June 28, 2025 • 57 mins
Alison is joined this week by good friend Chris. Chris served under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, identifying then as a lesbian, and came out the other side — literally! We get into the unique perspective of being a trans man socialized as feminine, who now gets the male privilege that comes with passing. As well as the omnipresent misogyny in military life, and what being autistic taught him about masking and self-preservation. Good stuff for people on the journey to find confidence and self-acceptance!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Hello, and welcome to Sad Girls Against the Patriarchy. I'm
Alison and I'm Chris, and we are your sad humans.
Here we are together at last in the studio. It
was a trial getting here. It definitely was driving through
Los Angeles' trials and tribulations on a daily basis. And
I don't have a Va energy drink today I was Celsius,
(00:42):
So it's gonna get crazy.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I just have water. So who's to say, what will happen?
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Who's to say? But Chris, you mentioned that you had
a studio at your place before. Chris, by the way,
is my friend. We're going to be talking about a
lot of things. It'll be all in the episode description.
But I was just curious you mentioned that you use
have a home studio. What was that for?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Oh? Back in the day, I had a podcast with
my best friend Texts. We covered various pop culture shows.
Our biggest thing was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He had
never seen it before, and I've of course seen every
episode and consumed it like many, many many times and
have many thoughts and so all right, it was a
(01:25):
good time.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Well, we should have done Buffy today, But inad we're
now talking about Buffy at all. Well, you know where
I live, I actually know someone who has a podcast
specifically on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so we'll have to
point you toward that. Today we are going to be
talking about Chris's experience being in the military as a
person who was fem presenting at the time and is
(01:47):
now mask presenting, mask passing. I don't want to introduce
too much about you that you should say yourself.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
But well, to be fair, I was never actually super
fem presenting. But I willn't denying like my womanhood on
any level, and I still don't. It's just that now
I've taken lots of hormones and don't look like a
girl anymore. So yeah, but yeah, I served in the
Navy during Don't ask, don't tell, as I think the
(02:17):
best description is butch. I was very butcher. Okay, yeah,
looked like a butch dyke, But of course it wasn't.
I wasn't allowed to be a butch dyke, right.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
No one asked and you didn't tell anyone.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Except for the people I was fucking.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Great. Well, now I'm intrigued to keep listening. Now I
want to know once.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I see stories so much spice. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yes, so you are a trans man and you grew
up conditioned as a feminine person, and now our mask
passing and presenting. Is that true?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
That's mostly true. Yes, My family and society tried to
fend me up as much as possible, and I totally
know why. I mean, I was five nine in a
SI too, but in Los Angeles that's pretty much you know,
money in the bank if you're gonna work it. But
it didn't feel right or good ever, even since I
(03:10):
was like a little child, trying to be feminine and
perform femininity always felt like a suit that didn't fit
right anytime I would do it. I mean I was
wildly successful at it, don't get me wrong. I stopped
traffic when I tried to girl, But if I looked
in a mirror I would get nauseous and kind of
(03:33):
dizzy because there's somebody else looking out at me. And
she wasn't a bad person, she wasn't unattractive. I'd maybe
date her, right, but she wasn't me.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah. Yeah, that's a great way of putting it, and
that already digs into this idea that I think transphobes
people will have this idea of like, oh, like you
just weren't like an attractive such a like you just
didn't like being such and such for very trivial reasons.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah I was hot as hell.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yeah you're like, no, no, no, I I was good at
being a girl in that way. It just wasn't me,
So why would you continue that?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Exactly? It just felt fundamentally wrong. But I don't feel
that way anymore, which is great for me. I'm super
stoked about it. I just wish the world wasn't quite
so hype about it at the moment.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, you know, yeah, we don't talk about that too.
I mean we can today, but the podcast tends to
be more like reflecting on things as a little bit
of escapism. Not that honing in on patriarchy and feminism
is are ever very escapist, but unfortunately, Yeah, current times
are very unkind to our trans and queer friends. Have
(04:45):
you felt an impact of that in your life yet?
Or is that maybe? Is California buffering you?
Speaker 2 (04:51):
California different definitely buffers me. But like, the weird gender
stuff has been happening even before I transition, because remember
I looked like a bush lesbian and because I'm tall
and very very thin, probably too thin. I never really
got the whole secondary female sexual characteristics in the way
(05:12):
that most girls do. In short, I don't have tits
and ass, so if I'm wearing boy clothes, even in
the full flower of my femininity, it was hard to
tell unless you really took a look at my face.
And so I'd get called out by women in public
restrooms all the time, like you don't belong here. This
(05:33):
is the women's room, and I'd be like, ladies, I've
got an entire vagina in my pants and I need
to change my tampa. Can you back off for a minute.
We can go through this in a minute.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
I need to change my tampo. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
And I had all kinds of like, you know, sassy
retorts like if you really want to see my pussy
that much, you're gonna have to buy me a drink first,
and one that I never ended up using but thought about, like, Okay,
just because I lost my hair and breasts to cancer
doesn't make me not a woman. But I didn't want
to appropriate cancer, so think you should have. You know,
(06:08):
there were times when people were mean enough that I
almost did, but but like.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Well, but yeah, and you actually had gone through that,
So it's not like you. I think you had every
right to do that.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Well, if I get forced into the lady's room again,
that may be my my thing.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
We go too. Okay, so you were already experiencing some microaggressions,
one might say, yeah, as a feminine body.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
As a gender non conforming female bodied person.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah yeah, So what was your relationship to femininity you like,
when you were in the military, and how.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Was that received by others? Ah? Yeah, see, because in
the military we all wear uniforms, there's enforced gender divides. Right.
I couldn't buy men's uniform and wear them if I
wanted to, That wasn't allowed. I had to buy the
appropriate female uniforms. And if you know anything about clothes,
(07:09):
you know that women's clothes like they buttoned differently than
men's clothes. They're smaller and very particular ways, all that stuff,
and they're cut for curves. Well I still didn't have curves,
despite you know, all the things making me you.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Know, sure as technical girl.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah right, yes, I mean does not equal curves exactly. So,
like all of the women's uniforms fit poorly, and I
looked vaguely frumpy and that was a bummer. But more
than that, the thing that really ticked me off the
most was that the in the Navy at the time,
this was more than twenty years ago, so maybe it's
changed with the new uniforms, but at the time, our
(07:53):
rank devices were these patches that we wore on our
left arms, and the men's patch is were probably forty
percent bigger than the ones that they had for women's uniforms.
And the answer when I asked about this, because of
course I asked, was that women's sleeves are smaller, but
(08:15):
some of the ladies had some pretty big arms and
their sleeves were not smaller, but their rank device still was. Yeah,
And this just was one of the many things that
contributed to just, you know, the vague misogyny that was
ever present in the military. And for me, it was
vague because I'm kind of well, I don't take any
(08:36):
shit for men. I just don't. So like they only
got away with the vague misogyny, but from like my
fellow service women, the people I served alongside, who were
you know, socialized to take that kind of crap, they
end up getting hideously like just abused verbally every day.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yeah, So it was.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Kind of interesting. Anytime I would transfer to a new
base and go to a new shop, I would just
establish that I wasn't taken any shit, and that none
of the women around me were taken any shit either. No,
and they would come to me later on after I'd
been there for a while, and it's like it is night
and day since you came. You like the essence of
(09:21):
the shop that we work in. It's fundamentally different, and
I am so grateful, thank you so much. And it's like, yeah, chack,
no problems. I can take the splash damage. I don't
have to impress any of them. I don't give a damn.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah, and this is while you are still well. I
guess I was going to go somewhere like, do you
think the fact that you were feminine presenting enough that
people are still assigning you that role but without looking
overly feminine, like not being curvy and soft.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Well, see, here's the thing. Because it was the military,
and because we would go to sea and stuff, the
dudes that I worked with most closely stopped seeing me
as a woman at some point, and I was just
one of the guys, and I was like Jane Goodallip
just like studying the culture.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
I was like, yes, and how I feel when they
play sports at the bar where I work, I'm like, oh,
these boys, these little chims are They're so cute the
way there's hooting and hollering over there. Like it matters.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Yep, except that I was I was accepted into the tribe.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Yeah, I know, I'm an outsider for sure.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Yeah, they would. They would invite me to go to
strip clubs with them and to get sex workers, and
I'd be like, nah, I'm fine, I'm banging my roommate. Okay,
I got it for free. It's I don't need to
come out with yap.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
And yeah were you you were? You were lesbian at
the time, so they thought of you that way. Also
that maybe contributes. It's just interesting that for men to
respect women, they have to hold this very they have
to really embrace their masculine inside. Is what it's always
felt like to me. They have to be pretty tough, yeah,
and ideally not not too soft and pretty. Otherwise then
(11:03):
they get moved from I can respect you to I
just want to sleep with you.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yes, but like it's also like the type of guy,
like yes, some of them were like, oh wait, you
perform your your job really well. Because we worked in
computers and telecommunications, so there's a lot of room to
screw it up. So if I could earn their respect professionally,
I was in. But some of the other guys I
(11:30):
had to earn it through like toughness, Like when we're
doing stuff that's physically difficult, I can't give up even
a little bit because then I would lose my place
in the masculine pecking order.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
It was very.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Strange thing, for sure, and some of them definitely would
not have minded banging.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Me or oh no, I'm sure all of them would
have happily. That's a funny thing you learn about I shouldn't.
What I have learned about most of my straight male
friends is that maybe there not going to say they're
into you, but if the opportunity arose, like if one
day you were drunk and you were down, they also
wouldn't say no to you, right, And I am sure
that it's true of men who were friends with push
lesbians as well.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
An important a storm, yes, so yeah, but yeah, I
learned a lot about men and masculinity in that time
of my life, and kind of like what I wanted
to incorporate, and what I, for realsies did not want
to incorporate. Yeah too, like what a healthy, non toxic
(12:35):
masculinity was going to look like for me.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Now, that's a wonderfully unique perspective that trans men have,
is having been treated a certain way by straight men.
It's like, I don't know any transmen who have been
grown up to emulate that kind of toxic behavior because
you were subject to it for such important years of
your life too. Yeah, when we were growing up, you know,
we have spongy brain. We were teenagers. I was more
(12:59):
sensitive and a lot of ways, Like now I can
handle a lot more shit. But I feel like if
you were socialized feminine at that time of life, treated
by mencertain way, I mean, I can't think of any
better training than to lead you to be a good man.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
That's really then to have to be a woman for well,
for me forty.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Years okay, yeah, long stretch.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yeah, I've been on testosterone for it'll be four years
in two weeks, and yeah, forty years of playing girl
definitely shows you what not to do.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
I love that. Yeah, Yeah, that was somewhere in my
questions already, but it'll come up.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Oh, I'm sure we go. Yes, I've actually been trying
to think of, like how can we educate men and boys?
Oh yeah, as to hey bt doves, these things are
super creepy for the following reasons. If you don't want
to if you think of women as people, don't treat
them like that. Yeah, and well, also how to get
(14:03):
them to think of women as people.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
That's a big one.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Yeah. It really is in the way that like certain
groups can only hear things from people within their group yep.
