Adrian

Adrian is a trans man/ftm who transitioned on the East coast in the late 90s at 26 years of age. He moved to the pacific North West in the early 2000s and eventually settled back in his home State of California where he lives today. At the turn of the millennium, Adrian participated in a number of conferences, panels, focus groups and educational Q and A sessions relating to  trans experience, health care, and trans rights primarily by happenstance. Being in the right place with activism all around him afforded him opportunities to join his with other trans voices in a time when much ground remained unbroken. He is humbled by the activists that have remained constant in our community. 

Despite being discouraged about becoming a teacher when he first transitioned, Adrian has worked for the past 12 years as a special education teacher, currently co-teaching high school mathematics.

Jackal: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone. Welcome back. We're excited to be entering our fourth season of stealth, a trans masculine podcast. I'm Jackal. And I'm

Kai: Kai. We're your hosts for the Transmasculine Podcast. It's amazing to us that we are still going strong after two years and will be featuring our 50th episode this season.

Kai: Our show continues to focus on the stories of people who identify as transmasculine and who transitioned either socially or medically before or around the year 2000. We will continue to make efforts to include stories from trans men of color and acknowledge the importance of representation from

Jackal: these voices.

Jackal: The name of our show highlights two important facts that one for our generation, we were often told to hide our past and live an underground existence and that due to that, our stories are very often

Kai: overlooked. We want our audience to know that we [00:01:00] ourselves are a part of this generation of trans masculine identified people, and that we value the experiences inside our trans masculine community.

Kai: We want people to know that throughout our lives. Each of us has had to navigate issues of disclosure, which have impacted us in many ways.

Jackal: As humans, we are always changing and transitioning. As elder trans men, we assume many roles. We get married and divorced. We are caretakers. We are parents. We are professionals, academics, and advocates.

Jackal: We push for human rights. and systemic change. We are exploring the various transitions that we undergo post transition. If you're new

Kai: to our show, welcome. And if you're a listener from a previous season, thank you for your continued support. You can find us on most social media platforms. Including YouTube.

Kai: These are trying times and we wanna acknowledge that here in the States and throughout the world, there are groups trying to remove productions in place For our trans and non-binary communities, safety is a real concern for us, particularly our trans and non-binary bipoc siblings. We offer links to [00:02:00] health and safety resources on our website, trans masculine podcast.com.

Kai: Please hold each other dear and stay in touch with us. We

Jackal: invite our listeners to remember that we are a living community. We are healthy. We are contributing. We have experienced loss and success. We are loved and we welcome you to our stories. So last year, Kai, we promoted the BTAC, the Black Trans Advocacy Coalition's upcoming conference.

Jackal: Yeah. It's coming up again. It's this year. Yep. It's in April. So I wanted to kind of give a shout out to that and to people who might be interested in

Track 1: going.

Adrian: Yeah.

Kai: Yeah. And let me read a little bit about just what the event's about. It says the National Black Trans Advocacy Conference and the Rewards Gala is a distinct five day educational and empowerment program event home to nearly 500 plus trans and gender nonconforming individuals, our family, friends, communities, allies, and corporate partners from across the country who are focused on advancing black trans equality.

Kai: Sounds like a great event. [00:03:00] We advertised in our little program last year. And we'll, we'll look to do that

Jackal: again. It's April 23rd through the 28th in Dallas, Texas. Registration is at black trans. org slash conference. So people can go and register. Now, I know that we kind of got wind of this a little bit late last year, so things were, things were already sold out.

Jackal: So it does sell out. It's a very popular event. They have all kinds of things for family. They have drag queen and king events. They have all kinds of very fun activities as well as informational conference stuff. And the Black Trans Advocacy Group is really Important because they do do a lot of work with helping, uh, black trans folks with getting their basic needs, getting healthcare, getting jobs, getting housing and things like that.

Jackal: So it's a wonderful organization to support. I [00:04:00] hope that people who want to go can go, go to apply. I think that they offer scholarships as well. Yeah, I'm

Kai: looking at it. They do.

Jackal: And, and if you're like Kai and I, and just want to advertise. Advertising their program. It's totally worthwhile. It's totally worth it.

Jackal: And it's such great organization to support. So I really hope that people do what they can to donate, to register, to support in whatever way

Adrian: they can. Yep.

Kai: And we want to just give a shout out to Carter Brown, the national executive director, our trans brother, who's helping put this really important event on for the 11th year.

Jackal: So, yeah, we're hoping to get on our show at some point, but he is really busy.

Kai: Jackal and I want to remind our listeners that we have a new member section. We want to thank those like Emory, Harold, Taylor, Matt, and Alex who have become members. Our member section offers bonus questions, features trans masculine pioneers no longer with us, and hilarious personal stories by our [00:05:00] volunteer extraordinaire, Adam.

Kai: Here's another teaser.

Adam: Anyway, the story I wanted to tell today is a pretty familiar one in the land of trans masc ridiculousness, in that it centers on a misplaced dick. So, as I mentioned, part of my whole midlife trans epiphany involved blowing up my 13 year marriage, which in turn meant that I needed to sell my house, which I'm actually still in the process of doing.

Adam: And I have two kids, and my ex and I split custody of them, but point being, kids live here in this house 50 percent of the time, and as such my house frequently looks like a tornado of glitter and crayons just ripped right through it. So, anytime the broker wants to bring prospective buyers by, I have to do a frenzied power clean of the house to make it look halfway presentable.

Adam: So, the other day, the broker calls and says he has some folks who want to see it, and I do the frenzied power clean and clear everyone out of the house. I come home a couple hours later after the showing, feeling extremely proud of myself for the manic level of cleaning efforts, and then notice that I manage to leave a giant, hyper realistic, quite veiny dick in the sink.

Adam: [00:06:00] Yeah, so after having the requisite shame spiral of crippling embarrassment, I text the broker, I believe it was just a string of fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, with like a thousand apologies after, and then I chose that moment to out myself as trans to him, since that seemed like the logical thing to do.

Adam: He being a grown up who is extremely focused on making his commission, replied with something to the effect of lol, all good, I've seen worse, and said that he'd actually noticed it in time to conceal it before the buyer saw it. Which, of course, made me wonder whether that meant he had picked it up and moved it somewhere and then moved it back?

Adam: Or maybe he just threw a towel over it or something? These are the questions that keep me up at night, wondering whether my broker has touched my dick. We also accept donations, and we want to thank Kida and Evan for their donations. The 4 a month. So go to transmasculine podcast.com and sign up now. We don't wanna be gatekeepers, so if you feel like you can't afford $4 a month, please reach out to us via email, transmasculine [00:07:00] podcast@gmail.com.

Adam: Consider buying a T-shirt while you're on our website. Or if you want to be cool like Adam. We're always looking for volunteers and we especially need a volunteer to handle our social media.

Adam: Today's interview is with Adrian. Adrian is a trans man, FTM, who transitioned on the east coast in the late 90s at 26 years of age. He moved to the Pacific Northwest in the early 2000s and eventually settled back in his home state of California where he lives today. At the turn of the millennium, Adrian participated in a number of conferences, panels, focus groups, and educational Q& A sessions relating to trans experience, healthcare, and trans rights primarily by happenstance.

Adam: Being in the right place with activism all around him afforded him opportunities to join with other trans voices in a time when much ground remained unbroken. He is humbled by the activists that [00:08:00] have remained constant in our community. Despite feeling discouraged about the prospect of becoming a teacher when he first transitioned, Adrian has worked for the past 12 years as a special education teacher, currently co teaching high school mathematics.

Adam: Adrian's trianniversary is 1997, the same as River and Cooper, so go check out our website to see what momentous events happened in that year.

Jackal: So welcome back to Stealth the Transmasculine Podcast. We're here with Adrian. Hey, Adrian, how you doing? Hi, doing well. How are you? Thank you. I'm good. I'm good. So we don't know each other, but you know Kai. How did you and Kai meet?

Adrian: It's been a while, but there was a conference. Was it called the Gender Odyssey Conference in Seattle?

Adrian: And I think I met you there. I feel like we were in contact before that somehow, virtually, but We met there and eventually I moved to the Northwest, so you were one of my very small support groups, you know, with over like six of us in town and we would meet in somebody's living room, so you're a big part of my support when I moved to the Northwest.

Kai: Right back at you, but yes, we definitely met in Seattle, in Seattle ish. [00:09:00] And then shared time in the Pacific Northwest together. So it's really great to see you.

Jackal: So Adrian, before gender odyssey, how did you learn about transmasculine identities? I,

Adrian: well, for a very short time, I dated, I dated women and I had a girlfriend.

Adrian: Gave me a bunch of books and one of them was stone butch blues. And I read that book and was floored by how much I related to it. And after that, she actually went to a, a book signing and got me that. Transgender Warriors. Is that, that was, that was the title of it, right? So it was Lauren, yeah. Mm-Hmm. uh, Leslie Find.

Adrian: Wait, is that right? Leslie Feinberg. Les Feinberg. Leslie f Feinberg, both books. Yeah. So I, I read that and, and that was when I really, there were some stories of individuals and I immediately identified and, and then I had a roommate very shortly thereafter who was auditing a class at MIT that was in between sessions.

Adrian: And it was called Gender [00:10:00] Outlaws, same title was on a radio show that was there. I was living in Boston at the time and Nancy Nandroni had a radio show called Gender Outlaws. I had started listening to that. It all just kind of happened very, very short order that I realized there were people basically like me.

Adrian: I didn't know that. I didn't know how much I was like these, these people, but a man came to that class. I audited the class as well. And. And I was waiting for the trans man to show up and I was like waiting for the person who liked me to show up. And I realized that the guy in the front with the sideburns was the trans guy.

Adrian: That was when I said, okay, I'm there. I don't know what this means, but I'm doing that. Wow.

