March 7, 2025 • 49 mins
In this episode of 'Demystifying the Transgender Journey,' host Lynn Murphy continues the inspiring story of Wendy Cole, who knew from a young age that she was a woman despite being born male. Wendy recounts her struggles with identity, her journey to acceptance, and the transformative role her therapist Stephanie played in her life. Wendy discusses overcoming guilt and shame, navigating the challenges within the transgender community, and the impact of mindset on health. After transitioning and undergoing surgery, Wendy found joy and purpose, dedicating her life to coaching others through their own transitions. Wendy emphasizes the importance of self-acceptance, blending into society, and the power of a positive mindset in overcoming life's challenges. For more information and support, visit meetwendycole.com and thetransgenderjourney.com.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Wendy (00:00):
I'm standing there on a New York City morning sun
(00:03):
shining people walking by.
I'm staring at myself in the glass, justgoing, wow, wow, you finally did it.
Amazing.
Lynn (00:14):
You're finally complete.
What do you really know aboutpeople who were born transgender?
Have you ever met someonewho's transgender?
Well, if you're like me, you'recurious but hesitant to ask questions.
Well, welcome to demystifyingthe Transgender Journey.
In our conversations with people who wereborn transgender, their families, friends,
and the professionals who support them,we ask probing questions and discover
(00:36):
insightful and educational answers.
You can also find more information onour website, the transgender journey.com.
Now, let's get right into today's episode.
Last time on demystifyingthe Transgender Journey.
As a
Wendy (00:51):
young kid, before I even came out to my parents, I knew I had to
be a woman, and that was what I wasthe last trip to the psychiatrist.
My mother turned to me and said, okay, youhave to stop insisting that you're a girl.
We don't ever want to hear this again.
What I found out in 2014,everything that changed in 2012.
(01:14):
Now, keep in mind, 1970,I would be arrested.
I was called a freak.
I was told that there was no cure and notreatment possible when I found that out.
My wife and I had beenmarried for 40 years.
January of 2015.
I went to therapy for the firsttime and Stephanie's sitting
there with my file folder.
(01:36):
She looks up at me and shegoes, what's your name?
Without even thinking, Ijust snapped back, Wendy.
She crossed out my mail.
Fax SIM's name, wrote Wendy on my filefolder, and from that day forward I was.
Wendy,
Lynn (01:49):
welcome to another episode of Demystifying the Transgender Journey.
I'm your host, Lynn Murphy, founderof Women Who Push the Limits and
demystifying the transgender journey.
In our last episode, Wendy Cole sharedwith us what her life was like from the
time she was three years old when sherealized that she was a girl, even though
she was living in a male body until shewas 67, living in her male facsimile.
(02:12):
In that episode, she talked about herearly life, her career, her education,
her marriage, even with two children,knowing that she was really a woman.
So if you haven't seen that episodeor listened to that episode, be sure
and tune in to get the beginning ofWendy's life up until point that she's
gonna talk about now in this episode.
So in today's episode, Wendystarts by talking about meeting
(02:34):
her therapist, the one that.
Validated who she was and sawher as her authentic self.
Let's pick up where we left off last timeand hear what Wendy has to share with us.
Wendy (02:43):
I spent 45 years repressing and not knowing what was going on, if
anything in the way of my diagnosisor how people were living or whatever
it was, uh, quite eyeopening becauseI said I was in a dark place.
Suicidal ideation is notsomething that is uncommon.
(03:05):
It's not uncommon inthe transgender world.
It's not uncommon in the LGBT world.
People that feel alone and not acceptedare very likely to have suicidal ideation.
That's a reality.
I was there big time.
67 years old.
Never lived a day in mylife the way I knew I was.
(03:29):
I did look it up.
I found out everythinghad changed that day.
It was late in the afternoon.
I went upstairs to my wife who wasin our family room, and I said,
remember what we talked about in 1978?
It never left, and now I found out.
It's changed.
I am going to start therapy.
I don't know where this will go,but I'm going to find a therapist.
(03:50):
That was in late 2014.
I spent the rest of 2014looking for therapists.
I did find find one.
I picked Stephanie.
Something about her vibe from her picture,her eyes in her picture, and the profile
thing that she wrote up in her brochure.
January of 2015.
(04:12):
I went to therapy for the first time.
Now, keep in mind, Lynn, she'sthe first person I've talked to
openly about this since 19 70,
Lynn (04:21):
45 years of just hanging onto that and not feeling like
you could share in depth anythingwith anybody, any of that stuff.
Wendy (04:29):
Exactly.
I sat there and poured my guts out.
It just felt so incredible to beable to freely talk to another
human being about what was goingon in my head and how I felt, and
what I felt about who I really was.
And at the same time, I talked about howguilty I felt, the shame that I felt.
(04:49):
How difficult it was to just get by.
This was probably the most, oneof the most powerful moments
up to that point in my life.
I'm standing up, I'm gettingready to leave the office.
Stephanie's sitting there withmy file folder on her lap.
She looks up at me and she goes.
What's your name?
Without even thinking,I just snapped back.
(05:11):
Wendy.
My joy, amazement,everything was like, wow.
She crossed out my mail.
Fac SIM's name wrote Wendy onmy file folder and from that
day forward I was, Wendy,
Lynn (05:24):
have that the quickest shift, uhhuh to be acknowledged
by someone just like that.
Wendy (05:30):
Exactly, and she was the first person in my entire 67 year life to
actually accept me for who I am, what I amwithout any burden or need to understand.
Lynn (05:47):
Yeah.
I've got tears in my eyes now, Wendy.
I'm Oh, that's amazing.
Wendy (05:53):
Only a matter of.
A month and a half earlier,I was going to end it all.
Lynn (05:58):
Yeah.
Wendy (05:59):
And now here she is totally accepting me for who I am.
Lynn (06:04):
Wow.
Wendy (06:05):
In our next session, we got into my feelings of guilt and shame.
I. And she goes, stop thosedon't do you any good.
They don't fix anything thatyou've perceived yourself
to having done to others.
That's one of the other things is just megoing through my life trying to fake it.
Lynn (06:28):
Well, it seems like you were protecting others from their
response to this too, which is
Wendy (06:33):
exactly
Lynn (06:34):
not your responsibility, but you were probably carrying that around too.
Wendy (06:38):
She helped me get past, uh, the guilt and the shame very quickly.
I decided, well, there'snothing I can do about it.
I can't turn the clock back.
I can't go back and redo these 67 years.
That's impossible.
So make the best of whatI've got going forward.
Yay.
And here I go.
Second, uh, session we got into,uh, where did Wendy come from?
(07:01):
That was a name I pickedin grammar school.
Had you always had that name?
Lynn (07:06):
Get least in your mind.
Wendy (07:07):
Exactly.
If I can ever be a girl,that's who I'm going to be.
I'm gonna be Wendy.
Lynn (07:12):
Oh, that's cool.
Wendy (07:13):
Uh, she was the prettiest girl in one of my grammar school classes.
Always had the nicest clothes ever.
She was very popular and Idecided if I could be a girl,
I wanted to be like Wendy.
And so that was gonna be my name.
And now it is.
And now it is.
I started with the therapyin uh, uh, January of 2015.
(07:34):
At this point, I still had no ideathat there was this huge transgender
community on Facebook or anywhere.
I. I was all, I was still alone.
It was basically me and my therapist.
She got me to go to a supportgroup, which I found in one of the
Philadelphia suburbs, and I went,and my reception there was, I.
(07:58):
Less than friendly.
I hadn't transitioned to beliving as Wendy full-time.
I was about three or fourmonths away from doing that.
So I kind of let it be knownthat, you know, this is who
I am, this is what I'm doing.
I'm gonna be living full-timesometime this summer of 2015.
I don't know where I'm goingto live, but I'm thinking of
(08:19):
living in New Hope, Pennsylvania.
I got told by some of the people,oh, you're one of those transsexuals.
You think you're so special.
What I found out was there aredivisions within the transgender
community and some people are not thatopen to other parts of the community.
(08:40):
What was going
Lynn (08:41):
on with these?
People that they, uh,
Wendy (08:43):
they were, they were largely part of the cross-dressing community.
Lynn (08:46):
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Wendy (08:48):
And apparently at some point in time, they must have felt made
to feel less than by some peoplewho were living full-time as women.
I think that's where that came from.
I don't know.
I wasn't about to, I wasbrand new to all of this.
Lynn (09:08):
And you didn't need somebody giving you that kind of crap, right?
Wendy (09:10):
No.
I think I tried that support group maybetwo or three times and then just gave up.
I got into, uh, may and June of 2015, andall the way through I, by my third therapy
session, I was going to therapy as Wendy.
Lynn (09:30):
Oh, great.
Yeah.
Uh,
Wendy (09:32):
I told my therapist, I told Steph on our second session, I'm gonna
come as Wendy every therapy session.
I think that would help me.
And she said, you cancome any way you want.
This is a safe environment, et cetera.
Lynn (09:45):
Okay.
Wendy (09:45):
I said, you realize I'm going to have to work on boundaries with my wife,
and I'm going to have to go against herwishes and leave the house as Wendy.
Lynn (09:57):
So you weren't going to therapy at midnight after the kids were
asleep and everything was quiet?
No.
A light of day, huh?
Broad
Wendy (10:06):
daylight.
Hey, I'm out.
Amazing, huh?
Yeah.
We had our discussions and uh,she did threaten to throw away
everything when I left the house.
And I said, go ahead.
I need to buy new stuff anyway.
I don't like what I'vegot so you can, whatever.
Lynn (10:29):
So that threat didn't work
Wendy (10:32):
all that week.
It was scary to me.
It was really scary.
Not only did I have to crossboundaries with my wife.
But I also had to get comfortable withthe idea of being me out in public.
Stephanie had taken me back into myhippie days of meditation, mindfulness.
(10:52):
I got back into visioning.
I.
Lynn (10:55):
Okay.
Wendy (10:56):
And so what I would do is sit there and just eyes
closed, meditating and vision.
Lynn (11:03):
Mm-hmm.
How
Wendy (11:03):
would I feel driving to work?
Uh, driving to therapy.
Mm-hmm.
How would I feel?
Getting out of the car, walking acrossthe parking lot, seeing my reflection in
the glass door, going into the office.
How would all that feel?
And sitting in the waitingroom with other people.
Wow.
Light of day and other people.
