No Label Presents: Girl Please! The Podcast
Love, laughter, peace, joy, opinions, and more !
Sister podcast to NO LABEL Presents: Man, Listen the podcast
GIRL PLEASE with your two beautiful hosts Jessica Hurt and Carmen Sheree
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No Label Presents: Girl Please! The Podcast
Authenticity Unlocked: A Godson's Path to Self-Discovery
What does it truly mean to choose yourself? In this deeply moving conversation, we're joined by Dom, who takes us on his journey from feeling fundamentally disconnected from his assigned gender at age six to embracing his authentic identity as a transgender man.
The conversation flows with raw honesty as Dom reveals the internal struggle of being perceived as a girl while knowing deep inside this wasn't who he was. "I had friends and they wanted to do their makeup and they wanted to wear dresses... and I was like that's not me," Dom shares, describing the growing disconnect that intensified during puberty. His story powerfully illustrates that gender identity isn't about sexuality or preferences, but about an innate sense of self.
Dom doesn't shy away from the darker moments—including depression and suicidal thoughts—that characterized his pre-transition life. But the transformation following his decision to transition at 18 is nothing short of remarkable. "I felt more loving, I felt more hopeful about life," he explains, while Carmen, who's known Dom since birth, confirms seeing an immediate positive change in his demeanor. This before-and-after contrast provides a compelling testament to the life-changing impact of gender-affirming care and the acceptance of loved ones.
Beyond his personal story, Dom offers thoughtful wisdom for others navigating similar paths and for allies wanting to understand. He emphasizes safety first when coming out, patience with loved ones adjusting to new pronouns, and the importance of research before making permanent changes. The conversation challenges common misconceptions while remaining accessible, making complex topics relatable through personal experience rather than abstract theory.
Whether you're questioning your own gender identity, supporting someone who is, or simply seeking to better understand transgender experiences, this episode offers valuable insights delivered with warmth, humor, and unflinching authenticity. Listen to discover how choosing yourself might be the greatest gift you can give not only to yourself but to everyone around you.
Funny. Fiery. Factual. This one’s a must-watch!
💥 WATCH, COMMENT & SUBSCRIBE! Let us know what you think and what you want to see in future episodes.
Producer/Chief Editor: Joe Frozt (@joefrozt)
Executive Producer: Ralph Branch, III (@ibranchedout)
Executive Producer: Carl Bassfield Jr.
Co-Host: Jessica Hurt
Co-Host: Carmen
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Credits:
Thank you to In-Depth Production for production assistance on this episode.
Welcome to Girl Please, where we dive into real conversations, real laughs and real life. Just a quick note the views and opinions expressed on this show are our own and don't represent anyone else's. We keep it fun, open and honest, so let's get into it. This is Girl Please.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to another episode. I'm your host Jessica, I'm your host Carmen, and this is Girl Please, the podcast.
Speaker 1:No, you can't take my soul, but you did to me, I swear.
Speaker 3:I'm breaking bad.
Speaker 1:Welcome back y'all. We have finally reached episode five and we have a guest today. I'd like to introduce my godson, dom. Thanks for coming Of course. We're going to jump right into the wind down, first and foremost. So today we have Stella Rosa Black, which I'm sure a lot of people have tried, but it's one of our favorites. Yes, it is so, Dawn. We wanted to share this with you and see what you think.
Speaker 3:I like Stella Rosa Black actually.
Speaker 2:I've had it once before and it was pretty good. Alright, which other ones have you tried?
Speaker 3:Not many. I'm not really a wine person, but Stella Rosa.
Speaker 2:Black is a special one. I'm not really a wine person, but Stella Rose of Black is a special one, pull out those strong muscles.
Speaker 1:Thank you, there you go. Had to put you to work today. All right, I'm going to go with you first. Okay, just let us know what you think specifically. You said you like it.
Speaker 3:That's good, tell us what you like about it.
Speaker 1:Okay, jess, to the rim baby, to the rim baby, to the rim baby. This is obviously a red wine. It's got a little fizz to it. That's what I like about it and, like we said before, it does go best with steak and red meat. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. This one, I think, is better.
Speaker 3:I had it at like a wine tasting.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:Perfect. So yeah, let's toast. Jess, you want to do the toast Sure?
Speaker 2:We are toasting to acceptance and, um hmm, what else should we toast to?
Speaker 1:Vulnerability.
Speaker 2:Yes, tolerance.
Speaker 1:And transparency, being yourself.
Speaker 3:Here we go. That's a good one.
