April 4, 2025 • 62 mins
In this episode of Demystifying the Transgender Journey, host Lynn Murphy discusses myths and misunderstandings about the transgender community with Wendy Cole, a transition mentor. They delve into misconceptions such as the notion that being transgender is a choice, the difference between sex and gender, and the false belief that transgender individuals suffer from a mental disorder. Wendy shares her personal journey of transitioning at 67 after knowing she was a girl since age three. By explaining her experiences and addressing stereotypes, Wendy aims to educate and bring clarity to the transgender experience. The episode encourages compassion and understanding, offering guidance to those in the transgender community and educating society at large.
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Wendy (00:00):
That's a tough one, right?
(00:01):
No.
That people choose to be a differentgender than what they were born.
The choice thing, once they started to puttransgender on the news and they started
to use it as a wedge issue politically andsocially, that was the myth that went out.
Oh yeah.
They choose to be women,they choose to be men.
This is just a choice.
(00:22):
No, it's not.
Do you think there are maybe some peoplewho are doing this to get attention?
It takes a lot of courage for achild or a teenager to actually come
out and say, this is how I feel.
You're not gonna do that as a joke.
Because now the medical professionalscan actually drill down on
(00:43):
that and see how real is this?
Anybody under that age of18 under parental control.
They should be evaluated.
That will definitely weed outanybody who's pretending or doing
it for attention or anything.
Lynn (01:03):
What do you really know about people 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 demystifying theTransgender Journey in our conversations
with people who were born transgender,their families, friends, and the
professionals who support them.
We ask probing questions and discoverinsightful and educational answers.
(01:25):
You can also find more information onour website, the transgender journey.com.
Now let's get right into today's episode.
Welcome to another episode ofDemystifying the Transgender Journey.
I'm your host, Lynn Murphy, founderof Women Who Push the Limits and
author of the bestselling 50 LifeLessons from Inspiring Women.
(01:46):
Today we have another interviewwith the amazing and inspiring Wendy
Cole, a transition mentor who haspushed the limits in so many ways.
Look for our previous episodes tofind out more about Wendy's life as
a woman who transitioned at 67 yearsold, even though she knew she was a
girl when she was three years old.
Today we're going to discussmyths and misunderstandings
(02:08):
around the transgender journey.
Wendy and I have been talking about somany things, and we know how important
it is to get this information outso that you, people who are watching
and listening can get to know thetruth about the transgender journey.
Wendy, welcome back and thankyou for doing another episode on
demystifying the Transgender Journey.
Wendy (02:27):
Thank you, Lynn.
I really enjoyed doingour sessions together and.
It's been fun.
It's been rewarding as well, andthat's part of my whole mission
in doing this, in what I'm doingand being so out with everyone.
So I want people to understandthis from my perspective,
(02:49):
from someone who's lived it
Lynn (02:51):
well.
And for our audience who hasn'tseen earlier podcasts or YouTube
videos, Wendy is 75 years old.
She transitioned at the age of 67 afterbeing born into a boy's body, but knowing
from the time she was three years oldthat she was a girl and now is living a
very happy and congruent life as Wendy.
(03:12):
Exactly.
So look back at our previous interviews,and today what we're gonna talk about
is myths of the transgender community.
Wendy, am I saying that right?
I, yeah, that's good.
That works.
Feel free to correct me because Okay.
You're my teacher on this one.
You're helping me understand this.
(03:33):
So let's talk about some myths.
Do you wanna start oryou want me to pick one?
Pick one.
Okay.
So first myth that we came upwith is that you were told that
it would just go away, right?
Right.
And that's a myth, so youwanna elaborate on that?
Yeah.
Wendy (03:51):
10.
Sitting with my parents in frontof a psychiatrist, he was talking
past me to my parents that once hehas a career, once he grows up, has
a wife, has a house, has a family,he'll forget all about being a girl.
And I spoke up at that sessionand said, no, I'm a girl.
(04:15):
That was particularly terrifying to meto say that because it was in front of
my father who was adamant and all that.
He have a son.
And I just declared, no, I'm a girl.
This does not go away.
I was told by my parents after fivesessions with the psychiatrist,
(04:36):
forget the fact that you're a girl.
You're not.
That's not going to happen.
You get that out of your mind.
You're a boy, and that's howyou're going to be, period.
And if you don't stop behaving thisway and insisting you're a girl,
you're gonna be committed and fixedbecause that was a psychiatric center.
(05:01):
It does not go away.
And I have talked people coast to coast,blue state, red state, doesn't matter.
We're there.
And it doesn't go away, eventhough you repressed it.
Right.
For all those years, yeah.
It didn't go away.
No.
From the moment I would wake up in themorning, I would know something was.
(05:27):
It was off.
It just didn't feel right.
I'd see myself in the mirror.
It was all wrong.
A lot of guys pay attention to howthey dress and how they look, and
especially when they're professionalsand they're going to work.
I did.
I could care less.
It wasn't right for me, andthat was all there was to it.
Living as a guy, the only thingthat kept me from looking like
(05:50):
discombobulated ragamuffin, becausethat's how much I hated the clothes.
My wife at the time did her best totry and make me look halfway decent.
Otherwise
I could care it.
Really.
Lynn (06:05):
Look at you now.
You're so beautifully dressed.
Every time I see you're beautifullydressed, beautifully made up.
It's because I cared about it.
Wendy (06:13):
Yeah,
that's the
big difference, becausethis is who you are.
Yeah.
One of the first things I did,I knew I didn't know anything
about makeup to speak of.
I had no clue what to do, andthat's true of most people like
myself when they're starting.
I actually went to a salon and paida cosmetologist for three sessions,
Lynn (06:41):
okay.
Wendy (06:42):
To learn how to do makeup, what colors worked for me, what it
was all about, and she was excellent.
She really helped me.
You know what guys don't realizeis that women do like to look
their best as much as possible.
It's about feeling good
after being socialized asa man for so many years.
(07:02):
Had a lot to learn about being a woman.
It's all the
socialization that I went throughthat I resisted, but had no
Lynn (07:12):
choice.
Let's go to the next myth that you justbrought that up, that this is a choice.
That's a tough one, right?
No, that people choose.
To be a different genderthan what they were born.
Let's talk about that.
Wendy (07:26):
The choice thing.
Once they started to put transgenderon the news and they started to use
it as a wedge issue politically andsocially, that was the myth that
went out was, well, yeah, they chooseto be women, they choose to be men.
This is just a choice.
(07:47):
And no, it's not actually somethingthat is internal that we know and that
we hide because we know from very earlyages that boys are supposed to do boy
stuff and girls are supposed to do girlstuff and never the twain shall meet.
(08:11):
And that's just not the way it works.
How you're born and how you identifystarts at a fairly early age
and it just gathers momentum andstrength as you go through life.
So no, it's not a choice.
Lynn (08:32):
People say that now so many people are claiming different gender
identities and that they're doing itjust to get attention, like teenage
girls or young girls or something thatthey're doing this just to get attention.
Wendy (08:48):
One of the reasons why we have the WPATH standards and
that organization that sets thestandards for transgender healthcare
and sets the medical care for it.
Part of it is, is that doctor that saidto my parents, all boys have times in
their lives when they experiment orthey try something out or whatever.
(09:11):
So this is just a little transvestism.
It will go away in time.
Just gonna pass.
No, it doesn't and no, this is not achoice whatsoever, and it doesn't go away.
Lynn (09:25):
Do you think there, there are maybe some people who are doing this
to get attention or, my questionis, why would anybody put themselves
out like that just to get attention?
What have you seen?
It takes a lot of
Wendy (09:39):
courage and a lot for a child or a teenager or even somebody in their early
twenties or somebody who's 67, to actuallycome out and say, this is how I feel.
You're not gonna do that as a joke.
(10:00):
As I started to say, the WPATH standardsare there because now the medical
professionals can, especially therapists.
Can actually drill down onthat and see how real is this?
And when somebody is, as far asI'm concerned, I guess the legal
(10:21):
age is 18, or anybody under thatage of 18 under parental control,
they should be evaluated by thesestandards and that will definitely
weed out anybody who's pretending ordoing it for attention or anything.
(10:42):
If somebody slips through thecracks, the professional who
saw didn't do the job, we had
Lynn (10:47):
talked before about the difference between their sexual
orientation and gender, and so maybesome of the people, young people are
identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual.
Those types of terms that are more sexualpreference is what you've taught me.
Sexual orientation, love
Wendy (11:07):
who you are attracted to,
Lynn (11:08):
which is different from the transgender situation.
Wendy (11:12):
One of my friends said to me, she wouldn't wish this on her worst enemy.
That's how powerful it is
Lynn (11:21):
that for so many years, and the drugs and the alcohol and the things
that you did to tamp it down, right?
It didn't go away.
It didn't change.
It wasn't something you weredoing just for the fun of it.
There were
Wendy (11:35):
people that transitioned in the 1980s, the 1990s, even
the early two thousands beforethe whole medical world changed.
I've had conversations with otherpeople like myself who chose not
to transition back then, and partof that is, is if you did it, you
(11:56):
wouldn't any longer be part of society.
It would be very difficult to remain partof society and transition back that bad.
Yes, there are people who did it,and yes, I could have done it.
It would've been difficult gettinglegal identities changed, any
kind of medical support thatwould've been makeshift on my own.
(12:21):
There really wasn't anything available.
People got their hormone therapyunderground in the 1960s and seventies.
People went to Mexico, went toEurope, went to other countries on
different continents to get surgery,
Lynn (12:39):
and then they don't have the medical care at home that they need
or someone, oh, looking over theprescription hormones, that type of thing.
So Right.
I got regulated.
That doesn't sound likesomething you would do on
Wendy (12:52):
a fluke.
It's not something thatI, I chose not to do that.
Yeah.
But.
Once I found out that there was medicalsupport for it and that the whole thing
had changed in 2012, that's when Idecided, no, this is what I've got to do.
(13:13):
I am not going to die in
that.
I never was.
Lynn (13:21):
And look at what a wonderful job you've done and it's just, it's
great to see how happy you are.
Yeah.
It's not just a choice.
No, it's not.
One of the other myths isthat gender is either male or
Wendy (13:34):
female.
Gender.
I see that as more of a continuum.
A spectrum male being on one, extreme,female being on the other extreme.
And we all fit somewhere onthat continuum, straddling the
middle line, that there aresome aspects of personality,
(13:55):
behaviors, mannerisms, and traits.
That we all share overlapping or theyare more feminine or more masculine.
And one of the things that I had to do wasdeconstruct all that male socialization
(14:16):
and study mannerisms, behaviors, allthose little tacky detail in order
to move forward and just blend into
Lynn (14:27):
society.
Those mannerisms are not uniquethough to male and female.
You don't have a dividing lineon mannerisms, sir. There is
a dividing line, but there are
Wendy (14:38):
overlaps.
And the way I, when I initiallystarted, I know a lot of those male
mannerisms were still very present in me.
Lynn (14:51):
Yeah.
Wendy (14:52):
And over time I've worked at.
Getting rid of changing,adopting a softer, more
feminine ways of doing things.
Lynn (15:04):
These mannerisms don't show up with the hormone shots, do they?
No.
Wendy (15:09):
Have to learn.
These are
Lynn (15:09):
learned behaviors.
Very interesting.
And you've researched all those
Wendy (15:15):
and, oh, yeah.
I, when I'm working with my clientswho are going through this, I have
all the things that have to becovered that they have learn about in
order to blend in to everyday life.