(11:25):
Okay.
I got to a point where by repeatedlyvisioning that and by blocking
those thoughts of, you can'tdo this, this isn't gonna work.
All those, all those unhelpfulnegative thoughts that come into
your mind, blocking those andshifting them to new thoughts of.
(11:49):
Wouldn't it feel nice?
Curious as to how that wouldfeel listening to the sound of my
heels on the pavement as I walkeddown to the front door of the
building, those types of things.
Lynn (11:59):
You had all the senses involved in this and didn't you?
Yes.
Yeah.
Powerful.
Beautiful.
That's the
Wendy (12:06):
power of visioning.
Lynn (12:07):
Yes.
Wendy (12:08):
The day that I actually drove there, oh my god, it was wonderful.
And then I got out of the car.
It's uh, late January, early February.
I get out of the car and breeze isblowing around my legs, up my dress.
You know, it's, Hey,this is, this is great.
(12:32):
This is better than what I envisioned.
Those sensations.
And you still remember those sensations?
Yeah.
And then, uh, I walkinto the waiting room.
I took off my coat, put it on a chair.
I walked into the bathroom, closed thedoor, locked it, and just looked at
myself in the mirror and deep breathing.
(12:53):
I walked back and checked myselfout, make sure everything looks okay.
I walked back out.
I sat down and I look aroundand nobody's looking at me.
Nobody's paying any attention to me.
Nobody could care.
You didn't have a freak signthat said on your forehead?
No, there was nothing there.
You know Wendy.
Exactly.
How cool.
Stephanie came through the door to callme in from the waiting room, big smile.
(13:16):
I walk in, I still have a picture.
From that day, I gave her my camera,camera phone, and I had her take a
picture of me just to preserve that.
Lynn (13:25):
Okay.
It was
Wendy (13:26):
wonderful.
Every time I went to therapy,I gave myself life tests.
That's what I was calling them, andone of them was, Steph, I'm gonna
stop for coffee on the way in.
Do you want anything?
I was gonna stop at a DunkingDonuts and that Dunking Donuts
didn't have drive-through anddrive-through would be cheating.
Lynn (13:47):
Yes.
You were really testing yourself.
Wendy (13:49):
Yep.
I gotta get out.
I've gotta walk in, open the door, standin line like any other woman would do.
The first time I tried to do that, Icouldn't sh I shut off the ignition.
I couldn't open the door.
I sat there for five minutestrying to do it, couldn't do it.
Another lesson I learned fromSteph, I walk into therapy, sit
down, and I go, Steph, I failed.
(14:11):
She looked at me and said, no, you didn't.
You'll do it when you're ready.
I thought about that all the waythrough our session together.
I said to her at the end, Isaid, next week, I'm ready.
I know I will be.
That was a huge lesson isI'll do whatever I need to do.
When I'm ready.
Lynn (14:30):
Mm-hmm.
Wendy (14:31):
It's all a matter of my mindset.
Well, that powerful mind, huh?
Mm-hmm.
And the next week I did.
I got out, I walked in, I stood in line.
I did freak out just a tad.
Two local police officers camein and stood in line behind me.
(14:52):
Oh God, I had no clue.
No clue.
None whatsoever on their part.
But on my part, I had immediate flashbacksto New York and getting arrested.
Lynn (15:04):
Yeah.
Wendy (15:05):
And then I go, Wendy, forget it.
Not gonna happen.
You're in a different age and time.
Yeah.
And the funny part was is I'm gettingmy coffee, I'm, I'm paying with cash.
I'm having to navigate for thefirst time, a purse, a wallet,
and handling all this stuff inaddition to getting my coffee.
Lynn (15:28):
See now you knew what we women go through all the time with.
All,
Wendy (15:31):
exactly.
Lynn (15:32):
Yeah.
Oh, I
Wendy (15:35):
have to admit though, I love the purse.
It's so much easier than stuffingeverything in your pockets.
Lynn (15:41):
Oh yeah.
And it looks so much better.
Exactly.
Wendy (15:44):
It's cool.
You can, you can make a fashion statement.
Lynn (15:47):
You do.
Yes.
You can have persons of everydifferent color and style.
Mm-hmm.
Enjoy that.
Yeah,
Wendy (15:54):
I know.
Love it.
Lynn (15:56):
That's what you're doing.
Wendy (15:57):
Exactly.
Now I gave myselfseveral other life tests.
Uh, there was even an instance where,uh, stuff was going away for, uh, that
week, so we wouldn't be having therapy.
I went to therapy anyway, and thatwas the whole morning out being me.
Oh, yep.
(16:18):
I went grocery shopping,pretend grocery shopping.
Nobody paid any attention to me.
I walked up and down main street of thislittle town, uh, beautiful shops, nice
little town, uh, Newtown, Pennsylvania.
They even had a Starbucks on Main Street.
So I walked in there, I ordered a, somepastry, whatever it was, and a coffee,
(16:40):
and went and sat down and had it.
Lynn (16:43):
And nobody said anything.
Wendy (16:45):
Nobody said anything.
Nobody even gave me a second look.
Lynn (16:49):
Yeah,
Wendy (16:50):
I'm going.
I'm saying to myself thatday, you can do this.
You've got
Lynn (16:54):
this.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Wendy (16:56):
You're on your way.
I'd already started hormone replacementtherapy at the beginning of March.
That was another discussionwith my wife at the time.
I told her I was, Iwas, end of February, I.
Starting hormone replacement therapy.
Oh, we didn't discuss it.
And I said, well, it's notsomething that I'm going to discuss.
(17:17):
Mm-hmm.
It's something I need to do for me.
And she said, okay, then that's it.
We're getting a divorce.
I, at the time, kind of knew theanswer why, but I just thought I'd
go and say, why I, she responded,well, you're going to develop breasts.
Your Lord knows whatelse you're going to do.
(17:39):
Because we did had talked in 78about surgeries and things like that.
Mm-hmm.
And she said, uh, I'm not a lesbian andI'm not gonna be married to someone that
lives like a woman and is a woman, period.
I said, okay.
And that was the end of the discussion.
So how did you feel about that?
At that point?
I actually felt relief.
Lynn (18:02):
No.
Okay.
Wendy (18:04):
I felt bad for her.
Basically I married herunder false pretenses.
Mm-hmm.
There's no way, no way around that.
Lynn (18:10):
Mm-hmm.
Wendy (18:11):
But there was a relief there because now I felt that like, if this
is actually still going in the directionthat's going in, I can actually do this.
Mm-hmm.
I can actually finally be me.
Mm. I got to June and my wifesaid to me, we're still married.
We're in the process of getting divorced.
(18:32):
She said to me, this is very upsetting.
I'm upset.
I'm worried about the future,this, and you know that.
And the, and you know,I'm feeling pretty bad.
And you couldn't be happier.
I said, yeah, I know.
I'm sorry.
Lynn (18:50):
Finally, you're happy though.
Wendy (18:52):
Yeah, after all those years, because I was in the process
of looking for an apartment.
I was gonna move out of the house.
That was it.
Mm-hmm.
I was done trying to bemy male facsimile anymore.
She did say something which I,I feel bad about, but I also
find it amusing and ironic.
She said to me, I don't believe this.
(19:13):
My first, this was in thesame conversation in June.
She goes, my, my first husbandleft me for another woman.
My second husband leftme to become a woman.
Oh, the irony of it all.
That is kind of funny though.
Yeah, it is.
But the way she put it, it was great.
(19:35):
I moved into, uh, myapartment on a weekday.
There was nobody aroundin the little uh, area.
It was a mixed bag of townhome,condominium type places
with couples living there.
Some were gay couples, some werestraight couples, and then there was
a mixed in among them apartments.
(19:56):
It was a great.
Great street to live on.
Very social, all of that.
There was a large gay communityin New Hope and I thought, oh my
God, they're all gonna get me.
This is LGBT.
Yeah.
And one of my younger, uh, friend's,son of my wife's friend, he
(20:19):
came out as gay in high school.
Not high school and college.
It was considerably younger than me, ofcourse, and he was the first person I
ever came out to of people that I knew.
In 2015, actually it was late 2014, Itold him it was after a Christmas party.
I called him up and I said, bill,you know LGBT goes, yeah, well
(20:43):
you're a G I'm one of the tees.
That's how I put it to him
Lynn (20:48):
anyway,
Wendy (20:49):
what
had no clue, he and his partnercame over for lunch one day.
I came to the house and my wife and Iare sitting there with Bill and Vinny.
I'll never forget this.
Bill looks at me and he goes, Wendy, itwould be so much easier if you were gay.
You could leave the house,and nobody would know.
Lynn (21:13):
He said, sorry, I didn't get the order right.
Wendy (21:17):
That wasn't in the cards.
That's not the way I was programmed.
That's not me.
Lynn (21:22):
No.
Wendy (21:23):
So yeah, I gotta go.
And I think going into this, Ididn't realize how much in the
way of deconstructing all ofthat male socialization that I
never wanted in the first place.
It sticks and you'vegot to deconstruct it.
I had started working on thatduring my first six months
(21:45):
before going full-time as Wendy.
It's an ongoing process.
It's an evolution.
Lynn (21:51):
Give us an example of what you had to do to deconstruct that.
Wendy (21:55):
Male attitudes.
A lot of them, you, you've got to just,the aggressiveness, uh, the forcefulness.
I've got, I've got a seven page.
List of items in one of my coachingprograms that I take people through
how you change your mannerisms, yourbehaviors, your speech patterns.
(22:19):
You need to work on your voice, just theway you sit, the way you carry yourself.
The other thing that I came to realizewas most people, at most, most people
in everyday life, when they lookat you within five seconds or less,
that's when they assign your gender.
They don't really call it gender.
They say that's your sex.
(22:40):
Mm-hmm.
You're a woman or you're a man.
It's a very quick, veryinstinctive reaction.
Okay.
So I, I learned through my life practicesessions that I could do that and get
by within those first five seconds.
Now it's up to me not to confuse them,
Lynn (23:03):
but you taught yourself these things.
Wendy (23:05):
Yes, there was a lot involved with that.
Lynn (23:09):
I bet
Wendy (23:10):
a lot of reading, a lot of studying and becoming very, very hyper aware of
my own behaviors, my own mannerisms, myown thoughts and how I see things and.
Hyper aware of how other womeninteract and how they behave and what
(23:33):
they do, and learn from all of that.