Speaker 1:Let's do it. Ooh, delicious. Being yourself, here we go, that's a good one. Let's do it Delicious, okay.
Speaker 3:That's a good one.
Speaker 1:Very good, very, all right. So we're going to get right into it, y'all. Today we have a super unique opportunity to speak to someone who is trans and open about it. We would like to start with the beginning of Dom's journey. We're so excited about asking all the hard questions, asking all of the questions that most people would think are offensive or just plain ignorant because we don't know. So today we're just going to have a very open conversation with Dom, and thank you so much for coming and being willing to share your story and being willing to just put it all out there, because there are so many people like you, or there are so many people that have family members that are like you that just don't understand or don't know what to say. Right, so let's get into it.
Speaker 3:Let's get into it.
Speaker 1:Can you tell us a little bit about your journey and how you went from being my God's God daughter to being my God son?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think the first time that I realized that something was different, I guess you would say, was when I was about six. That was kind of the first time that I realized. I was like something's not right. And then it kind of faded away until I had started to hit puberty. And then, once I, of course, hit puberty and things started changing and I was just like this, this isn't right. I had friends and they wanted to do their makeup and they wanted to wear dresses and they were interested in boys and I was like that's not me, that doesn't feel right to me. Like y'all are very excited about this, but I'm like why? Like in my head it just didn't fit and then it just went on from there.
Speaker 1:So when you say it didn't feel right around the age of six, what do you mean by it didn't feel right?
Speaker 3:I just I had this thought in my head like everybody calls me a girl, everybody around me calls me a girl and refers to me as a girl, but I was like that doesn't feel right to me okay, I was like I don't feel like a girl, like because I mean I was a tomboy as growing up.
Speaker 3:You know like I, I was out with the boys, I was scraping my knees, I was getting hurt, like I wasn't a girly girl and I was, and there are people that are getting hurt, like I wasn't a girly girl, and there are people that are, of course, just tomboys and then they become girly growing up. But for me it was just like I don't think I'm ever going to fit into that role, I don't think I'm ever going to mold to that.
Speaker 1:I'm never going to be quote unquote a girl Like I just didn't feel like that from a very early age, okay, so when you're little it feels like an internal struggle as far as interests and gender roles at first. Is that kind of how it?
Speaker 3:that's how it was for me, yeah like I remember, like we're we're gonna do a girls day or we're gonna do a boys day, and I remember wanting to go with the boys because I wasn't interested in the stuff that the girls were doing.
Speaker 3:I wasn't interested in going to get my nails done or going shopping or picking out clothes to wear, Like that wasn't something that I was ever like internally interested in, and it was definitely a battle based on external and internal Just trying to make those externally happy versus trying to make myself internally happy, and that was a battle for a really long time.
Speaker 2:How long did you experience that battle?
Speaker 3:Up until I started my transition, until I really made that decision that I was going to do it for myself and that whatever anybody else felt or thought had really no concern with me, because at the end of the day, I needed to be happy yeah, how heavy was that for you to carry that on for so long, you know it was heavy and I think that those around me started to see that, that heaviness.
Speaker 3:Like Carmen Carmen, we spoke earlier and she had said I could see such a difference in you as soon as you started your transition, like it was. It was an immediate just change in in your demeanor and your just outward appearance like you were happier yeah, you probably felt relief too, right, and I felt a lot of relief.
Speaker 3:But before that relief it was a lot of anxiety and a lot of depression. And yeah, and it did. For some people it does get bad enough to where it becomes suicidal thoughts, and it was that for me. I was just like I can't do this as a female.
Speaker 3:And if I have to live my life. As a female, I'd rather not just have a life, and so it was very heavy. But luckily those around me saw how heavy it was and I wouldn't say they gave me the go-ahead, but they gave me that we're going to accept you no matter what and that was my fear that I wasn't going to be loved, I wasn't going to be accepted, they weren't going to want me around.
Speaker 3:But once I finally saw how much support that I did have, I kind of just leapt and I went with it and I was like, whatever happens happens, because I had to save myself at the end of the day, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, I'm glad you chose yourself, because a lot of times people don't and they, you know, end up taking the detrimental route of committing suicide. Um, it's very daunting to know that people go through those things and those feelings. What would be your best advice to somebody who is also going through the same thing as a kid, just not knowing how to, I guess, transition, how to feel accepted by others, and all of these different emotions that they're feeling at this time. What would be the best advice you would give to them?
Speaker 3:My first thing would don't put a label on it first, like do your research, figure out who you are, the things that you like, the things that you enjoy, and then kind of do it in a more outward appearance, like don't necessarily spring it on somebody before you know, because that that creates a lot of outward confusion and and a lot of inward confusion too.