Jackal: Awesome. That's interesting. Walk us through it. How did you begin your own transition? Well, I approached

Adrian: that, that gentleman after the class and I said, I, how do I find out more? About this stuff. And he said, he looked at me over his glasses and said, what are you trying to do or what are you doing?

Adrian: And I said, I'm [00:11:00] trying to figure out my own head. He told me later he had picked up on, you know, his trans star had gone off already. And he invited me to a support group. I believe it was called compass, uh, in Boston. And I, I went to that support group and the very first time I entered people started calling me he, and it was a kind of a pleasant shock.

Adrian: And I didn't expect that. I didn't know. And so they asked, and other people were asking me how long I'd been on hormones revealed. I confessed that I, I never even talked about this with anyone before, but I was so masculine appearing that they were assuming that I was already on hormones. So that, that was, it was a very fast thing.

Adrian: They also were in the middle of, they were just planning the 1990s. So I want to say seven could have been six. Conference that was happening in Boston, I just quickly became a fly on the wall for the planning of this big conference, and at the time allowed them to, to describe me. 'cause I was gonna read some poetry or sing a song or whatever and in [00:12:00] an event.

Adrian: And they, I said, I'm just, I'm a part of the community. Like I wasn't ready to identify as a transgender man, but, but I, I was trying to learn what was going on. I had, I participated in all of that. I created the art show in that, in that, in that conference and met a whole ton of people. And within six months of attending that first meeting, I started using he, him at work and I'm transitioning on two different jobs and starting to tell people that, that I was transitioning.

Adrian: What was that like? Oh, very stressful. Very stressful. There's a, there's this idea that once you start transitioning, like there's a relief, but actually it was a whole lot of stress involved. The, uh, the poetry or the song that I'd written was about like a burning, a house burning down so that you could rebuild it.

Adrian: And that was kind of how it felt like it was really, uh, gone because I had to tell 35 coworkers and at the time they asked you to do it individually. Yeah, they, so I had to, I had to tell all these individuals that I was going to be using the men's room. [00:13:00] My managers were actually very supportive, which was surprising, but the relationship there was good.

Adrian: And so. They helped me to manage introducing me as he to new people who came in, because most people had to, as my manager said, most people have to be told that you're female. So we just won't tell them that we'll just let them assume you're a dude. Cause that's what I looked like. They started to normalize me using the men's room and I still advise people today.

Adrian: I just started charging people a quarter if they use the word she. I just started because I'm so tired of people apologizing, you know, like people stumbling over apologies is one of the reasons I transitioned because they kept being, Oh, sorry, sir, ma'am. What, what, there was a lot of, uh, stumbling around.

Adrian: And so I just, I just would put out my hand and be like 25 cents. That's it. Let's just solve this. Right. And it worked, you know, it was like a swear jar. They started practicing. I was like, please feel free to talk about maybe on my back and do it. Say nice things. We'll talk about me a little bit more until you're used to it.

Adrian: I

Kai: think that's bold to do that. I, I didn't have the [00:14:00] courage to correct people, much less charge them for messing up my pronouns. That's amazing.

Adrian: Well, it was, we were in a fun, fun place and, and I think it really matters, you know, how you individually get along with people. I didn't take offense and I wasn't angry about it.

Adrian: I, I just, I would make things to like. ease them into the process because I felt like at the time I felt like I was asking a lot of them. So if they gave even a little, like, if they felt apologetic, that was wonderful. Thank you for apologizing. Let's just fix it. Let's skip that part because I know that you mean well.

Adrian: What

Jackal: was the logic behind Telling people individually, because talk about the stress, right? Like it's stressful to come out to your work in general, but to have to come out to each individual colleague or manager or employee seems really highly stressful

Adrian: for you. I would really love to know. It preceded the time when we would talk to HR and when HR had any procedure.

Adrian: And so I was never [00:15:00] referred to HR in any way, shape or form. I was never told who to get help from to do the process because they didn't know. So I think it was ignorance and it was a boss not knowing. If they, like this manager in particular was trying to be supportive, I believe, and was quickly trying to solve a problem.

Adrian: I was re tucking my shirt often in the back room. And honestly, I think he thought I was urinating in the mop sink. So he was trying to solve a problem by like. Why don't you just use the men's room? Let's solve this. Wow. So he was trying to solve problems and also wanted to be supportive, but he didn't know if he was going to say something wrong.

Adrian: He didn't know how to tell people. He didn't know what words to use. And rather than ask me or have some long process of learning for him. He just said, well, it's something you're doing. So you go ahead and do it. You're going to need to tell people that go ahead and use the men's room, but you need to let your male colleagues know where you're going to be doing.

Adrian: And I guess with the other job, which was, and that was a movie theater. So we were all [00:16:00] kind of young people. And I basically just when I was working on shift with people would be like, so I'm gonna use the men's room and they were like, okay. It wasn't that huge of a deal. Some people who were surprised, like they were surprised because they thought I was using the men's room.

Adrian: There was a guy that was like, I said, so I'm transitioning. And then he expected me to tell him I was becoming a woman. And so we had some confusion where I came out unnecessarily to some people.

Jackal: Hey Adrian, how do you think your social standings, race, class, abilities, your age, it sounds like you transitioned fairly young, impacted your ability to transition, your fears about transitioning?

Adrian: I was living as a really poor kid on the east coast with family on the west coast. So I didn't really have a lot of support other than the trans community really. But I did know that I had family that had, like my mom's pretty poor, but my dad actually had some money and some assets and. Ultimately, when I got to the point of telling him and then trying to [00:17:00] arrange for upper surgery, the community had a little intervention with me.

Adrian: I was in a support group and they sat down with me and the facilitator said, everybody around this room, please tell how you got your surgery, who helped you because it had not occurred to me to get help. And I thought I was stuck with no surgery forever. I just couldn't afford it. And they all went around the room and they told me who, what family member, what.

Adrian: Partner or what person had helped them, it became a realization that maybe I need to ask for help. And I did ask my father for help. So that really, that, that privilege, that financial option is the way that I got surgery. I don't know how that would have happened otherwise. I asked him and within two weeks I had a scheduled surgery and it just went bing, bang, boom.

Adrian: As far as healthcare at the time I was in Boston and I was low income and I was able to access public health. And was able to get hormones and well, actually, no, it's not true. I had to pay out of pocket for hormones. I was able to get some [00:18:00] access to medical care and medical monitoring, but I was paying out of pocket for hormones.

Adrian: And that was pretty tough.

Jackal: Did you have a prescription for it? Call it black market if you wish, but I remember buying it through the mail. You had a prescription, but you didn't actually use the prescription because you couldn't. I did. What was it like on the East coast? Did you go to the pharmacy and

Adrian: pay out of pocket for the hormones?

Adrian: I did. I did. Yeah. I went to, I had state healthcare. I had a MassHealth and I went to the learning hospital at whatever it's called, the Boston hospital. And I went. To the pharmacy there, I was able to get it, but I, I did have to pay because my insurance did not come. I had, I had trouble with other health things not being covered because I, when I signed, got this job and I signed up, I checked male on the box for insurance because I just couldn't get myself to check female.

Adrian: And then I was denied pack smears and things like that [00:19:00] because it's inappropriate. That

Kai: was before the other options were available. And I think that's something to highlight. We didn't know. What to pick, because if we picked female, then testosterone may not have been prescribed to us. And then if we picked male, then we would not have access to pap smears or hysterectomy.

Adrian: I actually come to think of it, I, my diagnosis that I got my testosterone through was hypogonadism. They used that because I had checked male as a box. So they were able to say, well, I am not, my balls aren't working, so I can get, you know, some testosterone. It's a

Kai: really sweet story how the guys. rallied to share who supported them to get access to chest surgery.

Kai: Do you remember some of the other things that you were told at the time, Adrian, about how to live your life as a trans man?

Adrian: Um, yeah, I was told to basically keep my story simple. Not necessarily when I was talking to people evaluating me for the letter to prove me for hormones, don't necessarily talk about [00:20:00] orientation.

Adrian: I was told my orientation might change that with hormones. I might, um, not. Be attracted to men any longer. And so maybe I would be a straight man. So just kind of leave it as a question mark. I don't know that people explicitly told me to share a select few memories or a certain type of memories, but I definitely told my story without some parts of it, I left out some parts of me being fairly comfortable in my body.

Adrian: Um, not having a problem with a whole bunch of different clothing and gender stuff. Some of it didn't bother me. It was more a social thing, social stuff. I was told to cut my hair short and cut my nails short and you know, there were a lot of passing tips that were given around. Actually, the guy who wrote the, there was a website that a lot of people used and he was in my, he was in my group, like I was a face to face friend of his.

Adrian: So we are all well versed in those typical passing tips. That were very much to act masculine, to observe how masculine men moved in the world, to mimic them. I

Kai: remember those. I think it [00:21:00] involved khaki pants. And I thought, I don't like khaki pants. I think it's okay that he does. I don't want to wear them.

Kai: I like

Adrian: sparkly. Well, and I mean, in all fairness, it was also very East Coast cause it was coming out of the East Coast and it was a lot more conservative out there. Yeah.

Kai: That's true. Our podcast is called stealth, a trans masculine podcast, and we're talking about disclosure. So what does stealth mean to you, Adrian?

Adrian: Oh, what a word stuff. I, it really annoys me. Well, I, I don't know if it still annoys me, but when it first started being used, I, I, I was offended by it because people used it at me. They were like, well, you're stealth. So, and, and, and I, I, I did not like it when I first heard it in conferences and groups, because it means hidden and it means hiding.

Adrian: It means cloaked and I wasn't trying to hide my take, my view of what people might call my stealthness is that I'm invisible, not that I'm hiding. But [00:22:00] that I, I might pass a trans guy on the street and he wouldn't know, and I can't be seen very clearly. And that's a privilege, speaking of privilege, that stealth, stealth is, I see people now kind of owning it, your podcast included, like that people are actually using it.