Lynn (15:31):
Mm-hmm.
Wendy (15:32):
I was determined when I started this.
However, I could do it.
I was going to blend intoeveryday life as any other woman.
No idea if I can, but that'swhat I'm gonna go for.
I did what I had to do inorder to figure everything out.
And so
Lynn (15:52):
how hard or easy
Wendy (15:53):
was it to blend in once I took care of?
Everything that was going on betweenmy ears, the doubts, the fears,
the anxieties, and I basically, Iused a lot of love of attraction,
mindfulness, all of that in order toget rid of those fields and block those
(16:14):
thoughts and block those emotions.
Once I did that and started toactually just focus on being me for
the first six months of therapy, Iwent to therapy every week as Wendy.
Mm-hmm.
And then on my way to therapy, on my wayhome, I gave myself life tests, which
(16:36):
is what I encourage my clients to do.
Go out and do something,be in public, be seen.
Mm-hmm.
Be a woman out in public, beseen, and it gives them an
opportunity to practice all of this.
That's very important to do, and.
It makes a difference
Lynn (16:57):
and
you, one of the myths that we talkedabout here is that transition takes
a long time and it's difficult andthat it's scary and traumatic, bad,
and what you're talking about, you'rehelping people not have that experience.
Exactly.
One of my clients
Wendy (17:17):
said, I'm scared.
I'm tired of living a lie andI have no clue what I'm doing.
I said, great, that's why you're here.
Let's get to work.
And basically focused on what wasgoing on in her mind, how she was
seeing herself, how she was feeling,and started helping her figure out
(17:37):
how to shift all of those beliefs.
Within six sessions with her, she gotdown to where she did her driver's
license, her legal name changed.
Everything was done, andshe did that in six weeks.
Once she started changing how shesaw things, how she felt about them,
(17:58):
I said to her, you're gonna findjoy at the end of this that you
never believed possible for you.
And she did.
When we finished my program, shewas living full-time, legally,
changed her name, everything.
Then she decided this was easy.
(18:19):
You're right, this is easy and it's fun.
And she did the whole transition,all of her surgeries, everything.
In 11 months,
Lynn (18:32):
you had given her hope.
You had guided her through what to expect.
Exactly.
Given her skills for dealing with.
Mm-hmm.
What was gonna come, how to dothis, your life tests, those
things that you teach people,teach women how to do those things.
Exactly.
Yeah.
It's
Wendy (18:50):
amazing.
There's a lot of things thatthat change during that.
And this is the thing that, youknow, one of the reasons why I
say we learn to embrace changeby going through this process.
It is a profound life change.
Lynn (19:04):
Oh, it's a huge life change.
People are scared to changejobs, much less change their
whole outer and inner appearance.
Exactly.
Out appearance,
Wendy (19:14):
outer, inner, whatever.
It's, it's a complete change.
You get to a point where, oh yeah,I've been through a lot and this
thing that I'm facing now, it'snowhere near what I've gone through.
Lynn (19:28):
I've had a coach for years who would do that very same thing with me,
just in the changes that I'd be goingthrough and she'd say, remember such and
such a time when such and such happenedand how you handled it then, and how you
just handled it now, the differences.
So to have a coach like that who.
Sees progress in in theircoachee and can point that out.
(19:49):
Yeah.
'cause for me personally, I just gofrom one step to another to the next
and don't take the time to reflecton the progress that I've made.
You can be so much help by helping themreflect on the progress they've made.
Exactly.
Encouraging and giving them hope.
What a wonderful thingfor you to do for them.
Wendy (20:08):
This is a lot easier to do with somebody who is guiding you.
Lynn (20:13):
Yeah.
Wendy (20:14):
I view myself as a guide.
Mm-hmm.
Somebody who is showing them the way,assuring them that they're gonna be okay.
Lynn (20:22):
Yeah.
Wendy (20:22):
And when I'm told by people in the community that transition takes
a long time and is very difficult.
My statement back is, if that'swhat you believe, then it will be.
But it's only a myth.
And it's only due to your beliefs.
Yes, there's work.
(20:43):
Yes, it takes time.
Yes, it's challenging, butwith guidance, you're gonna
get through it and feel great.
Lynn (20:52):
All right, so we've crossed that myth off our list.
You're saying that myth is it'ssex and gender are synonymous.
True.
Let's clarify that for our audience.
Wendy (21:03):
Okay.
Sex, that is what youare assigned at birth.
Gender is how you really feel.
Gender is between your ears.
Sex is between your legs.
Sexual orientation.
That is who you are attractedto and who you love, and it has
(21:24):
nothing to do with your gender.
Those are separate issues.
Lynn (21:28):
Good.
I think that is very clear.
So then the other one talkingabout transgender people are gay.
Oh, I get things like, oh,so you've always felt you
Wendy (21:39):
were a woman?
Are you gay because youwere married to a woman?
I was married to a woman while Iwas in guy mode living behind my
male facsimile, as it were, andthat was part of what I needed to
do in order to blend into societyand fit into normal societal norms.
It had nothing to do with howI really felt about anything.
(22:02):
So as to whether or not I was gay,no, as far as I was concerned,
having sex with a man was gross.
I couldn't imagine doing that.
My male facsimile justtotally rebelled at that.
Not even curious.
Again, I didn't find being withwomen that satisfying either.
(22:25):
I was in the wrong body, sonothing was fitting together
in either of those category.
I just knew that's a checkbox and.
In order to not becommitted, I had to do this.
Lynn (22:39):
Committed or lobotomized.
Exactly.
Yeah.
You did it to survive.
Exactly.
You also shared with me that after you hadthe sex change surgery, the bottom surgery
is your, you weren't sure what yoursexual attraction would be at that point.
Wendy (22:58):
I had no clue.
I still had the leftover vestigesof my thoughts about being gay.
No, I'm not gay.
I still had those thoughts, but nowI had a completely different body.
Does it work?
That became the curiosity and
Lynn (23:15):
that's what does it work as a woman?
Yes,
Wendy (23:17):
exactly.
My surgeon did a beautiful job.
She told me that.
Any gynecologist who's goingto look at me and go, when did
you have your hysterectomy?
'cause that's what itlooks like down there.
Is this gonna work with a guy?
I don't know.
I'm curious.
So I did it.
I figured, okay, one time
(23:38):
experiment.
You're another first.
Another first an experiment,and let's see what it's like.
It was fine.
I loved it.
It felt right.
Orgasm was just like totally amazing,far different and far better than
anything I'd ever had before.
Wow.
(23:58):
And everything was good,which really blew me away.
Lynn (24:03):
Now you were in alignment.
Exactly.
You were, your gender andyour sex were totally aligned.
Meant to be.
Yeah.
And that's
Wendy (24:13):
exactly what it is.
What's down between the legsis now in alignment Totally.
With what's in my mind.
Lynn (24:21):
Yeah.
And
Wendy (24:22):
everything works just fine.
Lynn (24:24):
All right, so let's talk about transgender is a mental disorder.
Yeah.
That you're just.
Wendy (24:32):
That's the way it was from the time that I was born in the
last century all the way through,up until 2012 when the medical
community changed their diagnostic.
Now it's a medical conditionthat we're born with.
It's something that went awry inthe second trimester of birth.
(24:52):
It's not the fault of anyone.
It's just something that happens andhappens more frequently than we realize.
There were some in the forties andI believe the fifties, there were
some drugs that they gave womenwho were in high risk pregnancies
that contributed to this happening.
(25:13):
That hasn't been proven.
I know for a fact that my motherwas given one of these drugs.
I'm not sure what the drug was.
She told me that she was a highrisk pregnancy, but she was told
that she could never have children.
When found out that she was pregnantwith me, they gave her medications
for high risk pregnancies.
(25:34):
Interesting.
I've since heard from other peopleand have read that has contributed
to this happening in some cases,but the bottom line is this has
happened for decades, centuries, yeah.
In every society there are, I forgetexactly what they're called, but in
(25:55):
India there's a whole sect, mm-hmm.
Of people who are essentially like me.
Yeah, I've heard that.
In the Indian society,they're treated very badly.
They're ostracized, basically.
They're survived by doing sex work.
I feel that in our societyright now, everything is as
(26:18):
good as it's ever been for us.
There are people that are trying tolegislate us out of existence again.
And I don't think they'regoing to succeed at that.
At least I hope they don't.
And for
Lynn (26:31):
what purpose?
They're trying to legislate, lack ofmedical care for transgender, lack
of acknowledgement, any of that.
Right.
And what's the point?
Wendy (26:44):
They have this heteronormative ideal of what society is between men,
women, children, families, and that's it.
That's all that exists in their world.
Lynn (26:57):
Yeah.
Wendy (26:58):
Somehow or another, they view me as a threat.
Lynn (27:02):
It seems to me that by repressing or forcing people to repress what's going
on, the, the disconnect between genderand your sex organs, that, and you talked
about this too, that the suicide rate andtalk about a psychological issue that they
would be forcing people by not allowing.
(27:24):
Not acknowledging and prohibitingthings that that suicide rate would
climb in people who felt like theycouldn't do anything about it.
And I've thought about
Wendy (27:33):
that.
And here, and here's an interesting thing.
When I was seriously considering killingmyself in 2014, if I had done that,
it wouldn't have been checked off as asuicide because of being transgender.
Lynn (27:49):
No.
Wendy (27:50):
It just would've been a suicide period.
Would've been a psychological problem.
Exactly.
Which, no definition furtherof what was causing it.
I'm convinced that goeson more often than not.
I would
Lynn (28:04):
think that part of that, in, in certain cultures, certain societal norms,
that they wouldn't want people to knowthat their child or their family member
had committed suicide because of that.
Even just hiding the idea thatthey committed suicide, but right.
Not wanting that to be out there.
(28:25):
Exactly.
People to talk and peopleto look at them actually.
Exactly.
Or ask question.
I mean, that seems more dangerous thangiving appropriate medical treatment.
Wendy (28:35):
Absolutely.
It all breaks down to the needfor mental health counseling.
Mm-hmm.
And medical support and recognizingit and letting people, allowing
people or enabling people tobecome who they really are.
Yeah.
And express themselves freely in
Lynn (28:55):
whatever
Wendy (28:55):
form that takes.
Lynn (28:57):
The damage seems to be used, forcing people to be in this one particular
box and everybody being in that one box
Wendy (29:04):
doesn't work that
Lynn (29:05):
way.
Wendy (29:06):
No.
I can really speak to how damagingthat is to one's life as a whole.
My college years were filled with turmoil.
I was just.
Totally overwhelmed bywhat's going to happen to me?
How am I going to deal with this?
When can I deal with this?
(29:27):
That was when in 1970, Itried and it didn't work.
I found out the hard way that themedical community was totally against me.
And before that period, I'd beenliving briefly in Boston and figured,
oh, I'll go see a psychiatrist here.
I'm sitting in this psychiatrist'soffice talking with him, telling
(29:52):
him how I've always felt that I wasa woman, I was female, et cetera.
He didn't utter a word,sat and stared at me.
I have no idea what he was thinking.
He never said a word.
And after I finished talking forabout 15, 20 minutes, and I looked
(30:13):
at him and just sat and looked,and he just sat and looked at me.
I got up, I walked out, I left.
Lynn (30:21):
He never said anything.
Wendy (30:23):
Nothing.
That was typical of how I wastreated by the medical society.
Oh my goodness.
He was an MD psychiatrist.