Men can only hear things from other men yep. And
now that I'm man shaped, they can hear from me
better than they could before. And so I've it's not
(14:26):
like an outreach program, but I am doing my best
to like say, to do as is like BT doves,
that thing, we know what that means, and it means
not good things. So stop doing that because look at
the secret thing you're trying to say and stop manipulating women.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Well, I like picturing you is a yeah, outreach program
of one. You are just day to day this is
your mission. I like that. And it's also very similar
to having been defending women in the past. Maybe defending
isn't quite the right word when you were saying, you're
in the military, you're not taking a shit from anyone,
and if you're working with other women, then they're not
going to have to deal with it either. I think
that's the same gene which I definitely relate to, of
(15:06):
like having a sense of justice, of like, no, this
isn't the way things should be, and I'm going to
do my part to make sure that they are the
way they should be as much as possible, which isn't
It isn't easy. We talked a lot about how the
patriarch here it's meant to and the need for male
allyship and the danger of just saying all men deserve
to die, because that's terrorism. Unfortunately at the end of
(15:28):
the day, andrecide is very illegal and not actually ultimately productive.
And if you discount everyone, then you don't have anyone
to stand up for you and with you, for the
men who will not hear it from a woman. My
next question, which you've already got into a bit here,
is what types of misogyny did you experience while serving
(15:51):
and how do they impact your sense of identity and safety.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Well as far as man sogyny goes. I mean, it
was kind of omnipresent, so like it's harder to put
your finger on it all the time, like you were saying,
a lot of microaggressions and a lot of like the
three guys in front of you get addressed as their
their rank. Okay, oh, petty officer third class, How can
(16:21):
I help you? Oh? As a sergeant, how can I
help you? Oh? And then when you get to the
front along as how can I help you sweetheart?
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Oh no, it's like I'll harder you.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah, I help you with my hands.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah. The words don't call me sweetheart have fallen out
of my mouth more than once I got a you
a liquor store or something like hey sweety, I'll just say,
don't call me sweedy. Then just keep going from there.
And they usually are a little taken aback.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
By it, like, oh, yeah, you don't know me like that?
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Well, no, no one, no one should, No one doesn't.
I don't want anyone to call me sweetie.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
And I was a full on E five at that point.
That's a petty officer second class. It's like a sergeant
if you guys don't know Navy stuff, but it's like
fairly high ranked in the enlisted, like class especially at
the age I was so like I had a position
of responsibility and folks talked down to me. There's also
(17:13):
like there was just the pervasive if you're a woman,
then you're supposed to be sexually on the menu somehow,
and I just flat out wasn't. So I got a
reputation as quote unquote, Ice Queen had a compliment, Yeah,
a couple of my couple of my places I was stationed.
(17:37):
But I really didn't have any awareness of that because
I never knew when dudes were hitting on me because
I just didn't think of that as a thing. Like
I didn't one and didn't think of myself as attractive
to men because I didn't have distant ass and that's
what we're taught is like you know, the goal.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
That's a lie though, men like all bodies all that time,
much much to my dismay. Unfortunately, yeah, I found that out.
I can't keep them off.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah yeah, so like, yeah, I would get a reputation
for not being you know, not playing the game like
other girls. I don't know which other girls, but like
you know, apparently that's what they say. And so like
eventually I got stationed at a remote base where there
were you know, like ten men for every one woman,
(18:28):
and at that point, the pressure to be on the
menu is kind of like reaching its peak. So I
would go on platonic dates with various Marines and tell
them that I was very religious and that after the
military I was going to become a nun. Nice because
(18:51):
some of my family members were actually sending me like
convent brochures trying to push me that way because they
figured out that I was a lesbian and wanted to
keep me from hell.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Better to be a nun than to be a lesbian exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
And yeah, boyster yourself away from the world rather than
face the horrors of lesbianism, hiding you from the devil. Yeah,
pretty much. So. Yeah, and dues actually like accepted that because,
I mean, we were all so young. But there was
one guy who decided that he was in love with
me and started stalking me, which is a bad thing
(19:26):
any time, but is especially bad when you live on
a base that you're not allowed to leave. Yeah, and
they also work in the same division as you, or
nowhere to run. He lived like one floor above me,
and the barracks starts sending me creepy letters. Eventually I
had to get the command involved. They didn't do anything officially,
(19:49):
they didn't do anything that would affect his career, but
I heard that the chiefs took him aside and put
the fear of God into him, which was very effective. Yeah,
so he stopped like stalking me overtly. That was great.
But twelve years later he did find me, thank god.
(20:11):
He found me on Facebook and apologized profusely and admitted
that all the things I said about him had been correct.
He actually was secretly bisexual, etc. But I thanked him
for letting me know and asked him to never contact
me again. Yeah, but yeah, it was just a terrifying time.
(20:36):
And of course, like you know, aside from that, there's
all the ambient things in any male dominated field where
if you are a vagina have her on any level,
you have to perform twice as well as your male
counterparts in order to get the same amount of recognition.
So I bust my ass and do things that none
(21:00):
of the boys could do, and they would get a
NAM a Navy Achievement Medal for like showing up every day.
It's like, what do I gotta do, guys?
Speaker 1 (21:10):
And the answer was be a man, and you were like, well, okay, hold,
well fine, it forced me into it if.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
That's what you really want.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yeah. Yeah, I don't think people know much about the Navy.
I mean, I just watched The Last Ship, which is
completely fictionalized, and it was just a network television show.
That's everything that I know about the military. So these
insights are helpful in terms of the details of how
it works.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
But yeah, that kind of experience being stocked like that,
that's just not something Sismon can ever conceptualize. I know
that stocking does happen on both sides all around. We
reviewed Babby Reindeer. It's Baby Reindeer. I called it Babby
Reindeer because it was funny, but the show is not
actually called Babby Reindeer, which is great. But there is
just a different element when you're physically worried about your safe,
(22:00):
when you're concerned that someone could actually hurt you at anytime.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
And it's just kind of like the mild stalking that
happens constantly when you leave the house. I've got analogy
for it. I'm going to share it with you now,
whether you like it or not, let's do it. So
I was telling my guy friends, like Okay, so you
want to know why women are so standoffish in public. Imagine,
every time you leave your house, you have ten thousand
(22:28):
dollars in one hundred dollars bills safety pinned all over
your body. You're in like just a slip of a
wet What are those things? A wetsuit, not like a wetsuit,
but like it fits like a wetsuit, but it's a
body stocking type.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Okay, sure, You've got.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Ten thousand dollars one hundred dollar bills clipped all over
to you. And every time you leave the house, everyone's
watching you and lusting after all of that.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
They can see the money.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
I see, they can see the money, and people are
gonna try and snatch one hundred dollars off you anytime
you're not looking, they're gonna touch you. And they're just
looking for a way to get you in an alley
and take all that money. And that is what it's
like to walk around every day. And the dude, every
time I say this analogy, someoneays like, well, why don't
(23:17):
you just not do that? I'm like, because I can't
leave the house without my vagina right not exist? Yeah,
And they just and I just watch as the realization
dawns on them that there is nothing, nothing women can
do to exist in public life and not be a
target on some level. Yeah, and that's just that's just
(23:41):
the reality they have. Like dudes legitimately have no idea
that it is impossible to not be a target without
presenting masculine mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
And it'll be a look, it'll be a comment. It
doesn't have to be someone physically touching you. Because that's
the thing I think people says. Men also understand is like, well,
it's not like you're getting like assaulted everywhere you go,
but it's still uncomfortable. I still don't want someone to
look me up and down or try to invite me
to get in their car or initiate a conversation while
I'm pumping gas like that is not what I'm here
(24:13):
to do. I am not. I always have to be
a little on guard and it gives me a very
fuck off energy when I'm out alone in public and
I'm not sorry about it, and it's never going to
change and there's a reason for it.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Exactly safe too, that's the thing I tell to do.
It's it's like you'd be standoffish too or if you
were constantly hunted.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Yeah, yes, that's a good word for it, and I
know that it's it's You could wear a burka too,
and men would still sexualize your scent or your eyes.
Oh yeah, it would still be so many elements of objectification,
even if they literally cannot see your body in the
slightest Yep, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
I wish just more men would fuck each other. Oh,
just like, give women a break.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
We do, I mean we yes, we do love a
gay man more than a straight man, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
They don't even have to be gay. I just want
them to take that sexual energy and point it out
each other instead and see how they like it.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Mmm, there we go. That makes sense.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
That might teach them a thing too.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Okay, what does it mean now that you can pass
as a man in a space where you would once
have been treated as a woman?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Oh my god. Okay, So when I talk about my
transition and I talk about the hardest things to get
used to, the biggest hardest thing to get used to
is the privilege.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Hmmm, I can't see it, Like, I'm like, what do
you mean? I don't know that? Wasn't that?
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Like? And tell me more I had no idea, y'all.
It's like playing on easy moment.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
I got sound fun. Actually no challenge.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Well, there's still like the challenges of you know, the
horrors of capitalism. Like, Okay, I go out and people
are nice to me. When I was an androgynist, but
which lesbian thing? People were not nice to me. They've
spent the first like time getting to interact with me
trying to figure out what are you. You know, that's
(26:10):
very important because you know, they have to decide what
you are so they know how to treat you, which
is so fucked up. But the privilege is immense. Like
everyone's nice to me. People don't question me when I
say something. They don't check to make sure that that's
really real in the way that they did before. At work,
(26:32):
in meetings, I speak and no one contradicts me or
interrupts me, or tells me that I'm wrong, or just
ignores my ideas. They didn't take my ideas and discuss them.
It was actually super disgusting as my voice was dropping
to see how people were gradually listening to me more. Yeah,
(26:57):
the lower my voice gets, the more like say I
have in stuff. To the point where I was having
I was able to have opinions and votes on things
in my job that I honestly should not have. I mean,
I was right a lot because I made sure I
was because again, being socialized as a woman, you have
(27:17):
to make sure you're on your shit all the time
because the moment you're wrong, they will you're wrong forever.
But yeah, like suddenly I'm at authority figure in the
room and I work remote guys, Like we're a tech company.
We don't even use cameras, so I am just a voice.