Adrian: To refer to themselves, but in the beginning, I believe that people were mostly using it about others and they were using it kind of ranking people's passing for lack of a better word, which I also hate that word, but passing, cause that's what am I passing myself off as something I'm not like I am being genuine and I am being, I am visible.

Adrian: I'm just not, you know, you just don't know everything about me. Right.

Jackal: Or shame, right? Like people judge other people and say, Oh, you're being stealth because you're afraid to be out or you're ashamed of being trans or something like that. But like you, similar to you, I say that stealth happened to me. I'm not trying to hide anything just because you don't know, like stealth all of a sudden became like I had a cloak thrown over me and not that I was trying to wear a cloak.

Adrian: [00:23:00] Sure. And I used to stand out a lot more and that was a, that was actually a loss. That I, I, as being such a, a masculine appearing and acting female, like I, I definitely had sort of special status. Like I could work on my car and do basic things on mechanical and build and whatever. And those things became completely ordinary or even just like barely, uh, qualified when I, when I transitioned and became a man, it was like, Oh, you can change a tire.

Adrian: Good for you. I mean, good for you. It wasn't a big deal anymore. So I did feel more invisible. No shade to anybody who decides not to disclose non disclosure is a total individual situation choice. It's just that the word stealth does imply, you know, that you're hiding and that, like you said, shame. And it's just, so the word itself is just not that descriptive, I guess.

Adrian: Have there been

Kai: periods of time in your life where you led a low disclosing to non disclosing

Adrian: life? Yes, absolutely. I was [00:24:00] advised, one of the things I was advised speaking about to begin with was to make. The choice later to give myself time. Okay. So as I was coming out and transitioning. And a bunch of the people that I was around had been in books or movies.

Adrian: There were things that had come out and, and I happened to know some of those people and those people advised me. If you get that opportunity to be a visible figure, maybe wait, just maybe wait a while because you can't really unchoose that once you choose that. So. Maybe just try live your life quietly for a while.

Adrian: So when I met you, Kai, I was in Northwest and I was in school and I wasn't telling my classmates or anyone around me generally. I mean, close, close friends, I would disclose to, but I just was kind of trying to live my life. I didn't even tell them I was gay among my classmates until the second year. And.

Adrian: You know, the, ultimately I ended up making that a movie with a friend of ours and showing it at the [00:25:00] university that I was attending. I just ended up coming out pretty big after about a year of that, but it still comes and goes. Like I, I start workplaces and I will usually disclose to my boss, the person who would protect me if anything happened, that I want to not be flat footed by that information.

Adrian: And I will tell close friends, but I won't tell everyone. And then it varies, like when I'm feeling like I'm going to stay somewhere awhile. I'll tell people when I went into the gay men's chorus here locally, where I sing, I I've been singing for 10 years with them, but the first entire year I didn't tell anyone I was trans.

Adrian: I wasn't sure how they would respond or how wrong I was because they're very, very open and very involved. Do you remember

Kai: how

Adrian: you did it? Yeah, I do. That particular one. Yes, I was, I was giving someone a ride home and we had become friendly and he wanted him to kiss me. And I said, There's something we should talk about.

Adrian: And I said that I was trans and he said. Oh, you too? There's a bunch of you [00:26:00] guys. And I was like, what? He said, Oh yeah, there's three or four trans guys in this chorus. And I was like, what? So talk about stealth versus hidden or versus, you know, invisible. I did, we continued dating for a while and that, that went very nicely.

Adrian: But the, the thing that was really shocking to me was that I'd been singing next to other trans guys this whole time, wondering if this chorus was open to trans guys. And some of them had transitioned in the chorus. It was. Um, yeah, so that was a big learning moment for me that, that I, if I open my mind, maybe there are other open.

Jackal: Well, not only that, but that we are invisible to each other. Yeah. I mean this, I hear you are singing next to another trans guy and you're like, can I come out here? I don't even know that you are. It's not unusual, but it's like always kind of present that we

Adrian: can't see each other. When I did connect with [00:27:00] those, those guys, they had the same response.

Adrian: They were just floored by the fact that they were not alone. I became a part of the membership committee and tried to make it really, really visible that we were, you know. Even though it's called the gay men's chorus, you don't have to be gay or a man to be in this chorus. Like everyone's welcome. Now we're much more diverse and much more aware within the chorus and it's okay.

Adrian: No matter who you are, you can, as long as you can sing the parts. So we're talking

Jackal: about life post transition because, I mean, especially for people like us who transitioned like 25, 26, 30 years ago or something, being trans is Apart and sometimes a very small part of our existence, but there's a lot of other things that have happened to us in our lives.

Jackal: And so talk to us a bit about some milestones or important moments, uh, in your life post transition.

Adrian: Yeah, when I transitioned, I didn't think that I could follow one of my important [00:28:00] dreams, which was I wanted to teach. I had been working like in a learning center in a private and expensive program, and I wanted to teach in a public environment.

Adrian: And I began transitioning and I, one of the first things that I saw was movie, uh, You Don't Know Dick, which was out at that time. And one of the, one of the interviewees was, uh, had been a teacher and lost his job. And so I, and then when I came back to the West coast, to my hometown. Locally, there was somebody who was just losing their job for coming out as trans for, for sure, not for the transitioning, but for sharing it with their students who they were going to see the next year as a different gender.

Adrian: They shared that with their students. And so I gave up that dream and, and so a big landmark, uh, change in my life was when I realized that I could now become a teacher. So some years later, maybe seven or eight years after that, I went back to school and I got my teaching credentials. So [00:29:00] I became a special education teacher over 10 years ago.

Adrian: And that was, that was a huge revelation and it had been, especially back then, a scary move to make. But, you know, every step of the way I just gritted my teeth and kept going because we do deserve to be in all the different occupations and use our talents. It's something that I'm supposed to do. I know it's where my talent lies, so I'm doing it.

Adrian: And the other one is that I got sober six and a half years ago, after many years, a person who has the disorder I had of substance abuse, many people like me would think, okay, I'm going to transition and I'll be comfortable and everything will be fine. And actually, when I transitioned, I started. Drinking harder amidst that discomfort of changing my entire life and, and trying to get everyone to come along with me and also just, Oh, I think I'll drink like a man now.

Adrian: And it's just progressive. I progressively drink more coming out as a gay man as well. Many gay men will tell you that they go straight to the bars and that's where we find people and that's where we find [00:30:00] social connection. And, and I had moved a few times, so it took me some time to really. And it was almost like addressing being a transsexual, like saying to myself, the word transsexual in the mirror and looking in the mirror being like, am I an alcoholic?

Adrian: Could this really be a problem? There were a lot of parallels, but I haven't looked back. I'm in a wonderful community of people who are gay, trans, and sober. It's amazing over

Kai: here. Congratulations, Adrian. That's beautiful. Thank you.

Jackal: Yeah. So maybe this is one of them, but what do you think some of the greatest challenges have been in your life that you've overcome?

Adrian: Well, yeah, that was kind of related, but I mean, recently in the past few years, amidst all these changes, I also took my father into my home to care for him. And that was a pretty big one. He and I didn't have the simplest relationship and you know, as many people when they're uncomfortable are a bit unpleasant.

Adrian: So it was a really hard thing to do. [00:31:00] And it happened right in May of 2020. So we had just shut down. And we were, so I, so I was in lockdown with my dad for a year and in a very small place. So I, then I dedicated the next few years, he passed away last January. Dedicated a few years to caring for him and trying to give him the best I could and also maintain my sanity.

Adrian: And that was a big challenge. So I, I lived to tell the tale. I'm sorry. Does that mean he did? He passed away last year. Yeah. I'm terribly sorry to hear that. My

Jackal: father passed away and it's been a year ago, October, just a few weeks ago, actually. Actually today is my mother's anniversary of her past three years.

Jackal: It's still very

Adrian: fresh. Yeah,

Jackal: it's, it's, it's an intense month for me, actually. So, um, yeah. So thank you for sharing that. Um, Adrian, how have you managed issues of [00:32:00] disclosure post transition? Obviously now people just. Boom, automatically see you as a man. How do you come out? When do you come out? Do you come

Adrian: out?

Adrian: There's so much variety to that. And I've experimented. It's been, I've had many years to experiment with that. In the beginning, um, I mean, definitely with dating and things, disclosure becomes a really important issue. If you're going to be sexual with somebody, you know, there's a time and a place, and you kind of figure that out as you go.

Adrian: I guess I'll say, for me, I figured that out by experimenting and as, and I didn't have a pathway of doing it. I've, I've come out to people like sitting on the edge of the bed making out and being like, well, maybe I should tell something. And I've told people before we've even met in person, I've, I've done a whole variety of things.

Adrian: I think for me that the general guidance that I, that I adopted was number one, let people get to know me a little bit before I tell them. So that I'm a person to them and they [00:33:00] have some connection with me and also that I have connection with them because boy the Unnecessary disclosures in my life were piling up because I would tell people just in advance of anything and it turns out I don't actually like you.

Adrian: Why am I telling you this? You're not we're not gonna see each other again So some things happen where I, I, I quickly disclosed and then I felt like that was too quick and the other, so besides letting people get to know me a little bit before I would tell them, I also, I try to remember to frame it as a gift or as a An added bonus thing about me rather than telling them that I have cancer or something, because when I say, I need to tell you something, people are often like, Hello, if I have a grave error about me, then they're like worried.

Adrian: But if I say, Oh, by the way, have I mentioned, there's this cool thing you might want to know. There's a little bit more, there's a little bit more to know about me, but I also, so just for example, this happens now often I just drop it into conversation because I, I now I'm of the mind that. I no longer presume that it's a big deal.

