple effect is happening, not just from the work that I'm doing, from the book, from you know, from the podcast, from, you know, from the the sort of like turning on of the of the light, you know, it's happening.

Julia 23:35

Yeah, no, I definitely I do see that. And I, as, you know, being board certified, I have to get CECs to maintain my board certification as a health coach. And you and I talked about this briefly over Instagram, how I'm always looking for CEC classes. I, you know, I it's it's always a challenge going on to the NBHWC website when I'm looking for CEC courses and something I actually want to do and not just to like get the credit, the credit, you know, we're all in that position trying to maintain our CECs. And I think I found maybe like one course out of like a hundred or something that had anything to do with gender-affirming care. And so my hope is that you're correct and that we get a lot more of this in the education world for doctors, for any kind of practitioners working in this space, that we we have more education. I think people do want it, and sometimes it can be very hard to find. So I'm so glad you're doing this. Yes. Yeah. Now, one of the things I do want to talk about with your book that I actually well, that I that I love so much as well. And Mary Claire Haber, I will tie this together. It's going to come together. My brain is slow today. So she's written a lot of books. I've read all of her books, and they're they're great. And a lot of and there's there's a lot of good information. You know, for example, she, you know, she cites a lot of good information. It's very uh what's the word I'm looking for? It's not exactly it's not in the most pedestrian language, you know, I think a lot of her stuff, whereas I find yours so relatable and uh and you actually include tools and exercises and prompts and things to do. And those are the things that are missing from some of these other books. And that was another thing that I loved. So uh what made that such an important thing? Like, why was that important to you to include in the book?

Lasara 25:21

Uh well, so this is my third book that uh that has been published. Like I've written other books, but I didn't publish them. But this is my third published piece book specifically.

Julia 25:34

Yeah, by the way, listeners, they have quite a few. I have not had a chance to read them all. Yes, but we're yeah, we're definitely gonna hit on that a little bit as well.

Lasara 25:44

So so, and I mentioned that because this is just the way that I I write. And it's the way that I write because it's the way that I think and the way that it works for me. And like I always, you know, in the beginning, like in in the introduction of my books, I can't remember if I did this with gender criminopause or not, but I often invite people to read through once and then read through a second time and do the exercises. Because one of the things that happens is, you know, with me, even like I'll be doing an exercise heavy book and I'll get stuck on one and I won't go past it, right? So I want people to read the whole book, get all the info, and then backtrack and do all the exercises, right? Because all the whole the meta perspective on the topic is very important, honestly, gives context. So that is part of it. I I'm neurodivergent. Having having applied learning opportunities makes it stick for me. It makes sense for me in a way that uh just sort of straight writing doesn't get traction, you know, and and some and I with books that don't have integrated exercises, I often give myself exercises that will help me to anchor it in. So I'm listening to an audiobook. If the book grabs me in a certain way, I will order a paper copy, then I will highlight the areas or mark the areas or whatever that I that I feel like I want to integrate and work on. And then I'll do some work around it, whatever that looks like, right? So I'm constantly giving myself that kind of homework. And again, like not everybody needs or wants that. They don't need or want to do it. That's fine, pass it, pass it by, you know. But but for those of us who do need sort of triangulated hands-on learning opportunities, this is going to work very well. And I think also like when things stay sort of like on the page, they're just very theoretical.

Julia 27:43

Yeah, which look, I guess it to your point, it depends on how you learn. Some people that's enough. I think for a lot of people, I think for a lot of people they really enjoy the opportunity to be guided into doing some work. At least I do.

Lasara 27:59

Yeah, no, I agree. And and I think it does give a whole different sort of yeah, traction, depth, you know, for for the work. Like you end up able to take it away with you in a different way.

Julia 28:15

Totally. And for anybody watching YouTube, I'm holding up their book right now, and you can see I have little tags and little folds because this is what I do to books when, and then I am I'm have a tear a card in here, just you know, when you when you have too many decks, I feel like I take I take a deck and I just use it as a book.

