Overcoming Childhood Abuse, Kidnapping & SA as a Trans Man

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi and welcome back to Beyond the Monsters.
Today we have Vittorio.
See, I'm so bad with names.
I'm so glad that I pronounced that right.
I got it right.
Double T.
V-I-T-T-S.
Yes, he is with us all the from California and he's going to share his story with ustoday.

(00:28):
you
trigger warning, sexual assault, rape, abuse, and other explicit content.
So go ahead.
It's all yours.
So my name is Vittoria White-Gray.
I'm a voice actor, film producer, DEIA consultant, lupus warrior, survivor, and LGBTQIA2plus advocate, as well as a disability advocate.

(00:56):
I live with complex PTSD.
From trauma I experienced in childhood and beyond, trauma that never stopped actually.
And I'm on here today to tell my story of how I survived child abuse, homelessness, beingkidnapped and raped, and three heart attacks and paralysis.

(01:20):
All of which were a result of being negated as an AFAB child, Assigned Female at BirthChild.
And it all began for me at two years old.
I was born to executive parents in the late 1980s in the literal safest city for its sizein the country.
My dad was a decorated Vietnam veteran, turned international corporate lawyer, and mymother was a tech exec that left the company after having her kids.

(01:51):
In searching for answers for decades, in searching for answers for decades, I've come tounderstand that perhaps the pressure of
Being successful business people of color in the 1980s in a very conservative environmentled them to spank, humiliate, beat, and shame me because I didn't fit the image.

(02:12):
I realize now it was definitely more than that because healthy, well-rounded, safe adultsand parents do not hit their children no matter what.
No excuses.
That put me in...
uh Anyway.
They put me in a beauty pageant at two years old.
I won.
I don't know if that was the spark that started this pattern of jealousy or what, but bythe time I was three years old, I had already been sexually assaulted.

(02:47):
I was left with an undocumented nanny from Central America that they already fired becausea neighbor saw her hitting us and being abusive in the park.
My grandmother in New Jersey had a triple bypass and my mother left me and the other twochildren I was raised with for six weeks when it was supposed to only be two weeks without

(03:11):
her.
My father was there during the six weeks but completely devoted to his other family, hisjob, corporate America.
was in the nine to five so he was there before work and came home in the evenings but forall those days the nanny was hitting, slapping and performing sexual acts
on me.

(03:32):
That saga ended because one day as my dad was hugging me before leaving for work, I heldonto him for dear life.
He would remind me of this while crying for many of my birthdays.
That on that day in particular, I was hysterical and I would not let him go.
And he pried me off of him.

(03:53):
And I remember him saying this.
said, I love you, honey, but I have to go to work.
And he left me there.
My dad said by the time he got home that evening that his little girl was gone and that amonster was there in her place.
Six weeks of horror laid the groundwork for the decades of abuse that followed.

(04:16):
The story of what happened to me at three years old preceded me in every social and familycircle for years.
It became a salacious, gossipy storyline like every other private matter of mydevelopment.
Nothing was private, nothing was sacred.
yet everything was treated as like a family secret of sorts.

(04:38):
They use what happened then as an excuse for my flat tone of voice, my preference forquiet, smaller environments, and general difference from the way the other kids in the
family and the neighborhood interacted to take the focus off of their physical andpsychological torture.
I was hit very hard and with various objects and it did not stop until I was 12 years old.

(05:02):
And I told them I would report them if they ever put another hand on me.
Prior to that, I was told if you call the police, I'll kill you before they get here.
I believed my father until one day I went to the private Mormon school they sent me to.
We are not Mormon oh at all.
They sent me to private Mormon school and I had to cover up my bruises and welts on thebacks of my thighs.

(05:31):
And the only reason they were visible is because they made me wear that like typicalCatholic school girl, Britney Spears, you know, the plaid skirt, the uniform, right?
That's the only reason you could even see the scars in the first place.
I always like thought that was not the strategy.
ah And just so you know, like pants were a unisex option at that school, you know, butthat was my family.

(05:54):
But that embarrassed me so badly that I finally did stand up for myself.
I remember him
nodding once, saying nothing and walking away.
And he never hit me again after that.
It mostly turned into control and name calling.
After that, shaming me for being LGBT, having a masculine side.

(06:18):
I came out as lesbian at 12 years old and transgender at 21.
Everything that went wrong in that dysfunctional family was blamed on me.
Everything.
I mean,
I was the scapegoat, the black sheep, however you want to say it.
My other parent had daily periods of rage.
She would get angry at me for the placement of my eyebrows, how my lip turned into, shecalled this Elvis lip, I guess, she called Elvis lip, she hated that.

(06:44):
um And when I, you know, I would have my face, you know, just going through normal facialexpressions as I would be upset or sad, and any displays of my innate uh masculinity were
seen as like threatening and bizarre.
She would mock my voice and share intimate details about my changing body to, you know,anyone who would listen at literally every milestone in my life.

(07:12):
I remember one time my mother picked me up from school and because I was quiet and didn'tgreet her in just the right tone of voice, the facial expressions and the level of joy
that I should have had, she told a van pool of my older brother's friends that I had myperiod.
She said, just because your breasts are growing in and you have your period doesn't makeyou a grown woman that can give me attitude.

(07:39):
I was 12 years old and
just mortified.
Sure.
That platform of abuse, gaslighting, and scapegoating led me to seek emancipation at 16years old.
I successfully passed the exit exam for high school but returned to finish my senior yearbecause they begged me for a prom photo.
With a guy, of course.

(08:00):
So I went with a friend, a good friend from junior high, and we took the photos.
And that was, I told them, I told them after that, said, that is the last thing that I amever going to do for you guys.
So enjoy that.
after that I moved out on the day I turned 18 and moved to Los Angeles to do the Hollywoodthing.
Had a lot of fun and success with that.

(08:22):
I was living openly as an LGBT Hollywood actor, basically, and uh certainly as aChristian.
And by the time I was 20 years old, they had me evicted, which resulted in my homelessnessand eventual kidnapping and rape.
Nine days before my father died.

(08:45):
It never stopped the abuse, it simply enhanced it.
After my father died, the two children I was raised with left together for Asia and arecurrently and probably forever expatriates, over a decade long at this point.
Leaving me to care for my mother, who was my personal invalidator, she would play Law andOrder SVU every time I would enter their room for years after that.

(09:10):
I don't know what channel that is.
but they only play Law and Order and I hate that channel.
I hate it.
I would hear her scrambling.
She would hear me coming down the stairs or down the hall or whatever.
I would hear the news that was playing or the view or whatever and I would hear herscrambling to find the remote to change it to dun dun dun.

(09:31):
And just like.
Yes.
Yeah.
I mean just it was such a pattern of
hurting me and invalidating my reactions to those pain, you know, the pain that wasinflicted on me that it just kind of became the norm, but I was never okay with it.
She would constantly deny me being transgender, calling me my birth name, calling me she.

(09:56):
For reference, I completed my transition in two years and transitioned in 2012.
It's 2025 now.
And I got she'd the other day.
I, yeah, and I had a complete.
transition, not that that matters because you should respect anyone no matter where theyare on their journey.
But I did have full chest reconstruction and uh phalloplasty surgery.

(10:18):
I'm completely male in that way.
oh So I don't know, after all that, I was able to purchase a small cottage in the smalltown, little central California area.
It was not safe, but I could be myself there.
And that like made it okay, I guess.

(10:39):
From then on I always pretty much lived in both places and would drive down to make sureshe wasn't lonely or being self-destructive or whatever uh You know alcohol and greed
literally destroyed that family, but I cared for my mother like she's my mom You know andI thought that I could endure that pain You know if it meant that I could ease some of

(11:01):
hers I had it like extreme empathy for the fact that she lost my dad.
She lost her husband of 25 years
So at first I was like, okay, is this just misplaced grief?
Is it, like, I don't know, but we're family, so I'ma be here and deal with it, yeah.
It wasn't until I had my first heart attack at 29 years old, and two more after that, andbecoming paralyzed with lupus, that I realized, like, I had to start setting some hardcore

(11:29):
boundaries and confronting.
these things that were still, not that I didn't protest throughout the years, not that Ididn't have my phases of yelling back and giving it right back to them as a child, you
know what I mean?
But when I got paralyzed with Lupus, literally right around the one year weddinganniversary to my gorgeous, loving, beautiful wife, she's just my blessing from God,

(11:55):
right?
And the way that my wife came into my life and loved on me,
Like just with a whole heart, with a whole heart filled with love and protection and theway she holds that safe space for me.
The way that she loves me showed me what love wasn't all those years.