Adrian: Thank goodness for the, the world's [00:34:00] catching up a little bit and understanding because nobody knew what a trans guy was when I first transitioned. So it was, it was a really complicated conversation to try to explain. And you had to really, I had to really weigh whether it was worth all the work to explain what a trans man was and how that meant I lived and then to answer a bunch of questions about basics that people would always ask.

Adrian: But now I can say things like yesterday I was doing pottery next to somebody and. We were talking about the Barbie movie and she said she had been a Barbie girl. And I said, Oh, I was assigned female at birth. And so I was a Barbie girl too. And you know, Ken was just an accessory. We were just talking about, you know, the topic and, and she didn't blink, but maybe twice before we were just back in the role of our conversation.

Adrian: I now, I now use assigned female as birth at birth, um, because people have heard that and I, I like it. That's inaccurate. Description from you rather than saying what I did or like some big deal about my identity. Just like somebody, somebody called me a girl at some point [00:35:00] and then that changed later. I also tell sometimes students who, um, use they, them pronouns, I will privately tell them, Oh yeah, I changed my pronouns years ago.

Adrian: And there'll be like, so rather than talk about any intricate details of it, I just talk about pronouns. And let it be, let it be, but those, those change and you can, you know, connect the dots yourself. Right.

Jackal: Interesting. That's a really great story. I like that. You talked about your dad and earlier, and you also talked in a few questions ago about In your early transition, like coming from a life of poverty and stuff.

Jackal: And you mentioned also off air that you're Mexican American. How do you think that your social standings have woven into your life post transition? Have they changed? Uh, how have, has that impacted your visibility, your invisibility, your

Adrian: comfort in life? I [00:36:00] think one of the Important things about identity and post transition really has to do with family and how in my Mexican side of my family, there's, there are very few men.

Adrian: And so, as I, uh, or functional men, I should say, there's, there are many, many women and it's a very matriarchal side of my family. The women keep everything together, the people who have gatherings and who keep, you know, things going. It's always the centralized round of women. And My father was like the patriarch in the family who was, who was turned to, to walk people down the aisle or show up at certain events as the, as the father figure.

Adrian: And I have very much taken on that role as well. So that was very touching because at first they were still calling me she, even though I hadn't been goatee and definitely was not she anymore. But then my father took a leadership role, which is what, you know, he had there. And he started to say to people like, this is okay, this is happening.

Adrian: Adrian [00:37:00] has to do this. This is a medical need and this is happening. And so the family came along and not only that, you know, started asking me to fix their vacuum cleaner, like drive people to school and whatever I needed to do as the guy. So that was very touching, uh, a very embrace embracing change in such a, in a culture that can be, you know, very, very patriarchal in a lot of ways are very machismo centered.

Adrian: I'm a, I'm a pretty gentle guy and he did that has been embraced, which is pretty cool. And as far as elsewhere, you know, my, my, I'm not really, I'm not, I feel like my privilege has grown and grown because I got educated. I got a job. I definitely perceived as just a white guy walking down the street was probably born a guy.

Adrian: And. So I think there's a lot of presumed privilege that, that people just continue to give me this space that they believe I've occupied the whole time. And so I try to speak into that a little bit. I try to, that's one of the reasons I [00:38:00] disclose is that because I, I don't occupy this space of privilege in all situations and in all times.

Adrian: So to understand that I have fears about having my rights taken away and that I have fears about violence against me and, and, and things that I share with other folks. That they may not assume. So I try to, I try to disclose sometimes, because I think that it's hidden. A lot of that is hidden behind the privilege.

Adrian: Thank you. Over time,

Kai: it sounds like your role has changed within your family and in the community. Tell us a little bit about what your life is like now.

Adrian: Oh, you know, I'm in this place where I've, I've, I finally stopped going to school and I'm living a, a, a pretty steady life. I have instead of homework, I have hobbies finally, you know, just like I'm, I'm doing a lot of art and I, I liked my life scheduled up, you know, and I, I mentioned I'm active in recovery.

Adrian: So I, that's a, that's a big part of my schedule. I'm working full time, uh, in a job that I love. It's not easy, but I'd still love [00:39:00] it. And now my father has passed. And so I'm living in a kind of a large house for me because I had room for the two of us. So I'm kind of adjusting to that and I'm managing dismantling the estate and just kind of, you know, I've reached a new and unfamiliar plateau of privilege now where I'm, I'm no longer going to be, you know, a renter.

Adrian: So I haven't, I don't own a house at this time, but, but I probably in a couple of years, I will be it. In a completely different bracket, and as I age, I think that's appropriate and it feels, feels right. Mm-Hmm. , I'm very active creatively and I'm, I'm pretty social. I do a lot of gardening and art . That's nice.

Kai: Do you, do you still do music? Do you still, you sing and play music? I, I sing

Adrian: with the, yeah, I do sing with the local gay chorus. Mm-Hmm. and that, that's like a couple times a week of rehearsing with a bunch of people who are, who become a chosen family. It's just a beautiful thing. So I have a. I have a pretty big and supportive community, uh, here due to [00:40:00] having, you know, the gay chorus community and also the gay sober community and the sober community at large, but there's a very old and established LGBTQIA plus group here for the recovery group that I attend.

Adrian: And so it has a. Like a lot of elders, both of the communities share that there are elders that have been there since the start. And then, and then we're all, we're all in charge of helping new people come in and sort of mentoring them in. And so I have a really, um, rich, rich life. I also have, you know, family, my, my mother is still with us and she lives close by and we spend a lot of time together.

Adrian: And that's, that's a bright spot right now. She's in her eighties. My father is 92, so getting to spend these later years with them is a, is a gift. I love it.

Kai: Thank you. Thank you. I, I remember your beautiful writer. I hope you're still doing that. Thank you. Okay. What are, what are a few things that you're most proud of in your life?

Kai: I

Adrian: think I'm taking care of my [00:41:00] father is one of the things I'm the most proud of. I, I certainly, a lot of things happened to me and I got through a lot of things that I had to do, but taking care of my father was a choice and people were split half and half saying, this is not the thing you have to do or should do.

Adrian: And some people were saying, you're a very good sign. You're doing the right thing. And so for me, I really made that choice internally, and then it was a private, almost spiritual decision that, that I almost, you know, there are very few decisions that have been that personal in my life, transition included, where I just had to listen to my inner voice.

Adrian: I'm very proud that, that I took on that role and I feel like I did it well. That was the most recent. That's nice. Yeah, that's very

Jackal: nice. Thank you so much. I

Kai: want to thank you for your service as a teacher, especially in the special ed area. There's such a need for. Good teachers that care about the work and do important work for kids so that they have access to education.

Kai: So I want to highlight that. That's beautiful. No, thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. [00:42:00] If you think forward, imagining your life in 10, 20, 30 years, what, how do you think it's going to be? It's a little

Adrian: smaller, I hope. I'm very active right now and I get tired, but I think I'm going to continue to be creative and I think I'm going to continue to be involved in these communities that I've found home in some way, shape, or form.

Adrian: I think that. I'm going to follow the advice of an elder guy I met. Years ago, who said the trick to growing old happily is to make younger friends. Cause they all start dropping off and he said, you got to have some younger people around. Keep you, keep you current.

Jackal: Right. But, but don't get the younger friends that tell you that you're not, no, no, no, you're already over the hill.

Jackal: Make sure that the younger friends are telling you that you're at least middle aged or young. You know,

Adrian: I mean, the people who told me that are my age. So that's unfair that they're pointing fingers, but Also, I've, I've come to the place in my dating life where a young man told me that he's, that, that he found me attractive and he's into older men.

Adrian: And I was, [00:43:00] I just looked around. What are we talking? Who's, who are you talking? Oh, wait a minute. I'm the older man now. I'm developing a different group of people, but it's great because the groups I'm in are very, are varied in age. And even just by being a teacher abreast of the current slang and certain things have to, you have to learn or else you don't know what the heck they're saying.

Adrian: So. It does keep you young to be around some younger

Jackal: folks for sure. Sure. Um, so Adrian, what do you think, what kind of support do you think you'll need as you age?

Adrian: I, yeah, I don't have kids and I'm the guy who was the caregiver for my dad. So I've thought a lot about this because he's going to take care of me.

Adrian: Even my father and my mother have said that to me, he's going to take care of you. But I'm watching the communities develop. And so I think what I'm going to need is collaboration from other aging LGBT QIA plus, plus, plus people who are open to an understanding of [00:44:00] the particularities of my needs, you know, when it comes to medical care or whether whatever people who are in the same boat and collaborate, I mean, I imagine things like a bunch of us, like older crusty folks, like renting a house together and hiring someone to help us together, as opposed to having to have the individual caregivers, you know, But I think about aging care and how we're going to manage that as a community, as a trans person, as a trans person, as a gay person, as, as a single person, as a person without children.

Adrian: So, so many of the people in my communities do have children or do have partners and they definitely have a plan of some sort. I gotta get some long term care insurance, you know, and I, I gotta make sure I'm, I have access to care that is not discriminatory against, because I've, I've heard some stories about.

Adrian: Just people going back in the closet when they go into a care home because they're not guaranteed they're going to be treated well if they're not in the closet. I think I want to be part [00:45:00] of developing that. I want to be part of developing elder care that is, that is open to all people and that is collaborative and maybe cooperative.

Adrian: So you are a trailblazer. Just, just by aging, just by being on the, in, in the weeds, once again,

Jackal: how would you like to be remembered?

Adrian: Kind as a kind person, I would like to be remembered as a creative and kind person and as somebody who continually tried to do better because that's, that's really how I want to be remembered today.

Adrian: When I leave the room, I want, I want to be that person on the daily as much

Jackal: as possible. Nice. So we're coming near the end, and I want to ask, what would you like to say to the newer generation of trans and non binary folk? They don't have to be youth, they could be just coming out in their 40s

Adrian: yesterday.