Put that together withwhat feels right for me.
Lynn (23:40):
Did you have to change attitudes, beliefs, whatever, around women?
Wendy (23:46):
Actually, yes.
Majority of the time of my previous,uh, years, I did a lot to avoid
really being open with women.
While I was more comfortable beingin the company of women, I wasn't one
of them, so I was just kind of likethis guy standing off to the side.
Typical example.
(24:07):
Thanksgiving, whether it was at somebodyelse's house or whether or not it was at
my house, I was more comfortable being inthe kitchen with the other women rather
than hanging out in front of the TV set.
Watching a football game didn't interestme at all, and it didn't feel, feel,
feel right, it didn't feel comfortable.
(24:28):
I was always wondering how I wasgoing to interact, so I just.
It didn't, and if, if the gathering orthe event or whatever was in my house,
my wife got used to this, I. Think, Idon't know, she didn't like it, but I
put in like a 20 minute appearance ifthat, and vanish and maybe occasionally
(24:50):
pop in to see what was going on.
And otherwise I'd be in my officespace with my computer systems,
my tv, my music, whatever.
And that's where I would spendthe majority of the time in
any kind of social gathering.
Lynn (25:07):
So you didn't feel like you fit in either.
Wendy (25:10):
Wendy became a social butterfly.
I had a wonderful time.
The first, first year or two of livingin my first apartment was amazing.
Very social neighborhood.
Lots of neighborhood parties, and Igot one hell of an education as far
(25:32):
as the gay community goes, thinkingthat they would understand and get me.
Lynn (25:37):
No,
Wendy (25:38):
they couldn't have been nicer or more supportive, but at
first they were kind of distant.
One of the, uh, gay couples had leftflowers at my front door a few weeks
after I moved in, so I went down andintroduced myself one Sunday evening.
I went to their.
Condominium about nine 15 inthe evening, Sunday evening.
(26:00):
Introduced myself, confirmedthat yes, I was transgender.
I'm living full-time as Wendy.
I don't care when or how, but I'mgoing to also have my surgery and
I'm going to be completely female.
Then I followed that up with them and thisbecame kind of like my stock line whenever
(26:22):
I was talking to anybody and coming outto them of, I'm an open book, nothing is
off limits, and ask anything you want.
I'll talk about anythinghaving to do with my life.
I. It's amazing to me how many timesthat just sparked off conversations.
That first couple that I came, uh, thatI came out to Lynn, we talked from a
(26:44):
little after nine in the evening untilbetween three and three 30 in the
morning, nonstop, nasty, and I walkedaway from that, just totally mind blown.
These are two gay guys.
And they basically didn't know that muchabout my life, but yet what I found when
(27:05):
I was sharing what I was feeling andthinking or what I had experienced, I
found they had very similar experiences.
There wasn't that much daylight betweenus in terms of differences, and I
always like to end the conversationwith, well, you became a GI became a T.
(27:25):
That's it.
Beyond that, we've got a lot in common.
So there was a, a gay bar in town.
There was a lot of bars in town.
I really enjoyed the Raven Large barspace from about three in the afternoon
until six or seven in the evening.
You could go in there and any numberof people were there and you could have
(27:49):
conversations, and that's what I loved.
I didn't go to the bars todrink and get drunk or anything.
I went there to haveconversations with people.
Lynn (28:00):
But you were educating people all along, you know, being as open as you are.
I don't know if that's common to thetransgender community, but you know,
you, you're still open about this and.
Helping people understand.
And I think that's so important.
Wendy (28:16):
That's one of the one, it's one of the reasons why I am doing this.
That's one of the reasons whyI started just hanging out
and just talking to people.
I found that so many people, evenwithin the LGBT community, well with the
LGBQ, whatever, all the alphabets, yes.
Um, they don't understand either.
(28:36):
We have our own little,uh, groups that we are in.
And there's, uh, not thatmuch crossover between them,
Lynn (28:45):
and yet there's, you're talking about your story being so similar
to the two gay guys, you know,uhhuh, the surgery, that type of
thing, but the hiding, the feelingdifferent, the right insecurities,
the depression, those types of things.
Wendy (28:58):
I'm very good friends with, still very good friends with a couple
there in that town, Bob and Tony.
Bob confided in me about fouror five years after I knew
that I didn't wanna meet you.
You moved into the neighborhood,people like you Totally skied me out.
Lynn (29:15):
Really?
Wendy (29:16):
Yep.
It was David and I think, uh, one of theother guys, Chad, who had, uh, convinced
him, no, you've gotta talk to Wendy.
She's different.
She'll talk to you aboutanything and everything.
She'll explain things to you.
You'll start to understand.
You'll like her.
(29:38):
Well, he was finally forced intoa situation of having to meet
me at a neighborhood gathering.
We talked, he told me, hesaid it kind of blew him away.
I did.
I answered questions.
I was very open.
I hid nothing.
I was very open within the uh,LGBT community and all the people
(29:59):
in that community around me, butwithin the, uh, what we call the.
Straight community or everybody else.
I was pretty much living stealth.
I only revealed my past when Iwas comfortable with the person
and when I thought they might be afriend At some point soon, someone
(30:20):
beyond the good acquaintance stage,then I would be open with them.
Lynn (30:26):
Are you more open now with straight people?
It depends on
Wendy (30:30):
the circumstances.
If it's in a, uh, group environmentand we're talking and I have really
good vibes from the people thatI'm with, doesn't matter if they're
really going to be friends or not,and it's appropriate, whatever.
I'm perfectly comfortablerevealing everything now.
It seems like you don't
Lynn (30:50):
have to, it's not like you're, you're wearing a sign saying, well,
I've gotta tell you about this.
I've gotta tell everybody about this.
Wendy (30:56):
Right,
Lynn (30:57):
right.
When it's appropriateis what I heard you say.
Wendy (31:00):
Exactly.
That's the key.
Lynn (31:02):
Yeah.
When it's
Wendy (31:03):
appropriate.
And one of the things that I encourageother people, like myself, and when
I'm coaching them, I encourage them todo this, is be yourself and blend in.
I don't like the word passing.
Mm-hmm.
That's a big word in the community even.
Well, Wendy, you do thisbecause you pass so well.
(31:25):
No, it's not passing.
I did the work to align myinner being with who I am.
I've done the work to learn how to controlmy thoughts and all those little automatic
negative thoughts that we have every day.
Put them in their place.
Mm-hmm.
And accept myself forwho I am and what I am.
(31:47):
I refer to it as blending in.
That was my goal when Istarted this in 2015, was.
If I could envision anything, thatwould be a wonderful experience for me.
It would be just blending intosociety as any other woman.
Lynn (32:04):
And I've heard you, um, other podcasts or maybe when we talked
before, you may have made commentsabout how this, the transition, the
change is an internal change first.
Wendy (32:15):
Yes.
Lynn (32:16):
But you have to do the internal work.
And I'm hearing you say that now too,that you work on all these things.
Change the internal part.
Wendy (32:25):
By doing that, I was able to go from a very depressed,
very anxiety ridden, guilt riddenperson, and six months later,
completely different person as Wendy.
I did the whole transition in six months.
Lynn (32:44):
Did you really?
Not the surgery, but the, not
Wendy (32:46):
the surgery, but I went from living as a guy I. To living as a woman.
Lynn (32:52):
Mm-hmm.
Wendy (32:53):
Full-time in six months.
I've had clients do it in less.
See the bottom line is if you're readyand you make a commitment to yourself
that you know you need to do this,you're just scared and don't know how,
Lynn (33:09):
thank goodness you're doing what you're doing in your coaching program.
Wendy (33:12):
Exactly.
Lynn (33:13):
Help people.
Um,
Wendy (33:13):
I had a client last year that was the way she opened
up her first session with me.
She said, I'm scared.
I'm tired of living a lie.
I have no clue what I'm doing now.
She had been cross-dressingon and off for years.
She had been experimentingwith it for years.
The people that she knew that were inthe transgender community, even the
(33:34):
ones that she knew who were livingfull-time all told her that this is very
difficult and takes a long time to do.
My response to that is if that'swhat you believe, then it will.
Mm-hmm.
The first thing I do withsomebody is change their beliefs.
Those thoughts that you have thatare unhelpful, not supportive,
(33:54):
remove them, block them.
Various ways of doing that, and there'snot one size that fits all at what's work.
What works with that person is what I workto find and help them get through that.
Because once they're through the processof beginning to accept themselves.
Self-acceptance, self-awareness,and even begin some self-love
(34:19):
that can happen fairly quickly.
And once that starts to happen,then it's very easy to start
moving forward one step at a time.
Lynn (34:27):
Tell us the story.
I, you've told me this storybefore, but how physically.
This changed you not just fromman to a woman, but when you
went to your doctor checkup.
I just love that story, Wendy.
I think our listeners need to hear that.
Wendy (34:41):
I was about 70 pounds heavier than I am now.
I was type two diabetic.
My blood work was horrible.
Emotionally and physically.
I was a mess.
I was living in a fog on psych meds,and I was popping pills all the
time for various health reasons.
Once I've straightened out mywhole mental process of, uh, the
(35:06):
thoughts and the beliefs that Ihave, actually, I can actually say
I love myself for who I am today.
All of that started to change andit was kind of a byproduct of, of
this, but now I know that it is ourminds that can affect our health
dramatically, one way or the other.
(35:27):
We can make ourselves sick,which is what I was doing.
I think if I had stayed as aguy at age 67, I don't think
I would've made it to 70.
Forget killing myself.
I probably wouldn't have made it there.
I was that unhealthy.
My primary doctor, he's sitting there oneday this like three years into this, he
is looking back through my medical recordsand he's going, wow, I don't believe this.
(35:52):
What?
What's going on here?
I'm taking you off yourdiabetic me medicine.
You don't need it anymore.
Your blood work iscoming back beautifully.
There's no triglyceride problem,there's no cholesterol problem,
there's nothing going on with you.
What do you attribute this to?
And I just looked at him and I said,well, it starts with being happy.
Then consciously working on allthose negative thoughts that I
(36:16):
had throughout my entire life.
Learning to control them, eliminate them.
You can't completely eliminate 'em.
I'm a work in progress and Iwill continue to be in a work in
progress, and I've been evolving.
I firmly believe that life is aboutpossibilities and change is constant.