(12:17):
And that was really, her love was really the catalyst that had me start telling my storyand putting it out there because I deserve to be loved.
Everyone does.
I wasn't a bad kid or anything.
I was just different and I wasn't what they wanted and I couldn't be controlled.
Well, I'm glad that I was a creative, uncontrollable kid because now I'm a film producer,a voice actor, and I'm also an author.

(12:41):
I actually wrote this book, Being Negated, an anthology of transgender survival storiesand it kind of fictionalizes some of my stories and puts it in the perspective of other
trans, other just people that have been through
similar crises.
um that's me in a nutshell, and I'm just putting it out there because I want my story tohelp other people.

(13:07):
Yes, absolutely.
Wow.
all in that few minutes.
Yeah, I had to take notes just so I could make sure that I was representing everythingaccurately and fairly, not just going on, this is what I feel.
No, I kind of wanted to lean on this is what happened.

(13:27):
This is, it happened to me.
Right.
Do you want to talk about, um you know, talk about a little bit like how you felt knowingthat you were different and wanted to be different and like what you struggled with like
in your younger years and then go from there.
So, you know, people can relate.
I'm sure there's plenty of people that can relate and just know that it's okay.

(13:50):
And those feelings are normal.
And this is what you have to go through.
Yes, absolutely.
Okay, that would be awesome.
Yeah, so just
I just do have to say your voice is like ridiculous.
I love it.
It's just like, I don't know, it's just beautiful.
I love it.
so much.
You have a lovely tone of voice too.

(14:11):
Oh, I'm like just a big mouth.
Try to like tone my down.
Oh no, you're in the right field, definitely.
That's important, the stuff you talk about is important.
Yeah, so I would say that my earliest recollection of being different and that beingdifferent had ramifications was between three and four years old.

(14:36):
uh I remember the first...
girl that I fell in love with after my soccer game when I was four years old, I say girl,she must've been probably like some 19, 20 year old young lady.
She was this brunette and she was walking into Thrifty's where we were going to get an icecream because I'm sure we had lost, I wasn't good.

(14:57):
But we were going to get an ice cream afterwards.
every day wasn't awful, right?
Like there were moments every day where things were awful, but.
We're still a family and if you stay a family, know, eventually you're gonna, you're gonnastumble upon some understanding in good times too, family vacations and all that.
But anyway, I remember I pulled up with my dad and this gorgeous girl was walking intothrifties and I knew I was gonna get that ice cream like I always did.

(15:26):
But today I was hoping that I could also get that girl.
mean, I was a very small child and I had-
Yeah, big dreams even at a little age, okay
Absolutely.
Well, from then on, I just knew that I would have to marry a gorgeous woman just likethat, or else I wouldn't be satisfied.

(15:47):
That's just speaking the truth.
So then I was on a lifelong mission to find myself fully so I could be a whole person andthen go out and find her.
actually, God tapped me on my shoulder that day.
oh was I was actually sleeping in my living room at my own uh bungalow and a trickle oflight came through the window.

(16:08):
Right?
Like I'm normally not a morning person, but this trickle of light came in and it was justdancing on my face.
It would not let me sleep.
There was like a heat to it.
And I guess scientifically it was just the morning sun coming up.
But the way that it hit me that day, I was like, I have to get into this program, thisnursing program immediately today actually.

(16:28):
And I called, I got the last seat in the class.
They told me I had to be there an hour and there she was.
Um, so everything basically that
people tried to minimize in me or literally beat out of me, deprive me of, okay, maybethey didn't have the tools to know everything about transgender uh back then.

(16:51):
I certainly didn't.
I transitioned as soon as I fully found out about it.
I often thought back in the day, you see transgender people on Jerry Springer, MauryPovich, Jenny Jones, whoever was out there.
Those people actually were doing the advocacy back then, people like Mark Angelo Cummingsand others, they were putting their story out there and it was completely unsafe to do so,

(17:17):
but because they did and my little trans self saw them, I knew that I was something otherthan what the norm was.
And if I didn't know that about myself, my parents reinforced it by punishing me for thevery things that my brothers did.
I remember we had this like kind of like archway as you went from the living room to thekitchen.

(17:38):
And I would jump up as I would grow throughout the years.
would jump up and like smack it like, yeah, I'm that tall now.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I remember I did that.
And one day my mother snapped on me so bad.
said, damn it, stop jumping up and hitting that thing.
I don't know what you're trying to prove around here, but stop doing that.
And I didn't, I didn't get it except, it's that thing about me that she doesn't like.

(18:03):
I remember, yeah, I just knew like that part of me is what pisses them off, you know, andI can recall words that I shouldn't have been aware of like um molestation, uh penis envy,

(18:23):
penis envy was a big one.
That was something that got thrown around a lot, you know, thinking that our
Little ears can't understand anything.
I was an intelligent child.
had autism, but I was still smart.
Neurodivergence sometimes gives us better, different, different abilities.
You know what I'm saying?
So I remember it was like at one of the birthday parties we had in the backyard, one ofthe many gatherings that we had in the backyard.

(18:47):
And my mom was sitting around with the other ladies.
I was watering with a watering hose, um, just for fun.
And I guess I put it between my legs and I was watering the plants.
I don't know.
I don't know if that, was appropriate, but I must've been
seven or eight.
Yeah.
And I was doing it to myself, but I just remember her sitting with the other ladies like,penis envy.
he has, she has penis, she, right?

(19:07):
She has penis envy and this and that.
I learned that word too young.
I saw the color purple too young.
I was forced to read the red tint too young.
wonderful, wonderful pieces of work, but I was just like, if that's what womanhood is, andyou're telling me that that's what it means to be a woman, besides the fact that I
physically don't feel that way, I look in the mirror and I'm not seeing myself yet, Idon't wanna grow up to be that or anything like you for sure.

(19:34):
Traumatizing material.
And I used to wanna do the stuff that my brothers were allowed to do.
know, Pop Warner, I wanted to play football.
We had season passes to the Rams games, you know, from my old childhood.
I wanted to play football.
I hate the sport now because they didn't let me.
And the only reason they let me play hockey is because the Mighty Ducks movie came out,you know, through Disney.

(19:57):
And they had one girl on the team in one of those movies, and that gave them thepermission.
Okay, it's okay, it's okay, you can do hockey now.
So I got to play hockey for my school, a great outlet.
Oh, you get to just, yes, you get to just check people and this and that, and onlypunishment is a little penalty in the box.
And it just, it really helped me grow into the boy that uh would later turn into this manbefore you.

(20:25):
I love it.
Wow.
So you were just always basically trying to please them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was.
So how did you end up not being so much under like her thumb with all that?
Like what what made you come out fully as trans and did you tell her or did you just likefinally say like fuck it I don't care I'm gonna be me?

(20:56):
Like how did that happen?
Um, so it was kind of a combination of everything.
Um, let me tell you how she found out that I was a lesbian.
didn't just voluntarily come out.
Um, yeah, this was in the days of AOL mail.
You got mail, right?
And so like there had been all of these like spam emails that she was getting seeminglyinvolving my account or something like it was convoluted.

(21:22):
But then she came to me really upset.
was like, I don't know what's going on with you lately, but I got all these emails.
selling drugs?
Are you in a gang?
Are you this and that?
I was a good kid.
I'm from Orange County, like, you know?
And I was like, no, I'm not.
I'm just a lesbian.
And I thought in that moment, it was going to be that aha moment.
it all makes sense now.

(21:42):
We love you.
Right.
We knew it all along.
out like everybody knows okay they understand that yeah yeah and you were
like I was 12 right yeah well yes 12 um and so the reaction was literally
You can't, I can't believe this.

(22:02):
Ow!
You're gonna be a bull dagger!
Oh, what are you doing with your life?
I sacrificed everything to be your mother and this is how you're gonna repay me.
I was like, I was effing terrible.
laughing, just so you know, I'm laughing with you.
No!
Not at you, I'm laughing with you.
You're good, you're good at that in person.

(22:24):
a means of survival and playing things out in my mind to make sure I'm keeping the bit ofsanity that I remain, you know, I retained from all of this.
Yeah, so that was coming out as lesbian, which really would have been better said ascoming out LGBT.
um But um as far as transgender, was...

(22:47):
What kind of language can we use on this show?
Is the F-bomb okay?
I was so fucking destroyed from 2009 being kidnapped and raped for five hours in the backof a tow truck.
wait.
So 2000, when is that?
2009?

