About Cheralynn...
Okay, let’s do this…
I never know what to say about myself in these bios. My first impulse is to just mindlessly fill it up with my resume (how creative). But not to impress you. If anything, to put your mind at ease, I know what I’m doing. Lucky for you, I've given this more thought. You can always find my credentials in other places (PsychologyToday.com. California/Oregon state boards, Nat'l Board of Certified Counselors...); besides, I think it goes without saying boring you to death from the get-go would be counterproductive in getting you to come see me. I'm thinking you’ll be more inclined if I can give you a sense of who I am and how I think as a human being so you can determine if we’ll make a good fit.
Not your typical therapist. If I could tell you just one thing about me, it would be to forget what you know about other therapists and university psych professors—I’m not like my colleagues. You just have to meet me. Sure, I like to do my nails and wear makeup and heels, but I also like to commute to my offices on my Harley-Davidson Road King Special, start wild horses under saddle, cuss, operate excavators and dozers, and practice drills with my weapons, in fact, at the request of the gun club, I became an NRA certified RSO (range safety officer) to assist them with all the new CCW holders.
I graduated summa cum laude with a major in mental health counseling and a minor in crim, teaching upper division psych courses thereafter. I deeply appreciate the ongoing encouragement of my grad professors to jump into my private practice straight out of school, for doing this allowed me the freedom (and courage) to intuitively sink my roots into my target populations.
Sexuality, military/veterans, and first responders? Yes, I know what you’re thinking—you can see an obvious connection between the military and first responder groups, but how did sexual identity development get in there? Bare with me. Believe it or not, there is both a logical explanation and, I promise, a salient reason in telling you this, as it reflects how I've followed my gut to become somewhat of a troublemaker within my field and how I've earned a reputation for "going to the mat" for my clients.
We live just south of the California-Oregon border in a rural mountain community desperately lacking mental health services. Just out of grad school, I had not developed my niche yet, so I was pretty much willing to see anyone within my scope of competence to acquire the hours needed for licensing. Figuring I could always refer a client out if needed, I checked almost all the diagnostic boxes on my new PsychologyToday.com profile, including those related to sexuality. Within days, I was shocked to begin receiving calls from individuals experiencing gender dysphoria. “You realize I’m still an intern, right?” I asked, they replied, “But you’re the only one between Portland and San Francisco who checked those boxes!”
Knowing a few of my favorite grad professors had private practices, I went straight to them to ask why they had not checked the boxes for this already underserved population. “It’s not that we're discriminating against this group,” they said, “the problem is we're just not professionally competent to treat them,” explaining a clinician must be trained in evidence-based models to treat sexual identity development while staying abreast of standards of care and available medical interventions to provide accurate diagnostics, treatment, and medical referrals. Therapists must also develop working relationships with those local medical providers (i.e., physicians, electrologists, endocrinologists, surgeons, urologists, and gynecologists).
Given the narrow breadth and deep complexity of this population’s needs, who'd blame me for joining my professors in shying away from this specialized group? But after talking with just a few of these individuals, I was amazed to feel how refreshing it was to meet them and hear their stories, how they were told with such unusual clarity and purpose when coming to see me. And even if they were previously uncomfortable even thinking about such things, I appreciated their willingness to trust me with their most intimate thoughts, feelings, fantasies, shames, and fears. Most of all, I was struck by their level of self-motivation to engage in therapy and do their work, making my job a breeze.
I could also see these were not "sick" people; they were tortured and conflicted, suffering from the incongruence of internalized environmental expectations (the shame and guilt that keeps all of us trapped living for others rather than ourselves). As with all clients, once we’ve teased out all of that, what remains is typically their true identity, and that's when I observe a deep change. Taking the ball and running with it, they become happier day by day, transforming my role into providing psychoeducation, coordinating necessary medical interventions, and helping to orchestrate a life (and relationships) to nurture that identity.
My revelation—Is there no transgender identity? I’d like to point out here I do not consider myself to be a “transgender therapist.” It was while seeing a precious preadolescent kiddo that I had the revelation I was not comfortable saddling this kid for the rest of this kid's life with such a destabilizing, incongruent, politically charged identity as "transgender." Why would I not wish for this child to walk out my door on a mission to live the remainder of this kiddo's life as a normal member of society? That got me thinking…
I am not treating "transgender people"—I am treating people suffering the soul sucking incongruence of gender dysphoria, by definition, a sadness caused by the birth defect of mismatched sex between the ears and legs. I have also come to believe not everyone with gender dysphoria needs to medically transition their bodies—ideally, someday in the future, our society will just accept themselves and others the way God made them, with all our incongruences.
I finally came to the realization I can no longer accept the word transgender as an identity, and any clinician who encourages a client to adopt it is both ignorant and clinically reckless. I will not get into the history of the word transgender, but I will say it was poorly articulated and introduced by way of scholarly journals as an “umbrella term” to include non-binary, gender-fluid, and other ambiguous expressions that only serve to harm people with genuine gender dysphoria.
Medical model—Not LGBTQIA+? Because it reflects the way I think, for the purpose of my bio, let me also say I approach gender dysphoria through the medical lens, as opposed to the political LGBTQIA+ lense inadvertently used by almost all of my colleagues in the mental health field. In fact, the sooner my clients get away from these political identities, with social hooks attached, the sooner they can integrate their identities to a single sex and get on with their lives as normal, self-actualizing members of society.