At
Lynn (30:36):
least you got outta there before he prescribed medication for you.
Wendy (30:41):
He wasn't going to have anything to do with me and his way of dealing
with me was to just be silent andhope I get and go away, which I did.
Lynn (30:51):
You said there were times you were drinking drugs,
medication, those types of things.
Mm-hmm.
Different sources.
Yep.
The strength to not become addictedto that, the strength to get through
all that and to let go of that.
Wendy (31:05):
It's
Lynn (31:05):
amazing.
Wendy (31:06):
That's what I've always said is I am grateful to my male facsimile
for not making me a drug addict.
The heaviest he got me into was.
Cannabis pot.
I didn't do anything heavier than that.
My drinking was not that heavy.
Mainly beers and anything to get by.
It was nothing for me to sitdown and drink a six pack.
Lynn (31:30):
I'm thinking Numb out.
Wendy (31:31):
Exactly.
Just tamp it down.
Tamp it down.
And then nineties, that's whenI discovered psychiatrists
who made up all the symptoms.
They prescribed the meds.
Yeah.
So whatever it took.
And at that point, my wife saidto me, you need something for
the anxiety and depression.
(31:53):
And when you go to the psychiatristthough, don't tell him what's going on.
Really?
And I said, don't worry about it.
I won't tell him a word becausethat hasn't ever been successful.
Lynn (32:05):
Never worked
Wendy (32:06):
before.
Never worked before.
No reason to expect it to work now.
On that one psychiatristwho just called you a freak.
Yep.
It's just barbaric lack of medical supportis fairly common across our society.
Lynn (32:19):
So let's talk about LGBT and LGB and transgender communities or homogeneous.
Wendy (32:29):
Oh,
Lynn (32:29):
wow.
Throw everybody in the same pot, right?
Yep.
You're all LGBT, so you're all the same.
No.
And they don't even
Wendy (32:42):
understand each other sometimes or know that much about each other.
Lynn (32:46):
Talk about that.
Yeah.
Wendy (32:48):
Within the teas, there's a whole spectrum of gender presentations,
lifestyles, and sexual orientationsthrown on top of all of that,
depending on who you are and howyou fall into this community.
I. You're in your, you're in your group.
(33:10):
You don't have that much in common otherthan that you have gender identity issues
and that that's across the whole spectrum.
And there are different lifestyles,very different lifestyles.
Lynn (33:24):
How did your gay friends relate to you?
That must have been interesting.
Oh,
Wendy (33:29):
that was, that was actually a lot of fun.
First of all, I had to explainthe transgender world to them
Lynn (33:37):
mean.
They didn't comprehend that
Wendy (33:39):
being part of the GS or the LS did not mean that
they underst the tease at all.
They just knew they were out there.
By the time I finished talkingabout this with them, they got the
idea that I was never really a guy.
I was forced to be a guy by my parentsand by society as a whole, that
Lynn (34:04):
was it.
Because they'd always identified as a man.
Right.
It was just who you attracted to.
It was that thing you were talking beforeabout the difference Gender and sex.
Exactly.
And gender.
Sex and then sexual orientation.
Wendy (34:16):
Correct.
Lynn (34:17):
So they didn't understand living in a boy body or man's body
and then feeling like a woman.
Exactly.
And
Wendy (34:25):
why would you ever want to,
Lynn (34:28):
and you were gonna do surgery.
And then what did they think of that?
Oh God.
How can you do that?
As they grabbed their crutch?
Wendy (34:38):
Their most precious possession.
That's right.
No, I'm getting my birth defect corrected.
Well, there is to it.
It's that simple.
Doesn't have to be complicated.
It's societal norms and things thatpeople believe that complicate it for it.
That's why I feel it's so importantto put all this out there.
(34:59):
I don't expect people to understand, andthat's one of the first things I would
say with my gay friends or whatever.
I don't expect you to understand becauseyou've never questioned your gender.
That's not a usual thing to do, but Iwant you to hear what I've experienced
and that way you can at least geta different perspective on it.
(35:20):
I've had one of my closest gayfriends told me after he'd known
me for five years, that peoplelike me used to skive him out.
Lynn (35:30):
Because people don't know.
And that's what's so important abouthaving these conversations and giving
people an opportunity if they'll take itto, to at least hear the other side of it.
And to see humanity.
You're human.
Wendy (35:45):
Exactly.
I worked at a supermarketfor three years as a cashier.
I never came out to anybody there.
I didn't tell anybody.
One of the things that I had to getover, 'cause a lot of the people that
are in my part of the community, Iwould say live stealth like I was
(36:05):
living, just going about their everydaylives, going to work, blending in only.
People that were very close in their worldknew about their past and otherwise, no.
You're just another oneout doing her thing.
Lynn (36:21):
We don't talk about our past, doesn't matter.
Gender, sexual orientation, any of that.
Who tells everybody everything about theirpast and especially about their sexuality.
Exactly.
You know what?
Why should you have to tell that?
Right?
Why should that be
Wendy (36:39):
important to anybody else?
But the thing that happens withsomeone like myself is you start
looking around and you startwondering, does anybody know?
Well, oh yeah.
Can anybody tell?
Even that's even coupleof years in to do long.
Really?
Oh
Lynn (36:59):
yeah.
Oh, okay.
You,
Wendy (37:01):
you, you, it's still perfectly normal, even at one
or two years in wondering.
Am I giving myself away inany way, shape, or form?
So when does that change orhow does that change for me?
It changed when I wasdoing that cashier job.
(37:22):
I'm going to work, I'm busyall throughout the day and I'm
going, I wonder if anybody knows.
After about two months ofwondering, I finally came to
the realization, I don't care.
It doesn't make a differenceif they do or they don't.
Everybody's treating me nicely.
I'm Wendy.
(37:43):
I'm doing their, I'm bagging theirgroceries, I'm checking their stuff out.
I've learned to do small talk withpeople doing that job, how to dart up
a conversation and have it go for acouple of minutes until they leave.
Whether they know or notirrelevant, I could care less.
And the bottom line is, forthe most part, they did.
Lynn (38:07):
And you.
A woman woman's body, what differencedid it make if they knew your history?
But there's that mental part, whatyou're saying, Uhhuh, is you had, and
you talked about this before, makingthe change between your ears Exactly
how important that piece of it is.
To get to the point of sayingit doesn't make any difference.
(38:29):
It doesn't make any difference.
Wendy (38:30):
I haven't had any really negative experiences.
Whenever I revealed myselfto someone, I haven't had any
blow back from that at all.
Nobody's come back at menegatively or otherwise.
In fact, just the opposite.
Lynn (38:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I can see that would be the case.
You're so clear about it or you'renot judging anybody else for how
they feel about your situation.
It's your situation, right?
You're at peace with it.
You told me how happy you were once you.
We're living full time and
Wendy (39:06):
yeah.
So one of the things that I do,I encourage and teach my clients
to do is be very clear and havea short statement about your life
when you are coming out to somebody.
Keep it short, keep itsimple, keep it to the point.
Just put it out there.
Then acknowledge that you're open toquestions and invariably that works well
Lynn (39:33):
and that's what you've done with me.
And I heard you on otherpodcasts doing that same thing.
You're open to questions.
And even when we started theseconversations, I said, okay, if
this is a stupid question or if youdon't wanna answer it, you tell me
no such thing as stupid questions.
You said, ask me anything, an open book.
And that just opens up to people who areopen to having that conversation Exactly.
(39:57):
Without trying to justifyanything or defend anything.
And that's the way youcome across is this is me.
Ask anything, I'm fine.
Yep.
That's great advice for your clients too.
It's generally worked out well for them.
I'm sure it has.
'cause it worked well for you.
Wendy (40:16):
People in general are not bad.
They generally wanna be nice andthey wanna get along with everybody
else, and I'm just not concerned.
Lynn (40:26):
That leads to one of the myths that you and I talked about.
Sure.
If somebody dates you andyou're a transgender woman,
does that mean they're gay?
Wendy (40:34):
Absolutely.
And this is, again, you get into thetranssexual part of the transgender
community, that segment of the community.
There are those who absolutely donot want vagina plasty surgery.
Bottom surgery is what it'stypically called because their penis
(40:57):
is their favorite sex organ and.
They can't imagine being without it.
Lynn (41:04):
Okay.
Wendy (41:05):
That's okay.
By WPATH standards, the WorldProfessional Association for
Transgender Health, according tothem, all surgeries are optional.
Even hormone therapy is optional.
They enjoy that and they'reperfectly fine, comfortable
having gay sex because of theirgenerals and who they're having sex
Lynn (41:30):
with.
Wendy (41:31):
That's how they feel.
That's the nature of it.
It's gay sex, whereas, but it
Lynn (41:36):
makes sense when you're explaining that the sexual orientation
is not the gender, gender identityand that those, this can layer
over that in any combination.
That makes a lot of sense.
Thanks.
And within heterosexual society
Wendy (41:52):
as a whole.
Two people dressed aswomen, each with male parts.
Having sex with each otheris totally off the walls,
but that's what goes on
Lynn (42:08):
And why not?
Whose business is it exactly.
You're sleeping
Wendy (42:12):
with.
Lynn (42:13):
Exactly.
That's the thing that's alwaysbothered me about people who
are critical of alternative.
Mm-hmm.
Sexual relationships.
I don't know if that's really agood word to use or not, but a
typical heterosexual, but diverse.
Diverse, that's a good one.
Who cares
Wendy (42:28):
exactly.
I've had vagina plasty surgery,bottom surgery, if you will.
I had no idea.
In fact, I asked Steph, mytherapist before I had surgery.
I, I have no clue what my sexualorientation really is as a t now.
My whole sexual orientation was
Lynn (42:49):
wide open.
What is it that changes about the mentalpart of it once the physical part changes?
I did a lot of introspection on that
Wendy (42:59):
before surgery, and I didn't really realize this, but every
morning when I got dressed everyevening when I got undressed, it was
a sign that I still wasn't complete.
It didn't feel right.
That, again, gets into thewhole how does it feel?
(43:22):
I didn't realize how strong thatfeeling was until after surgery.
It's one of those things, likealmost subconsciously, repressed
imposter syndrome is what I call it.
Oh, okay.
I'm walking down the street.
I know what's down between mylegs, but nobody else does.
But that still bothered me.
(43:43):
It's one of those things I had tochange as I told my gay friends
and announced at the bar, I'mgetting my birth defect corrected.
Second follow up visit with Dr. Blue Bon.
I'm walking down 30th Street andI see my reflection in the class,
and I'm going, you really did it.
(44:04):
It's all done.
Yay.
You're real now.
That was my alignment.
I felt aligned with who I was.
Yeah, okay.
That makes sense.
I'm no longer an imposter.
I'm no longer hiding.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Bloon told me, okay,you're ready for sex.
Okay.
Got anyone in mind?
(44:26):
I had no idea.
It's one of those things that Ihad to go find out for myself.
Lynn (44:30):
Tune in, and you're so good about tuning in to yourself, to
your thoughts, to your feelings.
You're saying what feelsgood and by tuning into that
sounds like it was apparent.
Then once you did that, once you had thephysical changes, you felt congruent.
Very good.
Perfect work.
Yeah.
Then the rest of it could come out.
(44:51):
You didn't have to bury it any, no.
No hiding.
Yeah.
Wendy (44:56):
I did start dating.
I met someone.
I did have the experience.
It was amazing.
Wonderful.
Loved it.
Okay.
And everything worked asthe doctor said it would.