(23:08):
How old were you?
had just turned 21 the just three weeks prior.
And my father lay literally uh dying in the hospital.
um He worked on his deathbed.

(23:29):
I couldn't break his heart in the way that my heart had been broken for so many years inthe family.
And damn it, if you thought he did a good job raising his family, well, let him go outlike that.
He also was a contributor, a big contributor to our church.
And I do believe he um found his spirituality and salvation.
um I can't speak to the rest, but just their errors or their inability to kind of likecome out of the 1940s and 50s and realize that like we were raised in the 90s.

(24:02):
Like I'm a 90s kid, Nickelodeon, Disney, Cartoon Network, you know, all that.
It's like, I just.
I kept that part to myself.
I also didn't know he was gonna die nine days later, you know?
But that night, that night that the rape happened to me was the last night that I saw myfather uh alive in any, you know, any meaningful way that he could communicate.

(24:28):
uh I was, I was evicted.
And because of them, in,
It was vicious.
It was a targeted attack.
It was believing.
Wait, wait, you were evicted because of the attack?

(24:50):
Check this out.
Let me go back.
Let me go back.
I wanna be very clear.
I was living on my own in Los Angeles from the day before I turned 18 until 20 years old.
At that time, they begged me, my father begged me to move into our rental property abouttwo miles outside of Beverly Hills.

(25:18):
and stop paying my own rent in my studio apartment because they wanted my older brother tohave an opportunity to live in LA and he had already trashed a house down here, partying
it up, trashed, as in like the beige carpet was black, trashed, like a meth house, right?
Yeah, so.
So because of that, they didn't want to deal with him, but they didn't want to keepfunding all of his endeavors.

(25:44):
So they said, well, you've been in LA for two years.
I trust you.
Can you go over there and make sure that the house isn't trashed and that things are goingokay?
And I said, I really, really love my apartment.
I mean, it was gorgeous.
It was on Sepulveda Boulevard.
I had it for $9.25 a month.
Right now I looked, it's going for like $14.
Like you just, can't really move back.

(26:06):
Yeah.
It was my own space, but
it did kind of make sense.
Like, well, why wouldn't I live in our vacant duplex?
know?
Why should my brother that partied all through high school?
I never did drugs.
wasn't a drinker in high school.
I was that designated driver.
ah What was it called when you put the Xs on your hands?

(26:27):
What was that called?
it was like kind of part of like emo culture, but it was like.
Oh, someone will see this and know, but it basically meant like, I'm the one that doesn'tdrink, but I'm cool, you know?
Okay.
So long story short, I agreed to that.
I agreed to move into the family duplex outside of Beverly Hills, outside of BeverlyHills.

(26:49):
oh it's always, you always got to say it in the swankiest way, right?
And while I was there with my brother that we've never been close, we've never gottenalong three years apart,
between me and my older brother as well as me and my younger brother.
I was there and they thought, well, they're adults now, maybe it'll work.
It didn't, it didn't.

(27:11):
He partied.
He uh took offense to the fact that I was in a lesbian relationship and...
had one last final party when I was ill.
Mind you, had undiagnosed lupus because every time I was homesick, they just assumed I hada test I didn't wanna take or I was faking it or anything else.
I had lupus all my entire life.

(27:32):
They're going back.
I have these butterfly scars.
These came when I was 14.
Yeah, yeah.
So anyway, so he was so disgusted and offended supposedly by me being a lesbian and havingmy lesbian partner come over to the house in my room.
as an adult, you know, that when he threw a party, when he threw a party and invited somefriends from his program that he was in that he probably doesn't know now, and I had never

(28:03):
met before, I asked him to keep it down.
It had gotten to be about two o'clock in the morning and I was ill.
And his friend said, are you going to let that bitch talk to you in your own house?
And I said, excuse me.
One, I'm not a bitch.
and two, you can get the fuck out of this house because this is my father's house.
No, it isn't.

(28:24):
Tell him, tell her at the time.
Tell her, tell her how this is your house.
Well, my father and my older brother, he's a junior, so they had the exact same name.
there was, kind of allowed people to believe that and that I was his sister, that he waslovingly just letting live there, you know?
And I just knew, I just knew that

(28:48):
because he would tell my parents in the morning.
I just knew that when they found out, this was so cut and clear, just so effed up andone-sided that they would side with me.
They showed up at the house the next morning, big picture window in the front.
Could see him walking by with joy, just pep in their step, carrying an eviction notice.
And my father walked through the door.

(29:10):
He sat me down, he handed it to me, and he said, I'm sick of this shit.
I am sick of dealing with you.
This is an eviction notice.
And you have 24 hours to get yourself all of your belongings out of this house, as well ashave your room broom swept.
And I remember that broom swept, because I made sure it was broom swept, right?

(29:34):
To military standards, right?
um And after that, literally the next day, I'm sorry, later in that evening, which was aSunday, uh very hard to...
get a hold of a U-Haul on a Sunday late in the day, just for those who might need to dothat.
um They called me and said, you know what?

(29:54):
You know what?
Just come home.
Just come home.
Like on this upset, dramatic, just come home.
Just come home.
So ultimately what came out that in all these years of digging is that my father knew hewas sick before he even married my mother.
She knew as well.
He knew he wasn't going to live past uh certain milestones for me.

(30:16):
He would always say, I'm not gonna see you graduate and I'm not gonna see you get married.
ah know, things like that.
So, yeah.
So my father knew that he was ill before he ever married my mother.
And so my mom knew that she was marrying a sick man.
They didn't know what it was for the longest.
It turned out that it was exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam and it just attacked his...

(30:38):
whole system and probably exacerbated an autoimmune disorder that he had because I haveit.
I have it.
And he went down in the same way that I started going down um just two years ago, almosttwo and a half years ago now um with the paralysis, the weakness, uh just the worst.

(31:01):
the worst case of lupus that uh anyone's seen, at least at the hospital that I was treatedat.
So anyway, they just begged me to come home.
And my dad had, guess recently at work had a fall and knew that his illness wasprogressing.

(31:23):
So ultimately it was sabotage to get me to come back home because he wanted to have mearound
they wanted to have me around for comfort, a comfort that I never felt.
um If I had known that, although I was living in my car in a parking garage of what wasthen my ex um and her mother allowed me to uh come up to the apartment occasionally, God

(31:54):
bless them, I had nowhere else to go.
it was still preferable to live in that parking garage than to willingly put myself backin that position.
uh I feel like they target, I say AFAB, that means Assigned Female at Birth, that would beme as a trans man.

(32:14):
It could be a lesbian, it could just be you, just your average, I assume, uh heteronorm,you can't assume these days though, so I won't, but know, just.
um
I don't know.
I don't know where I was going with that.
Let me see.
We were just talking about them.
They were trying to bring you home.

(32:35):
um But you lived in the garage or the parking.
That was like bad.
in the fucking parking garage.
Mind you, I was still acting and stuff.
no one, you know, would, you know, clean myself up and go down to set.
I was a working actor.
That's never stopped.
Thank God.
I love, I love what I do.
I love what I do, but it was literally preferable because I knew they had sabotaged me.

(33:00):
I just didn't have all the pieces to understand why yet.
um It was preferable to going home.
And so I didn't.
um
But I did after, obviously, the incident that happened nine days before my father died.
At that point, it was better to go home because at least there was a solid roof.

(33:24):
But I was...
Wait, so did this happen in that parking garage where you were staying?
Yeah.
So unfortunately, like the, the sexual assault, and I'm just going to call it what it is.
Um, the kidnapping and, um, the five hour rape that I went through, um, before beingdiscovered by an angel, an officer that was literally doing his job, you know, um, law

(33:53):
enforcement, um, people, you know, some people feel a certain way about it.
Definitely.
Uh, you know, things have to be fair.
right and everything else but I have a special relationship with law enforcement because Iwas literally saved that day.
I mean he would have killed me he admitted that his plan was to take me out to the desertand do whatever and ditch me out there.

(34:15):
He was a convicted, twice convicted of uh a child.
I don't know the specific, I knew it like the back of my hand when.
second.
of a uh lewd and lascivious act with a minor, that's what it was, as well as a full-onsexual assault of a 15-year-old girl that he had impregnated and she later disappeared,

(34:38):
right?
I always played 18 to play younger because, not now, I got some wrinkles, but back in theday, you know, I was 18 or older, but they could cast me as 15, 16, which meant they could
pay me as an adult, keep me all the hours they needed and this and that, it was kind of mygig.
I feel like,
that made him target me because I did look so young.

