00:00When I first started transitioning,
00:02it was in South Florida, 19, 20 years old.
00:06Me and a few gal pals,
00:08we all came to the realization like,
00:11oh, I think I'm,
00:12because we would like go out and drag together.
00:15And then we realized like, this doesn't feel
00:19like you're dressing like performative.
00:20This feels like just kind of right.
00:25And so we realized in a time where gender therapists,
00:31the concept had never even crossed my mind.
00:33We're all trans.
00:34And back then you used to be able to buy your hormones online
00:38in housepharmacy.com.
00:40So we were taking everything.
00:44We were taking blockers.
00:45We were taking shots.
00:47We were doing patches.
00:48We were doing progesterone all at once.
00:49I ended up overdosing on hormones
00:51and developed a cyst on my thyroid
00:53the size of a golf ball overnight
00:55and freaked myself the fuck out.
00:59Ended up having this huge existential,
01:02like spiritual awakening.
01:07Wouldn't have traded it for the world.
01:08Became like really involved in religion
01:10and just searching spirituality
01:12and figuring out what is my relationship with my creator?
01:15Who do I believe God is?
01:17Who do I believe I am as my spirit?
01:20I became really at peace with the idea
01:24that this is a skin sleeve.
01:27This is literally just a decoration for the soul.
01:32And what it looks like speaks so much less
01:36towards who I am as a person
01:38than who I choose to be as a person.
01:42So I really stopped looking at the aesthetics
01:45and focusing on me as a person
01:48and my spiritual growth.
01:51There's a really beautiful excerpt from the Talmud
01:56that I'm trying to memorize right now.
01:59It's on my phone,
02:00but it basically speaks towards
02:05be in love with grace now.
02:10And just don't be worried
02:12about the existential worries of the world.
02:16However, do not dismiss them.
02:18You're still a part of it.
02:20So do what you can that is good.
02:21Essentially, I completely mucked that up,
02:23but I just saw it like yesterday
02:27and I'm like, holy shit,
02:28that's like my whole MO.
02:30That's what I've been trying to do
02:31this whole fucking time.
02:33All thinly veiled and laughs and wigs.
02:36But so I moved to Los Angeles
02:43and was exposed to all these different words
02:47I'd never heard of in South Florida.
02:50Like I said, it's a very isolated echo chamber.
02:54And all of my friends and colleagues were like,
02:57if you are a trans woman, that means this.
02:59And you like this and you sleep with these people
03:02and you act like this in public.
03:03And one thing that I do try and hold on to
03:06that I learned back then is the way you leave the house
03:08is the way you return.
03:09Don't take off your shoes.
03:10Don't take off your lashes.
03:11Don't take off your lipstick.
03:12The way that you left is the way you go home.
03:14That's one thing.
03:15And you're not done until you have your earrings on.
03:17That's another thing that I really hold on to.
03:20But so I moved to Los Angeles.
03:25I was introduced to all these different concepts,
03:27non-binary and gender fluid and pansexual
03:31and all these words I'd never heard of.
03:32And I was like, oh, there are other people who feel
03:37the way I feel because I had fully detransitioned.
03:40I was living as a very, very feminine man.
03:44And I was okay with that.
03:47You know, a lot of people like to say I was born
03:49in the wrong body, X, Y, Z.
03:51My lived experience is I was born in a body
03:56and I was born in a Ferrari, but I was really a Porsche.
04:00There was nothing wrong with it.
04:02The insides were still lovely.
04:04They just didn't really match up.
04:07So I just had some, you know, fabrications done to make the outsides more authentic to what the insides were.
04:16And granted, I'm not a mechanic, so my analogy could be flawed, but it sounds good to me.
04:22You know, so I don't know shit about cars, but I do think that would be a fun hobby when I get older.
04:29I might want to take up some mechanics classes because I tell you what, highway robbery, those mechanics all the time.
04:36Seriously.
04:37But that's why I don't drive.
04:39But in any event, I realized, okay, so you definitely are not cisgendered.
04:47That is a given.
04:49Let's extrapolate on that.
04:51So when I first began medically transitioning, I used the term non-binary because I did not identify with a lot of the very binary trans women that I was friends with in South Florida.
05:07So I thought, okay, well, I don't feel a lot of the same feelings as these trans women, so that means I must be something else.
05:13What kind of feelings were those?
05:15Well, there's just very, once again, my experience, pardon me, I felt that these women were very much stuck in these heteronormative gender roles of, okay, so, and there's still a lot of trans women who feel this way.
05:30And it's whatever, that's their experience.
05:33And it's all, whatever, cool.
05:35But things like, okay, so you should strive to be passing.
05:42You should strive to look a certain way as to not be perceived as trans.
05:51A lot of trans women do not want to be perceived as anything but a woman.
05:59And while I do feel that I am a woman, and I will use that word to describe myself, I am also cognizant of the fact that I am a trans woman.
06:08So when you're getting down to brass tacks, it's all just words, you know, that we're bickering over.
06:18And the English language is hugely flawed in and of itself.
06:22So why are we bickering over something that is not infallible?
06:26You know, it's not perfect.
06:28Why are we fighting over these words?
06:30If at the end of the day, what we want is action and justice and equality, I feel like we're getting a little too distracted with words.
06:40You want to fight with me about chromosomes?
06:44I don't fucking care, my guy.
06:46I don't care.
06:48I'm living my life authentically for myself.
06:51And this is where I have a lot of discourse with other trans women that I grew up with in that my gender presentation is not performative for other people.
07:04Every single thing I've done, it took me for years to decide to get my boobs done because I was like,
07:10am I doing this because I feel pressure to do it in order to assimilate with the way that the cisgendered heterosexual culture that shaped the world has changed history in order to make us believe what is normal?
07:29Or am I doing it because I want big titties?
07:31And I finally came to the realization, you've always had big tit energy.
07:39You've always been a big titty bitch.
07:41You've just, you were moonlighting in the itty bitty titty committee for a long time.
07:47And that's fine, but you graduated.
07:49I feel like that's one of the most profound things I've ever heard.
07:52I'm actually not joking.
07:53I like love the way you put that.
07:55That is like, that's a highlight clip.
07:58Aw.
07:59Well, yeah.
08:00So I just realized every, and this I get from my mother and my father, and it's one of my hugest flaws and one of my greatest strengths.
08:07It's that I will not do something because I feel pressure to do it.
08:12I will do it because it feels right for me.
08:14Yeah.
08:15And every surgery I've had, every choice I've made in my career, I have made because it's what I felt at the time was the most authentic thing to do for myself.
08:28And what's ironic is a lot of those things are, at the end of the day, performative.
08:38You know, do I make the choice to perform or do I make the choice to take a step back and not do anything?
08:50And to everything there is a season, you know, sometimes I will just take a step back and I'll just not do anything.
08:56But yeah, I've found that especially with my gender, now I am very comfortable in the concept that I am a woman.
09:07I am a trans woman, but it took a lot of growing to get there.
09:14And I think that there are a lot of people, especially with mine and the younger generation, with millennials and Gen Z, who want to be louder than everybody else.
09:28And they want their opinion to be heard because historically, if you shout the loudest, you're the one that's going to close mouths, don't get fed.
09:36But I think that if you don't have that lived experience, if you haven't been on this earth for a certain amount of time, maybe your voice needs just a little bit more maturing.
09:49Maybe your point of view just needs a little bit more extrapolating before you go out there and you start being an ambassador for people.
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