Speaker 3:It it creates a lot of just you don't. You don't know where you're going, or you feel like you have to be one thing or and you can be this thing. So I think don't put a label on. It is the first thing. But then also, if you have those parents that aren't supportive or you have people in your life that aren't supportive, my advice is to always do the safest option. If it's safer to not transition just yet, do that, but still protect your peace, still set boundaries. And if you just have to isolate, isolate, be around those people that do accept you, that want to be around you, that that respect who you are essentially like.
Speaker 3:And I mean, I've dealt with that with my own family and friends too, and I've just we did them out essentially like because it because it weighs on my happiness and my mental health at the end of the day, and that's not something that I'm willing to give up for someone else.
Speaker 2:And that's what it's all about how they see that your life should be lived out should be more important than how you feel it should be for yourself yeah, like nobody should have that type of control over you. And I mean as when you're younger, of course you're thinking of all of these things. You're thinking about other people's perspective and how they will respond to your choices, or whatever. But you get to a point in a place in life and you decide like look, you know, this is for me.
Speaker 3:I really could care less how you feel you know right, and that that's the point that I got to. It was just like okay, I'm, I'm 18, I, I have to make myself happy. I have to choose myself to get to this point that other people are at in life, like I. If I want to be in my thirties and I want to be happy, then I have to choose myself, because in any other scenario, people are choosing themselves.
Speaker 3:They're not choosing to make other people happy. So, even though it was definitely a heavy thing for everybody in my life to accept, and it was very different and new and just unheard of, essentially it was a big step for me to take, but I had to do that to live my life.
Speaker 2:So are you the first person in your family that you know of that has done this as?
Speaker 3:far as I know, I'm the first person in the town really, Like I was I don't know anybody, yeah, like I mean, I was the first and I didn't present it in high school a lot because I had a lot of anxiety and stuff like that and a lot of it came after high school, after I graduated. But once I did, I had a lot of like people come to me and they're like hey, like I didn't know, but thank you, like you, you being open with it and you presenting it to the public is it's going to help me in the future and I've.
Speaker 3:that's not essentially what I did it for, because I did it to make myself feel comfortable, but I'm glad that I have been able to help people without knowing I'm helping people.
Speaker 3:Like, just because you can watch the things that I post or you can, you can look at the, the things that I have on my Instagram or stuff like that. It's it's different because you can, you can see it and you know me and you haven't. You. There's a a way to get to me like an outreach. You have an outreach and I'm not going to publicly out you in a sense, because I've been there, I've been where, I've been talking to people and I'm afraid that they're going to go tell it to some people. I don't want to know or like, if I get a new job, I don't want the people that are first start. I don't want them to know.
Speaker 1:It's none of their business.
Speaker 3:It's not a topic of discussion, right right, and then once if I'm comfortable with them and then I tell them they're like. I had no idea, like what like are you serious? And I'm like yeah, but that that helps me keep going, knowing that I'm helping other people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, live their truth, because it was very hard for me to live my truth when I was younger, I had a friend, um, and she was like that as well. Um, I still love her to this day um, when we were going to school or whatever I didn't, we didn't go to school together, but we played basketball together and then, like during summers and stuff, I would go over to her um, people house that have cookouts and stuff like that. But she was the same way and I never, you know, judged her or anything.
Speaker 2:I just knew she was different right you know, but I loved her the same and even to this day, like, if I see her I'll still hug her, talk to her everything like there's no judgment there.
Speaker 1:This is your life, you know can we go back a little bit? Because you said um, it seemed like you you did show that there's kind of a difference when it comes to your experience, when, when you're little and you feel like basically you're not in the right body is kind of how most people that are trans would describe that. So at first, when you're a child and there isn't or shouldn't be sexuality that you're thinking about at that age.
Speaker 1:It does get to a point, like you said, when you get to puberty and then everything starts growing. This is when you know hormones rage in whatever direction they're going to rage.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And so can you tell us what is the difference? Because this is something that I had to understand in the beginning, when Dom was in high school, you pretty much dressed how you do now.
Speaker 3:Right, I dressed masculine in high school, yeah masculine.
Speaker 1:So, you know, we just assumed that Dom was going to like girls and dress like a tomboy, which was fine. So when the transition happened, or really the announcement of you wanting to transition at 18, um, my curiosity was about you know where? Where does sexuality enter? Or, excuse me, overlap here, because obviously sexuality isn't a thing when you're six right, so at that point. It kind of goes to prove that this is more of an identity issue than a sexual issue.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:And I don't mean issue in that way.
