Episode 8: Bobbie Scopa's Unforgettable Story of Firefighting and Transition

In this episode of 'Demystifying the Transgender Journey,' host Lynn Murphy engages in a profound and insightful conversation with Bobbie Scopa, a transgender woman who transitioned in her 40s after a 44-year career fighting wildfires. Bobbie shares her early life struggles, the secrecy she maintained about her gender identity, and the challenges she faced while masking her true self. She recounts her emotional and mental battles, the supportive and not-so-supportive reactions she encountered, and how her transition ultimately led to a more successful leadership career and an authentic life. The discussion also delves into her experiences working in New York City on The Pile during the aftermath of 9/11, dealing with depression, the role of family, and the importance of empathy and kindness. Bobbie's leadership lessons and her resilience offer an inspiring story for everyone, regardless of their familiarity with the transgender community.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I thought I could take a pill.

(00:01):
It was either gonna make me bephysically a girl or I thought the
pill might fix me, so I would feellike a girl one way or the other.
I wanted the pill to fix me.
So that was like 12 years old.
When you grew up with that, it hasthe potential to really mess you up.
I've been talking to people about whatI'm doing and everything, and one woman

(00:23):
who's in her forties and has not exactlyhad a easy life, but she said, why would
anybody want to choose to be a woman?
Being a woman is really difficult.
All the crap that we putup with and all that.
Why would somebody choose to be a woman?
No one chooses it, I don't believe,but from my perspective, I didn't

(00:43):
choose to be born the way I was.
I was born female in my headand I didn't choose that.
So you can only play the partfor so long and you wear out and
I, I was born out at that point.
What do you really know aboutpeople who were born transgender?
Have you ever met someonewho's transgender?

(01:04):
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, weask probing questions and discover
insightful and educational answers.
You can also find more information onour website, the transgender journey.com.

(01:27):
Now, let's get right into today's episode.
Welcome everybody, to another editionof Demystifying the Transgender Journey.
I'm your host, Lynn Murphy.
I am the founder of WomenWho Push the Limits.
I am also the author of the bestsellingbook, 50 Life Lessons from Inspiring
Women, and I am just thrilledtoday to be talking to Bobby Kopa.

(01:53):
Lemme tell you a little about herbefore I bring her on the microphone,
but she is now in her late sixties andshe transitioned when she was in her
forties, but she's had a career for44 years as a firefighter and doing
major things, firefighting, wildfires.

(02:14):
I worked for the Forest Service.
She spent some time after the towers fellin nine 11, helping there hurricanes.
She's got an amazing career.
She's got a master's degree in forestry.
She's done so much in her career, bothbefore and after she transitioned,
and today I'm gonna talk to herabout what that all was like.

(02:37):
I think there's so much misinformationand misconceptions about what it's like
to be trans or to transition, and it'simportant to tell stories of real people
who have gone through all these things.
And create a little empathyfor all you open-minded people
out there who are curious.

(02:57):
I introduced to you Bobby Kofa.
Bobby, thank you for joining us today.
Thank you, Lynn.
I'm so happy to be here with you
and, and I will, we'll tell 'em laterabout your book, but I do have the
book that you wrote here, which isboth Sides of the Fire Line, and it's
a memoir of a transgender firefighter.
And we'll, we'll put the contactinformation later in the podcast, but,

(03:22):
so Bobby, let's start at the beginning.
You knew from the time youwere young that you were trans.
So tell us what that was like.
I knew from the
earliest time, like maybe, I don't know,four years old when you start figuring
out there's girls and boys, and Iknew early on I can remember saying my

(03:46):
prayers for God to fix me when I was.
I had to have been five, maybe six yearsold by that time when I was learning
to say prayers before you go to bed.
And then it was a 11, 12-year-old thinkingI was a part of some science experiment.

(04:08):
At that point, I'd been living with thisat that point, cognitive cognitively
for 10 years or so, or eight years.
And I thought some point my parentsare gonna come and say, Hey,
congratulations, you've done a good job.
Now here's the pill to fix you.
And I thought I could take a pilland either it was either gonna

(04:32):
make me be physically a girl orI thought the pill might fix me.
So I would feel like agirl one way or the other.
I wanted the pill to fix me.
That was so, that was like 12 yearsold when you grew up with that and has
the potential to really mess you up.
Did you feel like this was a secret youhad to keep is, 'cause some people have

(04:55):
said it seems like a secret, you'reframing it that you thought this was a
science experiment, so, right, right.
How would that play outmentally and emotionally?
I didn't share with people becauseI had, I had two older brothers
who would've pummeled me if I'dhave said something to them.
I knew that my mom didn't wannatalk about it because I had hinted

(05:19):
around a little bit when I waslittle and, and at some point she
made me quit wearing nail polish.
'cause I was little, I wanted my nail, mynails polish when she wouldn't, I think by
the time I was gonna start kindergarten,that had to end and it was very clear.
So I knew that there wasn't supposedto talk about that with her.
My sister, who was nine yearsolder than me, I spoke with

(05:43):
her a little bit about it.
Um.
Yeah, it's, yeah, it's a secret for surebecause it's just, especially back in
those days, this is, I was born in 55.
That's not something that got talkedabout because no one knew what it was.
In those days, in my circle, in myfamily, no one knew what that meant to

(06:04):
think you were born in the wrong body.
Yeah.
So when did you finallycome out to your parents?
Were they still alive when youdecided to transition or, yes.
When
I was about 40, I was married,had two children, and we
were having marital problems.

(06:26):
And when my wife wanted adivorce, I had to tell my parents,
we are getting divorced now.
I would be the first person.
And I'm trying to think if it was, howbig of a. Group, first person get a
divorce in my family that's includingthe uncles and all the cousins.

(06:49):
So that was a huge thing to myimmigrant, Italian immigrant parents.
Catholic was a huge thing to them.
And so I had to tell them whyI didn't have to tell my mom.
My mom knew why.
Mm-hmm.
Without ever me saying, she said,when I told her we're getting
divorced, she said, it's becauseyou have to be a man, isn't it?

(07:13):
Oh, so, so she had just,but she hadn't talked to you
about this in all those years?
Oh,
one time she told me, wewatched some program on tv.
This was back when I was in high schoolor college and we were watching some, the
PV program, there was a transgender backthen they called 'em Transsexual Lady,

(07:33):
and they were interviewing her and wewatched the whole program and I got up and
I was about to say something to my mom.
And she looked at me and she pointed herfinger and she said, don't get any ideas.
Ooh.
I just said, I didn't say anything.
I just got up and walked away.

(07:54):
So she knew all that time and never, yeah.
Anything.
I wanna talk about your process, butwhen you did transition, was she helpful?
Was she destructive?
No.
I got kicked out of the family becauseof the reason we were getting a divorce.
Oh.
And so when she found out that Iwas getting divorced because of

(08:16):
being transgender, that was it.
Her answer was, just cut yourhair and everything will be okay.
Just play the part.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so you can only play the partfor so long and you wear out and
I, I was worn out at that point.

(08:36):
So talk about what it was liketo live a life for 40 some years
in a body that you knew wasn'treally supposed to be your body.
And trying to play that part.
It's like being on, it'slike being on stage.
You're playing a part andyou're trying to emulate.

(08:57):
For me, I was trying to emulateguys that I knew who I respected,
and if they acted a certain way,I would try to act that way.
And I've never been an actor on stage,but I assume it's like playing a part.
And I thought I was mistakenin this, but at the time I
thought I was doing a good job.

(09:18):
I thought I was acting pretty convincing.
And I found out after I transitionedand people, guys that I knew would
say, yeah, we figure somethingwas like going on with you.
Did
they think you were gay?
Did or did they think you were,
I don't know.
People even knew the term transback in those days, but I think

(09:40):
some of them thought I was gay.
I, I don't know exactly what theythought, but I knew that I, as a matter
of fact, when I was a firefighter, I hadpeople, some guys say to me like, make
some terrible, uh, comments to me, butone time one of the guys said, you know
what people think and say about you?