(35:00):
And he confessed that he saw me in either, it was one of my movies or a nationalcommercial I had at that time and got obsessed.
And because I wasn't somewhere safe, I was so accessible.
I was living in that environment where I was literally homeless as a kid from OrangeCounty.
He was watching me.

(35:20):
He was watching me.
And...
Anyway, he had pursued me because he towed my truck back to where I was, where I wasstaying.
And he saved my number, right?
He saved my number from, I don't even wanna name the company, although I can, because Isued the fuck out of them and made sure that I retained my life rights, right?

(35:48):
I sued the fuck out of them and I still made sure that in that settlement,
If I got nothing else, I was gonna retain my life rights to warn people, you know, andtell people that this happens.
So he, was an obsession that grew.
And because he had called me, the girl that I went to the club with who was a friend, itwas, and it was an LGBT club.

(36:08):
was gay night at the club or whatever.
She, she, I was drunk.
I had gotten drunk.
I was 21 freshly, I was living in a parking garage and I had just seen my father, this,this,
brilliant genius of a man literally unable to eat spoon-fed food.

(36:29):
Yeah, it was awful.
It was awful.
I tried to comfort him as best I could, but I'm like, I'd be here a lot more if I wasn'tfucking homeless.
But uh anyway.
No, no, no.
No, it was so poorly planned.
I'm like, much less than that.
If y'all had just been nice to me.
I wasn't terribly motivated to move out.

(36:52):
I love my hometown.
It's safest city in America for a long time, second safest.
But not when you can't be yourself, that's not safe.
And not when you're getting hit by 300 pound adult and a 200 pound adult.
It's just kind of scary.
anyway, my friend, I was drunk and instead of...

(37:15):
being able to take me home with her or however that would have gone down.
She wasn't a terribly close friend, but she was a sweet lady.
um She redialed, I was saying call my brother.
And so she redialed the last calls that had been in to me.
And it ended up being this rapist tow truck driver who of course said, I'll be rightthere.

(37:41):
I'll be right there to pick her up.
She loaded me into that tow truck and he drove me to, he drove me miles away, 40 milesaway to, it was a donut store parking lot and he parked across the spaces because it was a
big tow truck and that was what gave this officer or sheriff the, uh his feelers went upand he's like, something is not right here.

(38:10):
Something's And he checked.
Instead of driving on, he checked.
I had been calling 911.
repeatedly just on speed dial, on speed dial, just hoping someone would, you know, you seethe movies and it's like, they'll be able to pinpoint me, someone's gonna come.
Yeah.
And uh yeah, I experienced that uh rape both in the body and then eventually as thatperson literally was like murdered away, I had no choice but to embrace what was always

(38:42):
emerging, which was my masculine side.
and once another friend told me, you know, I was crying and I was just like, I don't know.
just feel like none of this should be happening to me.
My life's been all wrong.
I just, I don't know why I was born this way.
I should have been born a guy and she's like, well, why don't you just transition?
And I was like, what?

(39:03):
And she was like, Oh, you know, they're doing that now.
Like I have, I have a buddy.
Um, she used to be cute, but he's gorgeous now and you'd be super cute as a trans guy.
So I did my research and a few months later I was on T.
uh And a year after that, I was at, or about a year and a half after that, I was havingtop surgery to have these puppies removed and thrown away.

(39:27):
And then about five or six months after that, I had the whole shebang and had my penisconstructed.
Hey, and I no longer have phantom penis, guys, because I finally have my own.
Exactly.
So basically it's just that like nothing that they tried prevented me from becoming who Iam.

(39:50):
It only served to traumatize me, delay my diagnosis for autism spectrum disorder, delay mydiagnosis for having this coronary hypoplasia, this rare genetic heart condition that did
cause three of my heart attacks.
And it delayed my diagnosis for lupus because like I was saying, if I was sick, it was abehavior.

(40:17):
Everything about my conditions was treated as a behavior, mostly stemming back to, youknow what happened when she was three years old.
It was always viewed as some behavior attached to something.
was never, this is who this person is, and also, fuck yeah, we traumatized this kid, and.

(40:38):
they're gonna be whoever they need to be to survive in this world.
So I definitely wanna be clear.
I have only always experienced myself to be something other than a female.
If female meant being like my mother or women on TV or being a fucking female.

(40:59):
I don't know how else to say it.
was like, if I am not that, I also was not.
ignorant and I knew that my parts were different than my brother's, you know, and that wasthat was distressing all the more because I couldn't just be the tomboy that I was.
Many of my friends were and got to tell you, they all grew up and they have husbands.

(41:22):
They wear dresses and they're they're they're doing the mom thing.
They're all doing fine.
They went through their phase and kids go through whatever phases of discovery and theyend up being whoever they're going to be.
I.
I didn't go through really a phase of discovery.
just fought, fought, fought to be in an environment safe enough or I guess just the shithit the fan, you know, hard enough so I could just come out and be who I am.

(41:47):
There was no going backwards.
This body had been raped and destroyed, just savagely destroyed.
And I couldn't even, I couldn't even tell my mother about it without wondering what wasgonna come next.
So when I,
They brought me home because they had to keep my vehicle for evidence and this and that.

(42:08):
was just, it was awful.
I mean, it was awful.
And it was a three year long, um, drawn out court case where I was testifying in front ofliterally people fighting parking tickets, um, casually, you know, like, like casual, just
misdemeanor type stuff.
I had to go in there in front of these people who sometimes were laughing at me, right.
And tell these intimate details about my lesbian body.

(42:32):
being violated by this 48 year old child predator, which thank God, I do believe that myconviction was the one that put him away, uh hopefully forever.
I believe so.
if not, I've at least kept uh young girls and young people safe for, uh sorry, it's reallyemotional.

(42:56):
uh At first it was only like,
it was something small.
remember being insulted.
was like something like five years or something like five to eight years or something likethat.
But every time they told me, you know, when he gets released, we will let you know.
It doesn't matter if it's been years and years when you have a right to know and we'll letyou know.
I never got any notification and it was something I wanted to just block out of my mind.

(43:19):
But every five years or so I would check in and this person is still incarcerated at suchand such facility and this and that good different facilities.
So I don't, I hope that they don't get out.
Um, and
God have mercy on their soul.
That's all I can say.
God have mercy on their soul.
Very sick individual.
um I could.
Maybe he's getting in trouble in there or something, I'm sure.

(43:41):
You know, and just...
m
Yeah, I could have gotten through that though shell I could have I could have gottenthrough that a lot better But they urged me law enforcement urged me not understanding
they said you have to tell your mom You're gonna need that support.
You have to tell her I said, god, no You don't know my mom you don't know my mom she isnot she's not capable

(44:11):
of supporting me in that way.
In fact, it was almost as if when bad things would happen to me, they were kind ofcelebrated because it was proof that, well, if you hadn't been LGBT, if you weren't a
lesbian, this wouldn't happen to you.
If you had been with a man, he would have been there to protect you.
All those just very flawed, you know, God have mercy on all their souls.

(44:38):
It's just my fault.
Like when I was three years old.
know?
um I've never believed that though.
One moment.
I'm sorry you had to grow up like that though.
It had to be very isolating, very lonely.
You just wanted to be, you probably just wanted to be heard.

(45:00):
I wanted to be heard and I wanted someone to say that it was okay, that I was okay.
um I wanted someone out of the literal dozens of parents, like the area we grew up in, itwas a very family centered area.
And so there were about five or six families where we all had matching ages of the kidsand we all kind of grew up together.

(45:23):
um
Those families did try to include me and I'm still lifelong friends uh with some of thosepeople.
I just wish that the adults, that a lot of them knew what was going on.
I wish they would have been brave, you know, just because my father was an internationalcorporate lawyer.

(45:44):
know, I wish someone would have had the stones as they say to say, hey man, I know you hityour daughter.
I know you hit your daughter and your other kids and it's not okay.
I'm gonna tell you this in private once, but if I hear about it one more time, you'regoing down.
There's ways to do it.
It's not just...
There's ways to do it.
It's not just immediately, what?