Sex is a woman is far betterthan I ever experienced.
Lynn (45:16):
That's fantastic.
Wendy (45:18):
I dated for two years before the pandemic never revealed
my past and I had no clue.
And these weren't gay guys whowere No dating you Dating a
transsexual woman like myself.
Doesn't
Lynn (45:36):
make you gay dating a woman.
And you've talked about thattoo, that you don't identify, you
don't like trans woman, that I'm a
Wendy (45:44):
trans woman.
I refuse to put trans in frontof woman and apply it to myself.
Lynn (45:48):
You're a woman
Wendy (45:49):
In one of my podcasts, the gentleman who was interviewing me
goes, that's an unnecessary qualify.
And that's exactly how I feel.
It's not a, it's not a necessary thingto qualify, so no guys, don't worry.
You're not gay if you date.
Lynn (46:07):
Okay.
Let's talk about it.
A couple other myths beforewe wind this up and Sure.
One is that cross-dressers wanna be women.
I went
Wendy (46:15):
to a event where there was about 2000 people in that event, and I would
say about 95% of 'em, if you ask themin their daily lives that they wanna
be women, the answer would be no.
What is it that they likeabout cross-dressing?
What attracts them to that?
It's the clothing.
The feeling of the clothing andhow they feel when they're dressed.
(46:40):
It's a relief.
There is this part of their emotionalmakeup where they feel a need to
express femininity, personal, theylove the makeup that makes them
feel good at that moment in time.
Yeah, in that, in thatmoment, in space, in time.
(47:03):
That's what my wife wasactually hoping I was.
Oh, I gave it up in thelate 1970s, early eighties.
Probably around 80, 81 at themost, I think was the last time.
Threw everything away andnever crossed dressed again.
It hurt too much to take it off.
Lynn (47:26):
Okay, so you weren't just having a little episode of wanting
to feel feminine, it was who youwere and then to take it off?
Yeah.
The kids would go to bed.
Wendy (47:37):
They were young, they would go to bed early.
My wife would go to bed and I'd go to myown room where I would dress as a woman.
I did everything.
I even did my nails and everything.
I'd spend the evening and intothe wee hours of the morning, and
then I had to take everything off.
(47:57):
I'd go to bed and that would be it.
It was just a, it wasjust torture, and that's
Lynn (48:03):
the difference between transgender and cross-dressing.
You were cross-dressing, butit was for a different reason.
It accomplished completelydifferent purpose.
Then the emotional and thepsychological makeup of someone
who is just cross-dressing.
Wendy (48:20):
In all fairness to all my cross-dresser friends out there,
there are those of you who willat one point or another decide
I'm done making the excuses.
Mm-hmm.
Career, job, family, friends, andI'm going to give up all those
(48:42):
excuses and go forward with this.
There are those who will do that.
Yes.
There are a lot of us in the transsexualpart of the community that start
out in the cross-dressing part ofthe community and then migrate over.
That's a norm.
It's a fairly low percentage, butthat percentage is actually increasing
(49:04):
now because of the medical support.
It also depends a lot on whereyou live in the country because of
the social and political issues.
Mm-hmm.
Associated with this.
I have been in NorthCarolina, Virginia as me.
Not a problem.
(49:25):
I'm out and about in society justlike anybody else, and nobody
battered than eye and nobody cared.
This is what I tell my clients.
If you take care of what's between yourears, your mannerisms and behaviors,
and do that kind of work to focus onyourself, your best defense even in those
(49:49):
states is to do your best to blend in.
If you do that, you're gonna gothrough that society like no problem.
You're just another woman.
Yeah.
And nobody's checking under your skirt.
No.
The bottom line is when you do getinto problems within more conservative
(50:12):
parts of the country is when you'reout there saying, I'm a trans woman, or
You're putting your whole transgenderhistory out there in everyday life that
is going to put you in front of somepeople who are gonna give you trouble.
Lynn (50:32):
Your idea of blending in, you're another woman.
That's your best defense.
Yeah.
Wendy (50:38):
Yeah.
There
Lynn (50:40):
will be haters.
Wendy (50:41):
There will be.
Lynn (50:42):
And they are there.
They found me.
We use that on some of these podcasts.
You've been getting somenasty comments, but yeah,
Wendy (50:52):
my very first one that I posted, I, I got over 80 haters,
but it bothered
Lynn (51:01):
me at first.
But no, what can you do?
Nothing.
You're educating people,you're being authentic.
They don't like it.
There's nothing else you can do about it.
Wendy (51:13):
One of the things that usually concerns people like myself too,
when they start this is friends.
Lynn (51:21):
Oh,
Wendy (51:22):
I as a guy didn't have many friends because I had this
secret to hike and I spent from.
Childhood all the way through doingeverything I could to hide and I didn't
feel like I fit in with the guys.
So I didn't have that many guy friends.
But I have had clients that dohave guy friends, lots of them.
(51:46):
I'm very upfront.
Your guy friends are gonna go away.
They're gonna van it,you're gonna ski them out.
Exactly.
And my friend who said that to me,yeah, he said he refused to meet me.
And one of the other guyssaid, you've gotta talk to her.
She's different.
(52:08):
She'll answer your questions,she'll talk to you.
And I blew his mind.
You educated somebody.
Yeah.
So now he gets it.
Totally.
And now he's a
Lynn (52:23):
friend
Wendy (52:23):
and became one of my best supporters.
But that it is, people are gonna lose.
People when they, I say to quite afew people that I work with, your
male friends are heterosexual males.
Most of them are probablymarried to women in our society.
Men don't generally have women as friends.
(52:49):
Mm-hmm.
Especially if they're married.
So well and then freak out.
The women uhhuh freakout their wives, huh?
Exactly.
Yeah.
So their habitual behavior as men isto not have women or females as friend.
Lynn (53:08):
Yeah.
Wendy (53:09):
Just other men.
So now you have become one of the womenexpect them to all go away because
they will, some will go away quickly,some will go away verbally and leave.
And some will just disappearover time, depending on the
(53:30):
situation and how they feel.
As people always tell them too,you're going to meet new people and
probably the people that are going tobe most likely to be your new friends,
your new family are other women.
Gay men.
(53:50):
Gay men have been very acceptingof me and even before they really
understood or I had a conversation,they were just, okay, no problem.
And I could sit there andhave a conversation with them.
It was no, no biggie.
And that's what encouraged mewhen I started going to the gay
(54:11):
bar to talk with these guys.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, they're open to conversation.
That's good.
What about lesbian women?
For the most part, I'vebeen fine with them.
They've been fine with me.
I have had some say,you're not really a woman.
You never had a period,you don't have a uterus.
(54:36):
So, okay.
That's all.
Part of the sexual differentiation thatwas supposed to happen back in the second
trimester of birth didn't happen for me.
I otherwise had my birth defect corrected.
So I do have something that you have, yes,surgically created granted, but it's there
(55:01):
and, and that's how I always identify andhow I always feel there are lesbian women
that will not accept me because of that.
And that's okay.
I'm fine with that.
Yeah.
That's their viewpoint.
That's their perspective.
It's obvious I wasn't going to change it.
(55:21):
Let it go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They don't have to be in my lifeand I don't have to be in theirs.
And that's okay.
Lynn (55:29):
No matter what someone's gender or sexual orientation is.
That's true.
Across the board.
We pick certain people and youconnect with certain people, but let
'Wendy: em go.
Exactly.
I can't emphasize enough peoplewhen before they even consider
doing what I've done that this isa whole learning life experience.
(55:52):
It's a growth experience.
Mm-hmm.
It's totally different from anythingthat you would ever try, and
there are so many benefits for it.
Big benefit is the joy in your life that you're getting to
share this with so many people,
Wendy (56:07):
for which I'm grateful.
Lynn (56:08):
Well, and we've talked about so many myths today.
Is there anything else that youwant to address before we end
this segment of our conversation?
It's definitely
Wendy (56:19):
a journey and a learning experience.
And it has in so many ways just turnedmy life totally into a different
direction and a different way of lookingat things and feeling about things.
I'm doing things now that my malefacsimile never would have dreamed of.
(56:44):
I'm having fun.
All those firsts, all those fun thingsthat now you are who you have always been.
That whole word transition, Ireally feel it should be less about
transitioning and more about correctinga condition you're born with so
you can be who you've always been.
Lynn (57:04):
Yeah.
That's
Wendy (57:05):
the way I encourage my clients to look at, and again, to
the mindset how important it is.
Absolutely.
For the mindset.
I've found that a lot of the mindset workthat I do with transgender people applies
very much to a lot of women I've met.
They were socialized as female.
(57:25):
They go to college, they get careers,they start their professions.
I met a lawyer who still hadhangups about being visible.
Okay.
It turns out that all stemmed from herchildhood about girls don't stand out.
Uh, that's guys do that.
(57:47):
They get up and do those things.
They, oh, so here she is still strugglingwith visibility for that reason,
Lynn (57:55):
male dominated profession or what
Wendy (57:57):
used to be,
Lynn (57:58):
and for the little woman, still, maybe
Wendy (58:01):
here I am, putting myself out online in videos on YouTube
for the first time during this.
Program that I was in with a groupof women and it just blew them away.
One of them said to me, I'm doingmore in this group than I ever dreamed
(58:22):
possible, and it's because of you.
Good.
Yeah.
But that's when I learned that whatI work on with mindset and shifting
your beliefs and learning aboutpossibilities of life, that applies to
so many people, not just transgender.
(58:43):
Just a more profound life change.
Lynn (58:48):
Profound is a very good word there, but you hear women who are empty
nesters or who wanna go back to a careerthat they left when they started a
family, or they're widowed or divorced,or there are all kinds of things
that what you're helping people with.
These are great candidatesfor your coaching program.
Wendy (59:06):
Yes.
You mention the word empty nester.
The first time I ever spokepublicly in front of a group
of people was in Manhattan.
When I finished speaking, oneof the women walked up to me.
She said, my husband andI are now empty nesters.
He's a doctor.
We're wondering if we're gonna movewhat we're gonna do with our lives,
(59:30):
you know how we're going to be.
And she goes, I'm allstressed out about that.
And she goes, you need to changeyour approach for your speaking.
It applies to everything.
Lynn (59:42):
Yeah,
Wendy (59:43):
I listen to you and if you can go through what you went through
and be this comfortable with whoyou are, I can handle anything.
Terrific.
That was my first clue that whatI was doing had much broader
(01:00:04):
applications to, to society as a whole.
Lynn (01:00:07):
Universal, really.
As we wind up today, Wendy, tell ouraudience how to reach you and the kinds
of things that you're doing and thatyou're open to helping people with.
Please reach out to me, meet wendy
Wendy (01:00:18):
cole.com.
Lynn (01:00:20):
Thanks, Wendy.
We'll put that in the show notesso people can look at that and make
sure that they can connect with you.
Okay, and thank you forthis conversation today.
It's been fascinating to talk about Mythof the transgender community and for you
to help help people understand, help meunderstand more about what the truth is
from someone who's had that experience.
And thanks to our audience forjoining us today on this episode of
(01:00:40):
Demystifying the Transgender Journey.
I'm your host, Lynn Murphy.
We've had such an inspiring andeducational conversation with
Wendy Cole today, the transitionmentor who has helped to educate us
about the transgender experience.
So share this out to help educate peoplewho are bombarded on a daily basis
with misinformation and disinformation,especially on social media and.