(27:40):
And as my voice has dropped, suddenly I'm getting raises,
I'm getting promotions. It's stupid, y'all. It is hardest thing
to get used to was the privilege. But other than that,
it's been amazing. There's physical changes and stuff. The biggest
physical indicator of my masculinity is probably my receding hairline,
(28:05):
because that is a thing. I got this kick ass
jaw thing going on, Like I've got a jawline for
the gods now. But the receding hairline definitely flags mail
for people. And at first I was real bummed because
I had such cute hair. You just buzzed in that works, Yeah,
I know, I was so cute. But now now I'm
(28:27):
I'm masculine and powerful. It is like I can walk
around at night with my earbuds in and what works
with me? Yeah, yeah, I want to hold my privilege
like an umbrella over all. Y'all ladies, I want to
bring you with me into this world. It's so nice.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yeah, I'm so used to it the way it is,
though I don't I get what you mean, Like I
wouldn't even know what to do with that. But also
it's become such a fundamental part of who I am
of like I will speak louder. I was trying to
interjecting a conversation a place where I work. I'm talking
to employees, and this man who does not work there
but thinks he's very important, was dominating the conversation, even
(29:10):
though his contributions really don't have value. I was with
me and other women, they were all listening to him,
and instead of shouting, why the fuck are you listening
to this person he literally doesn't work here, instead I
just interrupted him to say, like, oh, I'm sorry to interrupt,
but I just want to make sure I get this
point out there, which contradicted his and as I was speaking,
he started talking over me, and oh, I felt so
(29:32):
good after literally gave me a little rash. Later, I said,
don't interrupt me, but just kept going and he was
like huh and yeah. One of the other ladies was like,
let let her finish, let her speak, and I made
my point. But it's so what you're saying of I'm
always fact checking things on Google. On the podcast, it's
a little more playful. We had someone right in to say,
(29:53):
you say you don't know things a lot. I'm like, yeah,
but it's because we're researching and we're learning. But in person,
I definitely am always fact checking. And even now there's
another little conflict of I'm trying to replace a part
for a door that I need to make sure it
meets fire code, and I'm having some people saying like, well,
are you sure that it's like what you know? I'm like,
I don't really know fire code, but I'm pretty damn sure.
(30:14):
I'm going to call the fire department and they're gonna
give me the answer, and then I'm gonna bring it
to you, because yeah, you're not just believed just because
you are sure that something is right. You need to
really prove it to be taken seriously. Yeah, I don't
even know what what life would be like if that
wasn't the case. I can't even imagine.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
It's just like I said, it's like playing on easy mode.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
What would I do with all that time? Probably play
more actual video games.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Where you don't have to second guess yourself. Yeah, that's why.
That's why I've beaten Tears of the Kingdom.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Ah, that's it. That's female privilege.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Because I've just got all this time now.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Yeah, No, that's it's very interesting to hear that from
someone who's experienced both sides of things, because it's hard
to relate unless you have been in that unique position
side of it.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Well, I'll tell you this one story and then we
can move on to the next question. Yeah, when my
voice was in transition and I was having that teenage
boy kind of era because I was doing phone work.
I was talking to a customer one day and I
know said, thank you for calling name of company. This
is Chris, how can I help you. It was an
(31:23):
older gentleman, you could tell, and you know he was
of a Caucasian persuasion. You could tell by his voice
and his general rhythm and demeanor. Therein and he's like,
boy Chris or girl Chris. And I paused and let
my self breathe for a moment, and then I said,
computer technicians, how can I help you?
Speaker 1 (31:44):
That's good?
Speaker 2 (31:45):
And I heard his brain, the gears grinding in his brain,
of him like not knowing what to do, but then
realizing that whatever's in my pants has absolutely nothing to
do with whether or not I can make his software work.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Well, there's already joke in there, but I know what
you mean.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
I'm not talking about hardware, yes, yes, yes, now, very
like after a couple seconds, he launched into what his
issue was and I did help him and we had
a fantastic time. But I could tell like I changed
the thing in him right then he suddenly realized that
knowing if I was a boy or a girl had
(32:22):
absolutely no bearing on that situation whatsoever. Yeah, and maybe,
just maybe he'll wonder how many other interactions in his
life are just like that, because hint, everyone, it's most
of them, right.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
I mean, women are being conscious of the gender of
the person they're talking to for safety reasons, but not
for competence reasons. I don't. I mean, I have the
opposite thing, now, where if a man's talking to me.
Now I question it more, and I'm like, I'm not
even sure you know what you're talking about. But that's
because I've swung herd in the other.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Direction and because they've proved so unreliable in the past.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Yeah, Okay, did time the military influenced how you came
to understand your gender or did it suppress it?
Speaker 2 (33:07):
I honestly don't think it did either thing. Because here's
a hint about how sheltered I was. I didn't find
out that transgender was a thing until well after I
left the military, So like I knew that I wanted
to present more masculine because that was more comfortable to me.
(33:28):
But I went straight from high school into the military,
and I was again very very sheltered, kind of like
a high control family. And so yeah, I just didn't
know any of that was an option. I didn't even
know what gay was until way after I should have,
Like I thought, well, in the eighties and nineties, they
(33:49):
were talking about homosexuals on the news a lot, but
I was a little kid, so I thought they were
saying homeless and the oh, and I was very concerned
about why are they telling homeless people they can't have sex.
It's like the only free, fun thing they can do.
Why are you so mad about that? And then when
I clued in that like gay existed and that's what
(34:12):
they were talking about. And then like pretty much immediately
afterward figured out that I was that thing. It's like,
oh shit, they're talking about me. And then I did
the military and hit my homosexual with my lesbianism. And
then I got out of the military and went to
college and found out that hey, girls could be boys
(34:32):
if like that's how they feel. And when I found out,
I'm like, I should do this right now. I was
twenty five. There's so much gatekeeping and it's so hard,
and then you have to like not only know exactly
what you want, but you have to be able to
express that to multiple medical professionals and advocate for yourself.
(34:52):
And I didn't have any of that in my back
pocket at the time. So essentially, being in the military
didn't like affirm my femininity or my masculinity. It gave
me a uniform to put on every day so that
I didn't have to look like other girls, right, I
didn't have to try to fit into the female hierarchies
(35:14):
that are in there that are kind of around the
things that I always had a lot of trouble interacting
with because all the things that all the quote unquote
other girls did and enjoyed, I didn't understand why, Like
why is this fun? Why is putting on makeup fun?
(35:34):
Why is buying shoo's fun? Why? Why are pretty dresses fun?
They always look stupid on me. I feel like a
boy in a dress, regardless of how good I look
in it. So like it was just like a safe
little cult. Military as a cult, it fits all the markers,
a safe little cult where I could perform a minimum
(35:57):
amount of femininity and still get credit for it.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Right, this will makes sense in this setting.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yeah, yeah, And so it was a place to hide
from femininity.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
I think, why do they have the uniforms different for
men and women in the military. That just seems like
such an outdated idea. Why were they different at all?
Speaker 2 (36:19):
They're way less different these days. They've gone to different
kinds of uniforms, and they are a large The men's
and women's uniforms are largely the same. Now you do
for women that did develop appropriately, you do have to
cut certain garments different in order to accommodate an ass.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Sure, appropriately isn't the right word for that. Who did
develop crevaciously. One might say it's not inappropriate to not
have curves.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Oh mine, mine, mine didn't develop for various other reasons.
That is not the podcast for.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
I see, I see, Okay, y No, I didn't mean
that as a slam toward any flat chest soak women out.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
There, All y'all ladies out there who didn't get tastes
an ass, I feel you. Yeah, I was that girl.
The struggle is real.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Okay, Yeah, I just I was taught something I think
a lot of women are taught. When you're young and
you want, you're told, for number one, that like boys
are supposed to like you, Like you're supposed to be
desirable to men. That's part of it, like being a
pretty girl and strumming and all of that. And yeah,
part of that is looking a certain way, and part
of that is being curvy but not too curvy. And
then I got older and realize like, oh no, like
(37:26):
men will have sex with a chicken sandwich, like they
won't find anything attractive. Yeah, and there are different preferences.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
They'll stick it in a puddle of mud if.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Yeah, so it actually doesn't make me feel good about
myself to be attractive to men because it's like it
means less than nothing. So there's that element of it.
But yes, we've talked about body neutrality on the podcast
a lot instead of body positivity, and that like, you
don't have to love your body. It doesn't have to
be beautiful. It just sort it serves you really well.
It wakes you up in the morning, and it lets
(37:57):
you go to yoga and your eyelashes catch your sweats
so they don't get an Like, there's so many wonderful
things about bodies beyond it's just gorgeous.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Yeah, and there's something to be said for feeling correct
in your body or feeling right or comfortable in your body.
Before I started hormones, I never felt right in my body.
It just didn't. It was another thing that didn't fit.
And I couldn't stand mirrors, no matter how pretty I was,
I just couldn't stand them because it was a reminder
(38:26):
that it's it's not right now. I freaking love the mirror. Yeah,
I want to put yours up everywhere. I'm so like,
I look in the mirror and I see someone I
Recognizeay and it's so nice.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
I know. I love your confidence. Also about your appearance too,
even in that time, you're not like, oh I was
under Ne're like no, no, I was hot, it just
wasn't like the right version of hot, Like, oh, that's great,
I think. I mean, I'll walk around with that.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
I tried to like think of myself as ugly, and
it didn't work because objectively I'm hot.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah. Yeah, we can be the wrong kind of hot
and then become the right kind of hot yep, for ourselves.
Do you mention talking about autism as well? Oh yeah,
let's take a break first. Let's go into the overlap
(39:30):
between experiences of gender and an experience of being an
autistic person.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
All right, Well, I only found out that I was
autistic maybe two years ago.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
So after I had started my transition and I asked
my therapist once I figured it out, So I thought
that maybe I could be autistic because I've been meeting
a lot of people who have been diagnosed at autistic.
They've been talking about their experiences and I've been going, hmmm, me,
what do So I went online and I took every
(40:03):
autism test that there is on the internet. None of
them were subtle. So my question for you, dear therapist,
who is a lovely Jewish woman in West Hollywood, how
long into our first session did it take for you
to figure out that I was autistic? And she came
back with, you know, oh, I'm not a diagnostician, etcetera, etcetera,
(40:25):
all these things. I'm like, so pretty much right away,
and she's like.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Yeah, she didn't mention it.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
She mentioned several times that like it was something to
think about. But I didn't know how to think about
autism because when you read the diagnostic criteria, it doesn't resonate.
They put in in terms that are not things that
I guess a human autistic ring can connect it. We
don't know how the tips do it. Tips is my
word for neurotypical. Sorry if that's offensive, but now we
(40:53):
got to have something well.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
It was also written with boys in mind early day,
that's true. It was they were testing in boys. The
diagnostic criteria are looking at symptoms that typically present boys.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
And I was definitely taught from an early age that
young ladies sit still.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Oh yeah, and they.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
At least appear to pay attention, regardless if they are
or not. And they you know, all the things that
little girls are taught.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Yeah, they're better at masking. And also we learned an
episode on I Have Something About on mental health and
one of our early ones that girls are also more
likely to have helpful friendships as they're very young and
with girls who are kind of helping them get through
challenging social situations, just in the way that women are
encouraged to have strong platonic relationships which boys are not.