Adrian: You know, I've thought about this a lot, and I, I think that, first of all, live as freely as you can. [00:46:00] Live as freely as you can, and enjoy. Like, I would give them That's hope for the joy in their life to dig as deep for that joy as you can. Um, I, I, I think the, the world has opened up a lot more. And so I would encourage people to take advantage of that and also to follow your own inner voice rather than listen, there's a lot of people who want to tell you how to do things, you know, that's irrelevant.

Adrian: Just, just FYI. That's irrelevant. I think, I think that they know that. I think the people who are, who are coming into themselves these days know that I would, I would add that a little grace. Is helpful. We talked about this in the past when people, when I was trying to help people adjust to my changes, that a little grace is helpful when you're asking others to be open to you.

Adrian: And to try to assume that others, if they had the right information or the right approach, that they want to support you. And then if they're wrong, that maybe they just need to learn. That's not the case in all cases for [00:47:00] every interaction, but I think that sometimes people are quick to offense. They are very quick to.

Adrian: To assume that someone's on the opposite side or that doesn't they don't want to allow space for them. And as a teacher, I have students who want to assert their individuality and, and they may presume that I don't know anything about that and that I don't want to honor that if I made me screw up their pronoun or don't ask them their pronoun or that I may make a mistake.

Adrian: And I would really like to be given a little bit of a chance to have a dialogue so that I can learn. And I would just say that that's a really good stance to take. From my experience, it was a good stance to take. People want to help me if I give them the information they need.

Jackal: Thank you so much, Adrian.

Jackal: Do you think that there's something that we should have asked that we didn't in the famous last words of wisdom, the words that you just gave us were pretty wisdom oriented, but did you think that there's something we missed out on? Yeah. You

Adrian: didn't ask me what I think STP means. [00:48:00] What does STP mean to me?

Adrian: I used to have a hat. I used to have one of those like oil, like the STP oil. I used to have that hat and I wore it as a private joke all the time.

Kai: You may notice the logo looks a little bit like that.

Adrian: Yeah, I did

Jackal: notice that it's a cross between the S STP oil and the Manny Moe

Adrian: and Jack. Oh yeah, I see that.

Adrian: Okay. Now I see that. All right,

Kai: Adrian, is there something that you want us to promote any social media, websites, artwork, anything?

Adrian: Sure. I'm, I'm starting to publish some of my work as I work on pottery and it's at Medputtering on Instagram. I probably even sell stuff there someday, but right now I just would love it for people

Kai: to see it.

Kai: I say it again, slowly for the, those of us in the back.

Adrian: It's called mud puttering. Like I'm puttering around the house with mud on Instagram.

Kai: M U

Jackal: D P U T T E R I N G. Mud puttering at mud puttering. Yep. Thank you.

Kai: Thank you, Adrian. [00:49:00] Thank you for your time. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your stories.

Kai: Thank you for being here. It's great to reconnect with you, hon. It was great talking

Adrian: with you guys. Thank you.

Jackal: Thank you. Thank you to our members. Adrian, what do you think about being asked to identify your pronouns?

Adrian: I, I try to be patient with that because at first when people started that, I, I was frustrated because I felt like when people were going around sharing pronouns, it seemed like an attempt to be open to and make space for people who were unconventionally gendered, let's say.

Adrian: And that was a wonderful opportunity for people to disclose. But. My pronouns are he, him, and so that doesn't make me any more visible. So it actually is really, it's a conversation that I feel like I get left out of. People are going around the room and somebody says they, them, and then I say he, him, and they still don't see that I'm part of their [00:50:00] community in any way.

Adrian: So it feels, it felt frustrating, but, and I've noticed some of my friends who use he, him have actually added he, him or they, them. They've changed their, the way that they talk about pronouns. And I noticed like that. That just, that makes them more visible. Are you

Kai: talking about trans, trans masc friends?

Adrian: Like trans guys? Yeah. Trans. Yeah. I know, I know a couple of trans guys who like, they, we, we go on zoom calls or whatever and they have their pronoun and it used to say he, him, but it's like he, him, they, them. Like, you know, that is, it's something I've considered too, because although I don't really identify with they, them, it would reveal me as a person who's not necessarily a cisgendered man.

Adrian: Not necessarily. Not necessarily. And yeah, but I also. evolved my thinking beyond my own belly button, because that conversation, when we offer pronouns and we ask for pronouns, it's not about me, it's about people who are invisible in a different way. It's about people who may be entering transition or [00:51:00] non medically transitioning and are not seen as the person they feel to be, so they're being able to reveal who they feel they are.

Adrian: Or who they truly are. Really. And so they're, they're able to be present more in the room. And it's really not about, I I, I, I feel it's unfortunate that I cannot then bond with them though over that conversation. Mm-Hmm. So I, but I get the opportunity to individually approach them or, or reveal myself in some other way.

Adrian: So sometimes I say he him, but they didn't use to be.

Jackal: Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm. . I like that. How did you get your name? I love name stories. So how did you get the name? Mine is

Adrian: boring. That was my birth name. My father's yeah. No, that's not,

Jackal: that's

Adrian: not boring at all. My father's first name was Adrian. He did not go by his first name, but his first name was Adrian.

Adrian: And when I was born. They had decided to name me Adrian. Either way, let's either gender. Mm. They named me Adrian. It was spelled differently and I had a different middle name. Mm-Hmm. . Mm-Hmm. . So, [00:52:00] uh, my middle name had been taken from my grandmother, and when I went to get my legal name changed, I just changed the spelling of my first name and then I, Mm-Hmm.

Adrian: couldn't decide on a middle name. So the Mexican side of my family, Joseph, would've been the appropriate one. And I didn't want to erase the, the, that Irish English side of my family. So I chose. Donovan is another middle name. So I have a whole bunch of middle names now and that's that. I did actually try to go by one of the middle names for a while.

Adrian: I don't know Kai if I was going by Joseph. At all when I met you, but just, just before that I had tried Joseph on for a while, didn't, I didn't, didn't work. I like my name. I like Adrian.

Jackal: Very nice. I love that story actually. Is there a time that you didn't expect to disclose, uh, your trans status and you did, or you had to, or what happened?

Jackal: What did you do?

Adrian: Oh, well. I'm not sure if this is how you mean the question, but here's how it, here's how [00:53:00] it came to mind. I, I had heard of people when I transitioned, there was one guy who had 20 years and he said, I forget on a regular basis that I'm trans and I didn't really believe that I didn't. That didn't ring true to me.

Adrian: I couldn't imagine, but the, the day that I realized it might be true, I had been running a learning center. It had some computers that were, it was basically a drop in center in an apartment complex. And one of the people who frequented it was very into genealogy. And she was always doing research on the computers and looking things up.

Adrian: And one day she said, why don't we look you up? And I said, what a great idea. And so she searched me up in the public database, gender, whatever it was, records, and she found my birth certificate. And, and so my name on the birth certificate is written Adrianne and, and it says female and all this stuff. And I was like, Oh, there's that typo that's been following me all my life.

Adrian: Huh? That's uh, that's odd and awkward. Like I, now it goes all the way back there. How fascinating. And then we moved on. Cause I wasn't. [00:54:00] Out to her and I wasn't planning to be, but it did not occur to me that as she looks up my birth certificate, of course, of course, I'm a trans guy. What was I thinking? So I did not intend to, but I did, I did share, I don't know how that came out in her mind.

Adrian: Like I may have played it off properly. And at that time, not a lot of people understood or knew about transition. So I was kind of banking on that, like hoping that she would believe that. There's just, there's no way that this guy here was somebody else in the past. They're just a little, a little typo, a

Kai: little bit of a typo.

Kai: Come up for us unexpectedly. So in so many unexpected ways, we have to think on our feet a lot. How are we going to share a story or not share a story or talk about a sport we played or the time we were referred to as brother or sister, it's, it's. A lifelong thing, I think. Oh,

Adrian: yeah. I, I, when my dad passed away, I went to see a lawyer about [00:55:00] the will and there were multiple versions of the will.

Adrian: And then I brought her everything that I had and he had just handwritten these wills. And so in one of them, he's referring to having two daughters and I had to explain I was assigned female at birth. So, so this person he's referring to is the same person. So yeah, it comes up in all sorts of ways. This one.

Adrian: Even the conversation yesterday where somebody was talking about being a Barbie girl, and I don't necessarily have to reveal that I was assigned female at birth. If I'm going to talk about being a Barbie girl, I'm a gay man. I couldn't have been a Barbie girl, but it comes in. It used to be more of a consideration.

Adrian: I used to think about it longer because people didn't understand it needed a lot of explaining, but these days I can just say, Oh, I was assigned female at birth and we played with Barbies so forth. It just, it, it comes up and I think about it for a couple seconds. And then I. Decide whether I need to share it.

Jackal: The interesting thing for me around this is that for so [00:56:00] many years, and I've heard it from so many trans men, including myself, is that you don't come out or you don't let people in because gender never comes up in conversation. Right. Well, I started noticing quite a few years ago that it did, and I did have the opportunity to come out, but because I had been so conditioned and so used to not coming out to people at work or to people like wherever, you know, that I didn't take the opportunity.

Jackal: And now, and this is where I think the younger generation has really pushed us forward, is that the number of times the gender comes up in conversation is so much more prevalent, and there's so much more comfort in many situations, if not most, that it gives me the opportunity to be, like you say, you know, you think about it for two seconds and then you come out because they've given us a gift of kind of that fluidity of opportunity.[00:57:00]

Adrian: I should mention this other opportunity that came up last year, it was Trans Day of Visibility, when is that, March or something? So, Trans Day of Visibility was coming up, and my district, so I've never talked to students about being trans, and I had selectively said, I had a different pronoun in the past, to just a few students, but I had never addressed that.