(10:01):
And I said, no, I don't wanna know.
Don't tell me what is,what good is that gonna do?
No, just keep your mouth shut.
Right.
But to have to embody that role 247, it's not like you're on stage
where you're an actor and you leaveand you take it all off and then you
can go back to being right who youreally are to have to carry that 24 7.

(10:23):
What was that like emotionally?
It's exhausting.
It's exhausting.
You can't keep it up forever becausethat's why people kill themselves.
That's why people drive off a cliff orend it, which I was near that point.
I was near that point.
I think the reason my wifedivorced me wasn't so much that I

(10:45):
was trans because she knew I wastrans since before we got married.
But I think she got tired of thedepression that I would sink into.
I think that was driving her crazy.
Uh uh, and then the depression, itwas obvious why I was depressed.

(11:07):
Um, and so I think that you'retrying to hold it together.
You're trying to play the partand I wasn't playing the part.
Great.
Which is really frustrating 'cause you,you put so much energy into this facade.
You think you're doing good andyou find out maybe I wasn't doing
so good after all and I put allthat time and effort into it.

(11:31):
Um,
yeah.
Yeah.
So how did you deal with the depression?
I slept a lot when it got really bad.
That was my escape was sleeping.
I think when I was stillworking at a fire department.
I think my way of coping with it wasto try to ignore the depression and

(11:58):
immerse myself in things that were macho.
So on the fire department, I took thetraining and I became a part of the
hazardous materials team, and I tookthe training, it became part of the
special rescue unit, and I was already awildland firefighter and I was involved

(12:19):
in some high risk activities there.
I think you mask it, which I think it'sprobably very typical for transgender
people to become firefighters and cops andthings like that, to To hide behind it.
To hide behind your badge, so to speak.
And so how I dealt with my depressionthough was I tried to be tougher than it.

(12:42):
Wait, so that sounds like thatwould take a lot of energy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Even just the job itself, whether youwere trans or not, the job itself was
challenging and you put yourself inharm's way a lot of times then to be
putting on that role, not even doing itfrom an authentic place of feeling macho.

(13:03):
You were trying to pretendlike you were, it sounds like.
Yeah, and at the
same time, I loved my job.
I loved my job, and so Igot into it for a reason.
It was a good cover story,and I used it in the book.
I was like, undercover.
I was deep undercover andbeing a firefighter helped with

(13:25):
that and I grew to love it.
The very first summer I was a wildlandfirefighter, the very first big fire.
I just was totally, uh,enraptured with this activity.
So yeah, I got into it trying tohide, but it really became a big part

(13:47):
of my life that I really enjoyed.
And you went back to it afteryou transitioned to living
as a woman, didn't you?
Yeah, it was my, it was at thetime that I transitioned or got
divorced, I owned a flower shop.
I got my master's degree.
I was doing some consulting work andI, during the summertime I was coming

(14:10):
back out west to fight fires 'cause Icould get hired back as a fire leader.
I. On a temporary basis, but I hada flower shop for a few years and,
and that was great fun, but I wasmaking no money and I needed, and by
that time then my wife divorced me.
I needed to pay child support,I had to pay college tuition.

(14:35):
I needed insurance.
And I thought, as much as I loved havingthe flower shop, it's like I just need
to go back to being a firefighter.
And so I sold the shop and I headedback out west with my resume.
And because I had been continuingto fight fires during the summer,
I had contacts and, and so I, I gotback into firefighting full time.

(15:00):
And the people that you hadcontacts with, had they known you
when you were in a man's body?
Did they know you had transitioned?
Yeah.
What was that kind of transition?
Well, in the world.
It's really interesting to me that duringthat time that I was coming out, so I
had quit my job at the fire department.
We moved back east for my wife's job.

(15:21):
I went to grad school and then Iwas coming out west to fight fires.
I was in this in-between stage.
I really hadn't transitioned yet, butI let my hair grow out a little bit
and once I let my hair grow out, Iwas mistaken for a woman pretty often.

(15:42):
And so when I was on these fires,people didn't know me 'cause I was
just a, they call it casual hire.
I wasn't coming up with an agency.
And I would show up in somestate that I hadn't been before.
And a lot of these people didn't.
They figured something was up.
That's what I understand now is thatmaybe they didn't think I was female, but

(16:03):
they thought something was up with me.
And, but I had great experiences.
I didn't have any problemsbecause sometimes.
Guys can be jerks.
And I didn't have any more problems thananyone else, but when it was time to
look for a job and I was like, okay, I'mgonna sell the flower shop and I gotta
go back to being a firefighter full time.

(16:23):
I went back to a guy who I hadworked for on a large fire in Oregon,
and he had told me if I'm everlooking for a job to look him up.
So it was like a year or two laterand I called him up and I said, Hey,
remember me and blah, blah, blah.
And he said, yeah.
I said, can I come and visit you?

(16:44):
Sure.
So I, I had been up, I was workingor I, I was like in the northwest.
So I go to visit him and I said, Hey, bythe way, there's some changes in my life.
And so now when he sees me, I'mnot ambiguous, my gender isn't
ambiguous, it's clear that I'm female.
And this was before I had surgery,but surgery is like the last.

(17:09):
Little bit that you gottado to clean things up.
But he said, I said, Hey, Iappreciate you being open and
letting me talk to you anyway.
He's responsible for megetting my first job up there.
And he was a small town for Rednecky guy,but he respected my work and my abilities

(17:31):
and he gave me great recommendations.
And because of him, I got myfirst job up in the northwest.
And interestingly, as my career went onand I went to California and I went to
Idaho and I came back to the Northwest, heended up working within my organization.
And so I had promoted Don pasthim, but he was responsible.

(17:55):
Um, and so that's the kind of thingthat I concentrate on, not the
idiots who gave me a hard time.
Not that bullies, but I think aboutthis guy who was so supportive.
And, and helpful to me.
Yeah.
That's one person's approach,uh, one person's impact on me

(18:16):
and that goes to my beliefthat we've gotta tell stories.
'cause he knew you and what youjust said is he respected your work,
he knew what kind of worker youwere, what kind of firefighter you
were, what kind of leader you were.
Mm-hmm.
His redneck, red nakedness, as youcall it, that his whatever that redneck

(18:37):
stuff is, that he could set thataside because he knew you personally.
Yeah.
If somebody had said to him, come,here's a transgender woman we want
you to hire, he might not have hadthe same approach been as open-minded,
do you think?
Sure.
I I agree with you.
I do.
And I think that, and that's the reason Iwrote my book, to get a story out there.

(18:58):
And if people hear storiesand see someone, and in my
case they'll say, oh, Bobby.
I had a successful career and I useair quotes was normal and my friends
wouldn't agree with might be normal justfrom the standpoint of other things,
nothing to do with being transgender.
I think they can then go and say,if she had this life, then maybe

(19:24):
it's not all about the Hollywoodtrans people we read about.
This is just a regular person doing a job.
And so that's the reasonI tell the stories.
That's the reason I wrote the book
and that it's a great book.
Uh, you get great stories in thereand I what came to mind, I don't
know if it was in the book or if Iread it in one of your articles about
the loggers you were working with.

(19:45):
That's in the book, I think, andit's definitely, I use it in my,
when I speak to, to do leadershiptalks to firefighters, I think
the logger story is, I love it.
Well,
because that's when youwere working as a woman.
They knew you as a woman.
They hadn't known you before.
Right.
So you might wanna tell that story, butalso, I wanna know for our listeners,

(20:10):
what was the difference in how you wereaccepted as a, in your book you say an
effeminate man, that people looked atyou like you said they thought there was
something different about you and maybethey thought you were gay or something.
How was your career and the waypeople interacted with you different
when you were this man that peopleweren't too sure about as opposed

(20:32):
to when you were a woman and theydidn't know that you had transitioned?
There is no comparison.
My career, it blossomed after Itransitioned, my career took off.
And I had coworkers say to me, you'reonly getting this promotion because you're
a woman and it's affirmative action.