Lasara 28:31

What is the card? What is the card and where is it? I want to know.

Julia 28:33

That's a great. Oh, that's a really good yeah. That's we should look at that. The Hermit perfect. Okay, great. Love it. Oh, grief and gender, queer menopause. That's what the page is.

Lasara 28:43

There you go. There you go. That's a very good chapter. And I hope that people get as much out of reading that chapter as I got out of writing it, honestly.

Julia 28:52

And that that segues beautifully into my next question, which is another thing I really enjoyed about this because it's a subject that I think a lot about, that keeps me up at night, that I write a lot about on my Substack out there in my newsletters. And that is the idea of building community. So for my purposes, I am a child-free person. So I lean on chosen family very much so. Uh you talk, you know, about kind of what that is like, what that can look like, kind of making plans for your future. You talk about like financial literacy. What made it so important to you to kind of cover some of these subjects, especially around community and aging? Very back to what we were, or very much back to what we were talking about at the beginning. Yeah.

Lasara 29:36

Yeah. Well, you know, I'll start with the health statistics and say that the loneliness epidemic is real and that advanced age loneliness is more deadly than smoking a pack of cigarettes on average. So that's the starting point. And is smoking a pack a day is in your old age, smoking a pack a day is less likely to kill you than loneliness is. That's crazy. Um, so you know, so that that and that, and that's that's cited throughout the the literature, you know, the levels of loneliness are extreme in in our older, you know, our as we were talking about at the beginning, like there's no infrastructure and we don't have, you know, capitalism doesn't have room for people saying, oh, my mother is aging and getting ready to die. I'm gonna take two years off of work, right? We don't have the framework for that, you know, it's there's no way to do it. So, like while that might be the the healthiest way to handle that for some people, it's not an option. So, you know, so it it's it's it's an area that is rife with how do we do this? And so, you know, so starting from, oh, and I want to add specific to the queer community, that loneliness in elders in the queer community is even higher than non-queer community, just because of, you know, a a lot of queer folks are are isolated from their families of origin, have been rejected, do not have relationships with their parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, you know, whatever it might be, don't have those relationships in place anymore. So chosen family is really all that we have. And so that's also a piece of why it's in the book. And third, I will say I talk a lot about intergenerational relationships in the book. And I really do think that that is one of the best solutions. One, I think generational stratification is terrible, I think it's injuring all of us. I think these generation wars that are like so amped up are just one complete I'm gonna say bullshit. Um, you know, and and unnecessary and not real. And so silly. And the the thing about it is that because we are generationally stratified in in this culture, we are losing through lines in our in our personal histories and our cultural histories, you know, etc. So, you know, I'm I'm 54. I I came of age in the advent of the AIDS epidemic, like in the middle of it. I I grew into adulthood in the thick of the AIDS epidemic in the Bay Area, right? I lost my first person to active AIDS at 16. I started doing hospice care with AIDS folks, you know, active AIDS and stage AIDS, you know, folks suffering active and stage AIDS when I was in my late teens. I started doing safer sex education in my late teens because I felt very passionate about protecting my community from from you know contracting. And so, you know, AIDS and HIV really impacted me deeply on a personal and a cultural level as a queer person. And so, you know, my generation, my my my queer generation lost a generation of elders and and age peers to an active epidemic that was not recognized by most of our culture. Yeah, right. Thank you, Randra. So yeah, yeah, terrible. So so that that's a huge part of it too. Like I have a personal, like a personal personal stake in it, yeah, you know, and and also just a personal sense of like urgency around those lost threads. Like we're missing threads. So how do we reweave that? And and I think one of the ways is, you know, I talk about like co-mentorship models in in my book and gender per menopause. I talk about co-mentorship. And what I mean by co-mentorship is like there are models of co-mentorship where, for example, they're uh like they're a sanctioned relationship. Like in in in I think it's the Netherlands, there are housing opportunities where elders live with students, you know, students live with elders in the same housing complex. And those those elders and youth are tasked with teaching each other things, they're partnered, they're paired with someone, and then they create a co-learning environment where the younger person is teaching the older person about computers or whatever, and the older person is teaching the young person about storytelling or you know, sewing or quilting or whatever it might be, right? And so they're creating this in intense bond through mutual, you know, education and support. And, you know, I I've read a few studies on this, on this practice, and you know, like one of the young people said, the only thing that's hard about it is that you're you lose people you care about. And I was like, that's true, but that's also part of life. Like that is a necessary rite of passage, that is an initiation, like that is something that we need to contextualize better in our culture.