Adrian: I thought that was, Two personal grounds for some kind of problem, you know, with my boss or whatever, although my boss has always known that I'm trans, I always tell them, and when the parents of the students started to be people that I might've gone to school with, we were at a certain age where they're the students I was teaching were like, some of them, I knew these people from high school and they were raising kids.

Adrian: So they became a little more possible that I would be known as a trans person on campus. But when Trans Day Visibility came last year, the district posted a thing that was affirming that they had resolved to [00:58:00] make it a week, a week long honoring and that they were going to create, uh, more support for trans and non binary students and staff.

Adrian: And they were going to, like, they were doing a whole campaign to make sure there were, um, allies, uh, liaisons on each campus and that we had. Proper restrooms for everyone that needed restroom for everyone. And, um, anyway, this whole thing came out in it and said, we encourage teachers to share this with their students.

Adrian: So I thought about that for a while, because if I'm going to share that the district is supportive of trans and non binary folks on trans day of visibility, trans week of visibility, and not refuse, not be visible. What does that say to me about myself? What does that say about living in fear or modeling what I, what I want to model?

Adrian: So I decided to tell my boss that I was going to share it with my students that I'm trans. And she said, as long as you're comfortable, I totally support that. I, I started the week [00:59:00] telling them, do you know what TDOV is? And they of course didn't, you know, and I explained that it's trans day of visibility.

Adrian: And why do we need a day of visibility? Because some trans people are not visible and it's not, they can't really communicate with other people about that or help anybody else or. Be seen without becoming visible. And then we talked about, I talked a little bit about, uh, how the district had supported it and all the things that the district had shared.

Adrian: And then I said, and so I just want you to know you have a trans teacher. So now, now I'm visible and there were varied reactions. One class bursted burst into applause. Some trans kids jaws dropped and they were very. I'm thankful. Um, later I, I did that at the beginning of the week. And by the, the, the end of the week, which was Friday was the actual day of visibility.

Adrian: I said, I started over with, do you know what TDOV is? And they all said trans day of visibility. And then I said, well, in case you don't know, you have a trans teacher. [01:00:00] So there you go. And they were like, you already told us, Mr. Paz, they were like yawn. They were over. They were like, help me with number seven over here.

Adrian: I'm a math teacher. So they're like, Can we just do some math now? Cause we know it was very cute.

Jackal: Unexpected. Kids are kids. You already told us that.

Adrian: Yeah. They're just like, we don't, that's not exciting. That's not news. We big deal. We're more concerned with what's happening among us than that. You're trans.

Kai: I think that was true. When we were coming out to kids were chill. When I told the kid, when I was coming out and you were in transition, they were like, okay. You're always a boy anyway, or something like that. It wasn't a thing. And they moved on and I was like, wait, that's it? Your story is really beautiful.

Kai: And it chokes me up to hear how you shared and how you built up to that. And that your district was reporting that they were supportive and your principal was on board if you're comfortable. And I think people don't understand. In my mind, it's not comfortable. The fallout of this could be dire. We're [01:01:00] hearing across the nation and elsewhere that the parents are hearing news of this, catching wind of this, and then going to the principals, the superintendents, the PTA meetings, the board, the school boards, and they're getting in positions where they can outlaw things, ban books, or get people fired.

Kai: It's such a gutsy move and such a personal decision tying back to what you said earlier, Adrian. About not everyone is in a position where they're going to disclose and that's okay. I just want to say hats off to you. Right.

Adrian: And here I am talking about it in a podcast also scary, but this is what I've chosen.

Adrian: This is what I've decided and it's taken some time to come to this place, but, but that moment of ease and peace and gratitude that followed that fear of disclosing among these young people by and large were extremely supportive. It also felt supported by me. That's more important to me. It's more important to just.

Adrian: To be able to, to offer what I can of support to others, I've [01:02:00] had a lot of support along the way. I'm doing fine. I'm going to be fine. If I lose a job, I'll be fine. Dude, I'm a special educator, but also, you know, I'm a good human being and I'm trying to give the world that grace. If I kind of assume or presume that they will make space for me, things will go better.

Adrian: So I'm just going to keep trying to take space a little at a time where I

Kai: can. And when you casually disclose to the person with whom you were doing pottery. And it wasn't a thing. You didn't make it a thing. Her response tells you everything about her. And you're making it normal that we're around, we're everywhere, we have been everywhere, and it's not a thing.

Kai: I'm really glad that went well, and it's a really nice example of how we can do this and be present for people. I just keep thinking, if I was a kid and my teacher disclosed that he was trans, That could be life

Adrian: saving. Yeah, it makes me a bit emotional to think about, you know, I mean, I hope it helps. I really do hope it helps.

Adrian: That's the whole

Jackal: purpose. It's not. And the, and the other side of that, and I'm sorry to, sorry to bring it down, but like [01:03:00] all of the anti trans legislation, like your school district is doing the right thing, but there are a lot of school districts that are doing exact opposite and you cannot come out as trans and how that.

Jackal: Shifts that support for young trans people, trans students, and can be life threatening, can be life threatening in their world. And I I'm so afraid for them. And I really hope that they listen to this podcast or listen to other people or get the support out there that they need, because just because your school is fucked up.

Jackal: Doesn't mean that we're not there and we're

Adrian: not supporting each other. The world is a very big place. As the saying goes, it gets better. And it's really, it gets better immediately when you start connecting with other people and finding other like minded individuals in the world is connected online. And there's so many ways that we can reach out for help and support.

Adrian: Um, It's, it's impossible if we don't [01:04:00] let anyone know who we are. So if we find the right supportive people and we share a little bit about ourselves with them, we have a chance to get some really good results. It's a really good support. Even as an adult with a meaningful job and a pretty stable life, I.

Adrian: I felt a lot of fear and I would not have come out if the district had not pronounced that they were supportive. I have never been in a district that pronounced that. Without that pronouncement, I would not have taken it on myself to have come out. Because it is a risk and it's not, you know, yet another privilege in my life that I am in that kind of a job.

Adrian: But, but I do feel like it's important to utilize and capitalize on every privilege that I have to Make, make the world a better place for other people is my hope. Right. So if I'm given a privilege, it's not just like put my feet up on a coast. It's about recognizing that it is not. Everybody's situation and trying to make it more people's situation.

Adrian: Thank [01:05:00]

Kai: you. Wouldn't it be nice if we got to a point in our world where it wasn't a courageous act to disclose something about yourself, right? We're far away from that, but it's really beautiful that you did that. And throughout your interview, the theme, one of the themes that's been coming up is your ability to find support and connect with people and take calculated risks and learn from them as you go.

Kai: One of the things you referenced earlier was. Not knowing even when you're among each other. So the question we have is many of us have joked about wanting to have some sort of code so we can communicate with each other when you don't personally know someone, but you know, or suspect their trans mask when you see them or meet them, how do you typically

Adrian: respond?

Adrian: Oh, that's a hard one because like, it can go wrong in so many ways. I, I, in the place I work right now, or actually, well, the place I was working, I had a colleague that like when I was new at that position, I had a colleague who I was sure was trans and I was so excited because everybody seemed to [01:06:00] like them and they'd been there for nine years and I just was so excited that we were in a supportive environment.

Adrian: I was dead sure this guy was trans. How did I know? Well, he was short of stature. His hands were small. He had a voice that made me think that maybe he was a trans guy. There were a lot of, a lot of clues, right? He was friends with somebody who was queer, who was on staff. It was just a lot. And I finally decided, and I thought about this and I talked to some other people, including some other trans people about, do I say something?

Adrian: Do I ask, what do I do? And because he, he appears more trans than me, I guess is one way to put it. I'm a little bit taller than him. My hands are just big. I don't know. I just luck of the draw and whatever. So I just didn't have as many clues to give to him. So one day when we were finally alone in a room as before he left, I said, so I have a question and he said, yeah.

Adrian: And I said, so I'm a trans guy. Are you trans like me by chance? And he said, no, I'm not trans at all. [01:07:00] He said, no, but I'm bi and thanks for sharing that with me. And it, it turned out very nicely, but it was a really. I felt so embarrassed that I had, I mean, at least I had said it gently instead of being like, so you're trans.

Adrian: I, he, he said the words, I'm not trans at all. He said at all. I thought that was funny, but he, he later invited me to join him at the company's support group for LGBT folks. And it resulted in some bonding, which was nice. I also found out someone among our current teachers. Was trans. I thought maybe, but I didn't know and, and when I was in conversation with the principal about trans stuff, I actually, she said something like, you're not alone.

Adrian: There's a bunch of people on staff. And I'm like, really, who? Which then I later apologized to her because I put her on the spot. And then she told people were trans. And I was like, maybe I shouldn't have asked you that directly. Maybe I shouldn't have put you in the position of outing people as trans.

Adrian: But, It's a good result in the end because we are among friends and [01:08:00] so I did approach and she said, well, these people transitioned here that people know that they're trans, it's not a hidden thing. So I approached the person who, uh, and I just said, I hear you're trans like me. And he said, Oh, really? And we just got into a conversation.

Adrian: So when I knew for sure, that's how I approached it was just like, I hear you're like me. And it worked out nicely. We're buddies now. We talk a lot. It really varies. I, I really want the secret handshake. We talked about it years and years ago. I think more and more as we have like flags to wear and, you know, things that, that can reveal us, it's, it's a little easier to spot each other.

Adrian: I

Kai: went to a conference a couple of weeks ago and hadn't been at an in person conference in ages. And it was for HIV and AIDS. There's every kind of flavor person out there. And the last day I was wearing my hoodie for my job, but also a t shirt that said protect trans youth and the trans flag, just so there was some acknowledgement.