(20:54):
And I would say to them, howabout we compare our resumes?
You tell me, you show me your resume andI'll show you mine and then you tell me I
got this job 'cause of affirmative action.
But firefighters and I think guys ingeneral, but firefighters, more blue
collar, they would rather work fora strong, competent female leader

(21:19):
than they would for a guy that theyperceive as not masculine enough.
And I think, I think to me it wascrystal clear that was the case.
And I don't, I guess Idon't even begrudge them.
That to me it explains the situation.
And having lived for 40 years as aguy and lived in the locker rooms

(21:45):
at the fire station and heard theconversations, I maybe I don't agree
with that thinking, but I understand it.
But yes, my career wasmuch, much more successful.
Once I transitioned, I was acaptain before I transitioned,
but I made it to division Chief.
Deputy Chief Chief.

(22:06):
I was a deputy director at the, at theregional level for the Forest Service.
So
yeah,
my career did much betterafter I transitioned.
And in your book, you even talked aboutthe difference post nine 11 when you
were working in New York with all thetrauma and the things that went on.
You talked about how the menwould be willing to talk to

(22:27):
you about some of these things.
Yeah.
Important.
That
was, it was really interesting.
I was talking to my coworkers, whowere all guys on the team that I went
with from the northwest to New York.
And in the operations section on a fire orany big incident, are the firefighters or
the cops doing the work as opposed to theplanning people or the logistics people.

(22:51):
And so all of the ops people wereback then, were males on this team.
I asked them, are the firefightersand cops talking to you about
what they experienced the daythat the towers came down?
And they all said, no, they haven'treally talked much about it.
What I experienced was when it got dark,when I was working night shift or when

(23:11):
I, the shift went into the dark intothe night, and I would be walking around
the pile or outside the pile there atground zero if I stopped and paused for
a little bit to just look at the scene.
Invariably a cop or a firefighterwould recital up to me and just start

(23:33):
talking, say, were you here that day?
And I said, no, I didn'tget here a few days later.
Oh man.
And they would start telling me theirstory about what happened to them.
It was horrific.
It's hard for me to think aboutthose stories without tearing up, but
they felt comfortable to talk to me.

(23:55):
They wouldn't talk to me like if I wasout in the middle of the street, but
if I was leaning up against a buildingin the shadows, 'cause the spotlights
at night were on the pile and if Iwas leaning up against a building in
the shadows, that's when they wouldcome up to me and start talking to me.
And I, on one hand I felt honoredthat they felt comfortable to talk to

(24:19):
me and I think they felt comfortabletalking to me 'cause I was a woman
and they wouldn't talk to the guys.
And at the same time it was, you canget post-traumatic stress secondhand.
And I got a little post-traumatic stress.
There was enough going on at the scene togive you a little post-traumatic stress.
But I got more just fromlistening to some of the stories

(24:42):
that the guys would tell me.
Um.
Did they just need someone to listento it to get it off their chest or
were they looking for a woman's advice?
They would just needed to vent.
They just needed to tell someone.
They just needed to tellsomeone what they witnessed.
Which is interesting because when Iwent through my near field, you know,

(25:04):
experience a large wildland fire,back then we didn't really know much
about treating post-traumatic stress.
And no one said, Hey, you need to go talkto this psychologist or this therapist.
And they probably could have and shouldhave been able to talk to someone.
And that's what these guys were doing.
They just needed to say the wordsbecause saying the words makes it

(25:28):
real, otherwise it's in your headand can't get it out sometimes.
And I think it was important forthem to speak and just tell someone.
And I assumed later on they gotsome professional assistance.
'cause I just sent there and nodded.
And I.
Yeah,
put an armor on 'em.
'cause they would be crying.
They would be sobbing overwhat they experienced and

(25:48):
watching their friends die.
It was horrible.
And probably not willing to cryin front of another man, you know?
And these macho firefighters and thethings that they were doing, just
horrendous things they were doing.
But I'm sure it was all pent upand that you were a safe haven.

(26:08):
Yeah.
To talk to.
Yeah.
I think a safe person totalk to is the essence of it.
And they felt they could talk to awoman, like you said, they didn't
wanna talk to a guy and startcrying in front of another guy
when you were, something'swrong with this guy.
Before you had transitionedto living as a woman.
They treated you differentlythen, didn't they?

(26:30):
Oh,
by all means.
Yeah.
Were you not one of the guys?
I was not one of the guys.
Yeah.
That's a safe stick.
Yeah, when I was with the fire department,people made very rude statements to me.
Said things that were, you get picked on.
Yeah, I think it's, I don't know,it's just very interesting to think

(26:52):
about my life as a female firefighter.
There were challenges you had to put upwith knuckleheads who wanted to mansplain
to you something that you had 10 timesmore experience at than they did.
You deal with that.
That's what women deal with on ajob like firefighting, and I think
it's much better now than it everwas before, but that's normal.

(27:16):
That's everyday stuff.
I think for me, as a guy who wasdealing with, uh, firefighters
who wanted to be around other malemacho fi ma macho firefighters, I
just didn't fit that bill for them.
And I think that's why it was somuch easier for them and for me.

(27:37):
When all they saw was a female firefighterwho was competent and who they knew
pretty quickly that I knew my job.
You talk about being in the lockerroom with these guys and hearing all
the testosterone stuff overflowing.
Relate to job that I had whereI was one of two women in the

(27:57):
organization and Monday morning theguys would come in, talk about their
conquest just a little too much.
So do you think you had femininesensibilities your whole life then, and
were not into this right kind of stuff?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
That's part of the problem.
That's part of why people might havepicked on me or something because I

(28:21):
didn't act a certain way, but it gaveme insights like I think I am much more
tolerant of masculine behavior that mightnot be really healthy masculine behavior.
I think I'm more tolerant of it'cause I was able to listen into the

(28:41):
conversations that were in the bunkroom when people are going to sleep
and the lights turn off and the guysare still talking in the bunk room.
And I would listen to what was being said.
I, it developed a certain amount ofaffection for them and affection in
terms of understanding and empathyand, and I realized that they don't

(29:04):
have an easy job of it either.
Yeah.
So I felt like I developed a certainamount of understanding where some of
'em, my friends, they just rule theireyes, had some of the masculine traits
and, and I can say I get it, but theseguys are struggling in their own.
They're trying to find whatit means to be a guy and what

(29:24):
does it mean to be masculine?
What does it mean to be a good person?
In my first job after I transitioned,I was a battalion chief and I
would be at a chief's meeting.
With a dozen other chiefs for ourregion and, and we'd go out to
lunch and they were all nice guys.
They're all very respectful.
But this one guy, he was alwaysopening the door for me when

(29:47):
we'd go into a restaurant andI'd say, Ray, don't do that.
Ah, I gotta open the door.
I always open the door for women.
I said, I know, but look, we're inuniform and it just doesn't seem right
for you to be opening the door for me.
I should be opening thedoor for you just as much.
I said, if we're off duty andwe're not in uniform, then fine.

(30:09):
You wanna open the door for me?
That's fine.
But I said, that's not right.
Now, this guy was thesweetest, nicest guy.
Well, he meant well by everythinghe was doing and I felt bad for him.
'cause there I am, scolding himfor opening the door for me.
The poor guy didn'tknow which way to turn.
I said, oh, it's okay to open thedoor for me when we're off duty and
I'm not in uniform now, maybe thatwas a little bit of my craziness.

(30:35):
But I was so determined tobe an equal to these guys.
And so that little story, I think,demonstrates these poor guys
when we put 'em through, theydon't have an easy time of it.
They don't know whatto do with all of this.
Yeah, you don't.
Uh, and I, I'm thinking about a woman.

(30:56):
I, I've been talking to people about whatI'm doing and everything, and one woman
who's in her forties and has not exactlyhad a easy life, but she said, why would
anybody want to choose to be a woman?
Being a woman is reallydifficult, really hard.
All the crap that we putup with and all that.