Julia 35:10

And it's experiential. We need that experience because it's it won't be the first, it won't be the last. Exactly.

Lasara 35:16

Exactly. So, and and you know, I mean, on the health, on the health side of it, you know, age diverse relationships encourage us to stay active in the community. They encourage us to stay active in our bodies. Like, you know, if we have, if we're aging and we just have same age peer, you know, relationships, we're more likely to not be out hiking on a Sunday afternoon. We're more likely to be, you know, what whatever we might be doing that's lower impact, right? You know, I want to be going to Pilates, I want to be out hiking, I want to have, I want to have people in my life who are encouraging me to stay active and physically, you know, fit and and together because that is what's gonna, you know, I already have a lot, I have high aces, I have a lot of like determining factors that say I'm not gonna live a whole long time. I'm trying to work, you know, I quit drinking, I don't party, you know, you know, I'm trying to do as much as I can at in this chapter of my life to live as long and healthfully as I can. And those age-diverse relationships are part of that.

Julia 36:26

Yeah, I I remember reading something about that, and I think you're right, I think it was the Netherlands that it also feels right. The Netherlands feels right. Right, you know, and it's this whole idea that you know, that America is gonna do anything correctly, right? I it's just so discouraging sometimes. I wish that we, again, with the infrastructure, if we had, you know, something in place where there was opportunity for that, because instead, like usual, it's left to us to figure it out ourselves. Um, you know, and so that's what we're left kind of doing. And when I think about it and I think about aging and how that's what that's going to look like for me. I realize that I have to get those plans in place. I have to put those plans in place. And I have to, I probably I should have started a long time ago. I'm starting now, better late than never.

Lasara 37:11

What what do they say? The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago. The second best time is now. Is now long. I wanted to say too, I think peer relationships are equally important, and that we have, you know, that we do need that not just age peer, but like experience peerage, you know, those relationships are also essential to, you know, being and I talk about that as far as the menopause experience goes. Like find a menopause support group, specifically find a queer menopause you know, support group that you can relate to because a cis-centered menopause support group is not going to do what you need it to do, very likely. And so, and if you can't find it, make it.

Julia 37:53

Yeah, I mean again, I I think about that, yeah, all of the time. Uh, my my chosen family, I cultivate those relationships. They're very important to me. And I was speaking to a client about this the other day who's going through a very difficult time. Just that I feel like our culture stresses, but it'll put a lot of stress on romantic relationships and not a lot on the other relationships in our lives, which in many ways can sometimes be more important as we get older, particularly if your person passes away under, you know, for whatever reason, you need those people to coalesce around you and lift you up, you know. And if you don't have that, it can be very, very challenging.

Lasara 38:35

So destabilizing and yeah, all of those things. It can completely blow up. So, you know, I mean, yeah, we absolutely need to be, and I want to say too, you know, that this, you know, gender, gender-based stuff, you know, folks who were socialized as female are much better at building those relationships by and large. This isn't necessarily as true in the queer community, but in in relationships that are that trend toward, you know, any kind of heterosexual or reminiscent of heterosexual format, there are factors to take into account as far as you know making sure that everyone is, you know, having the tools that they need to get the support that they need, because some of us are more resourced in that area just because culturally it's encouraged.