(01:01:02):
Even on some of the news, subscribeto this channel on YouTube or your
favorite podcast platform so thatyou don't miss a single episode.
We've got so much to talk about,and we've got so many more episodes
coming up with Wendy and with others.
You don't wanna miss one of those.
We're adding episodes all thetime, so we'll see you next time on
Demystifying the Transgender Journey.
(01:01:24):
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.
That's a tough one, right?
(00:01):
No.
That people choose to be a differentgender than what they were born.
The choice thing, once they started to puttransgender on the news and they started
to use it as a wedge issue politically andsocially, that was the myth that went out.
Oh yeah.
They choose to be women,they choose to be men.
This is just a choice.
(00:22):
No, it's not.
Do you think there are maybe some peoplewho are doing this to get attention?
It takes a lot of courage for achild or a teenager to actually come
out and say, this is how I feel.
You're not gonna do that as a joke.
Because now the medical professionalscan actually drill down on
(00:43):
that and see how real is this?
Anybody under that age of18 under parental control.
They should be evaluated.
That will definitely weed outanybody who's pretending or doing
it for attention or anything.
Lynn (01:03):
What do you really know about people 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 demystifying theTransgender Journey in our conversations
with people who were born transgender,their families, friends, and the
professionals who support them.
We ask probing questions and discoverinsightful and educational answers.
(01:25):
You can also find more information onour website, the transgender journey.com.
Now let's get right into today's episode.
Welcome to another episode ofDemystifying the Transgender Journey.
I'm your host, Lynn Murphy, founderof Women Who Push the Limits and
author of the bestselling 50 LifeLessons from Inspiring Women.
(01:46):
Today we have another interviewwith the amazing and inspiring Wendy
Cole, a transition mentor who haspushed the limits in so many ways.
Look for our previous episodes tofind out more about Wendy's life as
a woman who transitioned at 67 yearsold, even though she knew she was a
girl when she was three years old.
Today we're going to discussmyths and misunderstandings
(02:08):
around the transgender journey.
Wendy and I have been talking about somany things, and we know how important
it is to get this information outso that you, people who are watching
and listening can get to know thetruth about the transgender journey.
Wendy, welcome back and thankyou for doing another episode on
demystifying the Transgender Journey.
Wendy (02:27):
Thank you, Lynn.
I really enjoyed doingour sessions together and.
It's been fun.
It's been rewarding as well, andthat's part of my whole mission
in doing this, in what I'm doingand being so out with everyone.
So I want people to understandthis from my perspective,
(02:49):
from someone who's lived it
Lynn (02:51):
well.
And for our audience who hasn'tseen earlier podcasts or YouTube
videos, Wendy is 75 years old.
She transitioned at the age of 67 afterbeing born into a boy's body, but knowing
from the time she was three years oldthat she was a girl and now is living a
very happy and congruent life as Wendy.
(03:12):
Exactly.
So look back at our previous interviews,and today what we're gonna talk about
is myths of the transgender community.
Wendy, am I saying that right?
I, yeah, that's good.
That works.
Feel free to correct me because Okay.
You're my teacher on this one.
You're helping me understand this.
(03:33):
So let's talk about some myths.
Do you wanna start oryou want me to pick one?
Pick one.
Okay.
So first myth that we came upwith is that you were told that
it would just go away, right?
Right.
And that's a myth, so youwanna elaborate on that?
Yeah.
Wendy (03:51):
10.
Sitting with my parents in frontof a psychiatrist, he was talking
past me to my parents that once hehas a career, once he grows up, has
a wife, has a house, has a family,he'll forget all about being a girl.
And I spoke up at that sessionand said, no, I'm a girl.
(04:15):
That was particularly terrifying to meto say that because it was in front of
my father who was adamant and all that.
He have a son.
And I just declared, no, I'm a girl.
This does not go away.
I was told by my parents after fivesessions with the psychiatrist,
(04:36):
forget the fact that you're a girl.
You're not.
That's not going to happen.
You get that out of your mind.
You're a boy, and that's howyou're going to be, period.
And if you don't stop behaving thisway and insisting you're a girl,
you're gonna be committed and fixedbecause that was a psychiatric center.
(05:01):
It does not go away.
And I have talked people coast to coast,blue state, red state, doesn't matter.
We're there.
And it doesn't go away, eventhough you repressed it.
Right.
For all those years, yeah.
It didn't go away.
No.
From the moment I would wake up in themorning, I would know something was.
(05:27):
It was off.
It just didn't feel right.
I'd see myself in the mirror.
It was all wrong.
A lot of guys pay attention to howthey dress and how they look, and
especially when they're professionalsand they're going to work.
I did.
I could care less.
It wasn't right for me, andthat was all there was to it.
Living as a guy, the only thingthat kept me from looking like
(05:50):
discombobulated ragamuffin, becausethat's how much I hated the clothes.
My wife at the time did her best totry and make me look halfway decent.
Otherwise
I could care it.
Really.
Lynn (06:05):
Look at you now.
You're so beautifully dressed.
Every time I see you're beautifullydressed, beautifully made up.
It's because I cared about it.
Wendy (06:13):
Yeah,
that's the
big difference, becausethis is who you are.
Yeah.
One of the first things I did,I knew I didn't know anything
about makeup to speak of.
I had no clue what to do, andthat's true of most people like
myself when they're starting.
I actually went to a salon and paida cosmetologist for three sessions,
Lynn (06:41):
okay.
Wendy (06:42):
To learn how to do makeup, what colors worked for me, what it
was all about, and she was excellent.
She really helped me.
You know what guys don't realizeis that women do like to look
their best as much as possible.
It's about feeling good
after being socialized asa man for so many years.
(07:02):
Had a lot to learn about being a woman.
It's all the
socialization that I went throughthat I resisted, but had no
Lynn (07:12):
choice.
Let's go to the next myth that you justbrought that up, that this is a choice.
That's a tough one, right?
No, that people choose.
To be a different genderthan what they were born.
Let's talk about that.
Wendy (07:26):
The choice thing.
Once they started to put transgenderon the news and they started to use
it as a wedge issue politically andsocially, that was the myth that
went out was, well, yeah, they chooseto be women, they choose to be men.
This is just a choice.
(07:47):
And no, it's not actually somethingthat is internal that we know and that
we hide because we know from very earlyages that boys are supposed to do boy
stuff and girls are supposed to do girlstuff and never the twain shall meet.
(08:11):
And that's just not the way it works.
How you're born and how you identifystarts at a fairly early age
and it just gathers momentum andstrength as you go through life.
So no, it's not a choice.
Lynn (08:32):
People say that now so many people are claiming different gender
identities and that they're doing itjust to get attention, like teenage
girls or young girls or something thatthey're doing this just to get attention.
Wendy (08:48):
One of the reasons why we have the WPATH standards and
that organization that sets thestandards for transgender healthcare
and sets the medical care for it.
Part of it is, is that doctor that saidto my parents, all boys have times in
their lives when they experiment orthey try something out or whatever.
(09:11):
So this is just a little transvestism.
It will go away in time.
Just gonna pass.
No, it doesn't and no, this is not achoice whatsoever, and it doesn't go away.
Lynn (09:25):
Do you think there, there are maybe some people who are doing this
to get attention or, my questionis, why would anybody put themselves
out like that just to get attention?
What have you seen?
It takes a lot of
Wendy (09:39):
courage and a lot for a child or a teenager or even somebody in their early
twenties or somebody who's 67, to actuallycome out and say, this is how I feel.
You're not gonna do that as a joke.
(10:00):
As I started to say, the WPATH standardsare there because now the medical
professionals can, especially therapists.
Can actually drill down onthat and see how real is this?
And when somebody is, as far asI'm concerned, I guess the legal
(10:21):
age is 18, or anybody under thatage of 18 under parental control,
they should be evaluated by thesestandards and that will definitely
weed out anybody who's pretending ordoing it for attention or anything.
(10:42):
If somebody slips through thecracks, the professional who
saw didn't do the job, we had
Lynn (10:47):
talked before about the difference between their sexual
orientation and gender, and so maybesome of the people, young people are
identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual.
Those types of terms that are more sexualpreference is what you've taught me.
Sexual orientation, love
Wendy (11:07):
who you are attracted to,
Lynn (11:08):
which is different from the transgender situation.
Wendy (11:12):
One of my friends said to me, she wouldn't wish this on her worst enemy.
That's how powerful it is
Lynn (11:21):
that for so many years, and the drugs and the alcohol and the things
that you did to tamp it down, right?
It didn't go away.
It didn't change.
It wasn't something you weredoing just for the fun of it.
There were
Wendy (11:35):
people that transitioned in the 1980s, the 1990s, even
the early two thousands beforethe whole medical world changed.
I've had conversations with otherpeople like myself who chose not
to transition back then, and partof that is, is if you did it, you
(11:56):
wouldn't any longer be part of society.
It would be very difficult to remain partof society and transition back that bad.
Yes, there are people who did it,and yes, I could have done it.
It would've been difficult gettinglegal identities changed, any
kind of medical support thatwould've been makeshift on my own.
(12:21):
There really wasn't anything available.
People got their hormone therapyunderground in the 1960s and seventies.
People went to Mexico, went toEurope, went to other countries on
different continents to get surgery,
Lynn (12:39):
and then they don't have the medical care at home that they need
or someone, oh, looking over theprescription hormones, that type of thing.
So Right.
I got regulated.
That doesn't sound likesomething you would do on
Wendy (12:52):
a fluke.
It's not something thatI, I chose not to do that.
Yeah.
But.
Once I found out that there was medicalsupport for it and that the whole thing
had changed in 2012, that's when Idecided, no, this is what I've got to do.
(13:13):
I am not going to die in
that.
I never was.
Lynn (13:21):
And look at what a wonderful job you've done and it's just, it's
great to see how happy you are.
Yeah.
It's not just a choice.
No, it's not.
One of the other myths isthat gender is either male or
Wendy (13:34):
female.
Gender.
I see that as more of a continuum.
A spectrum male being on one, extreme,female being on the other extreme.
And we all fit somewhere onthat continuum, straddling the
middle line, that there aresome aspects of personality,
(13:55):
behaviors, mannerisms, and traits.
That we all share overlapping or theyare more feminine or more masculine.
And one of the things that I had to do wasdeconstruct all that male socialization
(14:16):
and study mannerisms, behaviors, allthose little tacky detail in order
to move forward and just blend into
Lynn (14:27):
society.
Those mannerisms are not uniquethough to male and female.
You don't have a dividing lineon mannerisms, sir. There is
a dividing line, but there are
Wendy (14:38):
overlaps.
And the way I, when I initiallystarted, I know a lot of those male
mannerisms were still very present in me.
Lynn (14:51):
Yeah.
Wendy (14:52):
And over time I've worked at.
Getting rid of changing,adopting a softer, more
feminine ways of doing things.
Lynn (15:04):
These mannerisms don't show up with the hormone shots, do they?
No.
Wendy (15:09):
Have to learn.
These are
Lynn (15:09):
learned behaviors.
Very interesting.
And you've researched all those
Wendy (15:15):
and, oh, yeah.
I, when I'm working with my clientswho are going through this, I have
all the things that have to becovered that they have learn about in
order to blend in to everyday life.
Lynn (15:31):
Mm-hmm.
Wendy (15:32):
I was determined when I started this.
However, I could do it.
I was going to blend intoeveryday life as any other woman.
No idea if I can, but that'swhat I'm gonna go for.
I did what I had to do inorder to figure everything out.
