In the season finale of Embodied Resistance, host Tori is joined by Dr. Amber Elizabeth Gray, an internationally recognized dance/movement and somatic therapist, humanitarian, and long-time advocate for human rights. Together, they explore how restorative movement psychotherapy and embodied practices can support gender diverse youth navigating school violence.

Amber shares insights from decades of work at the intersection of trauma healing, displacement, and cultural resilience, reminding us that the body carries ancestral wisdom and the capacity for resistance. This conversation dives into redefining safety through the body, the power of small acts of resistance, and how harm reduction can create liberatory, community-centered spaces within schools.

As we close this season, we reflect on what it means to foster connection, honor cultural practices without colonizing them, and reimagine education as a place of healing and belonging.

In this episode of Embodied Resistance, I speak with Dr. Thania Acarón dance/movement therapist, performer, and researcher about the liberatory potential of movement for gender nonconforming and trans bodies. We explore how Dance/Movement Therapy can disrupt binary thinking, affirm fluid identities, and support healing from systemic violence. Dr. Acarón offers insights from their research and practice, highlighting how somatic work can become a space of resistance, reclamation, and embodied truth. Together, we consider what it means to move beyond gendered expectations and create therapeutic spaces that honor complexity, creativity, and care.

In this episode of Embodied Resistance, I’m joined by Dr. Rae Johnson, a somatic movement therapist, scholar, and author of Embodied Social Justice, to explore the deep connections between embodiment, oppression, and liberation. Together, we unpack how systems of power show up in the body, how trauma and identity are entangled, and why somatic awareness is essential to social justice work.

Dr. Johnson offers a powerful lens for understanding embodiment as both a personal practice and a political act—especially for queer, trans, and gender-diverse people navigating systems of violence and erasure. We discuss how educators, therapists, and movement practitioners can use somatic tools to resist disembodiment and co-create spaces that are grounded in consent, safety, and relational presence.

Whether you're new to somatics or steeped in embodied work, this conversation offers both practical insights and deep reflection on how we might move toward justice—not just with our minds, but with our whole selves.

In this first episode of Embodied Resistance, I sit down with myself to explore the personal, political, and embodied roots of this project. I share why Dance/Movement Therapy became my chosen path, what harm reduction means to me, and how the memory of Nex Benedict shapes my work with gender-diverse youth. This episode is part reflection, part declaration—an offering to anyone who has felt unseen in school spaces and a grounding for what’s to come.

Through this self-interview, I unpack the vision behind the podcast, define key terms like harm reduction and embodiment, and speak to the urgent need for movement-based healing in systems that too often punish rather than protect.

This is a space for softness, truth, and motion—for becoming the therapist, the educator, the adult that queer and trans youth deserve.