This week on Coming Out & Beyond, Anne-Marie sits down with Keith Aron (he/they), a trans and queer transformational coach, writer, proudly witchy weirdo, and self-described honorary tree. Keith writes the Substack Big Blue Sky Dragonfly, where he explores the sweet spot between belonging and authenticity — and his story is one Anne-Marie has been wanting to share for a long time.

Keith came out as a lesbian in 2001, while living in conservative Northern Virginia, married to a man, and parenting a young child. There was no social media then, no community waiting on the other side of a Google search — only a Yahoo users group called Lesbian Support, a tiny LGBTQ shelf at the local Barnes and Noble, and a book titled From Wedded Wife to Lesbian Life that he devoured in his minivan. Fifteen years later, after years of sobriety, therapy, and working with gender dysphoria that had been quietly rising for most of his life, Keith came out again — this time as trans.

In this conversation, Anne-Marie and Keith move slowly through the territory many of our community members know well. The double masking of sexuality and gender. The way the body keeps the score when we suppress what we know to be true. The role of community in healing what Anne-Marie has called the relational wound of queerness. The strange terrain of passing, of invisibility, of gaining male privilege as someone who lived nearly five decades culturally read as female. The both/and of every part of this work.

Keith also offers his perspective on imposter syndrome — particularly the queer imposter syndrome that visits so many people who arrive at their identity later in life and wonder if they are queer enough, trans enough, allowed enough to claim what is theirs. His approach, informed by internal family systems, is one of curiosity rather than combat: getting to know the inner critic, learning what it is afraid of, what it has been trying to protect. (Listen for Keith's nod to Marlin from Finding Nemo as the inner critic we can all probably recognize.)

Anne-Marie and Keith also talk practically about how to find safe community when you are exploring something new — including the often-overlooked support of 12-step affinity spaces — and how to find a therapist or coach who actually understands later-in-life identity work, because the rush to be an ally is not the same as the experience to do the work well.

This conversation is for anyone listening who came in for the sexuality piece and has started to wonder if there is something else underneath. It is also for anyone who has been on this path for a while and could use the company of someone who has walked the long version of it.

Connect with Keith

You can find Keith at keitharon.com and on Substack at Big Blue Sky Dragonfly (keitharon.substack.com), or by searching his name on LinkedIn. If you are curious about working with him, his website is the easiest place to start.

Join us in community

If Keith's words about the necessity of community landed somewhere tender today, we want you to know there is a place for you. Authentically Us is Anne-Marie's ongoing community on Mighty Networks for women navigating identity, sexuality, and the questions that arrive in midlife. It is warm, it is unhurried, and it is full of people who have wondered the same things you are wondering. We would love to have you. You can learn more at https://community.annemariezanzal.com.