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Alex Iantaffi          

Award-Winning Author; Gender, Sexuality & Relationships Expert; Disability Justice Advocate

Alex Iantaffi, PhD, MS, SEP, CST, LMFT (they/them) is an award-winning author, family therapist, WPATH certified gender specialist, AASECT certified sex therapist, Somatic ExperiencingⓇ practitioner, and clinical supervisor. Iantaffi is currently the Chair of the Trans and Queer interest network of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) and President of the Minnesota Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (MAMFT). They were the recipient of the 2019 MAMFT Distinguished Service Award, the 2013 Twin Cities Deaf Pride Community Organization Award for one of their research projects, the 2012 Breaking the Silence Award at the University of Minnesota, and the 2000 Best Dissertation Award from the British Educational Research Association. Iantaffi has researched, presented and published extensively on gender, disability, sexuality, relationships, and HIV.

They are a trans masculine, nonbinary, bi queer, disabled, Italian immigrant who has been living on Dakota and Anishinaabe territories, currently known as Minnesota (US) since 2008. Iantaffi is the author of "Gender Trauma: healing cultural, social, and historical gendered trauma," which was awarded the Nautilus award (gold category) in 2022, is the co-author of the books "How to Understand Your Gender: a practical guide for exploring who you are," “Life Isn’t Binary,” “Hell Yeah Self-Care: a Trauma-Informed Workbook” and “How To Understand Your Sexuality: a practical guide for exploring who you are” with Meg-John Barker. They also host the podcast "Gender Stories."

Speech Topics


Gender as Trauma

Rigid gender binaries are part of the legacies of settler-colonialism and cis-hetero patriarchal norms that systemically impact all bodies, albeit in a range of different ways. In this talk, we will explore how the ways in which our bodies are gendered also intersect with the ways in which we are racialized, classed, categorized, normed and read in dominant culture and how these intersections of identities and experiences can impact our mental health.

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