And so
Lynn (15:52):
how hard or easy
Wendy (15:53):
was it to blend in once I took care of?
Everything that was going on betweenmy ears, the doubts, the fears,
the anxieties, and I basically, Iused a lot of love of attraction,
mindfulness, all of that in order toget rid of those fields and block those
(16:14):
thoughts and block those emotions.
Once I did that and started toactually just focus on being me for
the first six months of therapy, Iwent to therapy every week as Wendy.
Mm-hmm.
And then on my way to therapy, on my wayhome, I gave myself life tests, which
(16:36):
is what I encourage my clients to do.
Go out and do something,be in public, be seen.
Mm-hmm.
Be a woman out in public, beseen, and it gives them an
opportunity to practice all of this.
That's very important to do, and.
It makes a difference
Lynn (16:57):
and
you, one of the myths that we talkedabout here is that transition takes
a long time and it's difficult andthat it's scary and traumatic, bad,
and what you're talking about, you'rehelping people not have that experience.
Exactly.
One of my clients
Wendy (17:17):
said, I'm scared.
I'm tired of living a lie andI have no clue what I'm doing.
I said, great, that's why you're here.
Let's get to work.
And basically focused on what wasgoing on in her mind, how she was
seeing herself, how she was feeling,and started helping her figure out
(17:37):
how to shift all of those beliefs.
Within six sessions with her, she gotdown to where she did her driver's
license, her legal name changed.
Everything was done, andshe did that in six weeks.
Once she started changing how shesaw things, how she felt about them,
(17:58):
I said to her, you're gonna findjoy at the end of this that you
never believed possible for you.
And she did.
When we finished my program, shewas living full-time, legally,
changed her name, everything.
Then she decided this was easy.
(18:19):
You're right, this is easy and it's fun.
And she did the whole transition,all of her surgeries, everything.
In 11 months,
Lynn (18:32):
you had given her hope.
You had guided her through what to expect.
Exactly.
Given her skills for dealing with.
Mm-hmm.
What was gonna come, how to dothis, your life tests, those
things that you teach people,teach women how to do those things.
Exactly.
Yeah.
It's
Wendy (18:50):
amazing.
There's a lot of things thatthat change during that.
And this is the thing that, youknow, one of the reasons why I
say we learn to embrace changeby going through this process.
It is a profound life change.
Lynn (19:04):
Oh, it's a huge life change.
People are scared to changejobs, much less change their
whole outer and inner appearance.
Exactly.
Out appearance,
Wendy (19:14):
outer, inner, whatever.
It's, it's a complete change.
You get to a point where, oh yeah,I've been through a lot and this
thing that I'm facing now, it'snowhere near what I've gone through.
Lynn (19:28):
I've had a coach for years who would do that very same thing with me,
just in the changes that I'd be goingthrough and she'd say, remember such and
such a time when such and such happenedand how you handled it then, and how you
just handled it now, the differences.
So to have a coach like that who.
Sees progress in in theircoachee and can point that out.
(19:49):
Yeah.
'cause for me personally, I just gofrom one step to another to the next
and don't take the time to reflecton the progress that I've made.
You can be so much help by helping themreflect on the progress they've made.
Exactly.
Encouraging and giving them hope.
What a wonderful thingfor you to do for them.
Wendy (20:08):
This is a lot easier to do with somebody who is guiding you.
Lynn (20:13):
Yeah.
Wendy (20:14):
I view myself as a guide.
Mm-hmm.
Somebody who is showing them the way,assuring them that they're gonna be okay.
Lynn (20:22):
Yeah.
Wendy (20:22):
And when I'm told by people in the community that transition takes
a long time and is very difficult.
My statement back is, if that'swhat you believe, then it will be.
But it's only a myth.
And it's only due to your beliefs.
Yes, there's work.
(20:43):
Yes, it takes time.
Yes, it's challenging, butwith guidance, you're gonna
get through it and feel great.
Lynn (20:52):
All right, so we've crossed that myth off our list.
You're saying that myth is it'ssex and gender are synonymous.
True.
Let's clarify that for our audience.
Wendy (21:03):
Okay.
Sex, that is what youare assigned at birth.
Gender is how you really feel.
Gender is between your ears.
Sex is between your legs.
Sexual orientation.
That is who you are attractedto and who you love, and it has
(21:24):
nothing to do with your gender.
Those are separate issues.
Lynn (21:28):
Good.
I think that is very clear.
So then the other one talkingabout transgender people are gay.
Oh, I get things like, oh,so you've always felt you
Wendy (21:39):
were a woman?
Are you gay because youwere married to a woman?
I was married to a woman while Iwas in guy mode living behind my
male facsimile, as it were, andthat was part of what I needed to
do in order to blend into societyand fit into normal societal norms.
It had nothing to do with howI really felt about anything.
(22:02):
So as to whether or not I was gay,no, as far as I was concerned,
having sex with a man was gross.
I couldn't imagine doing that.
My male facsimile justtotally rebelled at that.
Not even curious.
Again, I didn't find being withwomen that satisfying either.
(22:25):
I was in the wrong body, sonothing was fitting together
in either of those category.
I just knew that's a checkbox and.
In order to not becommitted, I had to do this.
Lynn (22:39):
Committed or lobotomized.
Exactly.
Yeah.
You did it to survive.
Exactly.
You also shared with me that after you hadthe sex change surgery, the bottom surgery
is your, you weren't sure what yoursexual attraction would be at that point.
Wendy (22:58):
I had no clue.
I still had the leftover vestigesof my thoughts about being gay.
No, I'm not gay.
I still had those thoughts, but nowI had a completely different body.
Does it work?
That became the curiosity and
Lynn (23:15):
that's what does it work as a woman?
Yes,
Wendy (23:17):
exactly.
My surgeon did a beautiful job.
She told me that.
Any gynecologist who's goingto look at me and go, when did
you have your hysterectomy?
'cause that's what itlooks like down there.
Is this gonna work with a guy?
I don't know.
I'm curious.
So I did it.
I figured, okay, one time
(23:38):
experiment.
You're another first.
Another first an experiment,and let's see what it's like.
It was fine.
I loved it.
It felt right.
Orgasm was just like totally amazing,far different and far better than
anything I'd ever had before.
Wow.
(23:58):
And everything was good,which really blew me away.
Lynn (24:03):
Now you were in alignment.
Exactly.
You were, your gender andyour sex were totally aligned.
Meant to be.
Yeah.
And that's
Wendy (24:13):
exactly what it is.
What's down between the legsis now in alignment Totally.
With what's in my mind.
Lynn (24:21):
Yeah.
And
Wendy (24:22):
everything works just fine.
Lynn (24:24):
All right, so let's talk about transgender is a mental disorder.
Yeah.
That you're just.
Wendy (24:32):
That's the way it was from the time that I was born in the
last century all the way through,up until 2012 when the medical
community changed their diagnostic.
Now it's a medical conditionthat we're born with.
It's something that went awry inthe second trimester of birth.
(24:52):
It's not the fault of anyone.
It's just something that happens andhappens more frequently than we realize.
There were some in the forties andI believe the fifties, there were
some drugs that they gave womenwho were in high risk pregnancies
that contributed to this happening.
(25:13):
That hasn't been proven.
I know for a fact that my motherwas given one of these drugs.
I'm not sure what the drug was.
She told me that she was a highrisk pregnancy, but she was told
that she could never have children.
When found out that she was pregnantwith me, they gave her medications
for high risk pregnancies.
(25:34):
Interesting.
I've since heard from other peopleand have read that has contributed
to this happening in some cases,but the bottom line is this has
happened for decades, centuries, yeah.
In every society there are, I forgetexactly what they're called, but in
(25:55):
India there's a whole sect, mm-hmm.
Of people who are essentially like me.
Yeah, I've heard that.
In the Indian society,they're treated very badly.
They're ostracized, basically.
They're survived by doing sex work.
I feel that in our societyright now, everything is as
(26:18):
good as it's ever been for us.
There are people that are trying tolegislate us out of existence again.
And I don't think they'regoing to succeed at that.
At least I hope they don't.
And for
Lynn (26:31):
what purpose?
They're trying to legislate, lack ofmedical care for transgender, lack
of acknowledgement, any of that.
Right.
And what's the point?
Wendy (26:44):
They have this heteronormative ideal of what society is between men,
women, children, families, and that's it.
That's all that exists in their world.
Lynn (26:57):
Yeah.
Wendy (26:58):
Somehow or another, they view me as a threat.
Lynn (27:02):
It seems to me that by repressing or forcing people to repress what's going
on, the, the disconnect between genderand your sex organs, that, and you talked
about this too, that the suicide rate andtalk about a psychological issue that they
would be forcing people by not allowing.
(27:24):
Not acknowledging and prohibitingthings that that suicide rate would
climb in people who felt like theycouldn't do anything about it.
And I've thought about
Wendy (27:33):
that.
And here, and here's an interesting thing.
When I was seriously considering killingmyself in 2014, if I had done that,
it wouldn't have been checked off as asuicide because of being transgender.
Lynn (27:49):
No.
Wendy (27:50):
It just would've been a suicide period.
Would've been a psychological problem.
Exactly.
Which, no definition furtherof what was causing it.
I'm convinced that goeson more often than not.
I would
Lynn (28:04):
think that part of that, in, in certain cultures, certain societal norms,
that they wouldn't want people to knowthat their child or their family member
had committed suicide because of that.
Even just hiding the idea thatthey committed suicide, but right.
Not wanting that to be out there.
(28:25):
Exactly.
People to talk and peopleto look at them actually.
Exactly.
Or ask question.
I mean, that seems more dangerous thangiving appropriate medical treatment.
Wendy (28:35):
Absolutely.
It all breaks down to the needfor mental health counseling.
Mm-hmm.
And medical support and recognizingit and letting people, allowing
people or enabling people tobecome who they really are.
Yeah.
And express themselves freely in
Lynn (28:55):
whatever
Wendy (28:55):
form that takes.
Lynn (28:57):
The damage seems to be used, forcing people to be in this one particular
box and everybody being in that one box
Wendy (29:04):
doesn't work that
Lynn (29:05):
way.
Wendy (29:06):
No.
I can really speak to how damagingthat is to one's life as a whole.
My college years were filled with turmoil.
I was just.
Totally overwhelmed bywhat's going to happen to me?
How am I going to deal with this?
When can I deal with this?
(29:27):
That was when in 1970, Itried and it didn't work.
I found out the hard way that themedical community was totally against me.
And before that period, I'd beenliving briefly in Boston and figured,
oh, I'll go see a psychiatrist here.
I'm sitting in this psychiatrist'soffice talking with him, telling
(29:52):
him how I've always felt that I wasa woman, I was female, et cetera.
He didn't utter a word,sat and stared at me.
I have no idea what he was thinking.
He never said a word.
And after I finished talking forabout 15, 20 minutes, and I looked
(30:13):
at him and just sat and looked,and he just sat and looked at me.
I got up, I walked out, I left.
Lynn (30:21):
He never said anything.
Wendy (30:23):
Nothing.
That was typical of how I wastreated by the medical society.
Oh my goodness.
He was an MD psychiatrist.
At
Lynn (30:36):
least you got outta there before he prescribed medication for you.
Wendy (30:41):
He wasn't going to have anything to do with me and his way of dealing
with me was to just be silent andhope I get and go away, which I did.
Lynn (30:51):
You said there were times you were drinking drugs,
medication, those types of things.
Mm-hmm.