(31:17):
Why would somebody choose to be a woman?
And my answer was, I'm gonnaask you, but my answer was.
She didn't choose this.
This is how she was born.
But what are your thoughtsabout that kind of a statement?
It's exactly right.
You're exactly right.
No one chooses it, I don't believe.
I suppose people can have differentopinions and probably do have different

(31:38):
opinions on it, but from my perspective,I didn't choose to be born the way I was.
I was born female in my headand I didn't choose that.
And I had a family member tell me,because I had been, I don't know if
the right word is sexually assaultedguys grabbing you, trying to kiss you,

(31:58):
putting her hands between your legs.
I've had that happen to me multiple times.
And this family member said tome, you knew what you were getting
into when you chose the transition.
And I'm like, wow, that isso far from intelligent.
How do you respond to that?

(32:19):
I just said, I didn't choose it.
But to think that you.
Decided it was okay to be a woman andbecause you were gonna be assaulted,
there's some faulty thinking therethat it's okay to assault women
or that all women are assaulted orthat's what's always gonna happen.
Oh yeah, yeah.
What a comment.
But that's like the woman I talked toand she gets talking about bathroom.

(32:41):
If a man walked into thebathroom, I'd be freaked out
'cause I've been raped, she said.
And I'm thinking, I, Idon't see that an issue.
I don't see that stuff going on.
And it seems to me that theoccasional man who rapes somebody in
a bathroom is not truly transgender.
No,
of course not.

(33:01):
Of course there aren't.
Of course, aren't.
I?
There's a bathroom story that looking backon, it's comical, but it wasn't at the
time I was driving across country and,and this was before I transitioned and I,
and I was driving a pickup truck because.
I mostly have onlypickup trucks in my life.

(33:22):
And so I'm driving a pickup truck.
I think I was in Oklahoma, andI pull into a gas station to
get gas and use the bathroom.
And I walked into thebathroom, the men's room.
'cause this is prior to transition.
I walk into the men's room and this guysays, man, you're in the wrong bathroom.
You're in the wrong bathroom.
And he was like freaking out.
And I was like, oh, sorry.

(33:44):
I didn't know what to say.
And I turned around and walked out becauseI didn't wanna say I am a man, dammit.
Because that would've been embarrassing.
And I didn't know what to do.
I just turned around and left.
And I got back in mytruck and started driving.
And then I was crying 'causeI didn't know what to do.
I said, I gotta go pee.

(34:04):
And you didn't go in the women's room?
I ended up going into the women's room.
The next truck stop.
Did you?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because I realized, I lookedat myself in the mirror and I'm
like, I guess I look enough.
Female just used to work women.
And it's not like you're standingthere at a urinal in the women's room.

(34:24):
We close the doors.
I don't usually sit there with adoor to the stall of, I don't know
why people get so upset about it.
Yeah.
That's just the wholebathroom thing is weird.
'cause there's states, even thoughmy birth certificate says female on
it now there's states that it wouldbe illegal for me to use the women's

(34:45):
room at this point in my life.
Their law say that you've gotta use therestroom of the gender that you were born.
Wow.
Do the, do they have somebodystanding at the door checking your
credentials, telling you to drop,trow and look wing your legs?
I mean,
I had this, this backwards desire to goto one of those states and go into the

(35:07):
men's rooms and say, suck it up guys,because this is your law, not mine.
That is a funny picture.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
This is what you wanted.
It makes no sense.
It just makes no sense to me at all.
But that's the way it is.
So what created the situation whereyou'd had enough and you decided

(35:31):
that it was time to transition?
What pushed that limit for you?
Sure.
The final thing was I, soI was married for 20 years.
The last five years were a struggle.
It was a struggle for me personally.
More and more it was getting more,more difficult to keep this robe on me.

(35:53):
That covered up who I was.
And, and as time went on, my nowex-wife was, she was pretty tired of
dealing with me, dealing with beingtrans and, and I was depressed a lot.
I looked more and more feminine.

(36:14):
And so when she got, when shedivorced me, when she'd had enough
and she divorced me, I think thedivorce was final like in December.
And then I'm still trying to holdit together after divorce and I
don't get to see the kids and I'memotionally completely rung out.

(36:35):
And I think by August, so six, eightmonths later, I was in therapy for
depression and because of what hadbeen going through with the family.
And I told my therapist, I said, I don'tknow why I'm holding on to being a male.
I don't know why I'm still trying to staymale because my kids don't see me, my

(37:01):
mom and dad and my, they don't see me.
So I don't know what I'm doing.
I, I think I might aswell just transition.
And my therapist said, I had beenwaiting to see how long it was
gonna take you to get to this.
Decision, and that was in August.
And back then you needed lettersfrom two different mental health

(37:23):
professionals or, so I went andfound another one and did all that.
And anyway, by I guess January,so one year, exactly one year
after the divorce, I had surgery.
I was very fortunate.
It all happened really quick.
So you had surgery quite quickly.
Did you do hormones before that?

(37:43):
Yeah, for a short while.
I did hormones.
I have some medical anomalies to mylife in addition to everything else.
So I took estrogen for a littlewhile and stopped, and then my
estrogen elevated and wouldn't godown after I stopped taking hormones.
And so there's all sorts of, no onehas ever told me why I have this,

(38:08):
and to this day I haven't taken.
Hormones in ages, and my estrogen stillcycles, but it cycles like on six month
time periods I had sampled or dabbledwith the hormones living as a woman.
That's, that is a weird,for me, it's a hard concept.
When did I start living as a woman?

(38:30):
People were thinking I was awoman long before I ever, yeah.
Officially transitioned.
And that's why I had, I wasable to have surgery so quick.
The mental health professionals, theywere just like, yeah, you've already been
what they used to call the real life test.
You were already living soyou don't have to wait a year.

(38:53):
And so it just all happenedre relatively organically.
So here's a situation I was thinkingabout yesterday that one of the
things I'm so thankful for in my life.
After the divorce, I decided,okay, I'm gonna transition.
So it was like I said, I told mytherapist in August that I was gonna

(39:14):
go ahead and pursue having surgery.
And so I gotta change my name, I'mgonna get my name changed officially.
And so I go to where you get yourdriver's license and I had the court
document that said my name, my legal name.
So I take it to the DMV office orwhatever they call it, and they come

(39:34):
back and I can, first off, they'rein behind the office and they're
looking at me pointing and whispering,and they're gone a long time.
And so she comes back after about15 minutes of me waiting at the
little desk and she said, okay, we'regonna fix your driver's license.
It'll take us a fewminutes, we'll be back.

(39:55):
So when they gave me back mydriver's license, not only did
they change my name, they changedthe gender on my driver's license.
I never had to go through anything witha letter from the doctor or anything
to show that your gender has changed.
They just, they saw my name changed andthey said, this must be, I don't know

(40:19):
what they thought, but they changedthe gender on my driver's license.
Wow.
That's, I had it in so many ways.
I might've lost my family in thiswhole process, but I had it so
much easier than a lot of people.
People struggle and fight tryingto get their gender fixed on
their driver's license, and Ididn't even ask them to do that.

(40:41):
And they did.
Yeah.
The, the fact of your appearancethat helped some of them who
were quite a bit taller or, yeah.
Different facial features,that type of thing.
That would be more of a change,
which is interesting because I don'tknow if everyone feels this way, but
I never thought I would look female.

(41:02):
Even though people were mistakingme for female, I just was like,
oh no, never gonna happen.
Woe is me.
What am I gonna do?
I just didn't appreciate thatpeople were already seeing a female.
So other than growing yourhair out and maybe wearing some
makeup, did you do anything?

(41:23):
I had a little electrolysis on myface because I had some whiskers,
but that wasn't very much, or no.
So I didn't have to do anything else.
So it almost seems to me like youhad the, the female look to begin
with, except you had a penis.
Yes, but I look at pictures.
I've, I've just recently moved, so I'mgoing through all these boxes and stuff,

(41:46):
and I'm looking at pictures of me when Iwas back at the fire department and a part
of me looks at those pictures and say,wow, I was pretty good looking for a guy.
I wasn't, I didn't think I looked.
I don't think it was my looks.
Exactly.
There was must be more to itthat people were picking up on.

(42:09):
Yeah, I don't know.
That's all very interesting.
'cause here I am, I'malmost 70 overweight.
I feel like an old lady not feelingparticularly attractive and, but
I don't care about that as long asI live my life as a woman, I can't
imagine what, I can't imagine trying,I dunno, it's been a long time ago.

