บทถอดความฉบับเต็มของ Bisexuality, Masculinity and Thriving as a Queer Middle Eastern Man - interview David F Khalili

I was often told that I wasn't Persian enough or American enough or Muslim enough or Catholic enough. And then in middle school, I realized that I was pretty queer lover of all genders. which then opened up to not this enough or that enough. ⁓ you know, and I realized over time that like, wasn't fitting into this box that was given to me and, ⁓ over time and, know, as I became a therapist and started doing these trainings, I realized like, yeah, I'm not the only one. There's many people that don't fit into the box that was given to them based on their social identities. And so that's why Rouse was started. And, the, theme, our motto is shame, less love, more. want to help people learn who they are, how they love and learn to love that part of themselves without having to hide or, you know, compartmentalize in an unhealthy way. We want to help people integrate their full selves. it's so needed. I mean, especially with, we think we've made so much progress in terms of sex and being able to talk about sex. it's still one of the topics that, clients bring up more and more often, right? Like there, there's all these different layers there. And so you, you've done some of your own work unpacking your own. kind of identities and sexuality. And then you're able to share that with the people you're working with, which is pretty incredible. Yeah. You know, it's, I'm always curious how, how was sex talked about, ⁓ for people when they were growing up was talked about at all. Was it talked about in like this doom and gloom way? Was it talked about just in a joking manner? Like, I feel like that really impacts how we talk about sex when we grew up. And you can see in our clients, when they start to talk about it, they'll, they get a little worried about you maybe, or, you know, they get, they don't want to embarrass. Even though they know that we do couples and sex therapy, they don't want to embarrass us. But, so it takes some time to even help them get a little more comfortable to open up to us. With everything that's happening in the world right now, especially with Iran, like, mean, you, ⁓ I'm sure this is impacting your work and your professional and personal life, right? Like, how are you? ⁓ and I think this is a question many people could probably benefit from hearing the answer to. How do you balance that? How do you balance what's happening in the world with all the work that you're doing professionally? Yeah. ⁓ it's, it's a lot, ⁓ you know, I think also, ⁓ one thing that's been crossing my mind is how during the pandemic I was, ⁓ like halfway through the pandemic, I became a burnt out couples pandemic therapist and I took a break from couples therapy during the pandemic. Cause I just, You know, I dove in head first, I would maybe 75 % of my caseload was couples that were just stuck at home and they couldn't stand each other. And so I think right now I'm also, there is a little burnout, but I'm, I've diversified a lot of the things that I do during the week and where my point of focus is kind of the reason why I started Rouse is I really love clinical work, love, love, love it. And I love sitting with clients. Um, but I also really like novelty and difference. And so. By having this practice and by having Rouse Academy, I can have different things that I dip into and it helps me with my burnout and with my, like fatigue from what's going on in the world. ⁓ and then what's really challenging is following the advice that I give my clients. ⁓ I have my, you know, ⁓ doom scrolling is definitely, you know, something that's got me by, by the eyes or however you want to phrase it. So I try to just. implement some strategies and, you know, forcing myself to ride my bike to work, for example, so that I just can't look at my phone or else I'll crash into the tree or something. ⁓ or, you know, really integrating being outside and being in the sun and, ⁓ yeah. And then also just acknowledging what is within my control or not. And then some media is really helpful and everything from, ⁓ been reading tick, Tom tick, hon. I mean, but because I also feel like he, you he was writing his poetry during the Vietnam War. And I imagine and I felt like he has a lot of great insights. And so there's been really moving poems that he's had that I've shared with others recently. And reading Rumi has been incredibly beneficial and useful. And then the other side of it, Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. really pulled me in. It's really, I can bring, you know, I'm not judgmental with my clients, but I'm so judgmental of the secret lives of women lives. And that's great. Their love of quota is in ketamine therapy. They're Wow, they've they're keeping the ketamine therapy industry alive in Utah. I haven't seen that one yet. I'm once one of them gets onto the traders, I'm sure I'll become more aware. I know a lot of folks are, you know, and everything from when ISIS kidnapping folks to the horrible laws that are going into effect, you know, anti-gay and anti-trans laws. It's hitting lots of people. know, we got to, I get the other last piece is knowing my mission, knowing my why my North star, it really helps me. And it also helps me know. that, I've always had that North star and so I can take a break. I can take a Sunday off. I can take a weekend off. It's okay. And I loved your Rouse mission statement. Can you share it with us now? The shame less love more. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Shame less love more is our, is our mission statement. That's really been really powerful. That's our, our, our North star. It's in the ways that I think about my teaching and the ways that I think about, you know, how I go about, how I go about life. ⁓ just shame is really easy to tap into. we want to, yeah, especially with sexuality. just feels like it's, you know, so, so much of the work that I feel like we do as sex therapist is like, okay, we need to just like normalize that most of what you want is totally natural. Yeah. Great. Like so many people