Speaker 3:No, yeah, I know Topic Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So when you hit puberty and you started to grow, you know up top especially, how did that affect you as far as what you had already felt when you were younger did that kind of just solidify? Okay, yeah, this is really not supposed to be happening. Why do I have boobs?
Speaker 3:right, right, you know like, yeah, I'm not supposed to have boobs and that that's kind of that was my thought during the whole process. It was like because from a young age I already did not feel like a girl people.
Speaker 3:People are calling me girl, they're calling me she, her, and it just it didn't fit. So then, as I got older and I hit puberty and I did start to grow boobs, it was like this is this seems, this is foreign to me. That's what it felt like. It felt like I was outwardly somebody else, which I was Essentially. I was different than how I felt on the inside, and so it created a lot of turmoil within me because, no matter how hard I tried to present myself as a male to the outside, I was still perceived as a female, and it just created a lot of inward turmoil and just a lot of anger and self-loathing and and depression and anxiety and not knowing what to do or what route to go, because it's like people see me this way, but I feel this way, but I don't want to make these people upset but, I I don't want to disappoint myself either.
Speaker 2:I don't want to have boobs right and like I don't want to let myself go like I, that's not.
Speaker 3:I just didn't feel like that was right for me. Like it just my, I had friends and they're, you know, they're getting boobs, they're getting bras, they're going bra shopping and they're wearing makeup, and it just it was just like that's not what I want to do. Like for me it was like why am I growing boobs?
Speaker 2:like.
Speaker 1:I don't put makeup on me, I don't want that you had to tell me that when you were little.
Speaker 2:Stop doing my hair like this, didn't?
Speaker 3:wear dresses Like there's been a few times.
Speaker 2:I've been in dresses and you know that.
Speaker 3:I didn't like getting my hair done. I didn't like it, just it wasn't for me. I just didn't like it and for a long time time I didn't understand why, and I because I didn't want to put a label on it because I was scared of that and all throughout high school I was called gay, you're gonna be gay.
Speaker 3:You like girls and in the back of my mind I knew I do like females, but gay is not the right label for me because I knew that I did not want to present as a female. And that's where gender identity and sexual identity come in. I do like girls, but I don't feel like one, so I'm not a lesbian if that makes any sense.
Speaker 3:What, like? It takes a lot of thought, but that's what the LGBT community is about. There's a broad range of all people people that that are questioning bi lesbian, trans, gay, whatever, but for me it was. I know that I'm not a lesbian, I know that I'm not gay because, I don't outwardly present as a female.
Speaker 1:I don't want to do that Well that was one of my first questions to you, when you first told the family you know, this is, this is what it is, this is what I'm doing, this is who I am.
Speaker 3:We were like all right, you know like we just have to get used to the you know the pronouns, if you will, because obviously I've known Dom since I was.
Speaker 1:I heard his first cry, literally, literally yeah. So Dom is like my first kid, my baby before I had my own kids, my baby before I had my own kids. Um, so, just because of being used to calling somebody by their given name and being used to calling you her or she. It took, I'm sure, my whole family a little bit of time to just um change the way we spoke. Um, and it takes practice.
Speaker 3:It does.
Speaker 1:Because even even now, if I speak about you when you were a kid, I will say her, Because at that time that's how I knew you.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:But now it's never. I don't stumble over it anymore in speaking to you in person in the present tense, but how important is it to people in your community to respect pronouns, because we see a lot of debate about that. I've seen it in email.
Speaker 2:Help me out on that. I'm not even going to lie Right. Sometimes I get to the point where I'm like I don't even want to say certain things because I just don't want to come off as offensive.
Speaker 3:Right, and for everybody it's different. I will say Because, there are some people that present themselves as she, her or he, him, but then you have people that present as they, them, and that's where it gets a little confusing. I don't know what to say about it.
Speaker 1:Truthfully, I'm not even going to lie. I don't either.
Speaker 3:That's a little too far for me because I'm just straight he, him and that's just what it is. But as far as respecting someone's pronouns, some people are comfortable with you just asking them, hey, what are your pronouns? But like, if you really don't know and you just, and you, you do want to know, it's always my. My personal thing is to just ask somebody, be like, look, I don, I don't, I don't want to do this wrong.
Speaker 3:I don't want to disrespect you, I don't want to Negate what you have going on. I just want to be respectful and I want to do this the right way. So for me, it's always just best to ask, and some people don't like to be asked this just straight up. They don't want to be asked.