(42:29):
My son's getting married and my mom, whowas the matriarch of the family, I asked
my son, I said, can I come to the wedding?
'cause they were having a ceremonyin the town where my parents were
living, not where he was living.
It was gonna be a little ceremony.
And they said, can I come to the wedding?
Because no one's gonna bethere that your mom knows.

(42:51):
No one's gonna be there.
Really, it's just mymom and dad's friends.
'cause I was not allowed togo to the graduations, to
birthdays, to any of the weddings.
I was, so, my son's gettingmarried now, so can I come?
I'll ask Nani.
He, they called my mom Nani.
He calls me back.

(43:11):
Nani says, you can come, but you'vegotta come dressed up as a man.
And I thought, oh my God.
I said, I didn't hesitate.
I said, okay, if that's whatit takes to be at your wedding,
I'll come dressed up as a guy.
Now.
It was the most humiliating experienceof my entire life because, because

(43:35):
I go to this thing, I wear a pairof black slacks and a button down
shirt, and I think I have a tie on.
And no one thought I was a guy.
It was humiliating.
It was so humiliating tobe told I had to do this.
I did it because I wanted to beat least one of my kids' weddings.
And after it was over and I was flyinghome, I think I was living in Boise

(44:00):
at the time, flying back, and I saidto myself, I will never ever allow
myself to be humiliated that way again.
Ever.
Mm-hmm.
It was horrible.
What an experience, because I, I went tomy mom's house and it turns out my mom
was in the hospital, couldn't make thewedding, and I, I go to my mom's house,

(44:21):
which I hadn't been there because I'dbeen ostracized for all these years.
And there I am, dressed up as the guy,air quotes, had dressed up as a guy and
there was one of my mom's friends who Ihad never met, and she was in the kitchen.
They were preparing a, a meal to lay outfor people who were coming to the house.

(44:42):
And I, I joined in to start helping,we'll get the food out and I said,
oh no, this plant is over here.
And I know where the.
Things are kept in the kitchenfrom eight years before I, I
knew where everything still was.
And, and this lady says, oh,now who are you in the family?
I said, Mo, I said, my mom and dad.
I said, Frankie Mary,those are my parents.

(45:03):
And they, and this woman looks atme, she goes, we knew you had a
sister who passed away, but we didn'tknow they had another daughter.
And this was me dressed up as the guide.
But you weren't fooling anybody.
No.
And, and there was multiple thingsgot said by people who didn't
know me, seemed, oh, don't youlook just like aunt so-and-so?
Yeah, sure.

(45:24):
I'm wearing a shirt andtie and I look like aunt.
So, and this humiliating.
It was
the worst thing.
But you did it 'cause that'swhat your kid asked you to do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But he can ask again.
It's not gonna happen.
Do you have a relationshipwith your children now?
I have a relationship with my son andI speak to him about once a month.

(45:45):
And I get along great withhis kids and his wife.
And not much of one with my daughter,I see them once every year or two.
I don't have any control over that.
That's what I've had to come tothat conclusion that I don't control
what they think or what they want.
If they wanted to have a relationshipwith me or in my son's case, I mean

(46:07):
wanted to have a closer relationshipwith Chip with me, we could.
But
you and I talked before we startedthis interview about, I think you
made a comment that if you'd had theopportunity to transition when you
were in teen or in your twenties,that you would have done that.
And so let's talk about what thedifference would've been if you'd

(46:28):
transitioned then versus after you hadthe family and you have all this drama
and then people are disowning you, right?
Not divorced, plus the transition.
Talk about that.
Stab me in the heart way, don't you?
That is, that is theconundrum of the ages.

(46:48):
If I had the magic wand and could waveit and go back in time, on one hand
I'd say I would do it in a second.
I would do it in a second.
So I could have had a morenormal childhood, a more normal
adolescence, a more normal adulthood.

(47:08):
On the other hand, having been bornin the fifties, there was no chance.
There was no chance had I evenbeen able to transition in the
say in his early seventies.
There was no foundational frameworkfor people to understand that at least,

(47:30):
at least in my circle of family andacquaintances, there was no opportunity
to even consider such a thing ifI could have waved the magic wand.
My children wouldn't have been born.
My children are intelligent, accomplishedpeople, wonderful parents, and even though

(47:51):
they may or may not wanna have anythingor much to do with me, they're still good
people and they're wonderful parents.
And so I think, how can I ever sayI would've made a choice not to
have children, those two childrenin particular, if I was gonna
fantasize, which I used to as akid, I fantasized a lot about it.

(48:15):
The magic wand, whateverit would be to fix me.
Absolutely.
I would've loved to have, I would've lovedto have been able to have a more normal
adolescence, more normal young adults.
And yeah, it's a, it's so tough.
And yeah, it's, I mean, I feel every timeI see something about young kids who.

(48:39):
Know in their heart whothey are as a child.
It breaks my heart and I cry to thembecause they're having to go through
this, especially if they don't haveparents who are open to the possibility
that their kid is transgender.
It breaks my heart to see kidsgoing through that because I can
think about myself going through it.

(49:01):
Yeah.
You knew what happenedwith you and the trauma and
Yeah.
As an adult, not being able to see yourchildren, your parents, that trauma.
Yeah.
Very traumatic
and it's unnecessary.
When I was writing my book made me thinka lot about, maybe think a lot about life

(49:21):
and family and all that sort of thing,and actually in my career I witnessed so
many terrible accidents of people dying.
But when I came back from New York Cityafter nine 11, after there for a month.
I wanted to grab everyone inmy family and shake 'em by the
shoulders and say, stop this.

(49:42):
We don't know when our last day airs.
We've got to love each other.
We've got to care about each other.
We need to be there for each other whenpeople are so caught up in their pain.
I couldn't break through the pain.
I didn't know the words to say.
I didn't know what to do, but itoccurred to me how important family is.

(50:05):
And I don't know, I, I feel sosad for my family who don't have,
maybe they're an egotist, but theydon't have me in their lives and I
know I'm, I could be good for them.
I know I bring a lot to my friendshipswith my friends and who and other

(50:25):
family who are, who I'm close to.
So it breaks my heartthat with your unable to.
Get past that, because in the end,that's what it should be all about.
It should be loving our familiesand loving our close friends.
And I have my family now, I do havesome cousins that I'm close to, but
my family are my friends that I'vehad for 50 some years that are still

(50:50):
close in my life and I'm living whereI live because this is where we all
grew up and this is where we all are.
And I'm here because of them.
Mm-hmm.
To, for people to be so close-mindedor as you're saying in pain, to not
be open to somebody else's experienceand accept people for who they are.

(51:13):
Fear drives so much negativity.
So I say it's pain and it's paincaused by the fear of what it,
like in my case of my ex-wife.
Fear of what other people wouldthink about her because of who
she was married to for 20 years.
Fear by my parents, worriedabout what other people were,

(51:34):
think about them because ofmaybe what they did or didn't do.
And my childhood or whatever.
Fear of my brother's fear ofhow did this reflect on them.
It's all about fear.
And then that fear causes you to pushsomeone away and then you push them
away and now it's causing you pain.

(51:55):
It starts with the fear,but the pain is the result.
And I know Bobby, you talked about growingup in a I Italian Catholic family, and I
know from your book you've talked abouthow your faith is still strong, right?
You've not spent time recently inthe Catholic church, I don't think.
At least that's what I took away fromyour book, but talk to us about your

(52:16):
faith and how that has helped or hindered.
'cause I think.
You, and you haven't mentioned this aboutyour family, but is there something in
your family about the Catholic beliefsand whatever that they're afraid to
open up to you for whatever reason?
I, I don't know.
Talk about that faith piece.
The faith I've had since I was little.

(52:39):
I felt the Holy Spirit in my lifeearly on and I was an avid backpacker
and camper and all that sort of thing.
I felt the spirit in the outdoorsand, and my spirituality is, you know,

(52:59):
I'm Christian, but I'm still tied tothe natural environment because if I
believe that God created the world,the universe, when I see the beauty
of nature, I feel like I'm seeing thehand of God at work creating this.