So even from an early age, like that can help
(41:40):
someone who is no neurotypical past because they might have
some girls around them who are like kind of just
encouraging them in the right directions that the boys might
not have.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Yes, they can. I was not so lusty.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
Okay, it's a bummer, all right.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
I was a weird kid, so much for that. Yeah,
I was a weird kid who was being raised side ways,
Like I was just not getting any kind of healthy
socialization and I didn't know how to human at that
age bracket. So I had books instead of friends and
that was fine. I made it through, but like growing up,
(42:16):
I just didn't straight up didn't understand how to kid either,
not only how to girl. So it was like just
a it was double hard. It was just double hard,
and I didn't know. None of it came naturally. But like,
if I could have just been a boy, that stuff
was way easier. Boys are held to weigh lower expectations
(42:37):
as far as things go, and boy like social structures,
particularly at that age, while still complex, were way easier
for me to like parse and understand. But like the
boys didn't want anything to do with me either, so
I just didn't have friends. But like when I'd go
to visit family, I have a large Catholic family, so
I've got a bajillion cousins and I could hang out
(43:00):
with them because they had to accept me, and it's like, yeah,
no choice. Crystal's just a little weird. That was my
birth name. Don't use it against me, but Crystal's kind
of weird. But she comes up with the fun games
and like teach us us how to cheat at monopoly,
So this is great, this is fine, we love this.
And then growing up, I can I've spent a couple
(43:22):
of years just kind of deconstructing my entire life through
the lens of autism, so like I can see all
the places where I had to think about how I
presented all the time, and there is I'm going to
backtrack a little bit. There is a huge overlap between
people who figure out they're transgendered and autism, And I
(43:43):
think it's because autistic people have to think about how
we present in the world so much and build our
masks so that we can be socially acceptable, right, because
the things that come naturally to us of not making
super amounts of eye contact, being sensitive to different sensations
and noises, and not being able to cope in the
(44:06):
same way with certain stimuli, like that makes you think
about the face you're making and the posture you're having,
and the way you're controlling your voice when you talk
to people all the time, just constantly, and when you
have to think about that all the time, you definitely
(44:28):
think about like, wouldn't it just be easier if I
was just in this other category that felt better to me?
Wouldn't that be nice? And then again when I grew
up and eventually found out that that was on the
table on some level, if I was just brave enough
and had enough resources and enough support, because it's not
(44:49):
just your internal bravery. You gotta have support or it's
just not gonna happen. Oh yeah, suddenly it all made sense, right, Like, oh,
there is a way that it would be a lot
easier for me to exist in this world without having
to have this fake mask on all the time, even
at home with the people that I love, Like, if
(45:12):
I could just take the mask off sometimes, it would
be so much easier to live. Yeah, because it's exhausting,
it really is.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
It sounds like it. My own things are tiring too,
But the stacked layers thereof almost sounds like you're not
quite just aligned with yourself until very recently of like
now you can understand these different parts of yourself and
help them come together to make a whole. Like it's
kind of fractured, yeah, like having to present all of
(45:42):
the time.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
And it's hard for the people who love me too,
because again I'm going to use the word deconstructed, as
I'm constructing who I was and who I was like
trying to be and coming out as just me, not
that I'm not great and a good person and caring
(46:07):
and loving and funny and fun and all the things
that I was before. But I'm doing that in a
different way. And so the people who loved me before
they still love me, but they have to contend with
the fact that I was lying about who I was
for my entire life in order to please them, and
(46:28):
they miss that person. They missed that person because she
was easy. They knew where they stood with her. And
I have like boundaries and opinions and thoughts and just
a confidence that I didn't have before. So I'm not
as easy, but they're finding out they like me better
(46:49):
even though I'm not as easy.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
Don't be easy, No one be easy. If everyone likes
you universally or probably not taking care of yourself, yeah,
you're probably not setting boundaries and being a people pleaser.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
Yeah, if everybody likes you, Molly, you in danger girl.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
If that's a reference to anything, I don't know it.
That's from ghost Okay, I've seen it, but it's been
a while. My own big phs familiar with the story. Okay,
So it sounds like it's been a really very healthy,
positive journey of self reflection and introspection and in in
neurodivergence and gender identity can both fall under this category
(47:25):
of turning inward and making sense of yourself. So if
you are able to do it in one area, maybe
then those skills can transfer people who are not homophobic,
often have a positive bias for queer people, where it's like, oh,
like I love especially like gay men. You know, it
could almost become this like tokenization or fetishization with it.
(47:45):
But I think a part of it is that people
who are queer have had to go through a learning
process about themselves. There's a necessary self reflection there to
come out the other side and say, I've learned this
about myself and this is who I am, and that
forces you to grow. It's nice being around people who
have grown well.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Yeah, and when you choose to live as yourself as
a queer person, you are making a sacrifice because there
are doors that will just be closed to you forever.
And if you are willing to sacrifice those parts of
your life in order to be who you are, then
(48:24):
you are going to be who you are so much
more powerfully than any other time. And people, really, people
who aren't bigoted against that thing that you are, will
respond very positively because it's such a brilliant light in
the world to be authentically yourself.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
I absolutely agree. Yes, and similar but different with new divergence.
Accepting that, working on that, treating that for yourself. I mean,
that's something that needs to be kind of managed to.
I would say a little bit more than your gender identity.
I shouldn't totally lumping together, but.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
Well, they're kind of two sides of the same coin,
because how we present in contemporary America is still very gendered.
I mean, regardless of how much things have changed in
the last say, seventy years, it's still a very gendered society.
(49:23):
And the first thing people decide about you when they
look at you is slotting you into either the pink
box or the blue box. Yes, and if you live
in the purple box of they don't. They can't tell
what the hell you're your you got going on in
your pants, because for some reason that matters. People are
vaguely hostile a lot of the time, whether they mean
(49:44):
to or not. It's fascinating, honestly, she's that like fear
of the unknown. Yeah, yes, that's maybe. I think it's
the fear of their own sexuality, because I think androgyny
is inherently attractive, and if you don't know what the
person is, you don't know if you're being gay right now.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
It's just sorry, it's just such a funny thing to
be afraid of. Oh no, I.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
Had a gay urge. Yeah, what would my priest and
mother say? Oh god, ah, god, my life a lie.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
Religion is to blame for so much of it, I
would say, there's so many aspects to it.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
Religion is definitely a big one.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
What is something you really don't miss about military life?
Speaker 2 (50:42):
Ooh, the constant and pervasive fear m.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
That's a dark answer, but very real. Got it? Okay?
Speaker 2 (50:49):
Well, fear again living as a lesbian underdone? Ask don't
tell I knew that at any point someone could accuse
me of homosexuality and I could be given a dishonorable discharge.
And you may not think that that's a big deal
until you find out that you cannot get hired with
a dishonorable discharge, Like you can't even go to McDonald's
(51:12):
and get hired with a dishonorable discharge. You know why,
because there is a McDonald's on every single military base,
every single one, every single one, even in the remote
places where there shouldn't be one, there's a fricking McDonald's there.
And part of their deal with the military to have
McDonald's on every single military base is that you don't
(51:35):
hire people with dishonorable discharge, and that permeates through anyone
who may want to have a contract with the government
at any point. So it's like being an ex con.
It can't get.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
Work, even just like civilian jobs. You're saying, going out
in the world.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
Even in civilian record, it will show up on a
background check, it will show it. And think about it.
Think about trying to hire people and do you see
dishonorable discharge on their record? Ye, if you don't know
what that dishonorable discharge is for, and if you ask them,
you know, you don't know if they're lying, okay, because
it's like being threatened with that black mark on your
(52:13):
permanent record in school. And at the time you thought
that's going to follow me my whole life. Well, if
it's the military, it honestly does follow you your whole life.
So I was just like in constant fear that I
would get found.
Speaker 1 (52:26):
Out that's wild. Yeah, I would hate having that on
my record. I like to do a good job at work,
and if I knew I'd been dishonorably discharged from something,
it would just be upsetting. Even if it's not your
fault and you did nothing wrong. Oh, yeah, do feel good.
Speaker 2 (52:40):
And I was like fully, like hardcore believed in what
we were doing at the time, and that being in
the military was an honorable thing. And not saying that
it's not or anything. I do have. I have opinions
about the current state of America. We're not going to
talk about them today.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
It's the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
Yeah. Yeah, but I was, I was all in and
that was going to be my career. Yeah. Just the
fear and like there were people who let me know
in subtle ways that if they found out that I
was the gay, that I might just disappear one night
(53:23):
when we were at sea, and.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
You mean that you had the gay, Yeah, that I
had distracted the gay.
Speaker 2 (53:28):
I had contracted the gay. Yeah, I might give it
to their girlfriend or something, and maybe if she's lucky, honestly,
if she's lucky. Yeah, but yeah, they let me know that,
you know, I might just fall overboard one night and
no one would ever find out. And that's not terrifying
or anything. So I was very lucky, and that the
(53:51):
guys that I've worked with closely in my shop, there
was probably like a dozen of us. They knew and
honestly appreciated it. Because it meant I wasn't going to
fight when they wanted like a bikini calendar on the wall,
It's like, yeah, she's.
Speaker 1 (54:06):
Hot, Chris is down, Chris is down to be a
boy with.
Speaker 2 (54:11):
Us pretty much. Yeah, And like it was like a
teamwork mentality, Like if they heard someone talking shit about me,
it'd be like, don't talk shit about our girl. Like
she's ours, she does her job, back off, Yeah, she's
not causing problems. Why you causing problems?
Speaker 1 (54:30):
Looking out for you a bit? Well, this will be
my last question before we wrap it up. As someone
who has lived across gender roles, has lived in rigid
systems and with neuro divergence, how do you hold space
for your full self? We kind of already yeah, went there, but.
Speaker 2 (54:50):
Well, see that's the thing. I'm still discovering my full self, like,
and I don't expect to ever be done with that.
So as far as like how do I hold space
for it? I just I allow myself to be interested
in whatever it is that I find interesting. And I
have stopped trying to say no to things because they're
(55:16):
in the wrong box for me. So if I like
a garment and it's for men, sweet, if I like
a garment and it's for women. I'll probably have to
get it resized because I'm a different shape now, But like,
I'm wearing girls jeans right now because my ass looks
fantastic in them, and don't give a fuck. It doesn't
make me less masculine, it doesn't make me anything. It's
(55:40):
just a garment on my body. Just because it was
in the women's section doesn't mean it's for women's. It's
for me, yes, And I just try to apply that
for everything in my life. Nothing is nothing is off
the table for me to enjoy because of the boxes
(56:01):
society has tried to put that thing and me in
and it's really been very freeing. And I hope everyone
gets to do that someday. If you want the pink
sprinkles on your cupcake, bro have them. It's so good.
It feels so good to just have the things you like.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
There's no rules aim and to all of that. I
am misandrist memes on Instagram and we are sad Gap
dot Podcast. That was it. You even got the tone right? Nice,
really nice. You can email us at Sadgap dot Podcast
at gmail dot com, visit our website sad Gap Dash
podcast dot com. Follow us on Patreon, ad free episodes,
(56:40):
a Patreon dot com slash sad gap whose discord. There's
a reddit. It's all linked on our Instagram link tree.
Thank you so much for being here, Chris. This is wonderful.
I really hope if anyone listening, anyone who is going
through their own gender identity questioning moments here, thinking about
during the military, having experiences as a put lesbian. I
feel like there is a lot here too dig into
(57:00):
in terms of getting comfortable with yourself and living with
these multiple facets, living with all these different sides of
ourself and learning to love it. And we're stronger together.