(46:05):
you don't...
And that's not something he would want to get out.
Being who he is.
Yes, who he was.
what bothers me so much about my story and probably why I have had to process and reallybe deliberate about telling my story is because I actually genuinely do still love these

(46:31):
people.
I wouldn't have put up with so much.
I love my mother and you know, God forbid she should ever see this, but if she does, Ilove my mother.
I care for my mother and as it stands right now me and my wife are, we are her family.
um

(46:53):
does she accept you both?
oh Your mom, just how you are, just how you both are and the way you live your life isyour mom finally like, okay, I better stop being an asshole.
They're all I have.
no, no, unfortunately, that's that's not really.

(47:15):
No, the fairy tale is everything in between and the resilience, you know, the overcomingthe I can say that I really have the Hollywood experience that most of my friends that.
know, move to Hollywood from the Midwest, from the South, from wherever that they addwords like, I'm living in my car, I'm making it work, I'm doing the hustle.

(47:38):
I got to experience that.
So I earned my street cred in Hollywood.
because of that, I get to sit on some pretty cool um committees for SAG-AFTRA.
I get to do a lot of advocacy.
um A lot of people actually...
you know, I've done a lot of advocacy.
That's what a lot of my career has been, you know, in different movies and this and that.

(48:00):
But a lot of
And they care, people care about your opinion.
Yes, they do.
you're not, yeah, and what you have to say and you didn't get to experience that growingup.
I didn't, I thought that I was just catastrophically flawed.
And I thought, if my parents don't love me, how could God love me?
How could God love me?
Or anyone, yeah.

(48:21):
So of course that leads to, you put yourself in these relationships with people that neverwere of enough value to even talk to you.
let, you know, I've been slapped around.
I don't want to make it seem like I can't throw a blow.
mean, when you're transgender, you gotta learn how to fight, right?

(48:42):
Being any kind of guy in this world, you're gonna get challenged by, you know, mostlyother guys.
um so I learned how to fight.
So oddly enough, those rough relationships with...
You know, because my mother told me, well, it only happened to you because you're alesbian.
This is what I was telling you.
This and that.
This is why I didn't want you to join the army, because the other soldiers would haveraped you and this and that and all the things she held me back from.

(49:05):
I'm like, well, shit, it happened anyway.
At least I would have been a combat soldier.
could have defended my fucking self, you know?
But yeah, so being in those bad relationships, learning what is not love, learning whatlove does not look like.
And then having my
wife come in uh right after I kind of got adopted by my elderly neighbors who so the townwas kind of like a tweaker town I didn't know that when I moved there I was just I had

(49:36):
this much money and I needed
Hey, what's what's a tweaker?
Is that like drugs?
tweaker?
Okay.
didn't know that that was that like a colloquial kind of thing.
um Here they call it tweaker towns.
But yeah, I actually don't know what specifically it's referring to, but I believe it tobe meth.

(49:59):
I believe that that was the problem.
That's what I would think of like math
It was a town filled with people that had substance abuse issues, and specificallysubstance-
abuse issues.
that's more appropriate.
and specifically, um I know for a fact, like specifically a lot of them were sufferingfrom addiction to methamphetamines.

(50:21):
Thank God, I've always been such a cerebral person that I never went down the drug path.
I didn't experiment with that.
It just wasn't my thing.
I am in California.
I'm not saying I haven't, uh you know, smoked a few, you know, anything.
Green cigarettes or whatever, but.

(50:41):
Right.
But yeah, but nothing else ever took a hold of me.
All those things that like you hear these stories of how people's lives get so destroyedfrom an act of, you know, violence or an unsupportive upbringing or just a traumatic
event.
they're, they're so hurt forever.
Like I'm hurt forever, but I got tired of being.

(51:06):
hurt.
I got tired of it.
I just got sick of it.
I was like, I cannot spend the next 36 years of my life being miserable, especiallyfinding out that the biggest catalyst for my misery was someone who really, really hates
herself.
um And never had plans for me to prosper as a person.

(51:28):
Thank God that God had, you know, bigger and better plans than any of us could imagine.
Because I would have been lost like a lot of these other people.
But I want to let people that are at that stage or maybe you've just gone through yourstorm or you're just getting into it.
You have to keep fighting.
You have to keep fighting.

(51:48):
I just saw something on Instagram and uh it was a pack of hyenas attacking this onelioness and the lion had to fight, fight, fight this pack until reinforcements showed up.
And then when the other lion showed up, they kicked ass.
So you gotta fight, fight, fight until that help comes.
Just hang in there.
There's a whole community of people, whether you're...

(52:09):
your people.
or whether you're a survivor or whether you're dealing with uh medical negligence andmalpractice, whatever has traumatized you.
There is love out there for you.
There is light at the end of the tunnel.
You are still who you are and you can become whoever you need to be given these newaspects of you that have been brought to the light.

(52:31):
So just, that's really important to me, especially for the youth because our young people,our young people,
They sometimes just don't have anywhere to turn and especially when you add LGBT to thefront of that, you know, they don't have.
Mommy and daddy to run home too often.
They don't have church to go to often.
I fought to stay involved in church.

(52:53):
was like, y'all might have tried to fuck up my life, but you're not going to affect mysoul.
have two.
God is too real in my life.
He saved me through three heart attacks.
You know what saying?
Gave me my wife.
She's my exact match.
mean, my, my literal exact match.
I will be forever satisfied and I will have my eyes only on my wife because she literallychecks every single.

(53:17):
every single box for me and only God could do that in my worldview and I leave space foreveryone you know that's my worldview that's what helps me yeah I think talking about it
it's important
How'd you get through three heart attacks?
three heart attacks.
Wow.

(53:38):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, especially through three heart attacks.
um I was terrified.
The first one was an absolute emergency uh ambulance, you know, rushed me in there.
Mom was there.
That's the tough part.
She's been she's been through like, I don't know if I just spit all over my screen.

(54:01):
That was gross.
But yeah, the tough part was always that
My mom is still my mom.
despite all of the abuse, can't just call it, I can't minimize what it was.
The abuse, the physical and psychological abuse, there's still that mom thing that kicksin like, I don't want you to actually fucking die.

(54:28):
shit, God, I didn't mean what I said.
Save him, you know?
Every time, every time.
It's like she was still, she was always showing up for you, but not fully showing up.
Like physically, she would physically be there when she needed her.
be there uh and also had to be asked to you know had to be removed from the hospital a fewtimes for showing up uh intoxicated unfortunately and

(54:58):
aggressively standing over me and asking me, what is your plan?
What do you plan on doing when you get out of here?
I know you ain't coming back with me.
And I'm like, I have my own house, mom.
I have my own house.
Yeah.
But but ultimately, I'm just thankful.
I'm thankful to have gotten through all of that.
I could not have spoken about this before because I was ashamed.

(55:20):
I was ashamed of most of it.
And I was ashamed of myself.
Well, that's the one thing that always gets us, right?
Shame.
Yes.
Hold you back for a long time.
It really does show.
I feel like that's why abusers and predators come at particularly people of a vulnerableage or a vulnerable population.

(55:46):
I really want to talk about AFAB people between, you know, the ages of being a child andright on up through the early 20s.
It seems like people know that that is the last
the last chance to assert the type of control they were never fully able to get to before,before that daughter or that trans son of yours or whatever is out of the house and will

(56:15):
realize that you are completely and totally full of shit.
Yes.
I mean, I don't know.
just, despite everything, I laugh, I find joy.
I'm genuinely, like none of this, I mean, I've spent so many broken nights on the floor.

(56:39):
I mean, literally, broken nights on the floor with nothing but my service dog to umcomfort me.
sometimes just, I've experienced like depths of pain that I believe
like should have taken me out.

(57:00):
But I'm still here.
So I guess there's some work.
And I mean, that has to be inspirational for people, too, you know, because that's whyI've said this 100 times, even with this podcast.
Someone's going to relate.
Someone's going to have those moments when they're even watching this now and they'relike, ah God, that's how I felt.

(57:21):
I have felt this way.
my God, there's other people that feel this way that have went through this shit that haveovercome that.
So I can do it now.
I know I can do it.
This person did it right.
Like.
And I know a lot of my traumas and the things I've been through, you know, I'm older, I'mgoing to be actually going to be 49 tomorrow.
that much older.
So not that much older.

(57:42):
You don't look a day over 35.
But happy early birthday to you.
Thank you.
That was very sweet.
Good thing to say.
um But there I didn't have people out there that were talking about things and do youknow, it was just a different time.
So I did feel all alone.
You do.
You don't feel like there is anyone out there that's going through the same and no onewould ever understand.