have all these messages that it's not. Yep. Yep. Yeah. I'm, I really get jazzed when I can help a client just feel more comfortable talking about sex. And I want to help them with more, if we can just get to that first step, I feel like then they can, they can go off on their own and do wonders. Why do you think for you, you were drawn to the sex therapy space in couples work? I think it's, I think it was actually because of how sex was talked about with my family growing up. You know, it was, you would think that with a Catholic mom and a Muslim dad, would just be like off the table, but we're looking at a stereotypical way, but it wasn't like we. talked about sex a lot and it was often in a joking way. A lot of sex jokes. I think it, it, hopefully with my timing and my comedic chops, but I think it then impacted the way that I looked at sex as, it was helpful that I could look at it as playful and creative and things like that, but not in a serious way or yeah, not in like a romantic way. And then also kind of going through my own coming out process with my family was challenging as they were both, you know, they both immigrated, grew up with a huge Persian family that had very vocal opinions about queer folks and especially about like bisexual or queer men that they couldn't choose a side, that they were spreading diseases, that they're doing all these horrible things. ⁓ And so I think just kind of Going through that in my mind, and I had in middle school my friend Danny, he was openly gay or he came out a little bit later, and my family loved him and accepted him, but I could tell that I couldn't come out to them directly in this, you know, not my son sort of thing. ⁓ And so kind of going through my own process and seeing my friends and talking to other queer Middle Eastern folks or queer third culture kids. ⁓ and hear how they're kind of trying to balance that. It was really fascinating for me and I really just wanted to learn more. And in undergrad, I did my, ⁓ like a bachelor's honors thesis on interviewing queer and Middle Eastern folks. this was 2004. Wow. Time is relative. ⁓ Yeah, 2004. And, you know, it was just really interesting to... to meet with them and to hear a lot of the same things reflected. And I wanted to see, is there a difference between religions within Middle Eastern cultures? I just kind of, yeah, it took me and I ran with it. And I think there's also, there's just like so much you can do within the world of sex therapy. And there's just so many interesting things. now I'm putting together a, thanks for following me on my tangents. I'm really curious about this AI and how it's kind of going and the industrial revolution feeling of it. And then the implications with sex therapy. And so I'm putting together like a free AI and sex therapy summit. I'll let you know that it's going to be in August. I'd love to know. Yeah. I'm going to see if, I think his name is Simon Dubé. He does space sexology. And I'm just really curious about gathering people that are doing interesting things and then talk about brainstorming our own excitement and fears about this, especially in terms of privacy and security. ⁓ So that's my long meandering answer about how I got into this, but going because there's just there's it's like, ⁓ my God, there's more. It's like a CVS for see it just keeps going and going. Well, that's one of the things that I find kind of inspiring about the way that you work is you're always you know, at least in the stuff that you're putting out through rouse, like you're really following things that interest you. And that's, think a good lesson to many of us, right? It's like, if you're feeling burned out, get connected to what actually would be enjoyable or interesting to you. And you continue to do that professionally. really helps. Yeah. I mean, when I help other therapists think about marketing, I really want them to think about like, what is it that they're passionate about? And they're going to enjoy it. Cause if Cause it'll show, know, you like to do videos or podcasts or blogs, do it and run into it. But if you don't, then people are going to be like, well, this is, and you're going to burn yourself out and you're going to wonder why you've been doing it. so, yeah, there's a lot of different ways to do marketing or to bring people together. Might as well have fun with it. I want to come back to something you just said, because one of the training I took that you, that you led was about working with, you know, queer middle Eastern. men. And I know that's it's such a broad, you know, I don't want to paint with such a huge broad brush because there's so many different cultures and communities with with under that umbrella. But what are some things that you see show up for queer, gay, bi, trans, Middle Eastern men today? Yeah, I think there's what I've been seeing is the first thing that comes to mind is there's this kind of Romanticization or