(36:38):
So the best thing we can do is learn toembrace change and embrace the fact that
everything's gonna be different a weekfrom now, two weeks from now, wherever
things are gonna change, it's inevitable.
Lynn (36:53):
I think it all works in progress if we're paying attention to
what's going on, aren't we Exactly.
Such power in your mindand what you've done.
Then what you're helping othersdo that is just such an important
thing, changing the world.
Like I said,
Wendy (37:09):
what I found was that I actually got involved with a small group of women.
I actually started just by my presenceof working with them, started helping
them shift their thoughts, their beliefs.
As a result, it's theemotions that we have.
As a result of our thoughts,those emotions cause our
(37:32):
body to release chemicals.
Mm-hmm.
Our body is a big drug producer.
Mm-hmm.
The hypothalamus in our brainsproduces, uh, neuropeptides, which
get into the bloodstream, thehormones, and everything else that our
different areas of our body produces.
That's the way.
(37:52):
Our mind communicates with ourphysical body as to what we're feeling.
If you're feeling anxious or scared,those thoughts that your mind has
will trigger the chemical productionassociated with those, those emotions.
Living with those emotions hasa definite impact on your body.
That's where I was getting all thetype two diabetic stuff from all of
(38:17):
the blood work problems, all of that.
It went away.
Because those thoughts andthose emotions stopped,
Lynn (38:25):
that's a powerful lesson for everybody.
But thank goodness you're sharing thatwith the the transgender community.
Wendy (38:31):
One of the things that I really do believe this, some people
within the community believe that ifyou ask them what their identity is,
they'll tell you they're transgender.
If you ask me what myidentity is, I'll say female.
I'm a woman and that's the thingthat I'm trying to educate.
(38:52):
A lot of people within the community on,especially if you're transitioning to
full living, full time in your authenticgender, it's a lot easier to just look at
yourself as someone who was born with acondition that made you different, that
you're going to change that condition.
To be who you've always been.
As a result, I look at transgenderas being how I was born.
Lynn (39:16):
Mm-hmm.
Wendy (39:16):
I'm not gonna call it a birth defect.
I'm not gonna call it any of that.
I'm just gonna say,this is how I was born.
Fact.
Mm-hmm.
Period.
Mm-hmm.
How I identify.
A woman and female, I won'tput the word trans in front
of woman and apply it to me.
That's an unnecessaryqualifier to my clients.
I tell them, that puts waytoo much pressure on you.
(39:39):
Your best, if you want to callit this defense going into
society as your, as your trueself, is to just be and blend in.
Accept yourself for who you are, asopposed to, well, I'm a trans woman.
'cause that automatically makes youdifferent from the rest of the women.
And that's not what wewanted to begin with.
(40:02):
So claim your
Lynn (40:03):
femininity.
Claim your gender.
Wendy (40:05):
Exactly.
Lynn (40:06):
Gender identity.
Yeah,
Wendy (40:08):
exactly.
Lynn (40:09):
And then it seems like then you're more anchored in that and
not still thinking that you'retransitioning or you know, whatever.
Wendy (40:17):
Exactly.
You've got it.
Lynn (40:19):
So when, when you're describing yourself to someone who you may wanna
coach or talking about this, how do, howdo you say, this is who I am and this is
how I can help you, or why I can help you?
Wendy (40:31):
I've lived with this my entire life.
I've done extensive reading,studying, both for my own purposes
and for my coaching purposes.
One of the first things that Itry to tell them is that when you
get to the other side of this.
You're gonna find joy thatyou never knew possible.
Mm-hmm.
That's what's waiting for you, and all youhave to do is take the first few steps.
(40:55):
That's why I'm here for you to guide you,show you what I've done, of all of that.
You take from it what works for you,and I'll help you along the way.
One of my, uh, uh, clients last yearby our sixth session, she had changed
her legal name and driver's license.
Lynn (41:14):
Everyone.
Wendy (41:15):
And was living full-time.
She still had a long way togo, but she did an amazing job.
She beat me.
She did her surgeriesduring the first year.
I waited till my second, soit was When was your surgery?
2016. 2017.
Lynn (41:31):
2017.
Okay.
Wendy (41:32):
I was living full-time by July of, uh, 2015.
I spent 2016 looking for.
A surgeon and going through thewait list process and everything
else that goes on with that.
Had surgery in August of 2017.
Dr. Rachel Bbo, NYU Medical Center, mostwonderful experience in my entire life.
(41:56):
I literally ran through thehospital doors that morning.
I was there at quarter of sixin the morning to check in for
surgery at six, so I was there.
Lynn (42:09):
And excited and ready.
Wendy (42:10):
God, yes.
Five days in the hospital.
I checked out, got home and rested.
Yeah, I'm sure it took a bit out of you.
Any surgery would, and then Wednesday Irested Thursday, seven days after surgery.
I went into town and was walkingthrough town and hanging out at one of
the patio bars, talking with friends.
So you came through thatpretty quickly it sounds like.
(42:32):
No prolonged.
Pain after, so part of mysurgery was done from the inside.
Wow.
They make a little slit.
They inflate you lights, action camera,and they're off to the races inside too.
So you're getting worked on onthe outside and on the inside.
How interesting.
But I think that makes a difference'cause they're not working
(42:55):
blindly from the outside whenthey're doing stuff on the inside.
I don't know.
All I know too is the dischargenurse was completely blown away.
She came into me and she said, I. Youdidn't have any narcotic painkillers?
No.
All they gave me was Tylenol and Motrin.
Granted industrial strength.
But that was, that was it.
Lynn (43:16):
Well, and what about your mindset
Wendy (43:18):
too?
That had a big part in this too, becauseI was just so ready to have this done.
Lynn (43:23):
Yeah.
Wendy (43:24):
I couldn't see any other thing, but this, I think it
was my second follow up visit.
I'm walking down 30th Street, oh my God.
Somewhere, I think it'sbetween fifth and sixth Avenue.
There's this, it's the mallof Manhattan is inside.
It's all stores in there and everything.
And the whole street is, uh,black glass, highly reflective.
(43:47):
Okay.
I'm standing there on a New York Citymorning sun shining people walking by.
I'm staring at myself in the, inthe glass, just going, wow, wow.
You finally did it.
Lynn (44:03):
Amazing.
You're finally complete.
Amazing.
And Wendy, you're not necessarily workingjust with people who are transitioning.
A
Wendy (44:12):
life transition can be any kind of significant life
transition that someone's going to.
You're leaving your corporatejob and you're going to open up
your own storefront, or you'regoing to become an entrepreneur.
That's a major life changefor a lot of people.
Getting your mindset and yourthoughts together on that.
(44:34):
And all very similar to the coaching workthat I've done with transgender people
Lynn (44:40):
and the work you've done with yourself.
Wendy (44:43):
Oh, absolutely.
That's
Lynn (44:44):
where it started, wasn't it?
That's where it all began.
And to see the results with you, you knowhow happy you are, how beautiful you are,
how outspoken, poised, how lovely you are.
You've done the work on yourself.
So exactly.
You're the shining example.
Any anyone who's in anykind of life change.
Major life
Wendy (45:04):
change.
The other thing is, is I hear a lotof people say, well, I'm too old.
No age is all about how you feel.
I was working as a cashier in asupermarket for about three years.
People would come through my line.
Women would come through talking to aboutto each other, oh, I have this ache.
I have this pain.
I'm doing this, I'm doing that.
(45:25):
I'm seeing the doctorhere, blah, blah, blah.
And look at me.
And they go, honey, don't get old.
And I would go, how old do you think I am?
At the time I was 70 or 71, Icarried my driver's license with
me because no one would believe me.
Now I'm 75.
I still feel like I'm in my twenties andthirties, emotionally and physically.
(45:46):
I walk, uh, anywhere betweenthree and five miles a day.
Lynn (45:51):
That's so important.
So, and nobody would believe you're 75?
Wendy (45:54):
No.
Lynn (45:55):
No.
And what You said you're happy.
Wendy (45:58):
I'm happy.
Never been happier andwon't ever look back.
You know, it's only going forwardfrom now on, so it's never too
Lynn (46:06):
late.
You're never too old.
Wendy (46:08):
No.
Not never too old to be yourself.
Lynn (46:11):
Wonderful message.
Wendy, thank you so much forsharing that today, and we'll
have another conversation.
Wendy (46:16):
Absolutely.
Thank you so much, Lynn.
Lynn (46:19):
Wendy, you have shared so much with us today and I'm just delighted
with everything we've talked about.
We're gonna have to do this again.
Right.
We wonderful.
We've got so much more to talk about.
I have a whole list of questionsthat I still wanna ask you.
Great, but you shared so much withus that educates people, and I
know that that's what you're doing.
(46:40):
You're so open.
You say you're open about everything.
There are no questions that I can'task you or that others can't ask you.
So let's talk a little bit aboutyour coaching program and how
people can contact you and Okay.
Then we'll come back forpart two some other day.
Okay, great.
Tell us about, about all that.
Wendy (46:57):
You know, how you want people to contact you.
And the best way to contact me,especially if you're tired of people
not hearing you, not believing you,uh, need someone to talk to about where
you're going and what you need to do,especially around your perplexing mindset
having to do with abuse, trauma, andbasically people not understanding you.
(47:20):
Please reach out to me.
Meet wendy cole.com.
Meet.
Wendy cole.com.
You'll find something to get on mycalendar there and talk with me.
And if you're not quite ready forthat conversation yet, subscribe to my
newsletter at least until you're ready.
And that way I can continueto support you from afar.
(47:42):
Whatever life change you're goingthrough I can help you with.
And that's meet wendy cole.com and
Lynn (47:49):
thank you to our audience.
For tuning in today.
I'm Lynn Murphy, your host andfounder of Women Who Push the Limits.
We've had such a conversation today withWendy Cole, who is definitely a woman
who pushes the limits in so many ways.
Wendy, thank you for sharing with us to,uh, those of you who are listening today.
If you enjoyed this, pleasesubscribe to our channel.
(48:12):
Give us a rating, leave a review,share this with others, and join
in our inspiring conversations.
Thank you for joining us today.
Stay safe, stay happy, and rememberour motto, find your voice, speak
your truth, and change the world.
I'm Lynn Murphy.
We'll see you next time.
Next time on Demystifyingthe Transgender Journey.
Wendy (48:34):
Everything was brand new.
