DR Z PHD Interviews Calista Termini.
Dr. Z interviews Callista Termini, a gender affirming therapist and advocate and trans provider locally in Los Angeles, California.
Callista is 51 years old, a trans woman (she/her). She grew up in colonial New England, born in 1970 (before the internet). Grew up in colonial Massachusetts—zip code of the town was 01776. They take their colonialism seriously, which in retrospect is problematic because of all the baked-in ideals of what America was and who America was.
There was no expression for gender identity when she was a teenager. When there was more media attention towards the LGBT (or LGB) community as it was at that time, there was still a lot of fear and homophobia.
At 15 years old, she specifically remembers thinking that she must have been a woman in a past life—past life experiences and reincarnation must be real because she had this feeling of wanting to be a woman or that she should have been born a woman. That was always there: "I should have been a woman but I am assigned male and so there's nothing to be done about it—you are stuck so make the best of it."
Watch for her powerful transition story and therapy insights.
