“The Queer Agenda”
When I went through supervision it was difficult to find a supervisor who reflected my personal and professional identities, which is ironic because there are a lot of therapists in Austin, TX
I was lucky to find a supervisor that I built a good relationship with but didn’t identify as Queer, didn’t specialize or know much about the community, but at least wanted to learn.
Even though we had a good relationship, I felt adrift during some of the most difficult years of my career, which was just making it to my full license.
So, I found and built a community around me with other Queer therapists, and we became a trusted network for consultation, referrals, and just existing together.
To be honest, I’ve had struggles and crises of faith in the mental health field and community because of the systems of white supremacy and cis/hetro-normativity that are deeply rooted in our field.
Over the years, I’ve seen and met more and more Queer identified individuals enter our field in Austin, bringing a much-needed breath of fresh air to our community.
So, the story of The Queer Supervisor is quite simple. I want to help the next generation of mental health professionals, you, the one reading this, embrace your true self and know that our field and our community is so much better with you in it.
I can’t express how happy I am that you’re here.
Thank you
An Awkward Introduction
Honestly, I don’t know what to say here. Right before sitting down to write this page on a Tuesday afternoon, I was texting two of my closet friends saying that I wanted to share more about myself than a standard about me page usually offers because I want those who trust me to be a big part of their professional journey, to feel like they could connect with me.
So, here I am. Summed up as much as I possibly can in order to fit on a website in hopes of inspiring the start of connection.
My work
When asking a therapist how they knew they wanted to do this work it’s very common to hear therapists respond that they “always knew” they wanted to help people, which is great, but that’s not where I started. It’s not that I didn’t want to “help” but it was more that I wanted to make an impact on the lives of people, my community, and the world.
So, like many undergraduate students, when I hit senior year, I had a crisis. “What the fuck am I going to do with a degree in Human Communication?” I went to my mentor at the time and we set down and weighed some options. Eventually, Clinical Mental Health Counseling came up, and it felt like a good fit.
I started my degree at Western Kentucky University, joined the Board of the Kentucky Counseling Association as a graduate student, and pissed a lot of people off with my passion for working with Transgender & Queer Youth.
After graduation, my husband, daniel, and I moved to Austin, TX so they could complete their PhD at UT. It was here that I started to lay the foundation for making the impacts I always desired.
I started by practicing under the simple name of Ryan Dillon Counseling until eventually switching to The Open Book Chat. I started teaching sex education to middle school and high school students, and I built a name for myself by doing countless workshops for mental health professionals on serving the Queer community.
It wasn’t long before I had a strong community around me. I joined the Board of Directors of an amazing nonprofit, Mental Health Liberation, founded by my close friend, Melody Li after they created the groundbreaking Inclusive Therapists service.
Then I started helping therapists start their own private practices under Open Book Branding. I loved this so much that I went back and got another Master’s Degree in Integrated Marketing Communications from Northwestern University.
A Personal Snapshot
I identify as genderfluid and I use they/them pronouns. I’m an introvert through and through and nothing beats a night having a quiet night at home watching a movie or going to a small, unknown bar, with a handful of close friends.
My husband, daniel, and I have been married for 15 years and we are huge board game enthusiasts, so much so that we have a special dining table made specifically for playing board and TTRPG games. We have a fur baby named Toph, yes from the show you’re thinking about, who we recently adopted.
I’m a huge book nerd and always have something new to recommend. I mostly enjoy science fiction and fantasy books but a good historical fiction can often be found in the mix as well.
Up until very recently, I’ve never had an interest in sports but then my husband and I went to a free match for the Austin Bold, and fell in love with soccer and were thrilled when Austin FC arrived!
Oh, I should also mention that I’m a Crafting Queer. In my downtime, you’ll often find me with my Cricut machine making stickers, hats, scrapbook pages, and so much more. During the pandemic, my hobby became resin and making things like tumblers, keychains, and even a chessboard.
