Desire as a North Star: Reclaiming Gender Rituals with Eli the Gender Doula / by Edgar Fabián Frías

What if we approached transition not as a medical problem to be solved, but as a sacred initiation?

In the latest episode of Your Art is a Spell, I sit down with Eli, known widely as The Gender Doula, to explore what happens when we strip away rigid societal scripts and bring magic, ritual, and deep intentionality back to the way we relate to our bodies and identities.

Forging a New Path

Before 2020, almost no one called themselves a "gender doula." Eli was deep in a PhD program at UC Berkeley studying jurisprudence, social policy, and the history of trans legal and medical systems. But when the rigid realities of academia began to take an immense physical and emotional toll, a quiet revelation sparked after listening to a podcast episode: if we have doulas for birth and death, why don't we have doulas for every major threshold of life?

Eli took a leap of faith into the unknown, leaving academia to forge a whole new modality of care. Today, that calling has evolved into a thriving virtual practice, a monthly breathwork circle, a beloved advice column, and now, the first-ever cohort training the next generation of certified gender doulas.

Moving from Dysphoria to Desire

One of the most profound insights Eli shares in our conversation centers on shifting our baseline away from pain:

"The threshold for transition is not dysphoria. It’s not 'I hate this body' or 'I’m in the wrong body.' The threshold is: I want something else. If we base our choices on running away from what feels bad, that can only take us so far. But moving toward what feels resonant takes us across every part of life."

Rather than reducing gender to a clinical checklist designed by systems that never understood us, Eli’s framework centers joyful autonomy, self-collaboration, and spiritual meaning-making.

Introducing Gender Rituals

Our episode also celebrates a major milestone: the release of Eli's debut book, Gender Rituals. Channeled through deep ancestral connection and forged in the desert of Joshua Tree, the book offers practical, grounded tools for bringing ritual into identity shifts, from consent rituals before taking HRT to communal ceremonies for speaking new names into the world.

Whether you are navigating a transition yourself, supporting a loved one, or simply looking to live more authentically, this conversation offers a powerful container for self-trust and what Eli calls trans audacity.

Highlights from the Episode

  • Inventing the Role: How Eli bridged academic theory, birth doula traditions, and spiritual care.

  • The Limits of the Western Medical Model: Why mainstream transition narratives create echo chambers—and how to move beyond them.

  • Threshold Magic: Practical examples of gender rituals, from solo consent practices to communal pronoun ceremonies.

  • Trans Audacity: Finding resilience, joy, and empowerment in a culture obsessed with backlash.

Listen & Watch Now

Watch on YouTube:

Listen on Apple Podcasts / Spotify: [Link to Podcast Episode]

Connect with Eli