We'll see you next time.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
Bye bye bye,
Hello, and welcome to Sad Girls Against the Patriarchy. I'm
Alison and I'm Chris, and we are your sad humans.
Here we are together at last in the studio. It
was a trial getting here. It definitely was driving through
Los Angeles' trials and tribulations on a daily basis. And
I don't have a Va energy drink today I was Celsius,
(00:42):
So it's gonna get crazy.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I just have water. So who's to say, what will happen?
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Who's to say? But Chris, you mentioned that you had
a studio at your place before. Chris, by the way,
is my friend. We're going to be talking about a
lot of things. It'll be all in the episode description.
But I was just curious you mentioned that you use
have a home studio. What was that for?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Oh? Back in the day, I had a podcast with
my best friend Texts. We covered various pop culture shows.
Our biggest thing was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He had
never seen it before, and I've of course seen every
episode and consumed it like many, many many times and
have many thoughts and so all right, it was a
(01:25):
good time.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Well, we should have done Buffy today, But inad we're
now talking about Buffy at all. Well, you know where
I live, I actually know someone who has a podcast
specifically on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so we'll have to
point you toward that. Today we are going to be
talking about Chris's experience being in the military as a
person who was fem presenting at the time and is
(01:47):
now mask presenting, mask passing. I don't want to introduce
too much about you that you should say yourself.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
But well, to be fair, I was never actually super
fem presenting. But I willn't denying like my womanhood on
any level, and I still don't. It's just that now
I've taken lots of hormones and don't look like a
girl anymore. So yeah, but yeah, I served in the
Navy during Don't ask, don't tell, as I think the
(02:17):
best description is butch. I was very butcher. Okay, yeah,
looked like a butch dyke, But of course it wasn't.
I wasn't allowed to be a butch dyke, right.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
No one asked and you didn't tell anyone.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Except for the people I was fucking.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Great. Well, now I'm intrigued to keep listening. Now I
want to know once.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I see stories so much spice. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yes, so you are a trans man and you grew
up conditioned as a feminine person, and now our mask
passing and presenting. Is that true?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
That's mostly true. Yes, My family and society tried to
fend me up as much as possible, and I totally
know why. I mean, I was five nine in a
SI too, but in Los Angeles that's pretty much you know,
money in the bank if you're gonna work it. But
it didn't feel right or good ever, even since I
(03:10):
was like a little child, trying to be feminine and
perform femininity always felt like a suit that didn't fit
right anytime I would do it. I mean I was
wildly successful at it, don't get me wrong. I stopped
traffic when I tried to girl, But if I looked
in a mirror I would get nauseous and kind of
(03:33):
dizzy because there's somebody else looking out at me. And
she wasn't a bad person, she wasn't unattractive. I'd maybe
date her, right, but she wasn't me.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah. Yeah, that's a great way of putting it, and
that already digs into this idea that I think transphobes
people will have this idea of like, oh, like you
just weren't like an attractive such a like you just
didn't like being such and such for very trivial reasons.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah I was hot as hell.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yeah you're like, no, no, no, I I was good at
being a girl in that way. It just wasn't me,
So why would you continue that?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Exactly? It just felt fundamentally wrong. But I don't feel
that way anymore, which is great for me. I'm super
stoked about it. I just wish the world wasn't quite
so hype about it at the moment.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, you know, yeah, we don't talk about that too.
I mean we can today, but the podcast tends to
be more like reflecting on things as a little bit
of escapism. Not that honing in on patriarchy and feminism
is are ever very escapist, but unfortunately, Yeah, current times
are very unkind to our trans and queer friends. Have
(04:45):
you felt an impact of that in your life yet?
Or is that maybe? Is California buffering you?
Speaker 2 (04:51):
California different definitely buffers me. But like, the weird gender
stuff has been happening even before I transition, because remember
I looked like a bush lesbian and because I'm tall
and very very thin, probably too thin. I never really
got the whole secondary female sexual characteristics in the way
(05:12):
that most girls do. In short, I don't have tits
and ass, so if I'm wearing boy clothes, even in
the full flower of my femininity, it was hard to
tell unless you really took a look at my face.
And so I'd get called out by women in public
restrooms all the time, like you don't belong here. This
(05:33):
is the women's room, and I'd be like, ladies, I've
got an entire vagina in my pants and I need
to change my tampa. Can you back off for a minute.
We can go through this in a minute.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
I need to change my tampo. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
And I had all kinds of like, you know, sassy
retorts like if you really want to see my pussy
that much, you're gonna have to buy me a drink first,
and one that I never ended up using but thought about, like, Okay,
just because I lost my hair and breasts to cancer
doesn't make me not a woman. But I didn't want
to appropriate cancer, so think you should have. You know,
(06:08):
there were times when people were mean enough that I
almost did, but but like.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Well, but yeah, and you actually had gone through that,
So it's not like you. I think you had every
right to do that.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Well, if I get forced into the lady's room again,
that may be my my thing.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
We go too. Okay, so you were already experiencing some microaggressions,
one might say, yeah, as a feminine body.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
As a gender non conforming female bodied person.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah yeah, So what was your relationship to femininity you like,
when you were in the military, and how.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Was that received by others? Ah? Yeah, see, because in
the military we all wear uniforms, there's enforced gender divides. Right.
I couldn't buy men's uniform and wear them if I
wanted to, That wasn't allowed. I had to buy the
appropriate female uniforms. And if you know anything about clothes,
(07:09):
you know that women's clothes like they buttoned differently than
men's clothes. They're smaller and very particular ways, all that stuff,
and they're cut for curves. Well I still didn't have curves,
despite you know, all the things making me you.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Know, sure as technical girl.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah right, yes, I mean does not equal curves exactly. So,
like all of the women's uniforms fit poorly, and I
looked vaguely frumpy and that was a bummer. But more
than that, the thing that really ticked me off the
most was that the in the Navy at the time,
this was more than twenty years ago, so maybe it's
changed with the new uniforms, but at the time, our
(07:53):
rank devices were these patches that we wore on our
left arms, and the men's patch is were probably forty
percent bigger than the ones that they had for women's uniforms.
And the answer when I asked about this, because of
course I asked, was that women's sleeves are smaller, but
(08:15):
some of the ladies had some pretty big arms and
their sleeves were not smaller, but their rank device still was. Yeah,
And this just was one of the many things that
contributed to just, you know, the vague misogyny that was
ever present in the military. And for me, it was
vague because I'm kind of well, I don't take any
(08:36):
shit for men. I just don't. So like they only
got away with the vague misogyny, but from like my
fellow service women, the people I served alongside, who were
you know, socialized to take that kind of crap, they
end up getting hideously like just abused verbally every day.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yeah, So it was.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Kind of interesting. Anytime I would transfer to a new
base and go to a new shop, I would just
establish that I wasn't taken any shit, and that none
of the women around me were taken any shit either. No,
and they would come to me later on after I'd
been there for a while, and it's like it is night
and day since you came. You like the essence of
(09:21):
the shop that we work in. It's fundamentally different, and
I am so grateful, thank you so much. And it's like, yeah, chack,
no problems. I can take the splash damage. I don't
have to impress any of them. I don't give a damn.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah, and this is while you are still well. I
guess I was going to go somewhere like, do you
think the fact that you were feminine presenting enough that
people are still assigning you that role but without looking
overly feminine, like not being curvy and soft.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Well, see, here's the thing. Because it was the military,
and because we would go to sea and stuff, the
dudes that I worked with most closely stopped seeing me
as a woman at some point, and I was just
one of the guys, and I was like Jane Goodallip
just like studying the culture.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
I was like, yes, and how I feel when they
play sports at the bar where I work, I'm like, oh,
these boys, these little chims are They're so cute the
way there's hooting and hollering over there. Like it matters.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Yep, except that I was I was accepted into the tribe.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Yeah, I know, I'm an outsider for sure.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Yeah, they would. They would invite me to go to
strip clubs with them and to get sex workers, and
I'd be like, nah, I'm fine, I'm banging my roommate. Okay,
I got it for free. It's I don't need to
come out with yap.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
And yeah were you you were? You were lesbian at
the time, so they thought of you that way. Also
that maybe contributes. It's just interesting that for men to
respect women, they have to hold this very they have
to really embrace their masculine inside. Is what it's always
felt like to me. They have to be pretty tough, yeah,
and ideally not not too soft and pretty. Otherwise then
(11:03):
they get moved from I can respect you to I
just want to sleep with you.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yes, but like it's also like the type of guy,
like yes, some of them were like, oh wait, you
perform your your job really well. Because we worked in
computers and telecommunications, so there's a lot of room to
screw it up. So if I could earn their respect professionally,
I was in. But some of the other guys I
(11:30):
had to earn it through like toughness, Like when we're
doing stuff that's physically difficult, I can't give up even
a little bit because then I would lose my place
in the masculine pecking order.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
It was very.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Strange thing, for sure, and some of them definitely would
not have minded banging.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Me or oh no, I'm sure all of them would
have happily. That's a funny thing you learn about I shouldn't.
What I have learned about most of my straight male
friends is that maybe there not going to say they're
into you, but if the opportunity arose, like if one
day you were drunk and you were down, they also
wouldn't say no to you, right, And I am sure
that it's true of men who were friends with push
lesbians as well.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
An important a storm, yes, so yeah, but yeah, I
learned a lot about men and masculinity in that time
of my life, and kind of like what I wanted
to incorporate, and what I, for realsies did not want
to incorporate. Yeah too, like what a healthy, non toxic
(12:35):
masculinity was going to look like for me.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Now, that's a wonderfully unique perspective that trans men have,
is having been treated a certain way by straight men.
It's like, I don't know any transmen who have been
grown up to emulate that kind of toxic behavior because
you were subject to it for such important years of
your life too. Yeah, when we were growing up, you know,
we have spongy brain. We were teenagers. I was more
(12:59):
sensitive and a lot of ways, Like now I can
handle a lot more shit. But I feel like if
you were socialized feminine at that time of life, treated
by mencertain way, I mean, I can't think of any
better training than to lead you to be a good man.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
That's really then to have to be a woman for well,
for me forty.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Years okay, yeah, long stretch.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yeah, I've been on testosterone for it'll be four years
in two weeks, and yeah, forty years of playing girl
definitely shows you what not to do.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
I love that. Yeah, Yeah, that was somewhere in my
questions already, but it'll come up.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Oh, I'm sure we go. Yes, I've actually been trying
to think of, like how can we educate men and boys?
Oh yeah, as to hey bt doves, these things are
super creepy for the following reasons. If you don't want
to if you think of women as people, don't treat
them like that. Yeah, and well, also how to get
(14:03):
them to think of women as people.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
That's a big one.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Yeah. It really is in the way that like certain
groups can only hear things from people within their group yep.