fetishization of queer middle eastern men, queer Arab men. And so there is a discussion around just how that makes them feel and trying to suss out, okay, are you attracted to me because of who I am as a person or because of what I represent? ⁓ you know, there are become some really shitty things that are said, not all over, but enough where ⁓ It becomes a bit of a challenge to be totally open. I still know, you know, Middle Eastern queer folks that will, we'll say they're queer, but we'll say that they're from another country. They'll say they're Latin X or something because they, they're afraid that they're going to be kind of found out in a different way. If word gets out. think there is this, you know, there's this big piece about a challenging type of grief where you're here and then your home country is over there and some of us haven't been there but still feel that connection there because of you know how we were raised and the stories we were told and others where they were they left you know they were

able to come here and there's this kind of ambiguous lost or ambiguous grief where we're feeling the grief we're feeling the difficulty of what's going on and just the uncertainty of like what's gonna happen with the Middle East because it is, the war is spreading. ⁓ But then also, you know, looking outside our window and things just seem to be fine to a certain extent. know, there's a wonderful physician, his name was Dr. Naz Mohammed. They've done some really great work around raising awareness around Middle Eastern queer folks. They have like a really good big following in the United Arab Emirates where they are working with a lot of queer Middle Eastern men, just as from anything from like emotional support to trying to help them with with leaving the country. It's a mixed bag. And you know, as you said, with your friend from Venezuela, the tattoo artist from Venezuela, you know, there's I think the other thing that we're seeing is there's a lot of division within Persian community. For example, there's a lot of Persians that are now all of sudden pro Trump and ⁓ thanking him for for the bombings because of how much they hate. the IRGC. how it's interesting. I just had this feeling of like, ⁓ you shouldn't be talking about this, but, ⁓ but I think it's like the way that you were raised, what the way that I was raised growing up is like, don't talk, you don't talk bad about the IRGC if you're going to be on paper or if you're going to be published, but we can talk about it, you know, behind closed doors. Cause I did have family members that would talk poorly about them and then they would go to Iran to visit family and they get arrested. or their family members would go to Iran and their family members would get pulled aside and say, we know that your relatives with this one person who was published in the same script Chronicle about the, you know, revolution attempts. it just, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that's a big part of the secrecy or the trauma that can happen with these types of oppressive governments or regimes is. It's like the Panopticon, right? We don't know when you're being watched and it's designed in that way. And there becomes a self policing that happens where, that little person on the side of you is like, Nope, don't talk about that. Nope. You're going to get in trouble. You're going to get in trouble. ⁓ but that being said, I think there's also, you know, working in the Castro, ⁓ seeing all the flyers, there's a lot more representation of queer and deletion folks and a lot more. club nights and gatherings and like potlucks and, ⁓ at least in San Francisco and Oakland, it's seems like I'm seeing more and more flyers and more and more communities. And so I think in the tragedies or in the wars, know, that definitely does increase people's desire to get together and get together in these communal ways to feel supported. Yeah. It's the messages. I think you're speaking to the messages that we all get on some level from family

and culture that, that you know, are so much at play in the way that we show up in the world today. You've done so much incredible work also just with men and mental health. And, know, you have your mental health workbook for men where I looked at a couple of the different exercises that you have there and it just reminded me with some of ⁓ the male clients that we work with who were socialized male and that that even the concept of an emotion can be really difficult or a feeling can be really difficult for some folks. Tell me about, you know, your work with men and, starting with that kind of foundational area. Yeah. it's something that I've been bringing up a lot lately is, so I've done some in-person retreats a few times, ⁓ in one place that I like to do it at is in the Santa Cruz mountains. And we did this in September and I did a sensory exercise with them where I had them. I put up five different stations in the woods and it was the sound station, the site station, taste, so on and so forth. And just different things of those elements. And I told them, okay, we got, I it was like 20 minutes, 15 minutes. You have to go to each one, spend a few minutes. No one talks. And you just take some time to sink in and what, you know, what is your favorite or least favorite and why, and just dive in. And there was a part of me that, that thought these guys were going to be like, no, David, is... Like, what are we toddlers? There's this, what are we supposed to do? ⁓ but it was inspired because of the, groups