Speaker 1:But that that's hard for people like us.
Speaker 3:It is like you can't like.
Speaker 1:I can understand having a conversation about respecting someone's pronouns when you work with them, for example. Right, no problem. I would have a conversation like hey, you know what's your preference? You know, but if you, for example, I had um a waitress one time and she presented as a woman, but it was very obvious that she was a man, um, so in that case you don't really know like she could have been a man who likes to dress in women's clothing. To me, there's a difference between that and someone who's trans right.
Speaker 3:That confuses and that's where the line is very.
Speaker 3:What do you say, like I can't look at them and say, should I call you a man or woman, because I think that that is also offensive right she's like well, I'm a woman, well, you don't look like one to me right frankly, and that's where the line is very, very fine also, because you have those people who are quote unquote. They them, so they're presenting as both or they're presenting as androgynous and you don't really know. And that's where it does get hard and I just say hi there and I do too honestly because I don't, I don't even know what to do in those scenarios all of the time, like it's just, it's hard because everybody is so different.
Speaker 2:That makes me want to shift the conversation a little bit into perspective on how sometimes people won't be forthcoming about their transitions. How do you feel about that?
Speaker 3:I don't like that. I think that if you feel safe enough to invite someone into your life, then you need to feel safe enough to give them this information, because it is heavy and it's not something that everybody accepts.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And so I don't I mean I hide it. I wouldn't say hide it, but it's not something that everybody in my life is going to know, right, meaning co-workers, acquaintances, people I meet on the street.
Speaker 2:Not everybody is going to know because I mean they don't need to right.
Speaker 3:But if I'm inviting you into my life before it even gets to a point where we become intimate intimate or close or friends or whatever I want you to know the real me.
Speaker 3:I want you to know who I am, because I don't want, I don't want to have to defend myself if something is said by somebody else that is that knows and is OK with it and we're comfortable and we're cool. Like, say, my girlfriend didn't know, and then I bring her over to Carmen's house and she mentioned something about me when I was younger as a female and my girlfriend didn't know. That would be a very another detrimental situation that I would have to handle. And so for me it's just be open, be honest and let them know what is going to happen, because not only is it protecting them from getting into something they don't want to be in, it's protecting me and my safety right and from getting myself hurt, because I could not tell you six months down the road. I could let you know you absolutely despise that and then and then something happens right and that's just not, because I mean you hear stories about that all the time yeah people.
Speaker 3:They don't accept trans people, and then they go out for a one-night stand and they're dead in the alley like it's not.
Speaker 2:It's common to play with right.
Speaker 3:and so for me, if I feel safe enough to let you into my life immediately, I'm going to let you know. But I also don't I kind of assess the situation If I feel like you're not going to accept it or I feel like there might be a problem, or like a little bit of a deeper, like what am I? Like? Not scenario, but like a deeper, deeper, you're trying to do something deeper here, then I'm not going to invite you into my life because it's not.
Speaker 3:I have to protect myself at that point, right, and that that's to me. What it's all about is protecting yourself, whether that's coming out. Protect yourself when you're coming out. Don't do it if you don't feel safe. Do it around people that you do feel safe with, like I had friends that I didn't feel, like I was comfortable coming out to.
Speaker 3:And then I had friends that I just dove into their arms and I was like this is what's going on and this is who I am and I can't change it. And luckily those people accepted me and those friends accepted me but I felt safe. But even with family, there's people that I didn't feel safe around because they didn't accept it.
Speaker 2:Did you lose a lot of friends.
Speaker 3:Not a lot, but a few here and there.
Speaker 1:You had a pretty good support system when it came to your friends Just because they didn't understand the ones that I did lose.
Speaker 3:they didn't understand, and that's okay.
Speaker 2:Have you talked to any of them since?
Speaker 3:Here and there, but it's just mostly been on a on a yeah, like a how are you kind of thing and we just move on, but it's never been like an in-depth conversation of like if you, if you had the chance to say anything to these people, what would you say to them? That I'm happier than I've ever been and that this is I genuinely feel like this is who I'm supposed to be can we toast to that can we toast to?
Speaker 2:being happy toast to being happy and being yourself. Y'all are babysitting, per usual who is y'all?
Speaker 1:oh, you're not let's get our guests a little refill.
Speaker 3:I genuinely feel happy and Carmen can tell you from an outside perspective. As soon as I started my transition and I started out really presenting as a male, things changed for me drastically. I felt more loving, I felt more hopeful about life. I felt more loving, I felt more hopeful about life. I felt more caring about others and Carmen can tell you I I did not like hugs.