Men can only hear things from other men yep. And
now that I'm man shaped, they can hear from me
better than they could before. And so I've it's not
(14:26):
like an outreach program, but I am doing my best
to like say, to do as is like BT doves,
that thing, we know what that means, and it means
not good things. So stop doing that because look at
the secret thing you're trying to say and stop manipulating women.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Well, I like picturing you is a yeah, outreach program
of one. You are just day to day this is
your mission. I like that. And it's also very similar
to having been defending women in the past. Maybe defending
isn't quite the right word when you were saying, you're
in the military, you're not taking a shit from anyone,
and if you're working with other women, then they're not
going to have to deal with it either. I think
that's the same gene which I definitely relate to, of
(15:06):
like having a sense of justice, of like, no, this
isn't the way things should be, and I'm going to
do my part to make sure that they are the
way they should be as much as possible, which isn't
It isn't easy. We talked a lot about how the
patriarch here it's meant to and the need for male
allyship and the danger of just saying all men deserve
to die, because that's terrorism. Unfortunately at the end of
(15:28):
the day, andrecide is very illegal and not actually ultimately productive.
And if you discount everyone, then you don't have anyone
to stand up for you and with you, for the
men who will not hear it from a woman. My
next question, which you've already got into a bit here,
is what types of misogyny did you experience while serving
(15:51):
and how do they impact your sense of identity and safety.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Well as far as man sogyny goes. I mean, it
was kind of omnipresent, so like it's harder to put
your finger on it all the time, like you were saying,
a lot of microaggressions and a lot of like the
three guys in front of you get addressed as their
their rank. Okay, oh, petty officer third class, How can
(16:21):
I help you? Oh? As a sergeant, how can I
help you? Oh? And then when you get to the
front along as how can I help you sweetheart?
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Oh no, it's like I'll harder you.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah, I help you with my hands.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah. The words don't call me sweetheart have fallen out
of my mouth more than once I got a you
a liquor store or something like hey sweety, I'll just say,
don't call me sweedy. Then just keep going from there.
And they usually are a little taken aback.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
By it, like, oh, yeah, you don't know me like that?
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Well, no, no one, no one should, No one doesn't.
I don't want anyone to call me sweetie.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
And I was a full on E five at that point.
That's a petty officer second class. It's like a sergeant
if you guys don't know Navy stuff, but it's like
fairly high ranked in the enlisted, like class especially at
the age I was so like I had a position
of responsibility and folks talked down to me. There's also
(17:13):
like there was just the pervasive if you're a woman,
then you're supposed to be sexually on the menu somehow,
and I just flat out wasn't. So I got a
reputation as quote unquote, Ice Queen had a compliment, Yeah,
a couple of my couple of my places I was stationed.
(17:37):
But I really didn't have any awareness of that because
I never knew when dudes were hitting on me because
I just didn't think of that as a thing. Like
I didn't one and didn't think of myself as attractive
to men because I didn't have distant ass and that's
what we're taught is like you know, the goal.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
That's a lie though, men like all bodies all that time,
much much to my dismay. Unfortunately, yeah, I found that out.
I can't keep them off.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah yeah, so like, yeah, I would get a reputation
for not being you know, not playing the game like
other girls. I don't know which other girls, but like
you know, apparently that's what they say. And so like
eventually I got stationed at a remote base where there
were you know, like ten men for every one woman,
(18:28):
and at that point, the pressure to be on the
menu is kind of like reaching its peak. So I
would go on platonic dates with various Marines and tell
them that I was very religious and that after the
military I was going to become a nun. Nice because
(18:51):
some of my family members were actually sending me like
convent brochures trying to push me that way because they
figured out that I was a lesbian and wanted to
keep me from hell.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Better to be a nun than to be a lesbian exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
And yeah, boyster yourself away from the world rather than
face the horrors of lesbianism, hiding you from the devil. Yeah,
pretty much. So. Yeah, and dues actually like accepted that because,
I mean, we were all so young. But there was
one guy who decided that he was in love with
me and started stalking me, which is a bad thing
(19:26):
any time, but is especially bad when you live on
a base that you're not allowed to leave. Yeah, and
they also work in the same division as you, or
nowhere to run. He lived like one floor above me,
and the barracks starts sending me creepy letters. Eventually I
had to get the command involved. They didn't do anything officially,
(19:49):
they didn't do anything that would affect his career, but
I heard that the chiefs took him aside and put
the fear of God into him, which was very effective. Yeah,
so he stopped like stalking me overtly. That was great.
But twelve years later he did find me, thank god.
(20:11):
He found me on Facebook and apologized profusely and admitted
that all the things I said about him had been correct.
He actually was secretly bisexual, etc. But I thanked him
for letting me know and asked him to never contact
me again. Yeah, but yeah, it was just a terrifying time.
(20:36):
And of course, like you know, aside from that, there's
all the ambient things in any male dominated field where
if you are a vagina have her on any level,
you have to perform twice as well as your male
counterparts in order to get the same amount of recognition.
So I bust my ass and do things that none
(21:00):
of the boys could do, and they would get a
NAM a Navy Achievement Medal for like showing up every day.
It's like, what do I gotta do, guys?
Speaker 1 (21:10):
And the answer was be a man, and you were like, well, okay, hold,
well fine, it forced me into it if.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
That's what you really want.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yeah. Yeah, I don't think people know much about the Navy.
I mean, I just watched The Last Ship, which is
completely fictionalized, and it was just a network television show.
That's everything that I know about the military. So these
insights are helpful in terms of the details of how
it works.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
But yeah, that kind of experience being stocked like that,
that's just not something Sismon can ever conceptualize. I know
that stocking does happen on both sides all around. We
reviewed Babby Reindeer. It's Baby Reindeer. I called it Babby
Reindeer because it was funny, but the show is not
actually called Babby Reindeer, which is great. But there is
just a different element when you're physically worried about your safe,
(22:00):
when you're concerned that someone could actually hurt you at anytime.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
And it's just kind of like the mild stalking that
happens constantly when you leave the house. I've got analogy
for it. I'm going to share it with you now,
whether you like it or not, let's do it. So
I was telling my guy friends, like Okay, so you
want to know why women are so standoffish in public. Imagine,
every time you leave your house, you have ten thousand
(22:28):
dollars in one hundred dollars bills safety pinned all over
your body. You're in like just a slip of a
wet What are those things? A wetsuit, not like a wetsuit,
but like it fits like a wetsuit, but it's a
body stocking type.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Okay, sure, You've got.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Ten thousand dollars one hundred dollar bills clipped all over
to you. And every time you leave the house, everyone's
watching you and lusting after all of that.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
They can see the money.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
I see, they can see the money, and people are
gonna try and snatch one hundred dollars off you anytime
you're not looking, they're gonna touch you. And they're just
looking for a way to get you in an alley
and take all that money. And that is what it's
like to walk around every day. And the dude, every
time I say this analogy, someoneays like, well, why don't
(23:17):
you just not do that? I'm like, because I can't
leave the house without my vagina right not exist? Yeah,
And they just and I just watch as the realization
dawns on them that there is nothing, nothing women can
do to exist in public life and not be a
target on some level. Yeah, and that's just that's just
(23:41):
the reality they have. Like dudes legitimately have no idea
that it is impossible to not be a target without
presenting masculine mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
And it'll be a look, it'll be a comment. It
doesn't have to be someone physically touching you. Because that's
the thing I think people says. Men also understand is like, well,
it's not like you're getting like assaulted everywhere you go,
but it's still uncomfortable. I still don't want someone to
look me up and down or try to invite me
to get in their car or initiate a conversation while
I'm pumping gas like that is not what I'm here
(24:13):
to do. I am not. I always have to be
a little on guard and it gives me a very
fuck off energy when I'm out alone in public and
I'm not sorry about it, and it's never going to
change and there's a reason for it.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Exactly safe too, that's the thing I tell to do.
It's it's like you'd be standoffish too or if you
were constantly hunted.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Yeah, yes, that's a good word for it, and I
know that it's it's You could wear a burka too,
and men would still sexualize your scent or your eyes.
Oh yeah, it would still be so many elements of objectification,
even if they literally cannot see your body in the
slightest Yep, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
I wish just more men would fuck each other. Oh,
just like, give women a break.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
We do, I mean we yes, we do love a
gay man more than a straight man, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
They don't even have to be gay. I just want
them to take that sexual energy and point it out
each other instead and see how they like it.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Mmm, there we go. That makes sense.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
That might teach them a thing too.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Okay, what does it mean now that you can pass
as a man in a space where you would once
have been treated as a woman?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Oh my god. Okay, So when I talk about my
transition and I talk about the hardest things to get
used to, the biggest hardest thing to get used to
is the privilege.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Hmmm, I can't see it, Like, I'm like, what do
you mean? I don't know that? Wasn't that?
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Like? And tell me more I had no idea, y'all.
It's like playing on easy moment.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
I got sound fun. Actually no challenge.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Well, there's still like the challenges of you know, the
horrors of capitalism. Like, Okay, I go out and people
are nice to me. When I was an androgynist, but
which lesbian thing? People were not nice to me. They've
spent the first like time getting to interact with me
trying to figure out what are you. You know, that's
(26:10):
very important because you know, they have to decide what
you are so they know how to treat you, which
is so fucked up. But the privilege is immense. Like
everyone's nice to me. People don't question me when I
say something. They don't check to make sure that that's
really real in the way that they did before. At work,
(26:32):
in meetings, I speak and no one contradicts me or
interrupts me, or tells me that I'm wrong, or just
ignores my ideas. They didn't take my ideas and discuss them.
It was actually super disgusting as my voice was dropping
to see how people were gradually listening to me more. Yeah,
(26:57):
the lower my voice gets, the more like say I
have in stuff. To the point where I was having
I was able to have opinions and votes on things
in my job that I honestly should not have. I mean,
I was right a lot because I made sure I
was because again, being socialized as a woman, you have
(27:17):
to make sure you're on your shit all the time
because the moment you're wrong, they will you're wrong forever.
But yeah, like suddenly I'm at authority figure in the
room and I work remote guys, Like we're a tech company.
We don't even use cameras, so I am just a voice.