that I've ran and the work that I've done with guys where they're just really disconnected from their, brings them joy, what brings them relaxation. You know, maybe they dive into substances or different things to kind of force that relaxation or they they're disconnected from their body during sex because they feel like I just got to stay hard and come and they don't think about. the different parts of their body that bring them pleasure. and so, yeah, there was some guys were brought to not like sobbing tears, but they were tearing up. They were really just getting embodied, getting in their emotions. And so I think that there's a lot of ways where, especially straight men or men who feel like they have to show up in a kind of a mask way, they cut themselves off from that type of joy or pleasure because it's seen as femme or gay or non-productive. doesn't match the capitalistic. you know, values of just working. You have the one thing that I keep trying to tell everyone is like, this is your life. You need to live your life. Touch grass. When I do my physics of AI class, we take a break halfway through and like, you have to go outside and actually touch something, you know, natural. Um, so yeah, the difficulty of naming emotions, the difficulty in accessing emotions, um, a big one, I'm like the the challenge of just letting yourself make mistakes and learning and learning from those mistakes and not diving into shame. ⁓ And then I just walked over the weekend or should have been taking the day off. But I watched that documentary about the inside the Manosphere. Louie Thoreau just came out with. Holy shit. I haven't seen it yet, but I've heard so much about it. Yeah. Yeah, it's you know, it's not surprising, but it's still disappointing. But I mean, that was actually one of, when it started out as a therapist, I actually didn't want to work with men or I didn't want to be seen as just working with men because I didn't want to be seen as in that men's rights. I don't think Manosphere was around at that time, but I didn't want to be in the men's rights movement or be seen in that way. But then I recognized that there's going to be these guys coming out anyways and trying to spit that bullshit. And so I might as well join in and try to counter that. Yeah. I mean, we're dismantling the patriarchy, but through work with men. mean, men's work is real and there's, I love the, ⁓ Jane Ward's book, the tragedy of heterosexuality where, you know, she talks about just the cost, right? Of heterosexuality for queer folks, but like also like the patriarchy costs for men. And there are real things that people are not even aware that systemically are impacting them. Yeah. Does that ever come up in the men's work or in these men's retreats that you're doing? Are people aware enough about how, what the impact is? Yeah. I mean, to a different degrees there, um, you know, recognizing what's being taken away from them or what they're, what they're taking away from themselves or not giving themselves access to by continuing the internalization of, of that patriarchy. Um, you know, we, do everything from like laughing at it to prying about it, you know, I used to work in construction and at one point a one of my coworkers, uh, he was like, what'd you do this weekend? And I said, I went to Sebastopol and, you know, did XYZ and yeah, it's a nice town. It's pretty cute. And he paused and he's like, you just call a town cute. And I was like, yes. He said, give me your man card. You gotta give me your man card. And I said, I gave that up a long time ago. It's too many responsibilities. It was like, really? I'm going to lose my man card because of. I called the town cute. so I will often bring that up as like a point of, know, bell hooks talks about how masculinity is hard to gain, but easy to lose. And that type of setup is, you know, it's a, it's a setup for that reactivity and the defensiveness. And, yeah, it becomes a real challenge. Yeah. I think I usually often quote bell hooks, ⁓ quote like the patriarchy is the greatest crime against male bodies or, know, the male human spirit. Butchering that quote right now. But you know, the, the idea that like it really does, it is harming even male bodied folks or people who've been raised male. I'm wondering, you know, do you see this showing up differently with folks who are straight or queer or gay or bi or trans? Like, do you see masculinity impacting folks

differently? Yeah. I mean, I feel like I've seen more and I don't want to do the generalizations, but I'm gonna. I see more straight men have more challenges with it. I think there's just less room for them in society to let them practice and be playful and maybe even have access to it. But I also, I think some of the ways that I've seen queer and gay men ⁓ also internalize some of those notions, especially around like opening up relationships, this feeling of, we're not gonna talk about it, we're just gonna do it. What's there to talk about? stereotypical masculine, ⁓ can't think of another way other than really clinical, but they don't see the point in like meta conversations or meta emotions. they just, they're like, okay, I said, sorry, let's just keep moving. Yeah. They want to solve the problem. Yeah. Right. And, kind of be efficient about it. ⁓ but what I'm seeing in San Francisco and in California is a lot of guys who are really burnt out from, from work and really burnt out from just trying to get by, ⁓ and not really admitting it. But I also understand why they're not, it's kind