Speaker 2:I was not a hugger before but now you are like it.
Speaker 3:Right, it was they had to struggle to get get a hug for me like it wasn't with the whole group of families. They were having a cookout, fourth of July. Everybody's there, everybody's hugging. We're celebrating not me. I'm in the back in hoodie and sweatpants, standing like this don't touch me.
Speaker 2:Don't touch me literally, don't touch me literally.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and as soon as I started to transition and I felt accepted and I was more open about it, it was like a switch flipped. It was, it was literally a switch and it's almost completely different.
Speaker 1:It was literally a switch, and it's almost like it goes to show you that when people say, that when you love yourself, you can love others.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that that is what happened with you.
Speaker 3:I agree.
Speaker 1:Because of course you loved your family, your siblings, your friends. But it's hard to accept love when you don't love yourself. Right, and it's hard to show it. When you're struggling with your identity, you're struggling with accepting yourself, and it's almost like when you said hey, this is who I am, this is what I want you to call me, this is what I'm going to be doing.
Speaker 2:Love it or leave it. We were like oh okay.
Speaker 3:well, we'll work on the whole pronouns thing, but okay you're still our baby and I knew that was a process for y'all. So it was a process for me Because, as much as I wanted it to be immediately Dominic, he, him, I knew it wasn't going to be like that.
Speaker 1:I think I explained that to you too. Because, you got frustrated in the beginning.
Speaker 3:I did right, so Dom says call me.
Speaker 1:He, this is my name, dom, it's not my given name. So then you know it's like, when I speak of you, immediately your name, that I've been calling you for the last 18 years is going to come to mind, and so you've had the time to process all of this on your own, with us just kind of floating around and not knowing.
Speaker 3:Right, just in the background.
Speaker 1:So it's like I think I told you I was like you know you have. I said this is not because we don't accept you, it's because we have to. Just this whole mental transition that you've had, we have to have now.
Speaker 3:Right, you've already done it.
Speaker 1:You know. So it took us a little while, but it was really just like muscle memory, like we just had to remember. Okay, it's not she, it's he.
Speaker 3:And then I think as I progress on testosterone and I grew facial hair and my chest flattened and things like that, I think that helped a little. It would have been hard to call you she now Exactly Right, like yeah, so but that conversation did help me kind of understand and realize OK, you're right, I have done this already. Mentally yeah, and now.
Speaker 3:It's time for everybody else to do the same mentally yeah and now it's time for everybody else to do the same, and there's still slip-ups here and there, yeah, but they don't bother me as much because I know it. That now is more so. Uh, a muscle memory thing it's more of a just a natural thing of who I remember this person and who they used to be and this is that's who you still see me as, of course, granted, I'm different, I'm I'm a completely different person, but you still remember me as this child as who I was, as this baby, as as your little one and there.
Speaker 3:There are going to be slip-ups here and there and and that's okay and I don't, I'm not pressed about it, like I don't dwell on that, because it's not intentional yeah if it was intentional, which I have had it be intentional before it's like okay, on that a little bit. I mean, I've had plenty of people like do it intentionally, or say that I'll never be anything but a girl or I'll never be a man like I've had that before, and those people just simply aren't in my life anymore, Because that's not something that I'm able to mentally battle.
Speaker 3:You can't tell me that I'm not going to be a man if you're not doing what a man does either.
Speaker 2:It's just as simple as that Drops the mic.
Speaker 3:Because, women can do what men do. At the end of the day, women can do anything that men can do.
Speaker 2:Anything you can do, I can do better.
Speaker 3:So for someone to tell me that I'm never going to be a man based off of what's in my pants is just beyond me, and the what's in my pants conversation you and I have had several times Because so, like I said, dom was basically my first child.
Speaker 1:so with that came my kids knowing Dom as a female up until he was 18. So some of my kids remember and some don't.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So the first, the big kids, as I call them, they remember Dom as a young female teenager. My younger kids, I don't know about not so much D um.
Speaker 3:I started where I think he was probably maybe two. He's one of what 2016?
Speaker 1:yeah so he's kind of always known you as Dom but he's aware actually so I've talked to my kids um, um, a lot about, um, obviously, homosexuality, um, because I do have friends that are in that community, right, and then also with you being a family member, I thought it was really important um to have that conversation, because I didn't want someone else to have that conversation and then not um speak to it. Yeah, in the way that I do.
Speaker 2:And respect it too yeah.
Speaker 1:Because, basically, when it comes to the kids and their acceptance of you, it didn't take long. It didn't they might have been better off than the adults were.