You're experiencing everything forthe first time from a completely
different perspective, and it justfeels so amazing, felt so natural, and
I'd look around to see if people werechecking me out or whatever, you know,
Lynn (48:49):
and nobody was.
Thank you for joining us todayon this episode of Demystifying
the Transgender Journey.
Remember to subscribe so youdon't miss a single episode
of our fascinating interviews.
You can also find more information onour website, the transgender journey.com.
So until next time, staycurious and stay kind.
I'm standing there on a New York City morning sun
(00:03):
shining people walking by.
I'm staring at myself in the glass, justgoing, wow, wow, you finally did it.
Amazing.
Lynn (00:14):
You're finally complete.
What do you really know aboutpeople who were born transgender?
Have you ever met someonewho's transgender?
Well, if you're like me, you'recurious but hesitant to ask questions.
Well, welcome to demystifyingthe Transgender Journey.
In our conversations with people who wereborn transgender, their families, friends,
and the professionals who support them,we ask probing questions and discover
(00:36):
insightful and educational answers.
You can also find more information onour website, the transgender journey.com.
Now, let's get right into today's episode.
Last time on demystifyingthe Transgender Journey.
As a
Wendy (00:51):
young kid, before I even came out to my parents, I knew I had to
be a woman, and that was what I wasthe last trip to the psychiatrist.
My mother turned to me and said, okay, youhave to stop insisting that you're a girl.
We don't ever want to hear this again.
What I found out in 2014,everything that changed in 2012.
(01:14):
Now, keep in mind, 1970,I would be arrested.
I was called a freak.
I was told that there was no cure and notreatment possible when I found that out.
My wife and I had beenmarried for 40 years.
January of 2015.
I went to therapy for the firsttime and Stephanie's sitting
there with my file folder.
(01:36):
She looks up at me and shegoes, what's your name?
Without even thinking, Ijust snapped back, Wendy.
She crossed out my mail.
Fax SIM's name, wrote Wendy on my filefolder, and from that day forward I was.
Wendy,
Lynn (01:49):
welcome to another episode of Demystifying the Transgender Journey.
I'm your host, Lynn Murphy, founderof Women Who Push the Limits and
demystifying the transgender journey.
In our last episode, Wendy Cole sharedwith us what her life was like from the
time she was three years old when sherealized that she was a girl, even though
she was living in a male body until shewas 67, living in her male facsimile.
(02:12):
In that episode, she talked about herearly life, her career, her education,
her marriage, even with two children,knowing that she was really a woman.
So if you haven't seen that episodeor listened to that episode, be sure
and tune in to get the beginning ofWendy's life up until point that she's
gonna talk about now in this episode.
So in today's episode, Wendystarts by talking about meeting
(02:34):
her therapist, the one that.
Validated who she was and sawher as her authentic self.
Let's pick up where we left off last timeand hear what Wendy has to share with us.
Wendy (02:43):
I spent 45 years repressing and not knowing what was going on, if
anything in the way of my diagnosisor how people were living or whatever
it was, uh, quite eyeopening becauseI said I was in a dark place.
Suicidal ideation is notsomething that is uncommon.
(03:05):
It's not uncommon inthe transgender world.
It's not uncommon in the LGBT world.
People that feel alone and not acceptedare very likely to have suicidal ideation.
That's a reality.
I was there big time.
67 years old.
Never lived a day in mylife the way I knew I was.
(03:29):
I did look it up.
I found out everythinghad changed that day.
It was late in the afternoon.
I went upstairs to my wife who wasin our family room, and I said,
remember what we talked about in 1978?
It never left, and now I found out.
It's changed.
I am going to start therapy.
I don't know where this will go,but I'm going to find a therapist.
(03:50):
That was in late 2014.
I spent the rest of 2014looking for therapists.
I did find find one.
I picked Stephanie.
Something about her vibe from her picture,her eyes in her picture, and the profile
thing that she wrote up in her brochure.
January of 2015.
(04:12):
I went to therapy for the first time.
Now, keep in mind, Lynn, she'sthe first person I've talked to
openly about this since 19 70,
Lynn (04:21):
45 years of just hanging onto that and not feeling like
you could share in depth anythingwith anybody, any of that stuff.
Wendy (04:29):
Exactly.
I sat there and poured my guts out.
It just felt so incredible to beable to freely talk to another
human being about what was goingon in my head and how I felt, and
what I felt about who I really was.
And at the same time, I talked about howguilty I felt, the shame that I felt.
(04:49):
How difficult it was to just get by.
This was probably the most, oneof the most powerful moments
up to that point in my life.
I'm standing up, I'm gettingready to leave the office.
Stephanie's sitting there withmy file folder on her lap.
She looks up at me and she goes.
What's your name?
Without even thinking,I just snapped back.
(05:11):
Wendy.
My joy, amazement,everything was like, wow.
She crossed out my mail.
Fac SIM's name wrote Wendy onmy file folder and from that
day forward I was, Wendy,
Lynn (05:24):
have that the quickest shift, uhhuh to be acknowledged
by someone just like that.
Wendy (05:30):
Exactly, and she was the first person in my entire 67 year life to
actually accept me for who I am, what I amwithout any burden or need to understand.
Lynn (05:47):
Yeah.
I've got tears in my eyes now, Wendy.
I'm Oh, that's amazing.
Wendy (05:53):
Only a matter of.
A month and a half earlier,I was going to end it all.
Lynn (05:58):
Yeah.
Wendy (05:59):
And now here she is totally accepting me for who I am.
Lynn (06:04):
Wow.
Wendy (06:05):
In our next session, we got into my feelings of guilt and shame.
I. And she goes, stop thosedon't do you any good.
They don't fix anything thatyou've perceived yourself
to having done to others.
That's one of the other things is just megoing through my life trying to fake it.
Lynn (06:28):
Well, it seems like you were protecting others from their
response to this too, which is
Wendy (06:33):
exactly
Lynn (06:34):
not your responsibility, but you were probably carrying that around too.
Wendy (06:38):
She helped me get past, uh, the guilt and the shame very quickly.
I decided, well, there'snothing I can do about it.
I can't turn the clock back.
I can't go back and redo these 67 years.
That's impossible.
So make the best of whatI've got going forward.
Yay.
And here I go.
Second, uh, session we got into,uh, where did Wendy come from?
(07:01):
That was a name I pickedin grammar school.
Had you always had that name?
Lynn (07:06):
Get least in your mind.
Wendy (07:07):
Exactly.
If I can ever be a girl,that's who I'm going to be.
I'm gonna be Wendy.
Lynn (07:12):
Oh, that's cool.
Wendy (07:13):
Uh, she was the prettiest girl in one of my grammar school classes.
Always had the nicest clothes ever.
She was very popular and Idecided if I could be a girl,
I wanted to be like Wendy.
And so that was gonna be my name.
And now it is.
And now it is.
I started with the therapyin uh, uh, January of 2015.
(07:34):
At this point, I still had no ideathat there was this huge transgender
community on Facebook or anywhere.
I. I was all, I was still alone.
It was basically me and my therapist.
She got me to go to a supportgroup, which I found in one of the
Philadelphia suburbs, and I went,and my reception there was, I.
(07:58):
Less than friendly.
I hadn't transitioned to beliving as Wendy full-time.
I was about three or fourmonths away from doing that.
So I kind of let it be knownthat, you know, this is who
I am, this is what I'm doing.
I'm gonna be living full-timesometime this summer of 2015.
I don't know where I'm goingto live, but I'm thinking of
(08:19):
living in New Hope, Pennsylvania.
I got told by some of the people,oh, you're one of those transsexuals.
You think you're so special.
What I found out was there aredivisions within the transgender
community and some people are not thatopen to other parts of the community.
(08:40):
What was going
Lynn (08:41):
on with these?
People that they, uh,
Wendy (08:43):
they were, they were largely part of the cross-dressing community.
Lynn (08:46):
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Wendy (08:48):
And apparently at some point in time, they must have felt made
to feel less than by some peoplewho were living full-time as women.
I think that's where that came from.
I don't know.
I wasn't about to, I wasbrand new to all of this.
Lynn (09:08):
And you didn't need somebody giving you that kind of crap, right?
Wendy (09:10):
No.
I think I tried that support group maybetwo or three times and then just gave up.
I got into, uh, may and June of 2015, andall the way through I, by my third therapy
session, I was going to therapy as Wendy.
Lynn (09:30):
Oh, great.
Yeah.
Uh,
Wendy (09:32):
I told my therapist, I told Steph on our second session, I'm gonna
come as Wendy every therapy session.
I think that would help me.
And she said, you cancome any way you want.
This is a safe environment, et cetera.
Lynn (09:45):
Okay.
Wendy (09:45):
I said, you realize I'm going to have to work on boundaries with my wife,
and I'm going to have to go against herwishes and leave the house as Wendy.
Lynn (09:57):
So you weren't going to therapy at midnight after the kids were
asleep and everything was quiet?
No.
A light of day, huh?
Broad
Wendy (10:06):
daylight.
Hey, I'm out.
Amazing, huh?
Yeah.
We had our discussions and uh,she did threaten to throw away
everything when I left the house.
And I said, go ahead.
I need to buy new stuff anyway.
I don't like what I'vegot so you can, whatever.
Lynn (10:29):
So that threat didn't work
Wendy (10:32):
all that week.
It was scary to me.
It was really scary.
Not only did I have to crossboundaries with my wife.
But I also had to get comfortable withthe idea of being me out in public.
Stephanie had taken me back into myhippie days of meditation, mindfulness.
(10:52):
I got back into visioning.
I.
Lynn (10:55):
Okay.
Wendy (10:56):
And so what I would do is sit there and just eyes
closed, meditating and vision.
Lynn (11:03):
Mm-hmm.
How
Wendy (11:03):
would I feel driving to work?
Uh, driving to therapy.
Mm-hmm.
How would I feel?
Getting out of the car, walking acrossthe parking lot, seeing my reflection in
the glass door, going into the office.
How would all that feel?
And sitting in the waitingroom with other people.
Wow.
Light of day and other people.
(11:25):
Okay.
I got to a point where by repeatedlyvisioning that and by blocking
those thoughts of, you can'tdo this, this isn't gonna work.
All those, all those unhelpfulnegative thoughts that come into
your mind, blocking those andshifting them to new thoughts of.
(11:49):
Wouldn't it feel nice?
Curious as to how that wouldfeel listening to the sound of my
heels on the pavement as I walkeddown to the front door of the
building, those types of things.