of dangerous to admit it, right? Cause if you're stuck in that system and you kind of need to be in that system in order to survive, it's hard to admit that there's the issue. ⁓ so that I've seen across different sexual identities in terms of, know, cause I think oftentimes there's like, ⁓ something that, that I see a lot in, in queer male spaces is like this bisexuality or ratio or by ratio. Is that something that you still observe happening? Yeah. I mean, in my, you know, myself, ⁓ yeah, I experienced it. I've been experiencing it since I was in middle school and like openly admitting to myself that I love all genders and, and I, I just keep coming across people that are telling me what I feel. I'm like, ⁓ well, okay. didn't know. ⁓ that's interesting. I don't like guys or actually don't like women or actually don't like track. Like, ⁓ okay. Thanks for the thing. You I'll respond in that way to kind of show to them like, no, I'm, know what I want. You know, like I was dating a woman at one point and I was pretty open with her and you could tell, I could tell that she was. not so certain that she was willing to give it a try and then the relationship didn't work out for me and I ended it and she thought that it was because I was actually gay and I didn't want to be with women and she like put her hand on my shoulder and she said you can be true with yourself you can live your life and I was like I am. ⁓ I used to be really, I used to get really upset about it and I used to get really worked up about it. And I get why people do and I don't want to make it sound like people that do get upset about it shouldn't. think it's a developmental process that you go through. And then over time, I was just after hitting up against that so many times, I'm like, ⁓ I'm not changing these people's minds. ⁓ You know, just like, don't, really don't like entitled people. And I used to get so worked up about it. then I was like, but they're just going to keep, they're just going to keep being entitled. And no matter how upset I get there. And so I stopped bartending in the Marina and then I was, you know, a little bit more calm and less agitated. but yeah, there's definitely a buyer ratio. There's a wonderful work by Amy Andre is her name. ⁓ Amy Andre, the sister of Eric Andre, she, ⁓ used to work for the white house during the Obama administration. doing a lot of work on by visibility and by awareness. And she's a single mom of two kids. And she often talks about kind of weaving in discussions and awareness of just all different types of sexual identities and gender identities. And I guess the last thing I'll say is I get surprised by sex therapists and couples therapists that will really push non-binary views about gender and about... sexuality to their clients or even about politics or about, you know, good object, bad object, but then be incredibly binary to bi men or bi women ⁓ who are just being honest that they like to bang around with a variety of people and then they're like, no, you don't, you're lying to yourself or you're that or you're not, you know, you're this enough or you're not that enough. But there's also plenty of people that are really welcoming and I think there's more and more room. for that type of fluidity and non-binary focus, which has been really, really lovely. And I'm like really stoked for the younger folks. I say that with so much hesitation. I know. stuff. I was like, am I supposed to that? I'm happy that in this really specific way, they can be more open and honest about their sexual and gender identity. I mean, I totally resonate with this. Like when I was a young, a much, much, much younger person, you know, when I was in my teens and coming up, I was one of those people that was like, you have to be gay or straight. You can't be in the, and you know, and I think personally, it came from a place of like, I wasn't fully out as gay and I, know, like there was all sorts of personal stuff going on there and societal messages. And I think it's something that I hope more and more people can get comfortable with this, this idea that because someone doesn't you know, there are sexuality, whatever it may be, doesn't look like yours. It doesn't mean it's not real. Right. Yeah. Right. And like, do I have to show receipts? I, I avoid play parties in the Bay area because I don't want to see clients. yeah, no, I don't. It's, it's really funny. It's just kind of an amusing, but I also get it in some ways with, you know, that gay and queer men historically have been pushed and beaten and abused and like I think it's also really interesting what's happening with how gay cis men are ⁓ I'm like, do I want to talk about this? I guess, you know, that's the hierarchy of privileges is super true. But I think there are ways where we can vilify gay cis men when they're not evil. They're your teal. Sam