Julia 39:28

Yeah.

Lasara 39:28

And some are less so. And and those who are less resourced, you know, sometimes need a certain kind of encouragement, sometimes need external supports, like whatever it might be, you know, and I'm not saying, you know, take care of your men folk, like that's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying, like, be aware of the sociological components that make it more likely for folks to age in isolation, whatever those are, whether that's career identity, whether that's gender identity, whether that, you know, whatever those factors might be.

Julia 40:02

Another thing I really loved about your book is that you offer a ceremony. And as a person who enjoys ritual, which we're gonna also talk about more, I enjoyed this offering of a ceremony ceremony for grief. Yeah, I think that we are under-ritualized as a culture, which is part of our problem. You know, we don't we don't have rituals in place uh for huge milestone events like uh puberty and pregnancy and menopause and death, these huge milestones. And there's, you know, there's some, there are some religious uh uh opportunities, you know, within those cultures where they have some ritual around these things. Some are better than others, and I certainly take from like whatever works from for me, I kind of take from whatever works. But I think we need more of that, and that's part of the problem. I think that's why people struggle so much with these milestones. Uh I guess why well, what do you think we lose when we don't mark these transitions and how can ritual help fill that gap?

Lasara 41:08

So if I remember correctly, the ritual that you're talking about is the releasing ceremony of release around Greece. Yes, yes. Yeah. So, you know, the reason that I include and I'm a ritualist, so it's wild that I only included that one ritual in there, but but you know, it's not a ritual book. My next book that I'm writing right now is called Magical Menopause, and that will be a ritual book. Um, but that I felt like that was a necessary element to have in that chapter on grief because the chapter on grief is very heavy. It's very heavy, and I didn't want people letting that just sit in their bodies. I wanted them to have an opportunity because it's gonna, you know, I mean, that chapter will, it's designed to even bring up the areas that we haven't been looking at. It's designed to bring up the areas that we that we may not have, you know, had the time or or taken the inclination to sit with yet, you know, and so that is an intense ask. And I just wanted, and just so everyone knows, there are trigger their content notes at the beginning of each chapter. If you want to, if you want to skip the chapter, it's up to you. I don't recommend it. But if you if you're in a place where that would be too too much, like I get it, come back to it later. Just to say there is a lot in there that is that is designed to make us question our relationship with grief and and aging and loss and you know, all of those things. And so I wanted to give people a way to move through that so that they could go on with the rest of the book and not be stuck in this, you know, stasis, basically. Um, and I also think, yeah, like it's a really simple ritual, it's a really sweet ritual, you know, it's it's easy to do, it doesn't take a lot of production. It's not like you don't have to know how to do magic to do it, like it's a very sort of pragmatic, self-explanatory one one-off, you know. And so yeah, I included that just because I I didn't want people to get stuck.

Julia 43:18

Yeah, I appreciated that. And I'm glad you mentioned that there are you you have these lovely kind of of invitations and but also kind of trigger warnings at the beginning, if that's something that people need to, again, you know, maybe come back to at another time if they're not ready to take that on in that moment. And I very much appreciated that again. You don't see that in a lot of books really ever. No, you don't.

Lasara 43:42

And and you know, I mean, I I included those content notes, and people are, you know, have mixed feelings about trigger warnings and content notes. I know that, but I feel like I would have been doing a disservice to my community specifically, where there, you know, in the genderque community, there is a higher, like there's a Venn diagram. of gender gender queer identity and neurodivergence and you know and other other things too overlap. I'm not going to get into all of them right now, but those two are are are distinctly known that there's an overlap. And specifically actually with autism and and there is more research, very little research on that so far, but there's a little research on that and it does show statistical difference. And there will be more research coming out on that. And so like I knowing my community, I just wanted to be careful.