I have come to believe very strongly that much of the internalized torture and discrimination my clients complain about is the result of the political polarities created by the LGBTQIA+ groups. In fact, when the topic of what I do for a living comes up with my conservative friends, I validate their frustration with the political polarities separating our society and explain how the baby develops, the consequence of incongruent brain/body sexual hardwiring, and the personal experience of people with gender dysphoria simply wanting to fit into society. At this point, they are curious and even a little more compassionate. And what was meant to be a 5-minute explanation of what I do for a living turns into a two-hour enlightenment for which they expressed deep appreciation.
What is the medical model? Thanks to technological advances, research in this area is improving every day. For example, brain scans show us there is a visible difference in the size and shape of significant nerve bundles between male and female brains. We also know all embryos start out as female until genes are activated to drop the ovaries to become testes, sending the physical body on its journey to develop male traits. In the case of the majority of my clients, I specialized in feminization, we now know it is possible they were genetically meant to be female, their brains already hard-wiring into female brains when something happened, such as the adrenals creating too much DHEA (an androgen) or their mother’s hormones fluctuating during a critical window of fetal development. Such erroneous triggers to drop the ovaries to become testes thereby doom their bodies to part from the path of their female brains and develop masculine traits.
Unfortunately, we do not scan babies’ brains at birth to identify the hardwired sex between their ears; we simply look at the more easily identifiable physiological sex between the legs. The mental health field learned the hard way that while it is possible to change the sex between the legs, it is not possible to change the hardwired sex between the ears. So, in conclusion, the main construct of my revelation is this: if a person is born with a female brain and will live and eventually die of old age with a female brain, where is the transition? If anything, in my opinion, there is a medical intervention to correct the physiological incongruence developed during fetal development. It is a medical procedure meant to be private and allow people to achieve happy, productive lives as the sex hardwired between their ears.
Believe it or not, most of my clients identify as heterosexual females, and they get angry when people confuse them with being gender-fluid, non-binary, hedonistic, or politically motivated to shove their personal medical problems down the throats of others. Contrary to common belief, my clients do not enjoy talking about their private parts, nor did they ask to be a part of the LGBTQIA+ rainbow campaign.
Needless to say, I sunk my roots deep into sexual identity development and gender dysphoria. Surprisingly, it was not long before I had a full caseload, including clients contacting me from hundreds of miles away in all directions.
Psych Armor for Veterans… Upon licensure, I was contacted by the VA with referrals for veterans through what was previously called the CHOICE Program, now Community Care Network (CCN). Although these referrals were not necessarily sexual identity-related, some were. But I have family who served in the military so the idea of supporting them was dear to my heart. I chose to accept the referrals and participated in Psych Armor clinical training to educate myself clinically about military culture.
I was prepared to see VA referrals for anxiety, depression, PTSD, relationship troubles, suicidality, and substance dependency, but I was not expecting to see a handful of my VA referrals present with symptoms of gender dysphoria! Upon meeting my VA clients, I learned joining the military was a common strategy for people with gender dysphoria to placate their loved ones and (albeit temporarily) suppress their symptoms.
It has been a true honor to meet and hear the stories of my veteran clients; it gives my life meaning to know I can be there for them by helping them improve the quality of their lives and relationships.
My Backup for Law Enforcement... A few years later, my nephew joined the San Jose PD, and I began to wonder who was supporting our law enforcement (LE). In researching the matter, my heart sank to discover we did not have a single licensed mental health provider certified to work with first responders within hundreds of miles. To me, it looked like a big black hole of abandonment, a true lack of appreciation for the people who sacrifice holidays with loved ones, games with the kids, and risk their lives and sanity to keep us safe. LE careers have always been challenging, both on and off-duty, but the recent wave of anti-LE political movements across the country have only exacerbated the situation. With bad policy, there's a lack of true support, increased stress on the job, inadequate budgets (gear and training), low pay rates, and, thus, reduced recruitment with high turnover. Needless to say, I was compelled to take action.
The red pill or the blue pill? I began taking steps to fill that black hole. As if choosing to take the red pill in the 1999 movie “The Matrix,” I knew going in would change me, it would change the way I viewed the world from my protective (naive) bubble of existence. I knew I would be seeing things I could not unsee and hear things I could not unhear.
Within five months, I spent over 100 hours with the local police department and earned my credentials as a certified first responder counselor (CFRC), a certified clinical trauma professional (CCTP), and a certified peer support team leader/trainer (CPSTL/T). To my delight (and relief), I was very warmly accepted by the chief, dispatch team, and officers. Shortly thereafter, I created my officer wellness program I call “My Backup,” consisting of emotional agility training, 24/7-365 crisis support, and ongoing confidential counseling for all responders (LE, fire, dispatch, EMS, ER personnel...).
Where am I going? My goal is to advocate for the quality of life of LE and other first responders by providing necessary emotional agility training and reducing the stigma of clinical support. My goal is to educate my field and continue to encourage upcoming psych majors to consider focusing their careers on this specialized population.
Ironically, I see significant similarities among the three populations. Aside from the glaring lack of clinically competent therapists to support them, all three groups are at high risk of:
- anxiety
- depression
- maladaptive coping behaviors (social isolation, drinking/substance abuse, thrill seeking, sexual promiscuity, gambling...)
- suicidality
For this reason, I will continue to do whatever I can to better understand and support them while serving as an agent of change to improve their culture. Sadly, there are more psychological hazards on the job than physical, but they are not aware of it until it's too late. They do not deserve to be set up to fail.