Lynn (11:59):
You had all the senses involved in this and didn't you?
Yes.
Yeah.
Powerful.
Beautiful.
That's the
Wendy (12:06):
power of visioning.
Lynn (12:07):
Yes.
Wendy (12:08):
The day that I actually drove there, oh my god, it was wonderful.
And then I got out of the car.
It's uh, late January, early February.
I get out of the car and breeze isblowing around my legs, up my dress.
You know, it's, Hey,this is, this is great.
(12:32):
This is better than what I envisioned.
Those sensations.
And you still remember those sensations?
Yeah.
And then, uh, I walkinto the waiting room.
I took off my coat, put it on a chair.
I walked into the bathroom, closed thedoor, locked it, and just looked at
myself in the mirror and deep breathing.
(12:53):
I walked back and checked myselfout, make sure everything looks okay.
I walked back out.
I sat down and I look aroundand nobody's looking at me.
Nobody's paying any attention to me.
Nobody could care.
You didn't have a freak signthat said on your forehead?
No, there was nothing there.
You know Wendy.
Exactly.
How cool.
Stephanie came through the door to callme in from the waiting room, big smile.
(13:16):
I walk in, I still have a picture.
From that day, I gave her my camera,camera phone, and I had her take a
picture of me just to preserve that.
Lynn (13:25):
Okay.
It was
Wendy (13:26):
wonderful.
Every time I went to therapy,I gave myself life tests.
That's what I was calling them, andone of them was, Steph, I'm gonna
stop for coffee on the way in.
Do you want anything?
I was gonna stop at a DunkingDonuts and that Dunking Donuts
didn't have drive-through anddrive-through would be cheating.
Lynn (13:47):
Yes.
You were really testing yourself.
Wendy (13:49):
Yep.
I gotta get out.
I've gotta walk in, open the door, standin line like any other woman would do.
The first time I tried to do that, Icouldn't sh I shut off the ignition.
I couldn't open the door.
I sat there for five minutestrying to do it, couldn't do it.
Another lesson I learned fromSteph, I walk into therapy, sit
down, and I go, Steph, I failed.
(14:11):
She looked at me and said, no, you didn't.
You'll do it when you're ready.
I thought about that all the waythrough our session together.
I said to her at the end, Isaid, next week, I'm ready.
I know I will be.
That was a huge lesson isI'll do whatever I need to do.
When I'm ready.
Lynn (14:30):
Mm-hmm.
Wendy (14:31):
It's all a matter of my mindset.
Well, that powerful mind, huh?
Mm-hmm.
And the next week I did.
I got out, I walked in, I stood in line.
I did freak out just a tad.
Two local police officers camein and stood in line behind me.
(14:52):
Oh God, I had no clue.
No clue.
None whatsoever on their part.
But on my part, I had immediate flashbacksto New York and getting arrested.
Lynn (15:04):
Yeah.
Wendy (15:05):
And then I go, Wendy, forget it.
Not gonna happen.
You're in a different age and time.
Yeah.
And the funny part was is I'm gettingmy coffee, I'm, I'm paying with cash.
I'm having to navigate for thefirst time, a purse, a wallet,
and handling all this stuff inaddition to getting my coffee.
Lynn (15:28):
See now you knew what we women go through all the time with.
All,
Wendy (15:31):
exactly.
Lynn (15:32):
Yeah.
Oh, I
Wendy (15:35):
have to admit though, I love the purse.
It's so much easier than stuffingeverything in your pockets.
Lynn (15:41):
Oh yeah.
And it looks so much better.
Exactly.
Wendy (15:44):
It's cool.
You can, you can make a fashion statement.
Lynn (15:47):
You do.
Yes.
You can have persons of everydifferent color and style.
Mm-hmm.
Enjoy that.
Yeah,
Wendy (15:54):
I know.
Love it.
Lynn (15:56):
That's what you're doing.
Wendy (15:57):
Exactly.
Now I gave myselfseveral other life tests.
Uh, there was even an instance where,uh, stuff was going away for, uh, that
week, so we wouldn't be having therapy.
I went to therapy anyway, and thatwas the whole morning out being me.
Oh, yep.
(16:18):
I went grocery shopping,pretend grocery shopping.
Nobody paid any attention to me.
I walked up and down main street of thislittle town, uh, beautiful shops, nice
little town, uh, Newtown, Pennsylvania.
They even had a Starbucks on Main Street.
So I walked in there, I ordered a, somepastry, whatever it was, and a coffee,
(16:40):
and went and sat down and had it.
Lynn (16:43):
And nobody said anything.
Wendy (16:45):
Nobody said anything.
Nobody even gave me a second look.
Lynn (16:49):
Yeah,
Wendy (16:50):
I'm going.
I'm saying to myself thatday, you can do this.
You've got
Lynn (16:54):
this.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Wendy (16:56):
You're on your way.
I'd already started hormone replacementtherapy at the beginning of March.
That was another discussionwith my wife at the time.
I told her I was, Iwas, end of February, I.
Starting hormone replacement therapy.
Oh, we didn't discuss it.
And I said, well, it's notsomething that I'm going to discuss.
(17:17):
Mm-hmm.
It's something I need to do for me.
And she said, okay, then that's it.
We're getting a divorce.
I, at the time, kind of knew theanswer why, but I just thought I'd
go and say, why I, she responded,well, you're going to develop breasts.
Your Lord knows whatelse you're going to do.
(17:39):
Because we did had talked in 78about surgeries and things like that.
Mm-hmm.
And she said, uh, I'm not a lesbian andI'm not gonna be married to someone that
lives like a woman and is a woman, period.
I said, okay.
And that was the end of the discussion.
So how did you feel about that?
At that point?
I actually felt relief.
Lynn (18:02):
No.
Okay.
Wendy (18:04):
I felt bad for her.
Basically I married herunder false pretenses.
Mm-hmm.
There's no way, no way around that.
Lynn (18:10):
Mm-hmm.
Wendy (18:11):
But there was a relief there because now I felt that like, if this
is actually still going in the directionthat's going in, I can actually do this.
Mm-hmm.
I can actually finally be me.
Mm. I got to June and my wifesaid to me, we're still married.
We're in the process of getting divorced.
(18:32):
She said to me, this is very upsetting.
I'm upset.
I'm worried about the future,this, and you know that.
And the, and you know,I'm feeling pretty bad.
And you couldn't be happier.
I said, yeah, I know.
I'm sorry.
Lynn (18:50):
Finally, you're happy though.
Wendy (18:52):
Yeah, after all those years, because I was in the process
of looking for an apartment.
I was gonna move out of the house.
That was it.
Mm-hmm.
I was done trying to bemy male facsimile anymore.
She did say something which I,I feel bad about, but I also
find it amusing and ironic.
She said to me, I don't believe this.
(19:13):
My first, this was in thesame conversation in June.
She goes, my, my first husbandleft me for another woman.
My second husband leftme to become a woman.
Oh, the irony of it all.
That is kind of funny though.
Yeah, it is.
But the way she put it, it was great.
(19:35):
I moved into, uh, myapartment on a weekday.
There was nobody aroundin the little uh, area.
It was a mixed bag of townhome,condominium type places
with couples living there.
Some were gay couples, some werestraight couples, and then there was
a mixed in among them apartments.
(19:56):
It was a great.
Great street to live on.
Very social, all of that.
There was a large gay communityin New Hope and I thought, oh my
God, they're all gonna get me.
This is LGBT.
Yeah.
And one of my younger, uh, friend's,son of my wife's friend, he
(20:19):
came out as gay in high school.
Not high school and college.
It was considerably younger than me, ofcourse, and he was the first person I
ever came out to of people that I knew.
In 2015, actually it was late 2014, Itold him it was after a Christmas party.
I called him up and I said, bill,you know LGBT goes, yeah, well
(20:43):
you're a G I'm one of the tees.
That's how I put it to him
Lynn (20:48):
anyway,
Wendy (20:49):
what
had no clue, he and his partnercame over for lunch one day.
I came to the house and my wife and Iare sitting there with Bill and Vinny.
I'll never forget this.
Bill looks at me and he goes, Wendy, itwould be so much easier if you were gay.
You could leave the house,and nobody would know.
Lynn (21:13):
He said, sorry, I didn't get the order right.
Wendy (21:17):
That wasn't in the cards.
That's not the way I was programmed.
That's not me.
Lynn (21:22):
No.
Wendy (21:23):
So yeah, I gotta go.
And I think going into this, Ididn't realize how much in the
way of deconstructing all ofthat male socialization that I
never wanted in the first place.
It sticks and you'vegot to deconstruct it.
I had started working on thatduring my first six months
(21:45):
before going full-time as Wendy.
It's an ongoing process.
It's an evolution.
Lynn (21:51):
Give us an example of what you had to do to deconstruct that.
Wendy (21:55):
Male attitudes.
A lot of them, you, you've got to just,the aggressiveness, uh, the forcefulness.
I've got, I've got a seven page.
List of items in one of my coachingprograms that I take people through
how you change your mannerisms, yourbehaviors, your speech patterns.
(22:19):
You need to work on your voice, just theway you sit, the way you carry yourself.
The other thing that I came to realizewas most people, at most, most people
in everyday life, when they lookat you within five seconds or less,
that's when they assign your gender.
They don't really call it gender.
They say that's your sex.
(22:40):
Mm-hmm.
You're a woman or you're a man.
It's a very quick, veryinstinctive reaction.
Okay.
So I, I learned through my life practicesessions that I could do that and get
by within those first five seconds.
Now it's up to me not to confuse them,
Lynn (23:03):
but you taught yourself these things.
Wendy (23:05):
Yes, there was a lot involved with that.
Lynn (23:09):
I bet
Wendy (23:10):
a lot of reading, a lot of studying and becoming very, very hyper aware of
my own behaviors, my own mannerisms, myown thoughts and how I see things and.
Hyper aware of how other womeninteract and how they behave and what
(23:33):
they do, and learn from all of that.
Put that together withwhat feels right for me.
Lynn (23:40):
Did you have to change attitudes, beliefs, whatever, around women?
Wendy (23:46):
Actually, yes.
Majority of the time of my previous,uh, years, I did a lot to avoid
really being open with women.
While I was more comfortable beingin the company of women, I wasn't one
of them, so I was just kind of likethis guy standing off to the side.
Typical example.