Julia 44:37

Yeah, I thought that was great. I thought it was really smart. And then also with the ritual being like you said pretty simple for people who are neurodivergent, like myself as well, sometimes my executive function is at zero or maybe a net negative, I would even say. And as a practitioner, sometimes ritual looks like just pen and paper for me or just a thought. Like I just can't sometimes I can't bring myself to draw like cut a circle and call corners and do a thing. I just don't have it. Yeah I don't have it in me. Can't do it. Which brings me to my next subject which is uh witchcraft which is one of my most favorite topics that I'm going to dive into right now with you. You're a second generation witch and ordained priestess of the Church of all worlds and the author of Sexy Witch and Jailbreaking the Goddess with magical menopause coming out in 2026, which I'm very excited about. How does your practice shape the way you understand aging, identity and transformation?

Lasara 45:34

Well that's a really interesting question. So my second book gender or my second book was Jailbreaking the Goddess which is the sub sub the tagline is radical revisioning of feminist spirituality. I was raised in the you know neo-pagan movement and um I grew up with like the maiden mother crone archetypal system as part of the lexicon and I started questioning the frameworks very young because I'm an anarchist and an upstart and all of those things. And so I so I started questioning the formats early on you know and one of the areas that I became increasingly incensed about was the fact that it's a goddess cult but it doesn't actually it hasn't broken out of patriarchy. And so like I was like hold on a minute one all of the you know like the all of the heads of state are you know for the most part male there are very few really well known female witches honestly which is ironic and weird you know in pop culture right it it yeah the the the ones that gain visibility are generally cis men. Two within the community consent autonomy bodily sovereignty queer identity did not have a baseline of being understood being manifested being talked about being a you know a reality like those things did not that was not the case when I was growing up they did not have there a foothold we started having a conversation about consent you know like audibly and in writing and etc you know earlier than the dominant culture but that you know better isn't good you know better isn't good it's just better you know and so we started having that conversation in the 90s really very loudly and looking you know intergenerational stuff looking at you know a lot of different components of consent and then concurrently I was like you know I wrote sexy witch in 2005 and by the way both sexy witch and gender permenopause came out before I was before I came out as trans identified I was still gender ambiguous still gender weird but I was not trans identified at the time so they are very cis centered and I have an opportunity to do new versions of the both of them and we'll be doing those so I'm gonna be updating them and moving away from like the the inherent gender essentialism in the 2005 you know the early aughts pagan lecture but also it's of a time it's of a time it was of a time I am not blaming myself I'm just saying that there was gender essentialism baked in you know and and and so like and because gender essentialism was baked in I started examining the maiden mother crone archetypal system and I I came to a realization through applied theory and etc that the Maiden Mother Crown archetypal system one it was created by a man two it's very recent and three it is biologically ordained. So it's about pre-menstruation menstruation also known as the reproductive years and post menstruation. That that is about whether you can give birth or not and whether you're a sexual utility to the community or not. And so when I realized that the Maiden Mother Crown archetypal system was basically a utility model that it did not actually recognize the sovereignty of women I wrote jailbreaking the goddess and I wrote jailbreaking the goddess to break that format. So that was a reaction to that yeah yeah so it's it's a model that has a fivefold presents a fivefold model for the for the goddess and none of them are biologically ordained they're they're flexible archetypes and you know the the the five are basically you know child youth the next there and and the terms are famella potens creatrix which means creator and then sapiensha which means wisdom and then antiqua which means old and so instead of collapsing it down to this very sort of you know on off switch you know binary system like are you bleeding or not you know which also is gross like let's let's be real like you know let's let's not say just because you're menstruating you're a woman like that's disgusting and when when children start menstruating at eight nine 12 years old and you know I mean I it just every time I talk about this it brings up this you know quote that I think of which is old enough to bleed old enough to breed yeah and it and it fills me with abject horror totally and you know and honestly makes me think of the Epstein files that's what brings absolutely what comes to mind for me you know as a in this in this really heavy moment of culture yeah yeah absolutely so I'm so all that to say the Epstein files you know like that as a metaphor for you know the same shit was happening. That's all I'm saying the same shit was happening in the pagan community as was in the dominant culture. So I worked you know worked hard to do my part to tear that down as much as possible. And and when I was writing jailbreaking the goddess I got extremely angry and it accelerated my gender journey and I started I using they them pronouns shortly on the heels of writing that book and and that and that was part you know and and that was part of my initiation into my gender experience. So I I hope that if folks read it they can you know have have that effect that impact too and and you know forgive the moment in time that that has that inlaid gender essentialism which was still still in my language in 2016. So 2015. So so yeah so I wrote those books you know as and and sexy witch bears a mention too which is just to say sexy wit was about self-referen it's sovereignty has been a through line for me. Sexy witch was about self-referential sexuality it wasn't about how to be sexy for somebody else it was how to live in your body as a sensual and sexual being for yourself for yourself. Yeah yeah right so yeah so it was very very little of it had anything to do with partnered exercises or any of that it was very much self-focused.