Kai: So the other trans mass folks [01:09:00] clock me and know me. And there would be some visibility there because people didn't always know. We can't always know. Talk to us about Adrian. How do you feel when you get clocked by other trans mass folks? If, if that happens for you? Um, it's

Adrian: pretty rare. I, I, I, I guess, uh, I mean, I love it when people know that I'm trans like them, like I, I love it.

Adrian: And so I was at a barbecue this summer and I had been invited by a trans guy who knew I was a trans guy. I was sitting at the end of the table that where there were a bunch of trans folks, there was a trans woman there that didn't know me, that didn't know me. I, I couldn't tell, but I was kind of presuming that she didn't know I was trans.

Adrian: I actually started talking about this upcoming podcast. I was thinking about the STP podcast and that I had been asked to be on it and that I was. Thrilled that you guys are interviewing the old guard transition folks that had a different experience and that there will be some kind of an archive. And as I said this, she turned and faced me [01:10:00] completely.

Adrian: We was next to each other and suddenly was regarding me a new in anew. And I thought, that's wonderful because otherwise we have this connection that you don't see. And so more and more I try to bring it up. mm-Hmm. When I know that I'm in company that will recognize me well, better as I talk about it.

Adrian: But yeah, I love it. I love it when we can connect. I love it when people are, uh, willing to ask. But it's hard. I don't think I've ever had anybody just flat out say, are you trans? I'm not sure. I'm not sure that's ever happened. I

Jackal: like, I like your, but every time you've said it, you've said like me, like them.

Jackal: And I don't know why, but it just brings joy to my heart to hear you phrase it like that. Are you trans?

Kai: Like me?

Jackal: It's just, I'm trans. I'm trans. Like you come out, you ask and you come out in the same moment, but it's you're joyous about being trans. Maybe that's what I'm. picking up on, but it sounds very joyous to me.

Jackal: So thank you for

Kai: sharing. It also brings up when [01:11:00] we hang out with people, we have to make decisions about who we, who we invite if we do or don't disclose other people's status. So I went hiking yesterday with a couple of trans guys. And someone else I didn't know, there were a couple of partners there. I didn't disclose anybody's status to anybody.

Kai: These people I hadn't met before. And maybe we have a special way we know, but there are times where I enter social situations and I wonder who's told people about my being trans, the people who know about me, that's a tricky one. I wouldn't out someone or disclose someone. So it's different for us, I guess.

Kai: You guys

Jackal: didn't do the pronoun game

Kai: before you went hiking? We didn't have name tags. It doesn't help. It doesn't help. Our name tags were beneath our raincoats. We're in the northwest.

Adrian: I, you know, it's funny because I, I sort of count on people telling other people about me because that's what I've utilized to, to come out to people.

Adrian: [01:12:00] After my coming out to many, many coworkers, one at a time, I told one or two people in the chorus, I sing in hoping that then everyone would know. So then I could start dating them, right? So that people would just know, but it turns out that people are protective of my trans status more than I even realized so that others who have known all along would just.

Adrian: Like, I would just presume that their partner knew, or I would just presume, and they'll be sort of confused when I start talking about something and I realized they, they just, they don't know.

Jackal: We had another guest. I'm not sure if he's part of the same gay choir that you are or not, but he does a similar thing.

Jackal: He tells a few people, but he particularly tells the gossips. So the people who are very gossipy and we'll just tell everybody so that the new people who come into the choir will automatically know because check that guy told his job was done everybody else. Right? Yes. His job was [01:13:00] done. Right? Yeah.

Jackal: Because it's, it's horrible to come out to one, every single person, every single time. Right. But so I think you just need a better, it's not the gay dart, but the gossip dart. You need to find the one person

Adrian: who's like the biggest gossip. When I share it, I have since told people, please feel free to share this information.

Adrian: It's helpful that, you know, feels, please feel free to talk about this. It's totally, I'm open about it. And if anybody has ever curious or something, and people have come to me too, when they have, they want to support someone who's transitioning. And they've come to me to ask my permission to give out my phone number or to share my story with them, with someone.

Adrian: So I kind of know when people are gatekeeping and they're careful about it, they will approach me and say, I want to talk about you to someone. Is that okay? And it's fantastic. And I'll say, yes, forever. And for life, you are welcome to do

Kai: that. I appreciate the generosity there with your willingness to give people passes.

Kai: One is be patient with people as they process and come to terms with somebody's transition and even we mess up pronouns, right? I really appreciate [01:14:00] that because it's out of our control. Once you tell someone, we're giving them that, we're letting people in and we don't know what they're going to do with that information.

Kai: It's really generous of you to say, go ahead and talk about it in a nice way.

Adrian: That's newer. That's what it made me think of. That's newer because in the past. I didn't know how people would tell me I was in a, in Boston, I was in a community where I was living in a house with my boyfriend and two other gay men and they did not know I was trans and they started telling me about somebody who was a man who was actually a woman.

Adrian: And that's how they were describing it. They were like, this guy, he comes to the club with us and he's actually a woman. He's actually a lesbian is what they said. And I said, actually, I know him. And he doesn't date any women, so I don't think, and he's also not a woman, so I don't think he qualifies as a lesbian in any way.

Adrian: Like, how would he qualify as a lesbian? I don't understand what you're saying to me. I know. So if people were going to say about me, like, Oh, this member of our chorus is actually a [01:15:00] woman, like that wouldn't be comfortable. So I had to get to a point where I, I really did believe that they were going to use kind of like accurate terminology and accurate and, and careful ways of, yeah, respectful ways of talking about it.

Adrian: And I do believe that now. They absolutely have heard it. A lot of people, my favorite is when I enter some kind of group or organization and they share some, maybe they don't think that they need to disclose. We've had some students that were trans that the, the team needed to share with me that this student was being raised as this gender and use these pronouns.

Adrian: They need to share that with me as part of the team, the IAP team. And so my favorite is when they don't know that I'm trans and they do an A plus job of sharing somebody's status with me in confidence with, with absolute, it was the most beautiful thing when I, the first time I worked a job. Where I was told about a trans student with the utmost respect and care and they were using You know, the method of overusing a pronoun so that [01:16:00] people in the room will get it.

Adrian: They were doing that and they were doing that for me, and I just, I loved that and I, I, I later came out to that group of people and told them that they were, they were stellar at supporting transparency.

Kai: That's beautiful. I have a question that isn't on the list and you, you decide if you wanna answer it.

Kai: Alright. Sure. So I'm thinking about recovery as a process, and you've, you've embraced, this is a very strong part of your identity, a really big milestone that you've achieved, and you continue to be connected to that community. It's super important. And I know it's not a linear process. So as you pursue dating, intimacy, relationships, whatever that means, would you mind talking to us a little bit about like disclosure one, about, you know, I'm in recovery, if you do that?

Kai: And then, and how has dating changed or not changed for you?

Adrian: Oh, much like with transition, there are so many parallels. Dating slowed down a lot. Like with transition, I, I was kind of a hussy before I transitioned, you know, it was like, I had [01:17:00] to actually talk to people before we jumped in the sack. That was a change.

Adrian: So that was, that was, and it's similar, you know, that I'm, I, I'm very upfront about being in recovery. I'll put it on my profile. Like when people say, when there's a question about, do you drink, do you never, I never. I never drink and I never do drugs and that's a big part of my identity and it's important to me.

Adrian: It, I shelter based on that as well. I'm not, you know, I don't need somebody to be a hundred percent sober, but I certainly can't be around people who are doing what I was doing, who are actively abusing substances. I wish them the best and I'm absolutely there for them and to support them, but I can't be like dating them and hanging around with them inactive.

Adrian: Um, substance abuse. So that's, it's, it's pretty explicit and out there for me. What it means is that I'm, I'm, I've, I've only had a few relationships since I got sober, a very kind of short ones. And that I've, I've, what I've done is invited them to join me at my meeting house, my place, my home group. [01:18:00] Um, sometimes for celebrations, um, we have these wonderful fun parties and there's like rainbow tablecloths everywhere and balloons and cake and it's just so much fun and, and, and I think it's important.

Adrian: For people to know if I'm going to be intimate with them in any way that they understand that my life is fun, that my life is joyful, and that there's so much gay that is not inebriated. There's so much gay to be had that is not, that is not in the, in the bars. And I like to share that pretty early on. I don't know.

Adrian: Like I put, I put that out before I put out that I'm trans probably I put trans. When I make a profile or something like for online dating, I make a mention about being sober for sure on the front page, but I'm always back and forth about whether I put that I'm trans on the front page, because I do want people to get to know me before they decide whether or not they want to date a trans guy and I want them to like.

Adrian: And I want them to be asking whether or not they want to date this trans guy, not just a trans guy, because it's not like a, it's not a generic product. We're all very [01:19:00] different.

Kai: I just know in the gay community, if people are into PMP and that's their lifestyle and using substances is, is a must before engaging in any kind of sex play or anything like that, that can be such a life changing thing.

Kai: And. A new learning has to take place if you're, if you're being, and not all sex has to be intimate, you're engaging in sex, sex play or other, other forms of play without that, just how vulnerable that might be for people.

Adrian: Yeah. I mean, it really does slow things down and it, it has caused me to go on quite a journey about intimacy.

Adrian: Actually, my, my sponsor and I are reading a book about intimacy with alcoholics because it's, uh, it's a very different thing to rather than mask. Emotional experiences and even sexual experiences with a

Jackal: bunch of substances

Adrian: to ease the discomfort, to actually walk through the discomfort of revealing yourself and what you want and what you don't want and who you are.

Adrian: I think when it comes [01:20:00] to even friendship level intimacy, uh, substances play a role

Kai: for a long time. Thank you for sharing that. And I, I think you've done a really good job of showing up as who you are and all of the different layers of who you are. And I really appreciate. How open and forthcoming you've been with us today.