(53:20):
And so that's, that's my beliefs.
And, and, and it was reinforced.
I met an Indian man who wasCatholic, but was very traditional
in his Native American culture.
And I asked him how did he balancehis Native American beliefs with
the Catholicism that he professed?

(53:42):
And he looked at me like I was an idiot.
He, he had a kind, kind look,but he looked at me like,
oh, you poured down Cat.
And, and he started describing allthe similarities between Christianity
and Native American beliefs.
Talked about the Holy Spirit.
Yes.

(54:03):
And the great Spirit, and where didJesus go to pray and to get close to God.
I said, what do you mean?
Where did Jesus go?
I'm like, you mean going on the desert?
He said, yeah.
And I was like.
Oh yeah, I've been going out to thedesert since I was 10 years old.
And then where did Moses goto get the 10 Commandments?

(54:25):
Oh, up in the mountain.
Oh, I go in the mountains all the time.
So I hear all this and I'm thinking,oh my God, what a revelation.
So then I go back and I go talk tomy priest and I tell my priest this
conversation and he gives me thesame look as that Indian gentleman.
Like, oh, you poor dumb kid.

(54:45):
Of course it's the same God.
And so even though I was raisedin Christianity and Catholicism, I
really couldn't see the universalityof my belief system when it comes
because I look at the naturalenvironment and I see God's creation.
And anyway, that's been myfoundation and I've had, and I've

(55:07):
had things in my life happen that I.
We're the most crazycoincidental air quotes.
Again, coincidental things happen to me.
All these things can'tjust be coincidences.
And I believe that and ofGod has been in my life.
I don't pray for the bearsto be the rams or whatever.
I don't pray for things like that.

(55:29):
I don't pray.
I'm looking for a house.
I don't pray.
God, please let me get this house.
This is the perfect house.
I pray, say, God, I don't knowwhat's best, but please let happen.
What should happen.
And I guess that's myapproach and how I pray.
And I pray with Thanksgiving a lot.
I pray, try to remember to havegratitude for all my blessings.

(55:54):
And I have got many, and it would takea whole nother podcast to talk about.
The miracles I believe have happenedin my life, but they're there
and, and I feel to not believein God at this point in my life.
Would be the most ungratefulI could be or I could do would
be to doubt God's existence.

(56:15):
And it's a matter of faith.
There's no proving God.
There's no arguing whetherthere is a God or not.
I always crack up when you hear atheistsand hardcore Christians arguing about it.
How can you argue about somethingthat's a matter of faith?
It's all inside.
It's all inside.
And so inside me is my faithin God and my gratitude for

(56:38):
all the gifts I've been given.
What a wonderful way to express your faithand I, I didn't hear you say that you're
hanging on to Catholicism or organizedreligion or those types of things, which
I think some of that is destructive to thekind of faith that you're talking about.
I think there are lots of organizedChristian churches that my.

(57:03):
Belief system fits into,
mm-hmm.
There are priests and churches in theCatholic church that I would fit into
just find, but I find Catholicismthese days has gone along with a
lot of the right wing theology.
And I don't, I just believe God'sa little bit more open-minded

(57:27):
than just the Old Testament stuff.
And you talk about God creatingall this beauty and relishing that
beauty, but God also created youin a boy's body with a feminine
Right
select and mind.
And my, my belief is that itwas no mistake, there was a
reason for it, for everything.

(57:48):
And I don't doubt thatthere is a reason for it.
And I've thought about that long andhard, and when I was going through
all this emotional trauma of losingmy family, I would curse at God.
You did this to me, how dare you?
How could you do this to me?
If you gave me the Stanley,then you're yanking 'em away.

(58:10):
It was so hard.
And yet then you mature a little bitand time goes on and then you say,
okay, there's a reason for this.
And then I say, alright, whatthe hell were you thinking?
What's the plan here?
I wanna know when I've gone, Iwanna know what was the plan.
Because I feel like that's part of ourmission here is to, we we're on a mission.

(58:35):
We have something that we'resupposed to accomplish, and I
don't know what it is, but I Sure.
I look forward to havingsome understanding of that.
Sure.
You haven't read the end of the storyyet, so you're taking it on faith, right?
That's right.
Oh.
What would you say is your driving force?

(58:55):
What has gotten you throughalmost 70 years of your life?
Wow.
I think I have some basic
foundational values and I don'tknow if I could have put them into,
if I could have verbalized them,say when I was in my twenties,

(59:18):
but I can see it was always there.
And that is, um, kindness.
Kindness to others is one ofthose foundational values.
And at the same time, it's beena good thing and a bad thing.
But stubbornness has driven me andgotten me through a tough life.

(59:42):
And so while I'm stubborn, I try tohave some kindness and understanding.
I never, when I was younger, Inever had big dreams about a career.
I never was ambitious at all.
I had no plans for.
And when I got divorced and I'm on my ownand my career was taken off, I thought,

(01:00:07):
this is the craziest thing in the world.
I had no interest in havingsome big successful career.
All I wanted was family.
I wanted the little housewith the white picket fence.
That was all I ever wanted.
And what I ended upgetting was the career.
I don't know.

(01:00:27):
It's strange.
I, it's hard for me to make sense of that.
How my life, I had a successful careerand I've had a great life, but it
wasn't at all what I would've hoped for.
Yeah.
But for a while you had that family,maybe the picket fence, but you
were meant for different things.
Bigger.

(01:00:48):
Yeah.
And I, there was a time after thefire where I saved some lives and I
almost, what was almost killed myself.
That a couple years later Ithought, I wonder if that was it.
I wonder if that was the big, mybig life's mission was to save some
lives and these lives in particular.

(01:01:09):
And I had to think about thatis 'cause I was going through
struggles with my family.
I was struggling withkeeping my emotions intact.
And I thought maybe that's it.
Maybe I don't have to live anymore.
Maybe I did what I'm supposed to do.
And so when I was struggling, it playedinto whether I was going to commit
suicide or not, because I thought, aremy kids better off with a dead hero dad?

(01:01:34):
Or they better off with a live trans band?
'cause I thought, well,maybe my work is done.
The kids are healthy, they'regood, they're good kids.
Uh, and maybe I already didwhat I was supposed to do.
And how did you decide?
That was in my cursing God phase.

(01:01:55):
Shaking my fist, and as Ilook back, I have this image
of this broken bird shaking.
Its broken wing at God andGod's holding it in its hand.
And I was that broken little bird cursingGod as he's holding me for me, I think
I had a, I had a feeling, I had enoughfeeling of self-worth that in the end I

(01:02:19):
thought my kids are better with me alive.
I didn't commit suicide because I wasworried about it being immortal sin.
I was more concerned about my childrenand how they would be affected by that.
So, and that's what helpedme make the decision, no, I'm
not gonna, I'm not gonna quit.

(01:02:40):
I'm just gonna keep on,I'm gonna keep on going.
And that's that stubbornness thatI think helps us get through lives.
I was just talking about my,one of my granddaughters who's
this stubborn little thing.
I said, I told one of my family members,I said that stubbornness may be what helps
her be successful in life, not giving up.

(01:03:04):
I know some people talk aboutwhat courage it takes to, to
transition, especially as an adult.
You think of yourself as courageous.
No, not at all.
I think of myself aschoosing life over death.
Hmm.
I didn't say I wanna be true to myself.

(01:03:24):
I need to be honest in my who I am.
All that kind of stuff.
You hear And no, I wasn't that at all.
For me, it was like Ihung on to the bitter end.
My fingernails were scraping onthe ground, being drug away as I'm
trying to hold on and not transition.

(01:03:46):
It would've been brave had I had this.
Thoughtful process and said, this is whoI am and I need to have a conversation
with my family, and I'm gonna help themunderstand, oh, I didn't do any of that.
There's no bravery involved in this.
It was, 'cause if I'm gonna survive,if I'm gonna be alive, I'll transition.

(01:04:10):
And I, like I said, that imagery ofme dragging my fingernails on the
ground, wanting not to transition.
That's how I was.
And so I don't consider thata brave or courageous thing.
No,
I, I really feel like it was chicken shit.
I wasn't honest.
I didn't do it in an honest way.