Julia 52:46

Yeah I'm excited to check these books out again I didn't have time to read every single book you rescheduled so fast I was like this is amazing and then I was like I have to read this immediately I can't read all the right ones later and I will drop all of that information in the show notes for everyone to check that out as well. We are reaching the end of this episode and entering one of my favorite parts which is where I ask you to tell us a spooky story. And again this can be like a haunting but it all it can also be a a time of kisnet or listening to your guts hi strange anything qualifies please tell us your story.

Lasara 53:26

Okay so I I'm excited about this one. This is a perimenopause haunting story and I was haunted by the ghost of Lassara future basically you know I mean for a lot of people perimenopause shows up first as anxiety and we are not aware that that is one of the first sort of waves of perimenopause but for many of us it is.

Julia 53:55

Yeah I would say in retrospect that's how it showed up for me.

Lasara 53:57

Yeah right right right as we sort of look back oh yeah that did happen before a hot flash ever came into the picture so I started experiencing really intense anxiety and I start and I was being woken up in the middle of the night by it like it was in my body and you know I have PTSD so of course it makes sense that that anxiety would trigger it that way and I'd be like you know waking up to you know full alert. And I started you know taking those moments and kind of being like what's going on and I was independently employed at that point. I was an entrepreneur I'd been an entrepreneur for you know decades and I was you know well known in my field but I wasn't you know I worked all the time and I was not making ends meet as well as I would like I mean of course I was getting by but I was not able to you know I wasn't in a space where I was able to you know build any security long term et cetera et cetera so I took those moments and I was like what's going on with this level of anxiety and my subconscious mind was yelling at me get your shit together you are going to die on the streets and that's how that's what happened to me and and that motivated me to go back to school get my master's in social work and change my whole life trajectory and you know the rest is history. But yeah so that was my haunting my haunting was like literally future presence of mind calling me on the carpet to make a change get some get some stability under me.

Julia 55:36

Yeah wow I really relate to that I never viewed it as my future self but now I think I will because similarly COVID hit and I was like you're really unhappy you want to stay this way the rest of your life you want to keep doing this job that you don't like do you you know how do you really want to spend the rest of your life what is that really going to look like for you and I totally yeah just changed everything went back to school you know took me a few years to get out of that job and don't get me wrong couldn't have done those things without that job and I am appreciative of that but you know definitely like huge change got out and I'm glad you listened I'm glad I listened I think we're both happier so huzzah to that. Exactly all right it is also time for Between the lines. Now this is my bibliomancy segment and I have to say I'm very nervous to do this with you because you're like a profetch and I am just messing around but we're gonna go for it anyway. So we have two choices of books here. We have floreography Victorian era one of my favorites flowers and then we have ornithography which is birds also one of my favorites which book are you feeling called to we're gonna go with the flowers.