(27:40):
And as my voice has dropped, suddenly I'm getting raises,
I'm getting promotions. It's stupid, y'all. It is hardest thing
to get used to was the privilege. But other than that,
it's been amazing. There's physical changes and stuff. The biggest
physical indicator of my masculinity is probably my receding hairline,
(28:05):
because that is a thing. I got this kick ass
jaw thing going on, Like I've got a jawline for
the gods now. But the receding hairline definitely flags mail
for people. And at first I was real bummed because
I had such cute hair. You just buzzed in that works, Yeah,
I know, I was so cute. But now now I'm
(28:27):
I'm masculine and powerful. It is like I can walk
around at night with my earbuds in and what works
with me? Yeah, yeah, I want to hold my privilege
like an umbrella over all. Y'all ladies, I want to
bring you with me into this world. It's so nice.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yeah, I'm so used to it the way it is,
though I don't I get what you mean, Like I
wouldn't even know what to do with that. But also
it's become such a fundamental part of who I am
of like I will speak louder. I was trying to
interjecting a conversation a place where I work. I'm talking
to employees, and this man who does not work there
but thinks he's very important, was dominating the conversation, even
(29:10):
though his contributions really don't have value. I was with
me and other women, they were all listening to him,
and instead of shouting, why the fuck are you listening
to this person he literally doesn't work here, instead I
just interrupted him to say, like, oh, I'm sorry to interrupt,
but I just want to make sure I get this
point out there, which contradicted his and as I was speaking,
he started talking over me, and oh, I felt so
(29:32):
good after literally gave me a little rash. Later, I said,
don't interrupt me, but just kept going and he was
like huh and yeah. One of the other ladies was like,
let let her finish, let her speak, and I made
my point. But it's so what you're saying of I'm
always fact checking things on Google. On the podcast, it's
a little more playful. We had someone right in to say,
(29:53):
you say you don't know things a lot. I'm like, yeah,
but it's because we're researching and we're learning. But in person,
I definitely am always fact checking. And even now there's
another little conflict of I'm trying to replace a part
for a door that I need to make sure it
meets fire code, and I'm having some people saying like, well,
are you sure that it's like what you know? I'm like,
I don't really know fire code, but I'm pretty damn sure.
(30:14):
I'm going to call the fire department and they're gonna
give me the answer, and then I'm gonna bring it
to you, because yeah, you're not just believed just because
you are sure that something is right. You need to
really prove it to be taken seriously. Yeah, I don't
even know what what life would be like if that
wasn't the case. I can't even imagine.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
It's just like I said, it's like playing on easy mode.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
What would I do with all that time? Probably play
more actual video games.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Where you don't have to second guess yourself. Yeah, that's why.
That's why I've beaten Tears of the Kingdom.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Ah, that's it. That's female privilege.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Because I've just got all this time now.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Yeah, No, that's it's very interesting to hear that from
someone who's experienced both sides of things, because it's hard
to relate unless you have been in that unique position
side of it.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Well, I'll tell you this one story and then we
can move on to the next question. Yeah, when my
voice was in transition and I was having that teenage
boy kind of era because I was doing phone work.
I was talking to a customer one day and I
know said, thank you for calling name of company. This
is Chris, how can I help you. It was an
(31:23):
older gentleman, you could tell, and you know he was
of a Caucasian persuasion. You could tell by his voice
and his general rhythm and demeanor. Therein and he's like,
boy Chris or girl Chris. And I paused and let
my self breathe for a moment, and then I said,
computer technicians, how can I help you?
Speaker 1 (31:44):
That's good?
Speaker 2 (31:45):
And I heard his brain, the gears grinding in his brain,
of him like not knowing what to do, but then
realizing that whatever's in my pants has absolutely nothing to
do with whether or not I can make his software work.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Well, there's already joke in there, but I know what
you mean.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
I'm not talking about hardware, yes, yes, yes, now, very
like after a couple seconds, he launched into what his
issue was and I did help him and we had
a fantastic time. But I could tell like I changed
the thing in him right then he suddenly realized that
knowing if I was a boy or a girl had
(32:22):
absolutely no bearing on that situation whatsoever. Yeah, and maybe,
just maybe he'll wonder how many other interactions in his
life are just like that, because hint, everyone, it's most
of them, right.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
I mean, women are being conscious of the gender of
the person they're talking to for safety reasons, but not
for competence reasons. I don't. I mean, I have the
opposite thing, now, where if a man's talking to me.
Now I question it more, and I'm like, I'm not
even sure you know what you're talking about. But that's
because I've swung herd in the other.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Direction and because they've proved so unreliable in the past.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Yeah, Okay, did time the military influenced how you came
to understand your gender or did it suppress it?
Speaker 2 (33:07):
I honestly don't think it did either thing. Because here's
a hint about how sheltered I was. I didn't find
out that transgender was a thing until well after I
left the military, So like I knew that I wanted
to present more masculine because that was more comfortable to me.
(33:28):
But I went straight from high school into the military,
and I was again very very sheltered, kind of like
a high control family. And so yeah, I just didn't
know any of that was an option. I didn't even
know what gay was until way after I should have,
Like I thought, well, in the eighties and nineties, they
(33:49):
were talking about homosexuals on the news a lot, but
I was a little kid, so I thought they were
saying homeless and the oh, and I was very concerned
about why are they telling homeless people they can't have sex.
It's like the only free, fun thing they can do.
Why are you so mad about that? And then when
I clued in that like gay existed and that's what
(34:12):
they were talking about. And then like pretty much immediately
afterward figured out that I was that thing. It's like,
oh shit, they're talking about me. And then I did
the military and hit my homosexual with my lesbianism. And
then I got out of the military and went to
college and found out that hey, girls could be boys
(34:32):
if like that's how they feel. And when I found out,
I'm like, I should do this right now. I was
twenty five. There's so much gatekeeping and it's so hard,
and then you have to like not only know exactly
what you want, but you have to be able to
express that to multiple medical professionals and advocate for yourself.
(34:52):
And I didn't have any of that in my back
pocket at the time. So essentially, being in the military
didn't like affirm my femininity or my masculinity. It gave
me a uniform to put on every day so that
I didn't have to look like other girls, right, I
didn't have to try to fit into the female hierarchies
(35:14):
that are in there that are kind of around the
things that I always had a lot of trouble interacting
with because all the things that all the quote unquote
other girls did and enjoyed, I didn't understand why, Like
why is this fun? Why is putting on makeup fun?
(35:34):
Why is buying shoo's fun? Why? Why are pretty dresses fun?
They always look stupid on me. I feel like a
boy in a dress, regardless of how good I look
in it. So like it was just like a safe
little cult. Military as a cult, it fits all the markers,
a safe little cult where I could perform a minimum
(35:57):
amount of femininity and still get credit for it.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Right, this will makes sense in this setting.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yeah, yeah, And so it was a place to hide
from femininity.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
I think, why do they have the uniforms different for
men and women in the military. That just seems like
such an outdated idea. Why were they different at all?
Speaker 2 (36:19):
They're way less different these days. They've gone to different
kinds of uniforms, and they are a large The men's
and women's uniforms are largely the same. Now you do
for women that did develop appropriately, you do have to
cut certain garments different in order to accommodate an ass.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Sure, appropriately isn't the right word for that. Who did
develop crevaciously. One might say it's not inappropriate to not
have curves.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Oh mine, mine, mine didn't develop for various other reasons.
That is not the podcast for.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
I see, I see, Okay, y No, I didn't mean
that as a slam toward any flat chest soak women out.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
There, All y'all ladies out there who didn't get tastes
an ass, I feel you. Yeah, I was that girl.
The struggle is real.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Okay, Yeah, I just I was taught something I think
a lot of women are taught. When you're young and
you want, you're told, for number one, that like boys
are supposed to like you, Like you're supposed to be
desirable to men. That's part of it, like being a
pretty girl and strumming and all of that. And yeah,
part of that is looking a certain way, and part
of that is being curvy but not too curvy. And
then I got older and realize like, oh no, like
(37:26):
men will have sex with a chicken sandwich, like they
won't find anything attractive. Yeah, and there are different preferences.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
They'll stick it in a puddle of mud if.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Yeah, so it actually doesn't make me feel good about
myself to be attractive to men because it's like it
means less than nothing. So there's that element of it.
But yes, we've talked about body neutrality on the podcast
a lot instead of body positivity, and that like, you
don't have to love your body. It doesn't have to
be beautiful. It just sort it serves you really well.
It wakes you up in the morning, and it lets
(37:57):
you go to yoga and your eyelashes catch your sweats
so they don't get an Like, there's so many wonderful
things about bodies beyond it's just gorgeous.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Yeah, and there's something to be said for feeling correct
in your body or feeling right or comfortable in your body.
Before I started hormones, I never felt right in my body.
It just didn't. It was another thing that didn't fit.
And I couldn't stand mirrors, no matter how pretty I was,
I just couldn't stand them because it was a reminder
(38:26):
that it's it's not right now. I freaking love the mirror. Yeah,
I want to put yours up everywhere. I'm so like,
I look in the mirror and I see someone I
Recognizeay and it's so nice.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
I know. I love your confidence. Also about your appearance too,
even in that time, you're not like, oh I was
under Ne're like no, no, I was hot, it just
wasn't like the right version of hot, Like, oh, that's great,
I think. I mean, I'll walk around with that.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
I tried to like think of myself as ugly, and
it didn't work because objectively I'm hot.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah. Yeah, we can be the wrong kind of hot
and then become the right kind of hot yep, for ourselves.
Do you mention talking about autism as well? Oh yeah,
let's take a break first. Let's go into the overlap
(39:30):
between experiences of gender and an experience of being an
autistic person.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
All right, Well, I only found out that I was
autistic maybe two years ago.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
So after I had started my transition and I asked
my therapist once I figured it out, So I thought
that maybe I could be autistic because I've been meeting
a lot of people who have been diagnosed at autistic.
They've been talking about their experiences and I've been going, hmmm, me,
what do So I went online and I took every
(40:03):
autism test that there is on the internet. None of
them were subtle. So my question for you, dear therapist,
who is a lovely Jewish woman in West Hollywood, how
long into our first session did it take for you
to figure out that I was autistic? And she came
back with, you know, oh, I'm not a diagnostician, etcetera, etcetera,
(40:25):
all these things. I'm like, so pretty much right away,
and she's like.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Yeah, she didn't mention it.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
She mentioned several times that like it was something to
think about. But I didn't know how to think about
autism because when you read the diagnostic criteria, it doesn't resonate.
They put in in terms that are not things that
I guess a human autistic ring can connect it. We
don't know how the tips do it. Tips is my
word for neurotypical. Sorry if that's offensive, but now we
(40:53):
got to have something well.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
It was also written with boys in mind early day,
that's true. It was they were testing in boys. The
diagnostic criteria are looking at symptoms that typically present boys.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
And I was definitely taught from an early age that
young ladies sit still.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Oh yeah, and they.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
At least appear to pay attention, regardless if they are
or not. And they you know, all the things that
little girls are taught.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Yeah, they're better at masking. And also we learned an
episode on I Have Something About on mental health and
one of our early ones that girls are also more
likely to have helpful friendships as they're very young and
with girls who are kind of helping them get through
challenging social situations, just in the way that women are
encouraged to have strong platonic relationships which boys are not.