Altman. Bad. I don't like them. But I think where there's a way where then we're all of a sudden like, oh, he's gay and cis and white and he's And like, well, we're just carrying on the fucking thing, guys. Like, let's let's look at the human. Let's look at the print can can they change? And yeah, I get just so tired when it just the cycle continues of finger pointing and blaming and othering. It's the polarity. mean, you know, the some if somebody has to be right or somebody has to be wrong, it it you know, we're seeing polarity play out in really consequential ways right now. That's really good. Unfortunately. Yeah. Right. Well, I mean, all the incredible work you're doing at Rouse. wonder if you could share a little bit about, know, cause it's not just work that you do with clients. You're also creating an incredible training program for therapists. How did you decide to do that and create that? Yeah, I've been curious about it for a little while where, some folks have wanted to join rouse relational wellness as an employee or to see clients here. And we're just not that big of a practice and don't have. the VC funding and I don't want the VC funding. But I do really love teaching and I really love supervising and I really love gathering people together. And I've really enjoyed, you know, I started Rouse Academy when I started Rouse relational wellness. I, in the beginning, I was doing most of the trainings just cause I was kind of building it. But I've really enjoyed bringing in other folks and I would love to have you on as well, Tom. because I just really enjoy the gathering of folks. In high school, I put on a big, weird queer punk rock party with weird music and queer performances and circus performances. And I just, it's just been a part of my rhythm. so whether it's online trainings to talk about AI or to talk about pelvic floor physical therapy or the in-person event that we're doing where we're gonna watch. Pillion for private screening, have some dinner and then do a clinical, sometimes snarky discussion. ⁓ and then we're doing a fundraiser for the, ⁓ transgender law center and San Francisco AIDS foundation. And Tom was generous enough to donate his book and we will be raffling that off as well as some other, ⁓ some other goodies. ⁓ and then yeah, browse Academy lab is we meet twice a month, one for an expert interview, the other one for case consultation. And so it's not totally altruistic. Like I said, I really enjoy it. It's, a lot of fun. learned so much from the others. ⁓ but I also keep hearing from graduates or newly licensed folks, even long-term license folks, just how isolated they're feeling. ⁓ or they, or they have the sudden drop where they do the grad school, they do the post-grad training program. Maybe they do another certification and then all of sudden they're on their own. And so to have this twice monthly touch point where they have that community of like-minded therapists. ⁓ and then they're just continuing their

learning, ⁓ in a way that's fed to them. don't have to constantly seek it out. They're just like, ⁓ great. I'm going to hear from Lucy fielding this month or Virgie Tovar or Reese Malone. Yeah. Like, I don't know. I really, it's like the hospitality side of me and my former restaurant worker. I'm very much in agreement with you there. I love kind of gathering people together and, ⁓ There's something, there's something incredibly isolating about being just, if you're a private practice therapist, you're, you know, you're, you're seeing your clients and you're, you know, having that kind of connection, but you're not getting the support of a community. And, um, and that can be pretty isolating. I haven't been able to make it to Shaw's annual conference, but this year I'm really considering it because of how just everything is going on. And like, I really, I really enjoyed hanging out with Shaw folks at the ASIC conference in San Francisco a couple of years ago. Do you play on this? ⁓ definitely. I live in Denver now and so Denver it's usually in Denver. And so it's, it's pretty great to have all these incredible sexuality professionals come in. And, know, it's an interesting story about that though. Like when we think about sex and sexuality, we were having, there was a conference and it was this, this one wasn't in Denver. was a supper about side of Denver and the, the, of the sex therapy signage had to be covered up because they were having a military ball in the next ballroom. And they didn't want to be offended by the word sex on any of the signage in the hotel. And I was like, I cannot believe this is still happening in 2025 or four, you know, it's, it's, know, we wonder why it's difficult for people to talk about sex and their relationships and, know, with their therapists or community or whatever. And then we see it played out in these systemic ways and it's baffling. I'm sure they did it and just, let's kind of like, well, yeah, of course we have to do this and you understand. Yeah. You're going to cover up the word military for those that are right. Well, this was such a great conversation, David. I could talk to you for about these topics all day. Where can people connect with you and learn more about you if they, if they want to learn more about working with you? Yeah. You can learn about our therapy services at rouse therapy.com R O U S E therapy or our trainings and gatherings at rouseacademy.com. Uh, and then Rouse therapy on Instagram and the tick tock and, uh, you too, we like to just give out lots of free information and yeah. Lots of other places. Right. And I'll put all that in the show notes and yeah, you're having an incredible speakers come, you know, I love the, the list of people you're curating. Cause there's really some like leading voices in the field that are going to be. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. The Rouse Academy lab is really exciting for me. And we're, This week we're actually meeting for the case consultation. So we just meet for 90 minutes and people bring in different cases they're working on and we join in and talk about it and dive in. That's awesome. Great. Well, thank you so much, David. Thank you, Tom. It's been really lovely to talk.