(58:07):
Yeah.
So I'm hoping like, you know, with the podcast and things like that, we talk about so manydifferent things that people are able to relate.
and put themselves there too, you know, and know, like look at you, shit, the shit you'vebeen through to come out on the other side.
Yeah, was, thank you.
Thank you.

(58:27):
I was really moved by um one of the segments you did with a green beret who was tellinghis story.
ah I definitely watched like a few of the podcasts before just to really get a good feelfor the flow of the show.
And I mean, it's just such moving material.
These people are telling like their life story.

(58:50):
Some of them.
Probably for the first time I'm imagining.
Yeah.
You know.
oh
he he has only he only wants to tell his full story like that like twice yeah I mean andhe he's such an awesome person too the people that we've met through this and just and
everybody's so genuine and they just want to help you you know that that's what I loveabout and we've made like friends through it you know just because we all kind of have the

(59:18):
same heart you know I don't know I just love it
no, it's definitely a community that you're building and I feel so blessed and honored umto be a part of that and you certainly have made a new friend in me.
um So we'll definitely stay plugged in.
yes.
And I want to say this, I want this to somehow make it into this show.

(59:40):
I want it to be known that if you...
If you don't fight for your kids, if you don't fight for your family members, you leavethem vulnerable to exploitation, abuse, and harm.
And also, harm in ways people don't necessarily think.

(01:00:03):
Now, if I'm going to the doctor and I'm saying, this hurts, that hurts, I've been sick, Ithrow up, I'm weak, and everything else, and you say, I don't know.
someone over here always seems to get sick when there's a project we don't want to turn inin school or so and so didn't want to go on this field trip or whatever it is.
And it's like, I was ill.
I was a visibly underweight ill child.

(01:00:28):
So I want people to know.
So you were never validated with your feelings or even when it came to being sick, it wasjust, oh, she's pulling.
uh Yeah, she at the time, yeah, I received care because we had top of the line corporatelawyer insurance until we didn't, until I didn't, I should say.

(01:00:49):
So I was, I got the attention I needed.
It was just that if we're in the room with the doctor and it's, well, I'm an executive andmy husband's a lawyer and this little liar of a divergent, deviant, rebellious, I got
called rebellious because I
Yeah, for obvious reasons, right?

(01:01:09):
I just didn't fit the mold, so I was rebellious.
You know, I take what she's saying with a grain of salt.
To the extent that, like, as an adult, I have her completely, my mother is not allowed tobe involved in anything medical with me.
That's smart.
yeah, yeah.

(01:01:30):
So so going back just a little bit, is she is she OK with you as a couple now?
Like does she love you both?
You're like I really need water for this one.
But.
I want to make sure that...
So, I would say for the first time ever, the relationship that I'm in, my marriage of nowthree years, is honored.

(01:02:00):
It is honored and is respected.
Hallelujah indeed.
um I think out of
dire necessity, honestly, I'm like, this is who's left.
This is who's left.
still have, you still have, you my mom also did a lot of volunteer work for the church anddifferent women's empowerment organizations, enough.

(01:02:29):
Can't make this shit up, right?
But she's made her contributions to the world as well.
And I think was just a product of, uh
It's just that I feel like being an executive and a woman and breaking glass ceilings inthe eighties.
then, you she always blamed me and said that I made her fat, although she's not fat now.

(01:02:49):
She looks good looking good, mom, whatever, looking good.
I mean, like she had to stay home because like she had too many kids at that point.
And she, she said that my, because my dad had the higher credential, you know, that wasthe decision.
But
Mm-hmm.
I mean, I kind of, and then she would always say, I'm living vicariously through you forlike my whole life.

(01:03:12):
And I'm like, I don't know why I'm nothing like you.
I look nothing like you or nothing I'll like.
uh You like this color.
I like that color.
Even if you did like the same color as me, I'd change it.
Cause I don't want to be anything like you.
Yeah.
It wasn't a complete pushover, you know, but I, I do hold that space for understandingwhere she came from.
You know, my parents are from the forties and fifties and they just, I don't know.

(01:03:35):
The fact that you love her so much and can still, I don't want to say like speak nicely ofher, but just the fact that you don't say all the things you could say and that you still
love her the way you do says a lot.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(01:03:55):
Yeah, it does.
It really.
Maybe as she's getting older, maybe she's actually growing a little bit.
She's like, I'm getting older and maybe I do have to accept.
Maybe I do have to listen for once.
Yeah, because it was, you there's always that, you know, the quote the Bible, it's likehonor your mother and father, right?

(01:04:19):
But people, people don't go on to read, parents do not provoke your children to wrath.
You know, it's supposed to be honor and respect in both ways, in all ways.
Yes.
In all ways.
That's really what it's about.
Loving.
Yes, loving people, respecting people, which you have to do to love them.

(01:04:42):
and trying to like do good in the world instead of like, I'm sorry, but I literally, Iwouldn't want to hurt her feelings, but I'm like, you have spent what would have been your
entire career trying to negate me and my life and my career.
where you right you
could have done a lot more with your life.

(01:05:04):
mean, like I said, I wrote this book, uh is being negated.
It's pretty much about a lot of this stuff that we're talking about.
It's just sharing stories like this of overcoming, but it's not the only thing.
It doesn't dominate my life.
This is my first book.
And this is actually family friendly.
This is the girl, the rocker in the town.
Yeah.
So yeah, I'm not just like sitting here, some devastated like, this happened to me kind ofguy.

(01:05:29):
But there is a part of me that hurts every day.
And uh instead of trying to like, yeah.
And instead of trying to like dig that part out of me, which I think was, uh you know,what my goal was for so long, like get out whatever is in me that makes me so unlovable or
get out this thing in me.

(01:05:51):
gosh.
uh To.
I mean, there was like one thing I'd already been through a lot, but I was like, God,please don't put me through rape.
I don't think I'd be able to be close to you after.
It's like, just please, just not that please.
And it happened and I thought I was gonna lose God, but he's real and he's held on to meand my wife.

(01:06:14):
So.
um
Do you think she's proud of you now though?
Do you think she's able to see like, wow, look what he's done.
He's acting and he's writing books and he's living his own life.
Or do you think there's still that, she's still who she is kind of thing.
oh
let other people tell it, which was another reason why I never really got help.

(01:06:37):
Your mother loves you.
She does nothing but brag about you all the time.
I know you're working on this project over here and you just did that movie and you wereon stage over there.
I know all of it.
I know all of it.
So you saying that she like.
Hey.
I know that you wanna like kick it with me and my mom, but we don't really kick it likethat.

(01:06:57):
She sees my face and has a rage disorder, like legit.
She rages on my face.
Like I can't help these eyebrows.
I was born with husky Doberman pincher markings, you know?
And instead of like people looking deeper, like, oh, those are just some fucking eyebrowson a child.

(01:07:18):
They assume that I had the personality to match.
And I'm like,
Now mind you, a lot of people have those put on now.
Same one.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I'm like, hey, this is heritage right here, you know?
But so yeah, um, yeah, she's grown as a person.
uh We're not done.

(01:07:39):
can tell everybody else, but not you.
probably stings a little because you would probably not even know what to do with yourselfif she said all that to
it was genuine.
It was genuine and it wasn't just I brag about my child so that.

(01:08:00):
so I'm throwing them off the scent, know.
It was another way of being negated.
was like, because they tell you, if something's going on, you go to a safe adult.
You go to a friend's parent, a teacher at school, or a police officer, whatever it is.
Okay, well, I did that.
And every time it was, I'll stop.
Your parents love you so much.
I know that your dad is stressed a lot.

(01:08:21):
And I know your mom has, you know, I know she interacts with you differently, you know,but you are loved.
And plus you are.
you know, considered rich by 95 % of the rest of the planet.
And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
They made it clear.
They were rich.
And if I wanted to leave, I had to take my clothes off, my shoes off and leave anythingthat they leave at all and go out there.

(01:08:50):
And basically, because I did that, though, I graduated high school, later graduatedcollege and I was 18 years old and grown and
was doing my own thing, I was living my life, it still was like they were trying tocontrol me back into that more manageable, controllable state.
I'm a strong person.

(01:09:11):
I didn't let three heart attacks take me out.
I didn't let any of this negativity take me out.
uh I am a wheelchair user now.
I can walk short distances, and especially for acting, I can appear ambulatory, but
Specifically, uh I have about 15 specialists that I see for my conditions.