So even from an early age, like that can help
(41:40):
someone who is no neurotypical past because they might have
some girls around them who are like kind of just
encouraging them in the right directions that the boys might
not have.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Yes, they can. I was not so lusty.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
Okay, it's a bummer, all right.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
I was a weird kid, so much for that. Yeah,
I was a weird kid who was being raised side ways,
Like I was just not getting any kind of healthy
socialization and I didn't know how to human at that
age bracket. So I had books instead of friends and
that was fine. I made it through, but like growing up,
(42:16):
I just didn't straight up didn't understand how to kid either,
not only how to girl. So it was like just
a it was double hard. It was just double hard,
and I didn't know. None of it came naturally. But like,
if I could have just been a boy, that stuff
was way easier. Boys are held to weigh lower expectations
(42:37):
as far as things go, and boy like social structures,
particularly at that age, while still complex, were way easier
for me to like parse and understand. But like the
boys didn't want anything to do with me either, so
I just didn't have friends. But like when I'd go
to visit family, I have a large Catholic family, so
I've got a bajillion cousins and I could hang out
(43:00):
with them because they had to accept me, and it's like, yeah,
no choice. Crystal's just a little weird. That was my
birth name. Don't use it against me, but Crystal's kind
of weird. But she comes up with the fun games
and like teach us us how to cheat at monopoly,
So this is great, this is fine, we love this.
And then growing up, I can I've spent a couple
(43:22):
of years just kind of deconstructing my entire life through
the lens of autism, so like I can see all
the places where I had to think about how I
presented all the time, and there is I'm going to
backtrack a little bit. There is a huge overlap between
people who figure out they're transgendered and autism, And I
(43:43):
think it's because autistic people have to think about how
we present in the world so much and build our
masks so that we can be socially acceptable, right, because
the things that come naturally to us of not making
super amounts of eye contact, being sensitive to different sensations
and noises, and not being able to cope in the
(44:06):
same way with certain stimuli, like that makes you think
about the face you're making and the posture you're having,
and the way you're controlling your voice when you talk
to people all the time, just constantly, and when you
have to think about that all the time, you definitely
(44:28):
think about like, wouldn't it just be easier if I
was just in this other category that felt better to me?
Wouldn't that be nice? And then again when I grew
up and eventually found out that that was on the
table on some level, if I was just brave enough
and had enough resources and enough support, because it's not
(44:49):
just your internal bravery. You gotta have support or it's
just not gonna happen. Oh yeah, suddenly it all made sense, right, Like, oh,
there is a way that it would be a lot
easier for me to exist in this world without having
to have this fake mask on all the time, even
at home with the people that I love, Like, if
(45:12):
I could just take the mask off sometimes, it would
be so much easier to live. Yeah, because it's exhausting,
it really is.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
It sounds like it. My own things are tiring too,
But the stacked layers thereof almost sounds like you're not
quite just aligned with yourself until very recently of like
now you can understand these different parts of yourself and
help them come together to make a whole. Like it's
kind of fractured, yeah, like having to present all of
(45:42):
the time.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
And it's hard for the people who love me too,
because again I'm going to use the word deconstructed, as
I'm constructing who I was and who I was like
trying to be and coming out as just me, not
that I'm not great and a good person and caring
(46:07):
and loving and funny and fun and all the things
that I was before. But I'm doing that in a
different way. And so the people who loved me before
they still love me, but they have to contend with
the fact that I was lying about who I was
for my entire life in order to please them, and
(46:28):
they miss that person. They missed that person because she
was easy. They knew where they stood with her. And
I have like boundaries and opinions and thoughts and just
a confidence that I didn't have before. So I'm not
as easy, but they're finding out they like me better
(46:49):
even though I'm not as easy.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
Don't be easy, No one be easy. If everyone likes
you universally or probably not taking care of yourself, yeah,
you're probably not setting boundaries and being a people pleaser.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
Yeah, if everybody likes you, Molly, you in danger girl.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
If that's a reference to anything, I don't know it.
That's from ghost Okay, I've seen it, but it's been
a while. My own big phs familiar with the story. Okay,
So it sounds like it's been a really very healthy,
positive journey of self reflection and introspection and in in
neurodivergence and gender identity can both fall under this category
(47:25):
of turning inward and making sense of yourself. So if
you are able to do it in one area, maybe
then those skills can transfer people who are not homophobic,
often have a positive bias for queer people, where it's like, oh,
like I love especially like gay men. You know, it
could almost become this like tokenization or fetishization with it.
(47:45):
But I think a part of it is that people
who are queer have had to go through a learning
process about themselves. There's a necessary self reflection there to
come out the other side and say, I've learned this
about myself and this is who I am, and that
forces you to grow. It's nice being around people who
have grown well.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Yeah, and when you choose to live as yourself as
a queer person, you are making a sacrifice because there
are doors that will just be closed to you forever.
And if you are willing to sacrifice those parts of
your life in order to be who you are, then
(48:24):
you are going to be who you are so much
more powerfully than any other time. And people, really, people
who aren't bigoted against that thing that you are, will
respond very positively because it's such a brilliant light in
the world to be authentically yourself.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
I absolutely agree. Yes, and similar but different with new divergence.
Accepting that, working on that, treating that for yourself. I mean,
that's something that needs to be kind of managed to.
I would say a little bit more than your gender identity.
I shouldn't totally lumping together, but.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
Well, they're kind of two sides of the same coin,
because how we present in contemporary America is still very gendered.
I mean, regardless of how much things have changed in
the last say, seventy years, it's still a very gendered society.
(49:23):
And the first thing people decide about you when they
look at you is slotting you into either the pink
box or the blue box. Yes, and if you live
in the purple box of they don't. They can't tell
what the hell you're your you got going on in
your pants, because for some reason that matters. People are
vaguely hostile a lot of the time, whether they mean
(49:44):
to or not. It's fascinating, honestly, she's that like fear
of the unknown. Yeah, yes, that's maybe. I think it's
the fear of their own sexuality, because I think androgyny
is inherently attractive, and if you don't know what the
person is, you don't know if you're being gay right now.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
It's just sorry, it's just such a funny thing to
be afraid of. Oh no, I.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
Had a gay urge. Yeah, what would my priest and
mother say? Oh god, ah, god, my life a lie.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
Religion is to blame for so much of it, I
would say, there's so many aspects to it.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
Religion is definitely a big one.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
What is something you really don't miss about military life?
Speaker 2 (50:42):
Ooh, the constant and pervasive fear m.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
That's a dark answer, but very real. Got it? Okay?
Speaker 2 (50:49):
Well, fear again living as a lesbian underdone? Ask don't
tell I knew that at any point someone could accuse
me of homosexuality and I could be given a dishonorable discharge.
And you may not think that that's a big deal
until you find out that you cannot get hired with
a dishonorable discharge, Like you can't even go to McDonald's
(51:12):
and get hired with a dishonorable discharge. You know why,
because there is a McDonald's on every single military base,
every single one, every single one, even in the remote
places where there shouldn't be one, there's a fricking McDonald's there.
And part of their deal with the military to have
McDonald's on every single military base is that you don't
(51:35):
hire people with dishonorable discharge, and that permeates through anyone
who may want to have a contract with the government
at any point. So it's like being an ex con.
It can't get.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
Work, even just like civilian jobs. You're saying, going out
in the world.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
Even in civilian record, it will show up on a
background check, it will show it. And think about it.
Think about trying to hire people and do you see
dishonorable discharge on their record? Ye, if you don't know
what that dishonorable discharge is for, and if you ask them,
you know, you don't know if they're lying, okay, because
it's like being threatened with that black mark on your
(52:13):
permanent record in school. And at the time you thought
that's going to follow me my whole life. Well, if
it's the military, it honestly does follow you your whole life.
So I was just like in constant fear that I
would get found.
Speaker 1 (52:26):
Out that's wild. Yeah, I would hate having that on
my record. I like to do a good job at work,
and if I knew I'd been dishonorably discharged from something,
it would just be upsetting. Even if it's not your
fault and you did nothing wrong. Oh, yeah, do feel good.
Speaker 2 (52:40):
And I was like fully, like hardcore believed in what
we were doing at the time, and that being in
the military was an honorable thing. And not saying that
it's not or anything. I do have. I have opinions
about the current state of America. We're not going to
talk about them today.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
It's the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
Yeah. Yeah, but I was, I was all in and
that was going to be my career. Yeah. Just the
fear and like there were people who let me know
in subtle ways that if they found out that I
was the gay, that I might just disappear one night
(53:23):
when we were at sea, and.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
You mean that you had the gay, Yeah, that I
had distracted the gay.
Speaker 2 (53:28):
I had contracted the gay. Yeah, I might give it
to their girlfriend or something, and maybe if she's lucky, honestly,
if she's lucky. Yeah, but yeah, they let me know that,
you know, I might just fall overboard one night and
no one would ever find out. And that's not terrifying
or anything. So I was very lucky, and that the
(53:51):
guys that I've worked with closely in my shop, there
was probably like a dozen of us. They knew and
honestly appreciated it. Because it meant I wasn't going to
fight when they wanted like a bikini calendar on the wall,
It's like, yeah, she's.
Speaker 1 (54:06):
Hot, Chris is down, Chris is down to be a
boy with.
Speaker 2 (54:11):
Us pretty much. Yeah, And like it was like a
teamwork mentality, Like if they heard someone talking shit about me,
it'd be like, don't talk shit about our girl. Like
she's ours, she does her job, back off, Yeah, she's
not causing problems. Why you causing problems?
Speaker 1 (54:30):
Looking out for you a bit? Well, this will be
my last question before we wrap it up. As someone
who has lived across gender roles, has lived in rigid
systems and with neuro divergence, how do you hold space
for your full self? We kind of already yeah, went there, but.
Speaker 2 (54:50):
Well, see that's the thing. I'm still discovering my full self, like,
and I don't expect to ever be done with that.
So as far as like how do I hold space
for it? I just I allow myself to be interested
in whatever it is that I find interesting. And I
have stopped trying to say no to things because they're
(55:16):
in the wrong box for me. So if I like
a garment and it's for men, sweet, if I like
a garment and it's for women. I'll probably have to
get it resized because I'm a different shape now, But like,
I'm wearing girls jeans right now because my ass looks
fantastic in them, and don't give a fuck. It doesn't
make me less masculine, it doesn't make me anything. It's
(55:40):
just a garment on my body. Just because it was
in the women's section doesn't mean it's for women's. It's
for me, yes, And I just try to apply that
for everything in my life. Nothing is nothing is off
the table for me to enjoy because of the boxes
(56:01):
society has tried to put that thing and me in
and it's really been very freeing. And I hope everyone
gets to do that someday. If you want the pink
sprinkles on your cupcake, bro have them. It's so good.
It feels so good to just have the things you like.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
There's no rules aim and to all of that. I
am misandrist memes on Instagram and we are sad Gap
dot Podcast. That was it. You even got the tone right? Nice,
really nice. You can email us at Sadgap dot Podcast
at gmail dot com, visit our website sad Gap Dash
podcast dot com. Follow us on Patreon, ad free episodes,
(56:40):
a Patreon dot com slash sad gap whose discord. There's
a reddit. It's all linked on our Instagram link tree.
Thank you so much for being here, Chris. This is wonderful.
I really hope if anyone listening, anyone who is going
through their own gender identity questioning moments here, thinking about
during the military, having experiences as a put lesbian. I
feel like there is a lot here too dig into
(57:00):
in terms of getting comfortable with yourself and living with
these multiple facets, living with all these different sides of
ourself and learning to love it. And we're stronger together.
We'll see you next time.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
Bye bye bye,
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