Kai: It's very warm and you're just an engaging speaker and person, Adrian. Thank you for reconnecting with me and for sharing yourself with Jekyll and our audience. Thank you so much. It's been such a

Jackal: pleasure. Thank you so much for being here. You are just a wonderful, warm hearted person and have so much to offer.

Jackal: Thank you so much. Thank you. You

Adrian: guys, you're making me emotional. I am so glad to be here and I just have to say you're, what you're doing is really important, man. In the selfish way, I'm, I so appreciate that you're creating this archive of people that I came up with, you know, this whole, this whole time that is kind of otherwise getting a little bit forgotten.

Adrian: I don't know about you, but I searched the internet for all these [01:21:00] archives of, there's these archives out there that are detailing the history. And I, and I took part in that history and I, I'd forgotten a lot of that stuff and this is optional, obviously information, but trans day of remembrance, somebody asked me about it because I'm trans authority, I'm being trans or something.

Adrian: And so they asked me about it and I was talking a little, I looked it up to find the history of it. Cause like I was being asked to participate in this. Sort of ceremony and to look up the background of it. I realized I was at the very first I was at the the Rita Hester March that happened in Boston with the people in the wind Little candles and the Dixie cups.

Adrian: I was there and that was the apparently that was the beginning of trans Remembrance and I didn't help it. Yeah, there's these things that have gotten lost in time that Even for my, for my aging brain, it's really, really helpful to have brains

Kai: Agreed. There's a, there's an Instagram account. Thank you so much.

Kai: It's, it's called Trans History or something like that. And they post photographs from back in the day. One day [01:22:00] I was looking around and there I was and they didn't know my name, but there were like three or four other people in the photo with, with me whose names they did know. And I was like, holy shit.

Kai: There I am, baby Kai and and all our brothers, you know, and grandfathers and all that stuff. I'm glad it's out there. Uh, thank you for continuing to show up. I'm glad we're doing this. This isn't an easy thing. The decision about whether or not to speak with us and to share your story is not an easy one.

Kai: So thank you for doing that. I appreciate it.

Adrian: You guys have a good one. So I'm so glad

Jackal: you invited Adrian. He's such a sweetheart.

Kai: Definitely. Definitely. It was great to see him. It feels like no time has passed since we've seen each other. And it also was great to catch up because I am out of the loop. I didn't realize he was a teacher for special ed hats off to, to Adrian for doing that.

Kai: That's really rewarding and demanding and important work. I said it during the interview. He is so gutsy and kind in the way that he pursues things, like whether he's [01:23:00] pursuing friendships or interests or. Talking to himself or a connection with his students and just being an advocate and being present and disclosing.

Kai: What did you think, Jekyll? Joyful,

Jackal: joyful is the word that comes to mind, right? I know that he said, are you trans like me? Just the way he said it in the interview, I can picture him saying it to somebody. Whether they're trans or not, and he's embarrassed about it or not. He's excited about being trans and he's excited to share with you that he's trans.

Jackal: And he's curious to know if you're trans as well, so that he can embrace you and you can embrace him, right? That to me was like the biggest message of this interview. I think that he was, he was a joy.

Kai: Making the most of those awkward teenage like moments too, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Jackal: yeah, yeah. Cause that's who he works with, right?

Jackal: It is a gift for adults to be able to communicate in the language of teenagers because teenager [01:24:00] awkwardness, it's like, I don't want to talk about that. Why are you approaching me weirdo? Like all of that stuff and trying to make something comfortable and natural is a real gift. And I think he really

Kai: has that gift.

Kai: You brought up something about. Historically, you've thought that there weren't opportunities to disclose your gender status and you've come around to thinking that's not true for you. Yeah. I mean, for

Jackal: me, I think that there is, well, for one, okay. I just have to say that you definitely heard more, especially in our generation that we don't come out.

Jackal: Because there's no opportunity to disclose, right? How do you bring up gender without it sounding like I have cancer? I've had so many gay guys think that I was going to tell them that I was HIV positive rather than think that I was trans, right? Because that's the tone that gets set. And I [01:25:00] later realized that there were a number of opportunities for me to disclose, and I didn't either pick up on them in time, or I didn't.

Jackal: Utilize the opportunity because I've been so conditioned to not come out. Yeah. And I do think that with the newer generation, there's way more opportunities, but not only that it's shifted my mentality about how one to recognize opportunities to come out and to my comfort about utilizing those opportunities to come out.

Jackal: That's what I really think has been a big shift in 10 years, five

Kai: years. Agreed, I, you're, you're touching on this stigma that has been associated with whether you have an STI, whether you're trans, whether you're in recovery, all these things and how normalizing those things is, is such a powerful way to be in the world and I think it, God, we're back to pronouns, normalizing [01:26:00] pronouns.

Kai: And we talked about bathrooms too, the support network, network that he has. Cultivated and continues to cultivate by pursuing his interests, his hobbies, and coming out to people who are close to him when he's ready and they know him as a full human being and not just a trans person. I thought that was really beautiful.

Kai: It's one of his gifts. And as he's aged, he's come to learn that he wants to pursue things that he wants to pursue for himself. His story about caretaking and making decisions about caretaking for his dad. Yeah, that was just really, yeah, really important. And it's an issue that so many of us grapple with.

Kai: Right. And I

Jackal: have to speak personally because I, it made me reflect and realize, um, just how I'm going to say privileged, but it doesn't feel like actually a privilege. It actually feels like safety. [01:27:00] Because my dad passed away in Texas, right? And I didn't have any documentation that showed me as female on his will, my birth certificate, nothing, because I was the executive, the executor on his will.

Jackal: Right. And so for me, like not having to come out in that situation. Was a huge, huge safety thing. One, because I was in Texas and two, because it's like, I, I didn't want to have to pull any of that stuff out. I don't want to explain my status to anybody, nothing right. So like for him in his situation and being able to share that information and having it go well, was like, not just the, I mean, come on, like you're dealing with your, your dad's death, you're dealing with a parent's death, which is hard enough.

Jackal: Yeah. It's like to have this other aspect of your identity of your life cross intersect with that is,

Kai: I just don't need that stress. It seems like a [01:28:00] human thing to make decisions about what you want and will share. With people or how much you'll engage with people, the fact that you didn't, you weren't obligated to disclose anything about who you are, other than your name and your role as an executor was better than being put on the spot and having to share more.

Kai: And I'm glad you

Jackal: know, no, no, totally. I mean, I, I, I actually, until he mentioned it and because it's been close to it right now, close to a year since my dad passed away. It, I didn't think about it, but like when he talked about a couple of other people have talked about it as well, it's like, Oh, well, you know, you know, that's my female name.

Jackal: I was, you know, AFAB, dah, dah, dah. And not having to do that and having gotten past that now is such, I mean, it's a relief. I didn't even know I had

Adrian: of a stress that

Jackal: I didn't even know I

Kai: had. And I think people don't, who aren't trans. Don't [01:29:00] understand that obligation that we sometimes have, like we're put on the spot unexpectedly, whether someone finds our birth certificate online or finds an old photo of ours or somebody misgenders us or the will says two, says four sisters.

Kai: Exactly. Exactly. Or someone has dementia, uses a birth name, a name assigned at birth while they're talking in the presence of a hospice worker. It's like, who are they talking about? Why are you answering that? It's none of your business. Sometimes we have more flexibility in how much we share. And there are other times where we're really put on the spot.

Kai: Right. So I just wanted to show my love to you, Jacqueline, that this is a really tough month for you with your anniversaries of your parents.

Jackal: I know this isn't going to drop today, but today in October happens to be the. Three year passing of my mom. And it's, it is, it's a tough day for me today and it's a tough month in general.

Jackal: So thank you for that. And thanks for this interview. Cause it was a really joyous interview and let's just say that and end on a positive

Kai: [01:30:00] note. Agreed. Agreed. Thank you, Jekyll. Good job today. Good job.

Jackal: You can answer this question on our Instagram page, Transmasculine Podcast, or our ex feed at Podcast Stealth.

Jackal: We look forward to hearing from you. Lastly, this show would be nothing without our guests, who share their insight, expertise, and heartfelt stories. We absolutely adore you and are forever grateful to you. Good

Kai: job today, Jekyll. Good job to you, Kari. Thank you for listening to today's podcast. Stealth tries to capture stories of those who transitioned before the year 2000.

Kai: We recognize that language has its limitations, the words we use to describe ourselves and our community evolve over time and will not represent everyone's experience. We also want you to know that the health and well being of our community is our number one

Jackal: priority. In fact, we want to give a shout out to parents who are supporting their gender non conforming kids.

Jackal: Supporting your child in the development and expression of their identity is not [01:31:00] child abuse. We support you and love you for supporting your kids. We fully anticipate that people and groups will express positivity and negativity in response to our stories. We're prepared to deal with this and as you know, thrilled to be one small part of our community.

Jackal: We offer

Kai: links to health and safety resources on our website. We monitor our social media platforms. We respond to feedback from our audience and we will be accountable when we screw

Jackal: up. We want you to know that we are just two guys doing this in our spare time. As we enter season four, we are getting better, but we are still rookies and still two old farts to boot.

Jackal: So we ask that you still be patient with us as we learn the ropes and find our way. The opinions expressed on our podcast are our own and those of our guests. We do not represent any outside entity.

Kai: Remember, if you're interested in sharing your story, we would love to hear from you. If you're interested in volunteering, please let us know.

Kai: Your feedback and support are essential [01:32:00] to our show's success. Help us get the word out about our podcast. Tell your friends, share on social media, and rate us on your favorite streaming platform. You can find us on Instagram, Transmaskingpodcast. On X formerly Twitter at podcast, stealth on YouTube, stealth, the trans masculine podcast, and be sure to check out our website, trans masculine podcast.

Kai: com.

Adrian: Thank

Jackal: you for joining us until next.