(01:09:36):
No exaggeration.
Do they have you on a lot of meds and everything for it?
Yeah, especially lupus.
Yeah, and lupus is one of those like really misunderstood things because some people justhave uh symptoms on like their skin which that also sucks.
get get rashes or they have some pain.
I have systemic lupus arithmetosis and then which is the whole body, the whole body.

(01:10:00):
There's nothing unaffected and then unfortunately because it took the 30 years to diagnoseit I have lupus nephritis stage five out of six.
So
um That being said, I'm trying to put in a lot of advocacy and good work in the decadesthat I'm healthy because I just might need a kidney one day.

(01:10:23):
And I'm hoping someone will pay it forward to me if I've made any kind of difference intheir life.
uh
Oh, I have no doubt that you will.
So, hopefully we don't get there.
know, God has been so good.
I believe in actual literal miracles.
I believe that my transition was a miracle.
I believe that me being in my body before was a stumbling block to me coming fully toChrist and knowing that he loved me for me, for genuinely, like who I am, for the good,

(01:10:52):
the bad, and the ugly.
So yeah, oddly enough, like God,
allowing, I prayed before I went and had surgery to have my penis constructed.
I prayed before I had my, my breasts removed at the time.
You know, I prayed.
I'm a prayer warrior.

(01:11:13):
Yeah, and if you're comfortable with it, you know, down the road a little bit, maybe um weshould just do like an episode on your transition, like what you went through, how you did
it, like the different emotions, all the things, because I'm sure there's so many peoplethat don't.
Yes, and yeah, I would Yeah, I would love to do that and it's scary for the potentiallytrans or non-binary individual But it's also terrifying sometimes more so for their family

(01:11:45):
members And so a lot of times especially in the you know evangelical kind of communitiesThese parents think that they're saving their kids souls not understanding
my parents, if they had succeeded, would have lost my soul.
I would have been going straight to hell because of the damage, because of believing thatthey were right.

(01:12:08):
the Bible says, let God be right and let every man be a liar.
And that's what I live by.
um So it was a faith walk for me, and he put his stamp of approval on me.
And I feel just thankful and blessed.
um
Like I said, I carry these scars and it's heavy.
My posture is literally affected.

(01:12:29):
If you were to see me, I'm kinda, if you've seen Coraline, you know the friend Wybie onthere, I'm kinda like that, you know, just from, for a while my mom didn't want me to be
taller than her, so I made myself shorter.
You can't, yeah, it's been a thing.
I would love to do that episode because a lot of these families,

(01:12:53):
you there's even conversion therapy where they send their LGBT family member to go and getconverted.
It's uh actually listed as a form of abuse because it's ineffective.
It does not work.
Genuinely transgender people do not de-transition.
uh It would be tantamount to chopping my lower half of my body off if you were to ask meto de-transition.

(01:13:19):
And also for trans men like me, it's not,
There are ways to push you back in a certain direction, but facial hair is permanent.
The chest hair, I look like Austin Powers under here.
That's permanent.
So basically just, you have to trust that God designed his children the way that he wantedthem to be.

(01:13:45):
You are given the seed and you're trying to control what plant.
grows out of this, you know, unnamed, unspecified seed instead of just planting your seedor your seeds and watering each of them with good water, not just the ones that agree with
your lifestyle or you agree with how they live their life or the ones that don't piss youoff, but watering all your children evenly in good soil instead of choking one out.

(01:14:14):
Then you would have this ongoing surprise, this
this revealing of who that person is.
And this, you get to see this beautiful plant, this beautiful, whether it's a tree or abush or a flower, whatever it's gonna be, bloom into being whatever they're gonna be.
Children are literally seeds.

(01:14:35):
You cannot predict what they are going to turn out.
I was a gorgeous little girl and I hated wearing those motherfucking dresses.
It does not dictate who you're gonna be.
So we've got to let people be them.
And in trying to stop them from being themselves, they're still going to do it.
They're only going to grow up and hate you for getting in their way.

(01:14:56):
I always feel like it's crushing someone's soul.
If you don't let them be who they want to be, don't let them excel the way they want toexcel in anything.
You can crush their soul.
Absolutely, and sometimes what manifests out of a crushed soul is what I kind of feel likewith certain members of my original family is a crushed soul that's trying to crush other

(01:15:24):
souls.
So broken that it's like, hey, I know I'm going down, and if I'm going down, I'm takingyou with me.
makes them feel better, which is.
it's like in ancient Egypt how they would get buried with their pets and servants andstuff.
And I'm like, you got me all the way fucked up.
I am not dying just because you're getting older.

(01:15:46):
We are not planning a simultaneous freaking ceremony.
I will be living my life and I will be making sure, we will be making sure that mom has asafe and hopefully pleasant life too.
I just would love to see her genuinely
get to joy and um I don't know that that's possible.

(01:16:08):
How old is she?
How old is she now?
She gonna whip my ass.
um
She may have just turned, getting there.
year.
Getting there next year.
she, yeah.
I think that.
Let's all pray for her.

(01:16:28):
No, genuinely, genuinely.
I, I, it's been just a mystery.
I'm like, I love you, but you want this narrative that I've been put here to just destroyyou.
Like, I'm like the antithesis to your existence.
Like, I'm like, I thought she was like my, my like best friend until I got to a certainage and I was like, no, no, no, no, nope.

(01:16:52):
Yeah, no, getting hit like that is never okay.
Also,
I know, I understand.
If you got to smack a little hand to tell them, don't touch the hot stove, or you got tosnatch someone out the street and say, don't you ever walk in that street alone.
I understand.
yeah.
Yeah, I understand.
You have to raise, you know, your children or the people that you're around and make sureeveryone's safe.

(01:17:15):
You know, that's different than, I had a rough day at the office and I heard that you leftyour homework at home.
So take off my belt.
take off my belt and go to your room, take off your clothes and I'm gonna whip you.
I'll be down there in a few minutes.
You know?

(01:17:35):
Yeah.
It was a...
you're just sitting there praying that you don't get the buckle end.
yeah, and I did get the buckle and objects that were broken.
uh Objects, yeah, yeah.
Some people, you know, I can't imagine that it's made anyone better, but I can certainlytell you firsthand experience from the few of the people I've crossed paths that went

(01:17:59):
through it as bad as me, it hurts.
being hit as a human being hurts.
And we have, I'm a dog, I'm a dog person, I'm an animal guy, but it's like, we areappalled to see the mistreatment of a pet or a dog or an animal, but it's kind of like.
You talk about children getting hit and it's like, well, what did you do?

(01:18:22):
What were they doing?
And this and that.
Or I can understand.
Were they trying to just discipline you?
It's like, no, this was, I had a rough day at the office.
I got to take out this frustration.
Your mom whooped your ass after school and told you I was going to come home and whoopyour ass after I got home from work.
It's hours later and I'm here.
Here's daddy.
And I'm like, okay.
It just wasn't the smartest long-term plan since I guess I was the comfort that theywanted to keep with them in their old age.

(01:18:48):
Like I'm here, but I'm here to observe and make sure that things are running safely andthat no one's gonna take advantage of my mom the way I've been taken advantage of.
um Maybe it's just a male ego thing.
I think it might just be a male ego thing, but I like to protect those that I care about.

(01:19:10):
First and foremost, my wife, I certainly, I certainly,
I know in my heart and my mind that I have no obligation to care for someone that abusedme, but my soul doesn't seem to understand that message.
Well, it's a good thing that they didn't fully crush you.

(01:19:31):
know?
you can still be you.
And you're thriving in every way.
I'm like, so essentially I went from being homeless and living on the streets to starringin Street Fighter.
I'm like, whatever you guys do to try to knock me down, I'm literally going to be giveneverything that I've ever dreamed of and more abundantly by faith, the faith that y'all

(01:19:58):
lack.
If you had that faith, you would have believed that I would have been okay and you wouldhave just trusted the process and trusted God.
You know, everything, everything does seem to mellow out and people will find their own,you know, levels and what works for them and their family.

(01:20:19):
uh They'll either do it willingly or they're going to be pushed into a position where yougot to recognize it, you know.
Right.
It's just moving, moving forward from.
Yeah.
Yeah, I have to.
I have to, you know, and that's why I wrote the book, because I felt like I had beenjudged my whole life by people that got to certain people before me before I could tell my

(01:20:48):
own story.
And I felt like writing it down in being negated the book allowed me to to really makethat history.
Not that it's a history I'm proud of, but it doesn't go nowhere.
it's still your story.
It's still your story.
You've pushed through so much.