(01:04:31):
I did it because I had no options left.
It
was survival.
It was strictly survival.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm glad you did.
I'm glad you survived.
Yeah, me
too.
And I'm sure your bookhas made some difference.
I, I know you teach leadershipclasses and those types of things.

(01:04:53):
Are you aware of difference thatyou're making in other women's lives
or other transgender people's lives?
I hear from people, not that transgenderpeople, but I hear from their family.
Before I wrote the book, I was neverinvolved in any of the LGBT stuff.
I, I didn't know any trans people.

(01:05:13):
I had met one trans personbefore I had surgery.
That's all.
That's all.
I still don't, I really don't know others.
Since I wrote the book, I have foundout a lot of people have trans people
in their family, and I have heard fromthe people like the, the moms, the dads,

(01:05:34):
the uncles, the aunts, the best friends.
That's who I've heard from.
I haven't heard from the trans people.
I. Which is just fine with me because Iam happy to know that people are reading
my book and saying, I have a boss oran ex-boss, he was boss for quite a few
years with, for me, and he read the book.

(01:05:55):
He didn't know I was transgender.
Someone else had told him about mybook and he thought it was just about
fire stories and they said, no, it wasabout her being a trans firefighter.
He was like, what do you mean?
So anyway, he sends me a note.
He reached the book and hesaid, first off, I have no idea.
Thanks.
You are great at yourjob and blah, blah, blah.

(01:06:16):
But most importantly, your book is gonnahelp me be a better father to one of my
children who's questioning their gender.
Wow.
I've heard things like that.
Multiple.
For multiple people.
And that's what satisfies me because whenI was going through the whole process of
writing the book and you know how that is,and then trying to find a publisher and

(01:06:39):
then knowledge jazz, I said, if I can helpone family, if one family stays together
because of my book and avoids all theheartache and trauma that my family's gone
through, if I can help one family avoidthat, then all that time was so worth it.
Mm-hmm.

(01:06:59):
And so I've heard from peoplewhose families are in better
shape because of the story.
Wow.
So congratulations on that.
I know one of the women I interviewedbefore was writing her memoir and she had
a horrible life, but it was so difficult.
Not just the writing itself,but reliving all of that.

(01:07:19):
How did you find that for you?
Bit horrible.
It, well,
I know people said, oh, it must havebeen so cathartic to write the book.
No, you're reliving all the trauma,all the stuff that you were able to
put out of your head and move on.
And that's how I, I don't wanna sayI live in denial, but I don't dwell

(01:07:40):
on all the pain and all the agony.
And when you write the book,I had reviewers say, oh,
it should have been longer.
Oh, Jesus.
I could have barely getthrough what I wrote.
It all comes up, doesn't it?
Yeah.
All those emotions, you'resitting there crying while
you're typing at the computer.
Yeah,
it's, yeah.

(01:08:01):
It was very tough to write.
Yeah.
Thank you for writing it and I'mglad you're hearing back from
people who are appreciative andare grateful for what you're doing.
And I'm sure you don't even knowthe people that you've touched.
You've heard from a few, but you don'tknow the ones who are not writing to you.
My email.
Yeah.
Yeah,
yeah.
You
know, I was speaking at afirefighter training conference.

(01:08:23):
I'm talking about leadership interms of diversity in the workplace.
So these were a bunch of fire chiefs and,and I thought I kind of fell, fell flat.
I'm trying to breakthrough with a tough crowd.
And I got an email from a youngman from, I don't know, Alabama
or somewhere in the south.
He's fire chief.
And, and he told me that was the bestconference at this week, long conference.

(01:08:46):
It was the best conference he'd been to myclass, my breakout of the whole session.
And the point of that is you don'tknow where you're touching the people.
You don't know where you'remaking improvements in lives.
And so all you do is you putit out there and, and hope the
seeds fall on fertile ground.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(01:09:06):
You, you plant those seeds andhope somebody's watering them
and tending to them and thatthey grow into wonderful things.
Bobby, what about yourwhole journey surprises you?
The,
I knew that my life would be okay.
After I transitioned, thatwould've surprised me.
That would've surprised Mely 40 someyears ago or whatever, or not that long.

(01:09:32):
It's so that surprises me lookingback on it, that leads to my
gratitude for how my life worked out.
I don't know.
Everything about my life is surprising.
I never thought I was particularly smart.
'cause in my family Iwas not the smart one.
I was huge.
Funny one, but it turns out I'm not sodumb and I've that, that a little bit of

(01:09:58):
intelligence, a little bit of intelligenceand some hard work gave me a good life.
And so there's lots, I could go downthe list of things that I'm surprised
at that how things worked out.
Yeah.
Uh, it's amazing that you'reuncovering these things about
yourself that you, I. Weren't sosure about when you were younger.

(01:10:20):
We grew up in families andeverybody plays a role.
Everybody's got their role.
And in a healthy family, when you getolder, you transcend all that crap and you
become, you have different relationshipswith your siblings, and I've got friends
who have great, healthy relationshipswith their siblings and our family.
We never transcended that.

(01:10:42):
The expectation was, you'regonna stay in that role.
I don't have a relationshipwith my brothers.
Yeah, you changed roles significantly.
Yeah.
Did they change roles or are they stillthe same they were when they were kids?
Well, I think looking back with alittle bit of wisdom, as you look

(01:11:02):
back as, I think they're still playingtheir same role, and so maybe if
they're stuck in their role, it,it can't let me change my role.
So you, you talk about smarts, but there'sIQ and then there's eq, your intelligence,
quotion, and sounds like you're.
I'm sure you're high on the e IQ level,but also very high on the EQ level.
I don't think

(01:11:23):
I am high on the IQ level, but I think theeq, I think I do have a little bit better
awareness, and I think that when youstart to move up in an organization that's
as important as any technical skills.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
You don't have to know everything abouteverything, but if you know how to lead
people, and that's your strength too, isobviously you knew how to fight fires,

(01:11:43):
but you also knew how to lead people.
Yeah.
And that's what's important to me anyway.
That part of it.
You can get other peopleto do the other stuff.
Right, right.
Technical stuff, but the, there'sso many people who don't know how to
lead people, and you're one who does.
I, one of my favorite things to do iswhen I get to go talk to firefighters

(01:12:07):
and I'm at a station and the officersare all there and, and I'm talking about
leadership, it's like my favorite dayin the world right there as I'm back at
the fire station and I'm BSing with thefirefighters and I'm hoping, I think I'm
making progress and I'm opening eyes andbecause I watch their body language and

(01:12:27):
I see them open their eye a little bitor shift in their seat to a certain time
and then the questions come and makes mefeel, it makes me feel so, so positive
and so thankful for, 'cause it's notlike I had a, a master's in leadership.
I've read the books, but I've watchedit and I've watched other people and

(01:12:50):
I've lived it and yeah, so that'sall, that's pretty surprising too
for me that I'm getting to do this.
And there's a difference between readinga book about leadership and doing it.
It is, but it's good to readlots of different perspectives.
'cause you can read a book.
I read Giuliani's book on leadershipand I threw it in the garbage.

(01:13:13):
I did.
I didn't want any, 'cause I havea, at work, I had a bookshelf
on all leadership books.
I didn't want anyone readingthat book because it was such a
horrible example of leadership.
Yeah.
And
so I and literally threw it away.
And this was long beforeanything political happened.
It was just a bad reading.
The books is important,but you have to apply it.

(01:13:34):
You have to, you have your experienceto, to read it and say, oh, that
would've been good to know whenI was doing something stupid.
But, but you have to act on it andyou have to see what works for you.
Not everything that you read ina book is gonna work for you.
And then you get things thathave worked for you that.
We're in the books.
You can't just read a bookand say, oh, I'm gonna do it.

(01:13:56):
Just like that.
Yeah.
You've had a great career and Bobby,we've had a great time talking.
I could talk to you all afternoon.
It's wonderful.
Is, is there something else thatI haven't asked or something that
you wanna say as far as what'simportant to the trans community?
What do you wanna sharethat I haven't asked you?
Oh,

(01:14:16):
I would say for the trans community,I would say if you're in the middle
of transition or you're thinking abouttransitioning, try to keep in mind or
try to have a sense of generosity towardsyour family and towards your friends.