(24:07):
Thanksgiving, whether it was at somebodyelse's house or whether or not it was at
my house, I was more comfortable being inthe kitchen with the other women rather
than hanging out in front of the TV set.
Watching a football game didn't interestme at all, and it didn't feel, feel,
feel right, it didn't feel comfortable.
(24:28):
I was always wondering how I wasgoing to interact, so I just.
It didn't, and if, if the gathering orthe event or whatever was in my house,
my wife got used to this, I. Think, Idon't know, she didn't like it, but I
put in like a 20 minute appearance ifthat, and vanish and maybe occasionally
(24:50):
pop in to see what was going on.
And otherwise I'd be in my officespace with my computer systems,
my tv, my music, whatever.
And that's where I would spendthe majority of the time in
any kind of social gathering.
Lynn (25:07):
So you didn't feel like you fit in either.
Wendy (25:10):
Wendy became a social butterfly.
I had a wonderful time.
The first, first year or two of livingin my first apartment was amazing.
Very social neighborhood.
Lots of neighborhood parties, and Igot one hell of an education as far
(25:32):
as the gay community goes, thinkingthat they would understand and get me.
Lynn (25:37):
No,
Wendy (25:38):
they couldn't have been nicer or more supportive, but at
first they were kind of distant.
One of the, uh, gay couples had leftflowers at my front door a few weeks
after I moved in, so I went down andintroduced myself one Sunday evening.
I went to their.
Condominium about nine 15 inthe evening, Sunday evening.
(26:00):
Introduced myself, confirmedthat yes, I was transgender.
I'm living full-time as Wendy.
I don't care when or how, but I'mgoing to also have my surgery and
I'm going to be completely female.
Then I followed that up with them and thisbecame kind of like my stock line whenever
(26:22):
I was talking to anybody and coming outto them of, I'm an open book, nothing is
off limits, and ask anything you want.
I'll talk about anythinghaving to do with my life.
I. It's amazing to me how many timesthat just sparked off conversations.
That first couple that I came, uh, thatI came out to Lynn, we talked from a
(26:44):
little after nine in the evening untilbetween three and three 30 in the
morning, nonstop, nasty, and I walkedaway from that, just totally mind blown.
These are two gay guys.
And they basically didn't know that muchabout my life, but yet what I found when
(27:05):
I was sharing what I was feeling andthinking or what I had experienced, I
found they had very similar experiences.
There wasn't that much daylight betweenus in terms of differences, and I
always like to end the conversationwith, well, you became a GI became a T.
(27:25):
That's it.
Beyond that, we've got a lot in common.
So there was a, a gay bar in town.
There was a lot of bars in town.
I really enjoyed the Raven Large barspace from about three in the afternoon
until six or seven in the evening.
You could go in there and any numberof people were there and you could have
(27:49):
conversations, and that's what I loved.
I didn't go to the bars todrink and get drunk or anything.
I went there to haveconversations with people.
Lynn (28:00):
But you were educating people all along, you know, being as open as you are.
I don't know if that's common to thetransgender community, but you know,
you, you're still open about this and.
Helping people understand.
And I think that's so important.
Wendy (28:16):
That's one of the one, it's one of the reasons why I am doing this.
That's one of the reasons whyI started just hanging out
and just talking to people.
I found that so many people, evenwithin the LGBT community, well with the
LGBQ, whatever, all the alphabets, yes.
Um, they don't understand either.
(28:36):
We have our own little,uh, groups that we are in.
And there's, uh, not thatmuch crossover between them,
Lynn (28:45):
and yet there's, you're talking about your story being so similar
to the two gay guys, you know,uhhuh, the surgery, that type of
thing, but the hiding, the feelingdifferent, the right insecurities,
the depression, those types of things.
Wendy (28:58):
I'm very good friends with, still very good friends with a couple
there in that town, Bob and Tony.
Bob confided in me about fouror five years after I knew
that I didn't wanna meet you.
You moved into the neighborhood,people like you Totally skied me out.
Lynn (29:15):
Really?
Wendy (29:16):
Yep.
It was David and I think, uh, one of theother guys, Chad, who had, uh, convinced
him, no, you've gotta talk to Wendy.
She's different.
She'll talk to you aboutanything and everything.
She'll explain things to you.
You'll start to understand.
You'll like her.
(29:38):
Well, he was finally forced intoa situation of having to meet
me at a neighborhood gathering.
We talked, he told me, hesaid it kind of blew him away.
I did.
I answered questions.
I was very open.
I hid nothing.
I was very open within the uh,LGBT community and all the people
(29:59):
in that community around me, butwithin the, uh, what we call the.
Straight community or everybody else.
I was pretty much living stealth.
I only revealed my past when Iwas comfortable with the person
and when I thought they might be afriend At some point soon, someone
(30:20):
beyond the good acquaintance stage,then I would be open with them.
Lynn (30:26):
Are you more open now with straight people?
It depends on
Wendy (30:30):
the circumstances.
If it's in a, uh, group environmentand we're talking and I have really
good vibes from the people thatI'm with, doesn't matter if they're
really going to be friends or not,and it's appropriate, whatever.
I'm perfectly comfortablerevealing everything now.
It seems like you don't
Lynn (30:50):
have to, it's not like you're, you're wearing a sign saying, well,
I've gotta tell you about this.
I've gotta tell everybody about this.
Wendy (30:56):
Right,
Lynn (30:57):
right.
When it's appropriateis what I heard you say.
Wendy (31:00):
Exactly.
That's the key.
Lynn (31:02):
Yeah.
When it's
Wendy (31:03):
appropriate.
And one of the things that I encourageother people, like myself, and when
I'm coaching them, I encourage them todo this, is be yourself and blend in.
I don't like the word passing.
Mm-hmm.
That's a big word in the community even.
Well, Wendy, you do thisbecause you pass so well.
(31:25):
No, it's not passing.
I did the work to align myinner being with who I am.
I've done the work to learn how to controlmy thoughts and all those little automatic
negative thoughts that we have every day.
Put them in their place.
Mm-hmm.
And accept myself forwho I am and what I am.
(31:47):
I refer to it as blending in.
That was my goal when Istarted this in 2015, was.
If I could envision anything, thatwould be a wonderful experience for me.
It would be just blending intosociety as any other woman.
Lynn (32:04):
And I've heard you, um, other podcasts or maybe when we talked
before, you may have made commentsabout how this, the transition, the
change is an internal change first.
Wendy (32:15):
Yes.
Lynn (32:16):
But you have to do the internal work.
And I'm hearing you say that now too,that you work on all these things.
Change the internal part.
Wendy (32:25):
By doing that, I was able to go from a very depressed,
very anxiety ridden, guilt riddenperson, and six months later,
completely different person as Wendy.
I did the whole transition in six months.
Lynn (32:44):
Did you really?
Not the surgery, but the, not
Wendy (32:46):
the surgery, but I went from living as a guy I. To living as a woman.
Lynn (32:52):
Mm-hmm.
Wendy (32:53):
Full-time in six months.
I've had clients do it in less.
See the bottom line is if you're readyand you make a commitment to yourself
that you know you need to do this,you're just scared and don't know how,
Lynn (33:09):
thank goodness you're doing what you're doing in your coaching program.
Wendy (33:12):
Exactly.
Lynn (33:13):
Help people.
Um,
Wendy (33:13):
I had a client last year that was the way she opened
up her first session with me.
She said, I'm scared.
I'm tired of living a lie.
I have no clue what I'm doing now.
She had been cross-dressingon and off for years.
She had been experimentingwith it for years.
The people that she knew that were inthe transgender community, even the
(33:34):
ones that she knew who were livingfull-time all told her that this is very
difficult and takes a long time to do.
My response to that is if that'swhat you believe, then it will.
Mm-hmm.
The first thing I do withsomebody is change their beliefs.
Those thoughts that you have thatare unhelpful, not supportive,
(33:54):
remove them, block them.
Various ways of doing that, and there'snot one size that fits all at what's work.
What works with that person is what I workto find and help them get through that.
Because once they're through the processof beginning to accept themselves.
Self-acceptance, self-awareness,and even begin some self-love
(34:19):
that can happen fairly quickly.
And once that starts to happen,then it's very easy to start
moving forward one step at a time.
Lynn (34:27):
Tell us the story.
I, you've told me this storybefore, but how physically.
This changed you not just fromman to a woman, but when you
went to your doctor checkup.
I just love that story, Wendy.
I think our listeners need to hear that.
Wendy (34:41):
I was about 70 pounds heavier than I am now.
I was type two diabetic.
My blood work was horrible.
Emotionally and physically.
I was a mess.
I was living in a fog on psych meds,and I was popping pills all the
time for various health reasons.
Once I've straightened out mywhole mental process of, uh, the
(35:06):
thoughts and the beliefs that Ihave, actually, I can actually say
I love myself for who I am today.
All of that started to change andit was kind of a byproduct of, of
this, but now I know that it is ourminds that can affect our health
dramatically, one way or the other.
(35:27):
We can make ourselves sick,which is what I was doing.
I think if I had stayed as aguy at age 67, I don't think
I would've made it to 70.
Forget killing myself.
I probably wouldn't have made it there.
I was that unhealthy.
My primary doctor, he's sitting there oneday this like three years into this, he
is looking back through my medical recordsand he's going, wow, I don't believe this.
(35:52):
What?
What's going on here?
I'm taking you off yourdiabetic me medicine.
You don't need it anymore.
Your blood work iscoming back beautifully.
There's no triglyceride problem,there's no cholesterol problem,
there's nothing going on with you.
What do you attribute this to?
And I just looked at him and I said,well, it starts with being happy.
Then consciously working on allthose negative thoughts that I
(36:16):
had throughout my entire life.
Learning to control them, eliminate them.
You can't completely eliminate 'em.
I'm a work in progress and Iwill continue to be in a work in
progress, and I've been evolving.
I firmly believe that life is aboutpossibilities and change is constant.
(36:38):
So the best thing we can do is learn toembrace change and embrace the fact that
everything's gonna be different a weekfrom now, two weeks from now, wherever
things are gonna change, it's inevitable.
Lynn (36:53):
I think it all works in progress if we're paying attention to
what's going on, aren't we Exactly.
Such power in your mindand what you've done.
Then what you're helping othersdo that is just such an important
thing, changing the world.
Like I said,
Wendy (37:09):
what I found was that I actually got involved with a small group of women.