(01:21:09):
Is it is the book out?
Yes, actually, the book, the ebook is out.
And then um this is actually my author manuscript.
So it's bound like this.
But um the very nice expanded print edition is also coming out.
And it's basically croneling um the lives of transgender characters within our community,some of the traumas that they've been through, most of which are ones that I've been

(01:21:35):
through myself and just kind of.
You know showing showing people that we go through hell to be who we are But we can stillbe decent and there is light at the end of the tunnel and and you can you can still you
can still be yourself It doesn't mean that you're not gonna go through the shit for beingyourself but it means that you can you can be yourself if you just keep fighting and

(01:22:01):
Eventually, right someone's gonna hear you Someone's gonna hear you
I like what you just said as far as like how hard it is for you, especially with trans,how hard it is and I'm sure you don't feel understood and all the things.
Who the hell would fight so hard to be who they want to be, know when they're going to getabused by so many people?

(01:22:26):
Yes.
Do you know what?
People need to think about that.
Pete.
Yeah, we sacrifice
It's not like easy street.
Exactly.
No, my mom told me, and this was about like maybe, I don't know, maybe whatever grade is16 years old, but we were talking about cars.

(01:22:47):
Yeah, like yeah, like for me I think it was 11th grade and we were talking about cars andI remember her saying, oh, you're just so stupid.
You are so stupid.
Don't you know that if you could just put the dress on, or put the heels on, or do thehair, or do- just give your father what he wants!

(01:23:08):
Just be that little girl in the picture in the blue dress that he keeps on his desk,you've never lived up to that!
I was too in that fucking photo!
If you-
just yeah like move forward move forward
Exactly.
So, so if you could just, if you could just give him what he wants, he just wants adaughter he can show off, he would have bought you a Porsche.

(01:23:31):
He still would.
I don't understand it.
You're gorgeous.
Why won't you make it work?
Sorry, that's...
You're like, I'm still gorgeous.
Yeah, I'm still gorgeous.
One, I don't want a Porsche.
They're cool, but that was my older brother's first car.
I needed an SUV because I knew one day I might be fucking living in it.
And so that's what I got.

(01:23:53):
So who was right about their smart?
Yeah.
Right.
And I had to tell people, I had a lot of people.
Mom too.
Well, God told me this about you and God told me to tell you this about your life, thisand that.
And he whispered this in my ear and I'm like, I finally had to tell her, sweetheart, youhave been wrong about every prediction you have had about my life, who I am and what I'm

(01:24:15):
going to be and what my potential is.
When God talks to me, he speaks directly to me in many different ways.
Sometimes it's a trickle of light coming through the window.
Sometimes it's a gust of wind at just the right time.
And sometimes it's a still small voice, but
Certainly if God wants to tell me something, he talks to me and I don't need you to besome intercessor, some middle man to communicate with God.

(01:24:39):
That's not how it works.
At least in the type of Christianity that I am in.
I know mom was raised in a somewhat Catholic environment, which also still, you know.
they- there's intercession but it still isn't like, God told me that you are supposed tobe this and that and he told me you absolutely should not be a teacher and you definitely

(01:25:02):
shouldn't get into nursing like, what the fuck are you talking about?
So yeah, you have to just know who you are.
she's just been grasping, you know, for anything that she could like send your way, youknow, just to get her way, to have her control.
that control though and negating me my entire life has resulted in a very, in my opinion,unpleasant chapter for my mom and the rest of the family.

(01:25:35):
I just kind of look and I'm like, y'all look fucking miserable.
I hope it gets better.
Right.
know, and oh, I guess that.
And it's not your job anymore to make them feel different.
You know, it's just not your job.
I'm not at all uh close with the other two children that I was raised with, uh in myopinion.

(01:25:56):
I feel like they were invested in a lot more.
That part's not my opinion.
I was hit harder because my father had, uh mom said that he had issues with his own motherand women in general.
And so he hit me harder.
I do remember her standing up for me one of those times and she said, don't you ever hitmy daughter again.
Don't you ever hit her that hard again.
But it's like, well, you turn around and do it later or negate or whatever.

(01:26:17):
Like, you know, what the fuck, man?
You're outraged by his behavior, but not your own.
You got that blind spot, you know?
uh
blind spots but I'm
seems like they cared a lot about image and how everyone's perceived.
So yeah, no, we were entirely a prop family.
That's the part that I didn't realize so they invested in their two, you know cisgenderNormal sons

(01:26:46):
I mean, invested in them.
Like, like I wasn't invested in.
I was, everything was like anti-me.
They invested in them for just such a moment where the shit hits the fan, ring the alarms,dad has passed away.
The king is dead.
They fled the country.
There was no, you know, there's this myth.

(01:27:08):
Well, your brothers, if anything ever happened, they would take someone out for you.
They would be there to defend you.
This or that.
They have not once.
once.
I want to go back.
My brothers have not once asked me about 2009 and if I'm okay.
but they know about it because my mom spread that to the entire family, that neighborhoodsystem of friends, oh the church system, over glasses of wine, and anyone and everyone who

(01:27:38):
would listen to my life story, these tragic things, the same way that Law and Order SVUwould pop on every time I walked downstairs for years, years.
And it got to the point where once she did that, would literally hop into the room and ifshe turned the channel, I would literally back out and just avoid the whole interaction

(01:27:58):
for the day.
um Yeah, so she doesn't even know her fucking book is out because she doesn't buy mybooks.
Yeah.
people get in their own way, you know?
But I can't, I can't, I'm 36 now and I have a family of my own and you know, I have to beas well rounded, safe and whole as I can be for my family.

(01:28:28):
Which she is still a part of, but it's a new generation.
So I'm just, really.
Well, I'm glad that you came on and told, you know, parts of your story because I know wehaven't talked about any of stuff yet.
So I think that it's going to resonate and help a lot of people.

(01:28:49):
think so too.
And I just thank you so much for having me on here.
Yes.
And especially in these times, I don't get political.
mean, I'm a libertarian.
I literally I'm an independent.
But in these times, you know, there's a lot of questions about transgender and what doesthat mean?
And are we trying to have an ideology and spread it and this and that I can just tell youmy experience has been uh

(01:29:16):
where it's just like the LGBT community, like the lesbians, gays, and bisexuals.
Okay, well there's another letter.
The problem is people are ignorant to it and they don't understand.
So then they just think they know without being taught or educated on any of it, which isjust kind of ignorant, you know?
I'm totally ignorant sometimes because no.

(01:29:40):
I've been doing the advocacy for a long time.
I worked with BuzzFeed specifically to get a lot of information out there.
And we were able to put out that slate of content that came out around 2015, 2016 whenpeople finally heard about transgender.
was like, whoa, what's happening?
Where is this coming from?
It's like, we've always fucking been here.

(01:30:01):
You guys have just relegated us to the sewers.
You didn't want to see us like other unmentionables in society.
But unfortunately, a lot has changed.
And there's a lot of us that are college educated, professional, and have gone out.
And we have the same opportunities that the cis hetero people have.
And just to be clear, I am a transsexual man, meaning that I'm part of the binary.

(01:30:24):
So my pronouns are he, him, his.
I'm not they.
It's actually insulting to be called they.
I know exactly who I am.
And the people that are non-binary know who they are too.
It's just a spectrum.
But we're kind of more like focused on ourselves than like your kids or your church orwhatever.

(01:30:44):
We don't care.
This is about making this body come as close to being aligned with this mind because themind cannot be changed.
They can't change it yet.
they can't fix this part, So, yeah.
Well, they used to try with lobotomies and shit.
mean, that was some real shit for the LGBT community and also for people that are exposedto the mental health system and some of those horrors, although there can be help within

(01:31:12):
that system as well.
So, um I don't know.
I just.
No, that's fine.
We'll wrap it up here.
um God, there's so much good stuff.
but we're going do a part two.
Okay.
For sure.
Yes.
I'm down.
I'm super down.
my goodness.
You just don't even know how like the only time this has ever come out and not in thismuch detail was I did Mark Angelo Cummings show.

(01:31:38):
He's a trans man like me.
um And I told I started like kind of putting a little bit of it out very surfacey.
But I've never told my story like this.
And when I yeah, when I saw that you were going to be having guests on, I specificallywanted to tell my story on your show because of the quality
of show that you put out and giving people this kind of platform.

(01:32:01):
So thank you so much for having me.
Well, just so you know, we really read through every single one of them and we've gottenthousands and thousands of submissions.
So and yours definitely stood out.
I'm glad you came.
Thank you.
uh

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