Speaker 3:I think so. Yeah, I remember specifically Kai one time asking me are you a girl or a boy? Just like out of the blue one time and I kind of just told him I like, and I think I was more boy presenting at the time and I was like I'm a boy but I've also like walked into a girl's bathroom before and I've had a little girl say why is the boy in the girl's bathroom?
Speaker 2:like so it's.
Speaker 3:It's kind of been like it's been a balance, but definitely I think having that conversation and just being open with the kids about it has helped a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because I've been open with them about it. I've never, especially your big kids. I've never. I'm not going to hide it because you know you obviously have seen me this way.
Speaker 1:Or we'll see old pictures.
Speaker 3:Right. And then you expect this person to grow up and be one way, but I'm a completely different way than you would ever expect this little girl with four braids and bows to be. You know what I'm saying so that I've just been open with the kids and I've been not, not to it, not in a vulgar sense or not in a in a sense that's too much for them to understand, but I've just.
Speaker 1:I was born a girl, but now I'm a boy and being honest, it hasn't even had to be this in-depth thing anyway it hasn't yeah it hasn't had to be, and you know something about my kids that I try to teach them because I am. I have my own personal. You know principles as far as as what is for me, but when it comes to other people and their choices and how they choose to live, you know I know people that are straight, that are awful, awful people.
Speaker 1:Absolutely that I wouldn't want around my children or that I wouldn't want nurturing my kids in any way. Um, and so what I had to tell my kids when it comes to homosexuality, because I have friends in that community and then when it comes to you, when it comes to their two separate, separate topics, obviously, but when it came to homosexuality, I think that was the first conversation I had to have with them. Um, due to another friend and a wedding that I went to. They're like wait a minute. And I was like, look, if that person loves and respects you and they treat you the way they treat you, I said, um, you know to that. To my kids, I said sexuality is about who you sleep with, and you are a kid and you don't need to be worried about another person's sexuality right I said so.
Speaker 1:If a person treats you well and respects you and loves you, what they do in their bedroom is none of your business, just like what I do in the bedroom in a heterosexual way, is not my kids, exactly, exactly so I think sometimes parents complicate the situation for sure like you guys make it way too hard. It's just, it's not your business. What's in Dom's pants? It's really that simple.
Speaker 3:I was going to say that's where that conversation comes into topic, because, one, it's none of your business, but two, how does it affect you from living your daily life?
Speaker 2:It does.
Speaker 3:And how does me? Being born a female and then transitioning to a male? How does that affect your daily life? It does, Because at the end of the day, I'm the happiest that I've ever been and for me that's going to make the world a better place, because I'm not going to see the world as a dark place. I'm not going to see everybody as an enemy or feel all of the hatred that's in the world. I'm going to want to show the light that I feel and the love that I feel.
Speaker 3:That's what I want to do. Just because I'm different doesn't mean that I'm a bad person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's a misconception. It definitely is. People assume that you're hypersexual and you want to sleep with you, know everybody, because you're you're gay or you're trans and that with my friends in that community. It's just not there they behave in the same way that my heterosexual friends do. Yeah, like I'm 24.
Speaker 3:I have four bodies. It's not that like it's not.
Speaker 2:It's not a. It's not a because I want to be oversexual or I want to explore or anything like that.
Speaker 3:Exactly, and it like even everybody that I've been in a relationship with have told me I forget that you're trans, like I genuinely forget because, it's just not on their minds 24-7.
Speaker 3:Now, granted, they see me without my shirt all the time. They see my scars, they see me take my shots, they see the struggles that I have on a daily basis, but they still don't look at me as trans, because I'm the happiest I've ever been, because I am my authentic self and I genuinely feel this is how I was meant to be born. Like it's not. This isn't an act, this isn't a phase. This is something lifelong for me and it's different for everybody, and that's why I say don't put a label on it so early, because you don't. There are people who detransition and that's not something I technically agree with.
Speaker 3:That's going to be my next question, right, and that's not something I technically agree with, because once you start transitioning, there are there are things that change and don't, they can't never change back.
Speaker 1:Like, go back a little bit on your transition and like your your first experience in seeing changes in your body. When you started, I know you took testosterone soon after you turned 18, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So did you have any fears or curiosities about how that would change your body, or were you excited?