(01:14:39):
And I mean that in that I think weget ourselves, and I include myself in
this, we get so caught up in our ownpain, in our own despair and our own.
Maybe joy when you start to transitionthat we don't appreciate what our family
and friends are going through becausefrom their perspective, they truly are

(01:15:03):
losing someone in their perception,and we have to have some generosity
towards them and some feelings ofempathy to what they're going through.
And I think lots of trans people,myself included, when you're in the
middle of that process of transitioningor th thinking you might transition,

(01:15:27):
we can be pretty egocentric.
And I think we need to be concerned aboutthose around us because if we want their
love and support and understanding, wehave to be able to provide them some
love and support and understanding.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Parents aren't prepared for this.
They don't get that in, in theirbaby book about how to deal with

(01:15:48):
a child who's, who's transgender.
Give people time to adjust.
Yeah,
give people time.
Yeah.
Maybe the fact that there's moreconversation about it now, even though
some of the conversation is cruel andmisinformed, there's some conversation.
So appreciate that tip.

(01:16:10):
Thank you for that.
That's perspective.
I don't have any rules.
Let's just think about this.
No, I think that's importantfor everybody to think about.
Empathy on both sides.
Yeah.
Love somebody if you care aboutthem, step outta your own perspective
and see if you can figure outwhat the other person's feeling.
Yeah,
and the other thing I would justmention, I gotta put a cheap plug

(01:16:33):
in for my podcast, Bobby onfi.com.
B-O-B-I-E, Bobby on fire.com.
It's a lot of firefighting stories.
There's nothing gender relatedother than just dealing with
gender and relationship to.
Guys dealing with a female fire chief, butlots of good leadership lessons there that

(01:16:54):
are totally not related to the LGBT stuff.
I'm up to almost 1.7 million downloads,
also
May 1st here, so I'mpretty excited about that.
Congratulations and I can seewhy I've only listened to a few
of them, but they're fascinatingConversations that you have on there
are really remarkable, so Oh, great.

(01:17:16):
Not a cheap plug at all.
I think that's a, a very importantthing for people who enjoy podcasts
and, and wanna listen to these lessons.
Very important.
And your book too, it's a bookput in a plug for your book.
Both
sides
of the, both sides of the fireline is filled with stories.

(01:17:37):
And when I was writing this, I had allthese stories that were in my podcast
or a lot of them were in the podcast.
And then I thought I shouldtell the rest of the story.
The rest of the story being my.
My life and my gender struggles.
And so I write this book and as Italked about how difficult it was

(01:17:57):
and all that, but it's, it's aninteresting process to write a book.
But the point about the book is Ithink you can find it entertaining.
I think you can find it interesting.
My son, who is a good critic, hesays it was a compelling story.
I'll give you that.

(01:18:17):
That's what someone, which crackedme up at that that's pretty
good, pretty coming from him.
It was a compelling story.
I know someone, or one person whotold me they couldn't finish the
book, they said it was too sad andthey said, oh my God, it's not sad.
It's, uh, it's uplifting.
It's, and, and so I feltbad because the first part.

(01:18:39):
The first half of the book, Ihave it divided into a life lost.
Then the second half is a lifefound and yeah, the LA Life lost.
There's some sadness in there, butyou gotta keep at it because I think
it's a great lesson for perseveranceand to work hard and to be positive.
So I hope that's what peopleare getting out of it.

(01:19:00):
You don't have to know someone who'strans to get something from the book.
No.
And there's so much aboutyour firefighting experiences
and the nine 11 experience.
Yeah.
It wasn't just about your transgenderexperience and the transgender community.
There's so much in there that wouldappeal to, I think anybody who
wants an an a compelling book, the

(01:19:22):
fire departments are using my bookfor training, for leadership training.
And so I'm very excited about that.
Uh, Seattle Fire Department was requiringit to be read for the lieutenants exam.
Um, other fire departments andfire organizations are using it.
So, yeah, there's a lot more tothe book than just some story

(01:19:43):
about some transgender person.
That's fantastic.
Congratulations.
Thanks.
And I can see where thatwould be very important.
All the stories that you tell and,and I'm not in that profession or
anywhere near that profession, thatthe stories that you tell really you're
encapsulating the leadership aspect on it.
It made you really, the Muslim andthe stories are very interesting

(01:20:06):
when you grew up in Arizona.
I grew up in Arizona, so I love thedesert and the fight that you're
talking about, and the forestand the mountains and mm-hmm.
It, it speaks to me too.
I love that.
So that part of it was attractive to me.
Great story.
So what's the next limit thatBobby scope is gonna be pushing?

(01:20:29):
Oh God.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I, I have thought aboutwriting another book, this one.
About trans stuff, God help me.
And on transitioning again in mylife, I've transitioned off my boat.
And so I sold my boat 'cause Iwas spending half the year up on,

(01:20:52):
on the Puget Sound, on my boat.
Uh, um, so I'm gonna be exploringthe West now in my little trailer.
So I wanted to do some other traveling.
So I'm gonna be traveling, um, aroundwith my little 17 foot travel trailer.
I'll take off for a fewmonths and see how it goes.
Maybe longer.

(01:21:12):
Just depends how I'm fairing.
So that's gonna be a new thing for me.
That
sounds like an exciting adventure.
I hope you've got enough room inthere for a whole stack of books to
take with you to share with people.
Yeah, I'm like Johnny AppleSeeds passing out the book.
You are planting seeds.
I'm plenty.
Please.
You never know who's gonna.

(01:21:34):
Read that book and have a,an aha moment and change the
direction their relationships.
No, that's true.
Bobby, is there anything elsethat you wanna say before I close
out this wonderful conversation?
We,
I, I will just say, I will just ask folksto think about, uh, dealing with, speaking

(01:21:57):
with kindness, speaking with love totheir family and friends and acquaintances
and people that don't know to kindness.
Boy, that's the lubricant I thinkthat keeps our society going.
And I just ask people to think about thatwhen we're dealing with other folks who
might not look like you think, like yougo to the same church, you do kindness.

(01:22:21):
That's so important.
Thank you very much for that.
Yeah.
So tell people how they can contactyou, is our contact on that.
Uh, podcast, podcast,
podcast, podcast.
Bobby on fire.com andthen my email address.
You can contact me throughbobby on fire.com or my email
address is [e-mail].

(01:22:43):
That's the S way to, I get myemails like everybody else.
My phone is attached to my air and so Iam always returning emails pretty quick.
Wonderful.
And I know they can get your bookon Amazon and I'm sure there's
a link somewhere on that websitethat they can order your book.
Yeah, they can order the bookthrough their favorite book, shop
bookstore, the publisher, Barnes andNoble, Amazon, wherever you wanna

(01:23:07):
get it.
I will encourage people to buythat book 'cause it's fascinating.
I've read it, I love it.
And I wanna get you to sign that before.
Alright, I promise I'll Okay all.
So let's thank everybody for joiningus today on another episode of
Demystifying the Transgender Journey.
It's been amazing today to betalking to Bobby Kopa, and I know
you've enjoyed this, so subscribe.

(01:23:29):
Give us a review, give us that five starrating on this so that we can push this
out so people can hear about it more.
And tell your friends.
We want people to hear this,this, and other episodes.
So I'm Lynn Murphy.
I've been your host today.
I'm the founder of Women Who Pushthe Limits and wonderful opportunity
to spread the word, spread thestory about people we don't know,

(01:23:52):
and Bobby talks about kindness.
Okay, let's spread the kindness.
So here's what I want you toremember from my point of view too.
Tell your story.
No matter who you are,you've got a story to tell.
And Bobby, I so much appreciateyou telling the story.
So find your voice, speak yourtruth, and change the world, and

(01:24:12):
we'll see you on the next episode.
Thanks everybody.
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 moreinformation on our website.
The transgender journey.com.
So until next time, staycurious and stay kind.