I actually started just by my presenceof working with them, started helping
them shift their thoughts, their beliefs.
As a result, it's theemotions that we have.
As a result of our thoughts,those emotions cause our
(37:32):
body to release chemicals.
Mm-hmm.
Our body is a big drug producer.
Mm-hmm.
The hypothalamus in our brainsproduces, uh, neuropeptides, which
get into the bloodstream, thehormones, and everything else that our
different areas of our body produces.
That's the way.
(37:52):
Our mind communicates with ourphysical body as to what we're feeling.
If you're feeling anxious or scared,those thoughts that your mind has
will trigger the chemical productionassociated with those, those emotions.
Living with those emotions hasa definite impact on your body.
That's where I was getting all thetype two diabetic stuff from all of
(38:17):
the blood work problems, all of that.
It went away.
Because those thoughts andthose emotions stopped,
Lynn (38:25):
that's a powerful lesson for everybody.
But thank goodness you're sharing thatwith the the transgender community.
Wendy (38:31):
One of the things that I really do believe this, some people
within the community believe that ifyou ask them what their identity is,
they'll tell you they're transgender.
If you ask me what myidentity is, I'll say female.
I'm a woman and that's the thingthat I'm trying to educate.
(38:52):
A lot of people within the community on,especially if you're transitioning to
full living, full time in your authenticgender, it's a lot easier to just look at
yourself as someone who was born with acondition that made you different, that
you're going to change that condition.
To be who you've always been.
As a result, I look at transgenderas being how I was born.
Lynn (39:16):
Mm-hmm.
Wendy (39:16):
I'm not gonna call it a birth defect.
I'm not gonna call it any of that.
I'm just gonna say,this is how I was born.
Fact.
Mm-hmm.
Period.
Mm-hmm.
How I identify.
A woman and female, I won'tput the word trans in front
of woman and apply it to me.
That's an unnecessaryqualifier to my clients.
I tell them, that puts waytoo much pressure on you.
(39:39):
Your best, if you want to callit this defense going into
society as your, as your trueself, is to just be and blend in.
Accept yourself for who you are, asopposed to, well, I'm a trans woman.
'cause that automatically makes youdifferent from the rest of the women.
And that's not what wewanted to begin with.
(40:02):
So claim your
Lynn (40:03):
femininity.
Claim your gender.
Wendy (40:05):
Exactly.
Lynn (40:06):
Gender identity.
Yeah,
Wendy (40:08):
exactly.
Lynn (40:09):
And then it seems like then you're more anchored in that and
not still thinking that you'retransitioning or you know, whatever.
Wendy (40:17):
Exactly.
You've got it.
Lynn (40:19):
So when, when you're describing yourself to someone who you may wanna
coach or talking about this, how do, howdo you say, this is who I am and this is
how I can help you, or why I can help you?
Wendy (40:31):
I've lived with this my entire life.
I've done extensive reading,studying, both for my own purposes
and for my coaching purposes.
One of the first things that Itry to tell them is that when you
get to the other side of this.
You're gonna find joy thatyou never knew possible.
Mm-hmm.
That's what's waiting for you, and all youhave to do is take the first few steps.
(40:55):
That's why I'm here for you to guide you,show you what I've done, of all of that.
You take from it what works for you,and I'll help you along the way.
One of my, uh, uh, clients last yearby our sixth session, she had changed
her legal name and driver's license.
Lynn (41:14):
Everyone.
Wendy (41:15):
And was living full-time.
She still had a long way togo, but she did an amazing job.
She beat me.
She did her surgeriesduring the first year.
I waited till my second, soit was When was your surgery?
2016. 2017.
Lynn (41:31):
2017.
Okay.
Wendy (41:32):
I was living full-time by July of, uh, 2015.
I spent 2016 looking for.
A surgeon and going through thewait list process and everything
else that goes on with that.
Had surgery in August of 2017.
Dr. Rachel Bbo, NYU Medical Center, mostwonderful experience in my entire life.
(41:56):
I literally ran through thehospital doors that morning.
I was there at quarter of sixin the morning to check in for
surgery at six, so I was there.
Lynn (42:09):
And excited and ready.
Wendy (42:10):
God, yes.
Five days in the hospital.
I checked out, got home and rested.
Yeah, I'm sure it took a bit out of you.
Any surgery would, and then Wednesday Irested Thursday, seven days after surgery.
I went into town and was walkingthrough town and hanging out at one of
the patio bars, talking with friends.
So you came through thatpretty quickly it sounds like.
(42:32):
No prolonged.
Pain after, so part of mysurgery was done from the inside.
Wow.
They make a little slit.
They inflate you lights, action camera,and they're off to the races inside too.
So you're getting worked on onthe outside and on the inside.
How interesting.
But I think that makes a difference'cause they're not working
(42:55):
blindly from the outside whenthey're doing stuff on the inside.
I don't know.
All I know too is the dischargenurse was completely blown away.
She came into me and she said, I. Youdidn't have any narcotic painkillers?
No.
All they gave me was Tylenol and Motrin.
Granted industrial strength.
But that was, that was it.
Lynn (43:16):
Well, and what about your mindset
Wendy (43:18):
too?
That had a big part in this too, becauseI was just so ready to have this done.
Lynn (43:23):
Yeah.
Wendy (43:24):
I couldn't see any other thing, but this, I think it
was my second follow up visit.
I'm walking down 30th Street, oh my God.
Somewhere, I think it'sbetween fifth and sixth Avenue.
There's this, it's the mallof Manhattan is inside.
It's all stores in there and everything.
And the whole street is, uh,black glass, highly reflective.
(43:47):
Okay.
I'm standing there on a New York Citymorning sun shining people walking by.
I'm staring at myself in the, inthe glass, just going, wow, wow.
You finally did it.
Lynn (44:03):
Amazing.
You're finally complete.
Amazing.
And Wendy, you're not necessarily workingjust with people who are transitioning.
A
Wendy (44:12):
life transition can be any kind of significant life
transition that someone's going to.
You're leaving your corporatejob and you're going to open up
your own storefront, or you'regoing to become an entrepreneur.
That's a major life changefor a lot of people.
Getting your mindset and yourthoughts together on that.
(44:34):
And all very similar to the coaching workthat I've done with transgender people
Lynn (44:40):
and the work you've done with yourself.
Wendy (44:43):
Oh, absolutely.
That's
Lynn (44:44):
where it started, wasn't it?
That's where it all began.
And to see the results with you, you knowhow happy you are, how beautiful you are,
how outspoken, poised, how lovely you are.
You've done the work on yourself.
So exactly.
You're the shining example.
Any anyone who's in anykind of life change.
Major life
Wendy (45:04):
change.
The other thing is, is I hear a lotof people say, well, I'm too old.
No age is all about how you feel.
I was working as a cashier in asupermarket for about three years.
People would come through my line.
Women would come through talking to aboutto each other, oh, I have this ache.
I have this pain.
I'm doing this, I'm doing that.
(45:25):
I'm seeing the doctorhere, blah, blah, blah.
And look at me.
And they go, honey, don't get old.
And I would go, how old do you think I am?
At the time I was 70 or 71, Icarried my driver's license with
me because no one would believe me.
Now I'm 75.
I still feel like I'm in my twenties andthirties, emotionally and physically.
(45:46):
I walk, uh, anywhere betweenthree and five miles a day.
Lynn (45:51):
That's so important.
So, and nobody would believe you're 75?
Wendy (45:54):
No.
Lynn (45:55):
No.
And what You said you're happy.
Wendy (45:58):
I'm happy.
Never been happier andwon't ever look back.
You know, it's only going forwardfrom now on, so it's never too
Lynn (46:06):
late.
You're never too old.
Wendy (46:08):
No.
Not never too old to be yourself.
Lynn (46:11):
Wonderful message.
Wendy, thank you so much forsharing that today, and we'll
have another conversation.
Wendy (46:16):
Absolutely.
Thank you so much, Lynn.
Lynn (46:19):
Wendy, you have shared so much with us today and I'm just delighted
with everything we've talked about.
We're gonna have to do this again.
Right.
We wonderful.
We've got so much more to talk about.
I have a whole list of questionsthat I still wanna ask you.
Great, but you shared so much withus that educates people, and I
know that that's what you're doing.
(46:40):
You're so open.
You say you're open about everything.
There are no questions that I can'task you or that others can't ask you.
So let's talk a little bit aboutyour coaching program and how
people can contact you and Okay.
Then we'll come back forpart two some other day.
Okay, great.
Tell us about, about all that.
Wendy (46:57):
You know, how you want people to contact you.
And the best way to contact me,especially if you're tired of people
not hearing you, not believing you,uh, need someone to talk to about where
you're going and what you need to do,especially around your perplexing mindset
having to do with abuse, trauma, andbasically people not understanding you.
(47:20):
Please reach out to me.
Meet wendy cole.com.
Meet.
Wendy cole.com.
You'll find something to get on mycalendar there and talk with me.
And if you're not quite ready forthat conversation yet, subscribe to my
newsletter at least until you're ready.
And that way I can continueto support you from afar.
(47:42):
Whatever life change you're goingthrough I can help you with.
And that's meet wendy cole.com and
Lynn (47:49):
thank you to our audience.
For tuning in today.
I'm Lynn Murphy, your host andfounder of Women Who Push the Limits.
We've had such a conversation today withWendy Cole, who is definitely a woman
who pushes the limits in so many ways.
Wendy, thank you for sharing with us to,uh, those of you who are listening today.
If you enjoyed this, pleasesubscribe to our channel.
(48:12):
Give us a rating, leave a review,share this with others, and join
in our inspiring conversations.
Thank you for joining us today.
Stay safe, stay happy, and rememberour motto, find your voice, speak
your truth, and change the world.
I'm Lynn Murphy.
We'll see you next time.
Next time on Demystifyingthe Transgender Journey.
Wendy (48:34):
Everything was brand new.
You're experiencing everything forthe first time from a completely
different perspective, and it justfeels so amazing, felt so natural, and
I'd look around to see if people werechecking me out or whatever, you know,
Lynn (48:49):
and nobody was.
Thank you for joining us todayon this episode of Demystifying
the Transgender Journey.
Remember to subscribe so youdon't miss a single episode
of our fascinating interviews.
You can also find more information onour website, the transgender journey.com.
So until next time, staycurious and stay kind.
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