Different sources.
Yep.
The strength to not become addictedto that, the strength to get through
all that and to let go of that.
Wendy (31:05):
It's
Lynn (31:05):
amazing.
Wendy (31:06):
That's what I've always said is I am grateful to my male facsimile
for not making me a drug addict.
The heaviest he got me into was.
Cannabis pot.
I didn't do anything heavier than that.
My drinking was not that heavy.
Mainly beers and anything to get by.
It was nothing for me to sitdown and drink a six pack.
Lynn (31:30):
I'm thinking Numb out.
Wendy (31:31):
Exactly.
Just tamp it down.
Tamp it down.
And then nineties, that's whenI discovered psychiatrists
who made up all the symptoms.
They prescribed the meds.
Yeah.
So whatever it took.
And at that point, my wife saidto me, you need something for
the anxiety and depression.
(31:53):
And when you go to the psychiatristthough, don't tell him what's going on.
Really?
And I said, don't worry about it.
I won't tell him a word becausethat hasn't ever been successful.
Lynn (32:05):
Never worked
Wendy (32:06):
before.
Never worked before.
No reason to expect it to work now.
On that one psychiatristwho just called you a freak.
Yep.
It's just barbaric lack of medical supportis fairly common across our society.
Lynn (32:19):
So let's talk about LGBT and LGB and transgender communities or homogeneous.
Wendy (32:29):
Oh,
Lynn (32:29):
wow.
Throw everybody in the same pot, right?
Yep.
You're all LGBT, so you're all the same.
No.
And they don't even
Wendy (32:42):
understand each other sometimes or know that much about each other.
Lynn (32:46):
Talk about that.
Yeah.
Wendy (32:48):
Within the teas, there's a whole spectrum of gender presentations,
lifestyles, and sexual orientationsthrown on top of all of that,
depending on who you are and howyou fall into this community.
I. You're in your, you're in your group.
(33:10):
You don't have that much in common otherthan that you have gender identity issues
and that that's across the whole spectrum.
And there are different lifestyles,very different lifestyles.
Lynn (33:24):
How did your gay friends relate to you?
That must have been interesting.
Oh,
Wendy (33:29):
that was, that was actually a lot of fun.
First of all, I had to explainthe transgender world to them
Lynn (33:37):
mean.
They didn't comprehend that
Wendy (33:39):
being part of the GS or the LS did not mean that
they underst the tease at all.
They just knew they were out there.
By the time I finished talkingabout this with them, they got the
idea that I was never really a guy.
I was forced to be a guy by my parentsand by society as a whole, that
Lynn (34:04):
was it.
Because they'd always identified as a man.
Right.
It was just who you attracted to.
It was that thing you were talking beforeabout the difference Gender and sex.
Exactly.
And gender.
Sex and then sexual orientation.
Wendy (34:16):
Correct.
Lynn (34:17):
So they didn't understand living in a boy body or man's body
and then feeling like a woman.
Exactly.
And
Wendy (34:25):
why would you ever want to,
Lynn (34:28):
and you were gonna do surgery.
And then what did they think of that?
Oh God.
How can you do that?
As they grabbed their crutch?
Wendy (34:38):
Their most precious possession.
That's right.
No, I'm getting my birth defect corrected.
Well, there is to it.
It's that simple.
Doesn't have to be complicated.
It's societal norms and things thatpeople believe that complicate it for it.
That's why I feel it's so importantto put all this out there.
(34:59):
I don't expect people to understand, andthat's one of the first things I would
say with my gay friends or whatever.
I don't expect you to understand becauseyou've never questioned your gender.
That's not a usual thing to do, but Iwant you to hear what I've experienced
and that way you can at least geta different perspective on it.
(35:20):
I've had one of my closest gayfriends told me after he'd known
me for five years, that peoplelike me used to skive him out.
Lynn (35:30):
Because people don't know.
And that's what's so important abouthaving these conversations and giving
people an opportunity if they'll take itto, to at least hear the other side of it.
And to see humanity.
You're human.
Wendy (35:45):
Exactly.
I worked at a supermarketfor three years as a cashier.
I never came out to anybody there.
I didn't tell anybody.
One of the things that I had to getover, 'cause a lot of the people that
are in my part of the community, Iwould say live stealth like I was
(36:05):
living, just going about their everydaylives, going to work, blending in only.
People that were very close in their worldknew about their past and otherwise, no.
You're just another oneout doing her thing.
Lynn (36:21):
We don't talk about our past, doesn't matter.
Gender, sexual orientation, any of that.
Who tells everybody everything about theirpast and especially about their sexuality.
Exactly.
You know what?
Why should you have to tell that?
Right?
Why should that be
Wendy (36:39):
important to anybody else?
But the thing that happens withsomeone like myself is you start
looking around and you startwondering, does anybody know?
Well, oh yeah.
Can anybody tell?
Even that's even coupleof years in to do long.
Really?
Oh
Lynn (36:59):
yeah.
Oh, okay.
You,
Wendy (37:01):
you, you, it's still perfectly normal, even at one
or two years in wondering.
Am I giving myself away inany way, shape, or form?
So when does that change orhow does that change for me?
It changed when I wasdoing that cashier job.
(37:22):
I'm going to work, I'm busyall throughout the day and I'm
going, I wonder if anybody knows.
After about two months ofwondering, I finally came to
the realization, I don't care.
It doesn't make a differenceif they do or they don't.
Everybody's treating me nicely.
I'm Wendy.
(37:43):
I'm doing their, I'm bagging theirgroceries, I'm checking their stuff out.
I've learned to do small talk withpeople doing that job, how to dart up
a conversation and have it go for acouple of minutes until they leave.
Whether they know or notirrelevant, I could care less.
And the bottom line is, forthe most part, they did.
Lynn (38:07):
And you.
A woman woman's body, what differencedid it make if they knew your history?
But there's that mental part, whatyou're saying, Uhhuh, is you had, and
you talked about this before, makingthe change between your ears Exactly
how important that piece of it is.
To get to the point of sayingit doesn't make any difference.
(38:29):
It doesn't make any difference.
Wendy (38:30):
I haven't had any really negative experiences.
Whenever I revealed myselfto someone, I haven't had any
blow back from that at all.
Nobody's come back at menegatively or otherwise.
In fact, just the opposite.
Lynn (38:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I can see that would be the case.
You're so clear about it or you'renot judging anybody else for how
they feel about your situation.
It's your situation, right?
You're at peace with it.
You told me how happy you were once you.
We're living full time and
Wendy (39:06):
yeah.
So one of the things that I do,I encourage and teach my clients
to do is be very clear and havea short statement about your life
when you are coming out to somebody.
Keep it short, keep itsimple, keep it to the point.
Just put it out there.
Then acknowledge that you're open toquestions and invariably that works well
Lynn (39:33):
and that's what you've done with me.
And I heard you on otherpodcasts doing that same thing.
You're open to questions.
And even when we started theseconversations, I said, okay, if
this is a stupid question or if youdon't wanna answer it, you tell me
no such thing as stupid questions.
You said, ask me anything, an open book.
And that just opens up to people who areopen to having that conversation Exactly.
(39:57):
Without trying to justifyanything or defend anything.
And that's the way youcome across is this is me.
Ask anything, I'm fine.
Yep.
That's great advice for your clients too.
It's generally worked out well for them.
I'm sure it has.
'cause it worked well for you.
Wendy (40:16):
People in general are not bad.
They generally wanna be nice andthey wanna get along with everybody
else, and I'm just not concerned.
Lynn (40:26):
That leads to one of the myths that you and I talked about.
Sure.
If somebody dates you andyou're a transgender woman,
does that mean they're gay?
Wendy (40:34):
Absolutely.
And this is, again, you get into thetranssexual part of the transgender
community, that segment of the community.
There are those who absolutely donot want vagina plasty surgery.
Bottom surgery is what it'stypically called because their penis
(40:57):
is their favorite sex organ and.
They can't imagine being without it.
Lynn (41:04):
Okay.
Wendy (41:05):
That's okay.
By WPATH standards, the WorldProfessional Association for
Transgender Health, according tothem, all surgeries are optional.
Even hormone therapy is optional.
They enjoy that and they'reperfectly fine, comfortable
having gay sex because of theirgenerals and who they're having sex
Lynn (41:30):
with.
Wendy (41:31):
That's how they feel.
That's the nature of it.
It's gay sex, whereas, but it
Lynn (41:36):
makes sense when you're explaining that the sexual orientation
is not the gender, gender identityand that those, this can layer
over that in any combination.
That makes a lot of sense.
Thanks.
And within heterosexual society
Wendy (41:52):
as a whole.
Two people dressed aswomen, each with male parts.
Having sex with each otheris totally off the walls,
but that's what goes on
Lynn (42:08):
And why not?
Whose business is it exactly.
You're sleeping
Wendy (42:12):
with.
Lynn (42:13):
Exactly.
That's the thing that's alwaysbothered me about people who
are critical of alternative.
Mm-hmm.
Sexual relationships.
I don't know if that's really agood word to use or not, but a
typical heterosexual, but diverse.
Diverse, that's a good one.
Who cares
Wendy (42:28):
exactly.
I've had vagina plasty surgery,bottom surgery, if you will.
I had no idea.
In fact, I asked Steph, mytherapist before I had surgery.
I, I have no clue what my sexualorientation really is as a t now.
My whole sexual orientation was
Lynn (42:49):
wide open.
What is it that changes about the mentalpart of it once the physical part changes?
I did a lot of introspection on that
Wendy (42:59):
before surgery, and I didn't really realize this, but every
morning when I got dressed everyevening when I got undressed, it was
a sign that I still wasn't complete.
It didn't feel right.
That, again, gets into thewhole how does it feel?
(43:22):
I didn't realize how strong thatfeeling was until after surgery.
It's one of those things, likealmost subconsciously, repressed
imposter syndrome is what I call it.
Oh, okay.
I'm walking down the street.
I know what's down between mylegs, but nobody else does.
But that still bothered me.
(43:43):
It's one of those things I had tochange as I told my gay friends
and announced at the bar, I'mgetting my birth defect corrected.
Second follow up visit with Dr. Blue Bon.
I'm walking down 30th Street andI see my reflection in the class,
and I'm going, you really did it.
(44:04):
It's all done.
Yay.
You're real now.
That was my alignment.
I felt aligned with who I was.
Yeah, okay.
That makes sense.
I'm no longer an imposter.
I'm no longer hiding.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Bloon told me, okay,you're ready for sex.
Okay.
Got anyone in mind?
(44:26):
I had no idea.
It's one of those things that Ihad to go find out for myself.
Lynn (44:30):
Tune in, and you're so good about tuning in to yourself, to
your thoughts, to your feelings.
You're saying what feelsgood and by tuning into that
sounds like it was apparent.
Then once you did that, once you had thephysical changes, you felt congruent.
Very good.
Perfect work.
Yeah.
Then the rest of it could come out.
(44:51):
You didn't have to bury it any, no.
No hiding.
Yeah.
Wendy (44:56):
I did start dating.
I met someone.
I did have the experience.
It was amazing.
Wonderful.
Loved it.
Okay.
And everything worked asthe doctor said it would.
Sex is a woman is far betterthan I ever experienced.
Lynn (45:16):
That's fantastic.
Wendy (45:18):
I dated for two years before the pandemic never revealed
my past and I had no clue.
And these weren't gay guys whowere No dating you Dating a
transsexual woman like myself.