Speaker 3:I was excited, but I also have met with people that informed me of everything Like there. I went to specifically Planned Parenthood and there's people there who are trans and will advocate for trans people and they do have a lot of help and it's called informed consent at Planned Parenthood. But before you sign that paper they go over every single detail of what's going to happen, every change that's going to happen when you can expect it. But prior to that I had done my own research on trans people all across the United States. I was doing massive amounts of research day in and day out, so I knew that this is what I wanted to do and these were the changes that I wanted to happen. But as they were happening to me, it kind of felt like they were happening slower than others. But I realized about three months being on testosterone, they're coming rapidly.
Speaker 1:Dom came over one day and I was like is that a beard?
Speaker 3:Literally you need a mustache.
Speaker 1:I just started growing facial hair one day and I looked at his shirt up and I was like you got a happy trail, like what is happening, like a happy trail the V-line, like the hair, like it all just started happening, but as it was happening, I felt myself gaining more comfort in myself.
Speaker 3:I found myself being happier with myself and people in the trans community call it a second puberty because that's essentially what it is. You're putting yourself through puberty again. So I'm 18 years old, had already been through a female puberty at 12, 13 years old, and now I'm putting myself through a male puberty. So it was a learning curve, for sure. And now, still to this day, people think I'm a lot younger than I am, because I put myself through male puberty way later than a male goes through puberty, but that's just what it is for a trans person, and I don't have any negative feelings towards that.
Speaker 3:It is what it is, just like a lot of other things are what they are that come with being trans. Like you just got to take it on the chin.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You just got to take it on the chin, you got to roll with the punches, because every day is going to be different, every story is going to be different, every person is going to be different.
Speaker 1:So I remember later on in high school, I remember you binding your chest, um, so what made you go to the extreme, as a lot of people would think, to have top surgery? Where did the courage come to do that? Because that is so permanent, right? The first thing people talk about is the scars. Yeah, um, and I do think part of the top surgery curiosity for people is some people think that trans people try to hide that they're trans, and if you are a smaller breasted woman then it's probably a lot easier to hide. Um, which was, which wasn't necessarily the case for you. But what made you go to top surgery?
Speaker 3:It was my outward appearance. I wanted to present myself in such a way that I could not with a chest with boobs. I always pictured myself sitting on a beach with no shirt and myself in trunks. I can't do with boobs, I couldn't. I always pictured myself sitting on a beach with no shirt and myself in trunks. I can't do that with boobs. I always pictured myself.
Speaker 2:I just pictured that that's what I've always pictured in my head.
Speaker 3:Laying on my chest at night and it being completely flat.
Speaker 1:How are you going to have a happy trail in boobs Right, like it just didn't make sense, and a beard?
Speaker 3:So it was just like and once you start testosterone, the fat redistributes and it's just essentially flabs of skin. They got to go.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 3:Yes, they're just flabs of skin.
Speaker 1:Oh no.
Speaker 3:Because your fat redistributes. So I remember the first time I had went to my surgeon and he was marking me up. He was like your pecs are great, like because, right, here is what they consider your pecs, but my boobs were literally hanging down to here because they were just skin like that's all they are is skin, so essentially they need to go so the top surgery is more of an outward confirmation.
Speaker 1:It is who you feel like on the inside it is. And then, whereas bottom, surgery?
Speaker 3:I personally feel like on the inside it is, and then where is bottom surgery? I personally feel like it's a more inward kind of deal.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask about that.
Speaker 3:That's more sexual and that's more intimate, and I have not considered because they need to do better. Have you ever seen the worm on Spongebob? Yes, remember that big white one.
Speaker 1:So in other words, you want a big one. If you're going to have one, no, listen to me. Okay, you remember the big white one.
Speaker 3:And he crawls into his mouth and he's like it's a worm. That's what they look like.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 3:And it's scary.
Speaker 2:Don't put that thing by me. It's scary. Keep it.
Speaker 3:I don't want it. Kill it with fire. They need to do a little bit more construction and get Bob the Builder on the case before Bob the Builder, before they.
Speaker 1:Go go gadget.
Speaker 3:Literally, no literally. They also have to take skin from another part of your body, so that's extra healing, because they take it from your arm or your leg, or sometimes your butt, and that's how they essentially make it. But then you have to heal from having a skin graft and this part of your body being taken off to make something else, and it's a four-part surgery.
Speaker 1:It's just not my cup of tea. I looked it up.
Speaker 3:It's not my cup of tea.
Speaker 1:I looked it up years ago Personally for me. You can go buy it, and that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3:Be happy, right, because you're not gonna like what you like, so just go buy it. So okay, and that's what we're going all right.
Speaker 2:If you can't grow it, buy it there you go thank you, dom. We appreciate you. We had a great time Of course. Please, please, please, come back again for another episode of Girl Please the podcast. It's Joe Frost.