Lasara 56:58

The flowers okay so do you have a question in your mind I I mean when I when I was reflecting on this my question was like gonna be very sort of like what's what's in store for you know us us all as we move into you know you know move toward a more affirming reality ideally like what is that gonna look like right so I I think I'll just stick with that yeah what what is you know so it's a kind of vague but like yeah what is it what what is it gonna look like what is it gonna take what is it gonna take for us to get there let it be good exactly all right let's see where we are all right so the flower that was selected is jasmine which okay which means amiability and cheerfulness okay origin.

Julia 58:00

Jasmine's light and lovely scent along with its elegantly shaped blooms perfectly convey amiability and cheerfulness it is often used in weddings and celebrations especially in the Philippines Pakistan and Indonesia where it is a native plant. You would pair it with an iris to show admiration for a friend's strength of character or a crocus for a kind and generous loved one or one with a particular zest for life.

Lasara 58:24

I enjoy that because I lately uh being a very low executive function uh a lot of the time sometimes I'm just like finding joy is an act of resistance being happy is an act of resistance what do we think I love it I'm into it and Jasmine is such a you know I love jasmine jasmine is a beautiful flower both you know physically and and the aromatics and you know it's really gorgeous and I like that answer I mean that's like a way better answer than than could have come. Could it could could have could have gone could have gone really wrong could have gone yeah so I'm glad I'm glad that the answer is you know be happy and the rest will follow. Yeah that is my hope that really is my hope truly lasara this was so incredible thank you so much for doing my show let people know how they can find you how they can find your course your books tell us everything so the one the best place to find me is on my link tree which is Lazara Firefox Allen and that is just I try to keep that I need to update it right now as a matter of fact but I try to keep it updated all the time it's the most updated of any of my resources and it has a lot of different you know access points. The other places are I'm on Instagram and you can follow me at both genderqueer.menopause or lasara underscore firefox underscore Allen or both if you like the genderqueer menopause gets less traffic my primary account gets more traffic and more of my personal content. And then I have a sort of nascent TikTok presence that's very slow. And yeah and I'm on Facebook you know people can find me on Facebook if we're still in in that club I don't love Facebook anymore so I'm rarely there. I used to love Facebook like back in the day it was and I was an early adopter on Twitter. I'm not on there at all anymore but I used to be able to make it trend it was great. I did gratitude parties and would make it trend it was so fun back in the day it's it's over it's over Facebook and Facebook and Twitter are over as far as I'm concerned. Agreed but I do still show up on Facebook when I need to promote something so if you're looking for like finding out what I'm doing that's where to find it. My gender affirming menopause care training I'm working on a website for that right now but when I have it up it'll be linked on my Linktree. So again back to the link tree.

Julia 1:01:05

And when is your next cohort that people can sign up for to keep an eye out.

Lasara 1:01:09

My yes my next cohort is starting the first week of November so just on the heels of World Menopause Month. So October is menopause month and I didn't want to launch it during menopause month. So you know because there'll be a lot going on so for the for those who want to be in that cohort the sooner you sign on the more Bennies you get. So like you know sign on sooner. I also love to know that I have critical mass for the training early and so I make it I make it worthwhile to sign on early.

Julia 1:01:41

Awesome. Lessara thank you so much for coming and listeners again I will I will post all of their information in the show notes so that you don't have to write everything down or rewind this rewind go back. It's not a DHS whatever it's called whatever it is anyway all right Lessara thank you so much for coming I really appreciate it.

Lasara 1:02:02

It was really delightful I had a great time thank you for having me Julia and serious like if you want to have me back after you read the other books I'll I'm all for it.

END

Julia 1:02:12

Thank you. Agecraft after dark is written produced and edited by me Julia Brunacchi the music Bernard Bernard Burnett by Ivy Virus have a question or a spooky story? I want to hear it leave me a message at speedcraft.com forward slash agecraft and like the commentcraft com at joint and stop scrap at agecraft dot stopstack dot com you'd like to work with me and learn more about all of the things at the Wellness dot coming for visibility at the doc and up stay curious. Stay a little content and up to you will talk about it.