Doesn't
Lynn (45:36):
make you gay dating a woman.
And you've talked about thattoo, that you don't identify, you
don't like trans woman, that I'm a
Wendy (45:44):
trans woman.
I refuse to put trans in frontof woman and apply it to myself.
Lynn (45:48):
You're a woman
Wendy (45:49):
In one of my podcasts, the gentleman who was interviewing me
goes, that's an unnecessary qualify.
And that's exactly how I feel.
It's not a, it's not a necessary thingto qualify, so no guys, don't worry.
You're not gay if you date.
Lynn (46:07):
Okay.
Let's talk about it.
A couple other myths beforewe wind this up and Sure.
One is that cross-dressers wanna be women.
I went
Wendy (46:15):
to a event where there was about 2000 people in that event, and I would
say about 95% of 'em, if you ask themin their daily lives that they wanna
be women, the answer would be no.
What is it that they likeabout cross-dressing?
What attracts them to that?
It's the clothing.
The feeling of the clothing andhow they feel when they're dressed.
(46:40):
It's a relief.
There is this part of their emotionalmakeup where they feel a need to
express femininity, personal, theylove the makeup that makes them
feel good at that moment in time.
Yeah, in that, in thatmoment, in space, in time.
(47:03):
That's what my wife wasactually hoping I was.
Oh, I gave it up in thelate 1970s, early eighties.
Probably around 80, 81 at themost, I think was the last time.
Threw everything away andnever crossed dressed again.
It hurt too much to take it off.
Lynn (47:26):
Okay, so you weren't just having a little episode of wanting
to feel feminine, it was who youwere and then to take it off?
Yeah.
The kids would go to bed.
Wendy (47:37):
They were young, they would go to bed early.
My wife would go to bed and I'd go to myown room where I would dress as a woman.
I did everything.
I even did my nails and everything.
I'd spend the evening and intothe wee hours of the morning, and
then I had to take everything off.
(47:57):
I'd go to bed and that would be it.
It was just a, it wasjust torture, and that's
Lynn (48:03):
the difference between transgender and cross-dressing.
You were cross-dressing, butit was for a different reason.
It accomplished completelydifferent purpose.
Then the emotional and thepsychological makeup of someone
who is just cross-dressing.
Wendy (48:20):
In all fairness to all my cross-dresser friends out there,
there are those of you who willat one point or another decide
I'm done making the excuses.
Mm-hmm.
Career, job, family, friends, andI'm going to give up all those
(48:42):
excuses and go forward with this.
There are those who will do that.
Yes.
There are a lot of us in the transsexualpart of the community that start
out in the cross-dressing part ofthe community and then migrate over.
That's a norm.
It's a fairly low percentage, butthat percentage is actually increasing
(49:04):
now because of the medical support.
It also depends a lot on whereyou live in the country because of
the social and political issues.
Mm-hmm.
Associated with this.
I have been in NorthCarolina, Virginia as me.
Not a problem.
(49:25):
I'm out and about in society justlike anybody else, and nobody
battered than eye and nobody cared.
This is what I tell my clients.
If you take care of what's between yourears, your mannerisms and behaviors,
and do that kind of work to focus onyourself, your best defense even in those
(49:49):
states is to do your best to blend in.
If you do that, you're gonna gothrough that society like no problem.
You're just another woman.
Yeah.
And nobody's checking under your skirt.
No.
The bottom line is when you do getinto problems within more conservative
(50:12):
parts of the country is when you'reout there saying, I'm a trans woman, or
You're putting your whole transgenderhistory out there in everyday life that
is going to put you in front of somepeople who are gonna give you trouble.
Lynn (50:32):
Your idea of blending in, you're another woman.
That's your best defense.
Yeah.
Wendy (50:38):
Yeah.
There
Lynn (50:40):
will be haters.
Wendy (50:41):
There will be.
Lynn (50:42):
And they are there.
They found me.
We use that on some of these podcasts.
You've been getting somenasty comments, but yeah,
Wendy (50:52):
my very first one that I posted, I, I got over 80 haters,
but it bothered
Lynn (51:01):
me at first.
But no, what can you do?
Nothing.
You're educating people,you're being authentic.
They don't like it.
There's nothing else you can do about it.
Wendy (51:13):
One of the things that usually concerns people like myself too,
when they start this is friends.
Lynn (51:21):
Oh,
Wendy (51:22):
I as a guy didn't have many friends because I had this
secret to hike and I spent from.
Childhood all the way through doingeverything I could to hide and I didn't
feel like I fit in with the guys.
So I didn't have that many guy friends.
But I have had clients that dohave guy friends, lots of them.
(51:46):
I'm very upfront.
Your guy friends are gonna go away.
They're gonna van it,you're gonna ski them out.
Exactly.
And my friend who said that to me,yeah, he said he refused to meet me.
And one of the other guyssaid, you've gotta talk to her.
She's different.
(52:08):
She'll answer your questions,she'll talk to you.
And I blew his mind.
You educated somebody.
Yeah.
So now he gets it.
Totally.
And now he's a
Lynn (52:23):
friend
Wendy (52:23):
and became one of my best supporters.
But that it is, people are gonna lose.
People when they, I say to quite afew people that I work with, your
male friends are heterosexual males.
Most of them are probablymarried to women in our society.
Men don't generally have women as friends.
(52:49):
Mm-hmm.
Especially if they're married.
So well and then freak out.
The women uhhuh freakout their wives, huh?
Exactly.
Yeah.
So their habitual behavior as men isto not have women or females as friend.
Lynn (53:08):
Yeah.
Wendy (53:09):
Just other men.
So now you have become one of the womenexpect them to all go away because
they will, some will go away quickly,some will go away verbally and leave.
And some will just disappearover time, depending on the
(53:30):
situation and how they feel.
As people always tell them too,you're going to meet new people and
probably the people that are going tobe most likely to be your new friends,
your new family are other women.
Gay men.
(53:50):
Gay men have been very acceptingof me and even before they really
understood or I had a conversation,they were just, okay, no problem.
And I could sit there andhave a conversation with them.
It was no, no biggie.
And that's what encouraged mewhen I started going to the gay
(54:11):
bar to talk with these guys.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, they're open to conversation.
That's good.
What about lesbian women?
For the most part, I'vebeen fine with them.
They've been fine with me.
I have had some say,you're not really a woman.
You never had a period,you don't have a uterus.
(54:36):
So, okay.
That's all.
Part of the sexual differentiation thatwas supposed to happen back in the second
trimester of birth didn't happen for me.
I otherwise had my birth defect corrected.
So I do have something that you have, yes,surgically created granted, but it's there
(55:01):
and, and that's how I always identify andhow I always feel there are lesbian women
that will not accept me because of that.
And that's okay.
I'm fine with that.
Yeah.
That's their viewpoint.
That's their perspective.
It's obvious I wasn't going to change it.
(55:21):
Let it go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They don't have to be in my lifeand I don't have to be in theirs.
And that's okay.
Lynn (55:29):
No matter what someone's gender or sexual orientation is.
That's true.
Across the board.
We pick certain people and youconnect with certain people, but let
'Wendy: em go.
Exactly.
I can't emphasize enough peoplewhen before they even consider
doing what I've done that this isa whole learning life experience.
(55:52):
It's a growth experience.
Mm-hmm.
It's totally different from anythingthat you would ever try, and
there are so many benefits for it.
Big benefit is the joy in your life that you're getting to
share this with so many people,
Wendy (56:07):
for which I'm grateful.
Lynn (56:08):
Well, and we've talked about so many myths today.
Is there anything else that youwant to address before we end
this segment of our conversation?
It's definitely
Wendy (56:19):
a journey and a learning experience.
And it has in so many ways just turnedmy life totally into a different
direction and a different way of lookingat things and feeling about things.
I'm doing things now that my malefacsimile never would have dreamed of.
(56:44):
I'm having fun.
All those firsts, all those fun thingsthat now you are who you have always been.
That whole word transition, Ireally feel it should be less about
transitioning and more about correctinga condition you're born with so
you can be who you've always been.
Lynn (57:04):
Yeah.
That's
Wendy (57:05):
the way I encourage my clients to look at, and again, to
the mindset how important it is.
Absolutely.
For the mindset.
I've found that a lot of the mindset workthat I do with transgender people applies
very much to a lot of women I've met.
They were socialized as female.
(57:25):
They go to college, they get careers,they start their professions.
I met a lawyer who still hadhangups about being visible.
Okay.
It turns out that all stemmed from herchildhood about girls don't stand out.
Uh, that's guys do that.
(57:47):
They get up and do those things.
They, oh, so here she is still strugglingwith visibility for that reason,
Lynn (57:55):
male dominated profession or what
Wendy (57:57):
used to be,
Lynn (57:58):
and for the little woman, still, maybe
Wendy (58:01):
here I am, putting myself out online in videos on YouTube
for the first time during this.
Program that I was in with a groupof women and it just blew them away.
One of them said to me, I'm doingmore in this group than I ever dreamed
(58:22):
possible, and it's because of you.
Good.
Yeah.
But that's when I learned that whatI work on with mindset and shifting
your beliefs and learning aboutpossibilities of life, that applies to
so many people, not just transgender.
(58:43):
Just a more profound life change.
Lynn (58:48):
Profound is a very good word there, but you hear women who are empty
nesters or who wanna go back to a careerthat they left when they started a
family, or they're widowed or divorced,or there are all kinds of things
that what you're helping people with.
These are great candidatesfor your coaching program.
Wendy (59:06):
Yes.
You mention the word empty nester.
The first time I ever spokepublicly in front of a group
of people was in Manhattan.
When I finished speaking, oneof the women walked up to me.
She said, my husband andI are now empty nesters.
He's a doctor.
We're wondering if we're gonna movewhat we're gonna do with our lives,
(59:30):
you know how we're going to be.
And she goes, I'm allstressed out about that.
And she goes, you need to changeyour approach for your speaking.
It applies to everything.
Lynn (59:42):
Yeah,
Wendy (59:43):
I listen to you and if you can go through what you went through
and be this comfortable with whoyou are, I can handle anything.
Terrific.
That was my first clue that whatI was doing had much broader
(01:00:04):
applications to, to society as a whole.
Lynn (01:00:07):
Universal, really.
As we wind up today, Wendy, tell ouraudience how to reach you and the kinds
of things that you're doing and thatyou're open to helping people with.
Please reach out to me, meet wendy
Wendy (01:00:18):
cole.com.
Lynn (01:00:20):
Thanks, Wendy.
We'll put that in the show notesso people can look at that and make
sure that they can connect with you.
Okay, and thank you forthis conversation today.
It's been fascinating to talk about Mythof the transgender community and for you
to help help people understand, help meunderstand more about what the truth is
from someone who's had that experience.
And thanks to our audience forjoining us today on this episode of
(01:00:40):
Demystifying the Transgender Journey.
I'm your host, Lynn Murphy.
We've had such an inspiring andeducational conversation with
Wendy Cole today, the transitionmentor who has helped to educate us
about the transgender experience.
So share this out to help educate peoplewho are bombarded on a daily basis
with misinformation and disinformation,especially on social media and.
(01:01:02):
Even on some of the news, subscribeto this channel on YouTube or your
favorite podcast platform so thatyou don't miss a single episode.
We've got so much to talk about,and we've got so many more episodes
coming up with Wendy and with others.
You don't wanna miss one of those.
We're adding episodes all thetime, so we'll see you next time on
Demystifying the Transgender Journey.
(01:01:24):
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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