Lenny
Lenny Zenith is a transgender singer/songwriter and has completed his first memoir. It was edited by Kelly Caldwell (Gotham Writers Group) and Lambda Literary Award winner, Donna Minkowitz (Furious Romance, Growing up Golem).He has fronted several bands in New Orleans and New York, and has opened for international touring acts U2, Iggy Pop, Gang of Four, Ellen Degeneres, and The Replacements among many others. Lenny transitioned in Jr. High school in the 1970s, and later attended NOCCA (New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts) home to alumni such as Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Harry Connick Jr. and Terence Blanchard. Zenith came close to securing a deal with major record label only for the execs to get cold feet over Zenith's gender identity.
Throughout the 1990s he led the critically acclaimed NYC noise--pop band Jenifer Convertible, whose releases — "Car Song/Co-Dependency" (produced by James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem) and a CD entitled Wanna Drag, produced by Wharton Tiers (Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr.) were widely well-received. Profiled in Billboard, Vice.com, Out.com and elsewhere, Lenny Zenith will be featured in a documentary film about the early New Orleans punk scene entitled “Almost Ready”; is often featured in New Orleans press.
After many years leading bands and releasing albums, EPs and singles, he released his first solo album “What If The Sun” to critical acclaim in June of 2018. His single, “Where Is Safe” about growing up transgender and the recent dangers faced by the transgender community, was released in April 2022. It raised thousands of dollars for pro-trans organizations and was profiled in The Advocate.
Lenny has spoken on LGBT panels at the University of Michigan, NY Public Library, Marymount College, where he has discussed the intersection of race, class and gender, and has read excerpts from his upcoming memoir “Before I Was Me” at Queer Memoir in NYC, He performs regularly in NYC & New Orleans and his band wowed the audience at Austin’s Gender Unbound festival in 2019.
He is finishing his second solo album He\Hymn, and hopes to self-release his memoir “Before I Was Me” this year.
**We are airing the bonus episode here as well as in our member’s section. We apologize for the audio mishap when this episode was initially released.
Lenny Reboot Bonus
Jackal: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone. Welcome back. We're excited to be entering our fourth season of Stealth a Transmasculine Podcast. I'm Jackal.
Kai: And I'm Kai. We're your hosts for the Transmasculine Podcast. It's amazing to us that we are still going strong after two years and we'll 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 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 overlooked.
Kai: 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.
Kai: If you're new 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 want to acknowledge that here in the States, And throughout the world, there are groups trying to remove protections 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, transmasculinepodcast.
Kai: com. Please hold each other dear and stay in touch with us.
Jackal: We 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.
Jackal: Hey, welcome to the new segment all about Adam. We want to thank you so much for supporting the work we're doing in our members only section. It really means a lot and we want you to know how much we appreciate you. We just want you to know that Kai and I are revamping our member section for season four and we will offer the transitory segment Highlighting trans men throughout history and those no longer with us.
Jackal: Every other episode about once a month. And now we're adding this new segment all about Adam, which highlights our fabulously hilarious and eccentric volunteer, [00:03:00] Adam, as he rambles semi coherently about his transitional drama or really whatever he feels like talking about that particular week. So on with the show and let's learn all about Adam.
Adam: For my last All About Adam segment for season 4, I'm going to talk about my all time most favorite topic. Dicks. Packers, specifically. As most of you know, I am a big, big fan of dick talk, so I hope you'll indulge me here for a little bit while I sing a little love song for my favorite appendage. But first, I need to give you a little more backstory on my relationship with dicks, which, suffice it to say, wasn't always so good.
Adam: I think it'd be more factually accurate to say that I was objectively terrified of them for the bulk of my life. Which was awkward, given that, as you may recall, when I was pretending to be a woman, I was also pretending to be a straight woman. So, yeah, let's all pour one out for my poor, unsuspecting male partners and the god awful sex I was trying to have with them without ever making direct eye contact [00:04:00] or actually touching any of their dicks.
Adam: Yeah guys, for real, I am super duper sorry. I truly don't know how you all put up with me. Anyway, when I finally realized I was trans and was going through all the early mental and emotional strife around the decision to start T, the main thing that held me off initially was my absolutely paralyzing fear around bottom growth.
Adam: The prospect of growing something down there that even remotely resembled a dick was enough to make me not want to transition, even though I knew I was a guy and that this was something I had to do in order to survive. Ultimately, obviously, I did start T, but it wasn't because I'd worked through that fear.
Adam: I more just pushed it to the back of my brain and locked it up in a little black box and refused to look at it. Or at my growing junk for the first six or so months of transition. My prescribing doctor kept asking me about my libido during those first months on T, which for the entirety of my life had been functionally non existent.
Adam: I mean, yes, I'd had sex, I mean, really, really terrible, highly dissociative dick avoidant sex, as referenced above. [00:05:00] But I'd never had a sex drive, per se. I remember my doctor being entirely perplexed by my responses, as the months clicked by and my T levels shot up to peak pubescent highs. And then one day, around the six month mark, I found myself walking into a sex shop.
Adam: I suspect this goes without saying, but I was not exactly a frequenter of sex shops. I'd had one boyfriend once upon a time who expressed genuine concern about my obviously deeply broken relationship to sex and sexuality, and had taken it up as something of a crusade. hoping to help heal me. He dragged me to a sex shop exactly once, where I proceeded to dissociate so hard that I actually have no recollection of the experience whatsoever, and probably would have forgotten about the whole thing had we not left with some sort of pink vibrating thing, which when my well intentioned partner tried to encourage me to use it later that night.
Adam: I responded by having a full blown panic attack, crying and hyperventilating, and ultimately locking myself in a bathroom for several hours. [00:06:00] So yeah, we didn't try that again. Anyway, so it was a pretty strange thing for me to find myself walking into a sex shop. I didn't even know why I was there or what I was looking for, and I just kind of floated through the space until my eyes landed on a row of packers.
Adam: I'd heard of the existence of packers through the various transmask stuff I'd read about online, but due to my aforementioned paralytic fear of dicks, I'd never really inquired as to any of the specifics of what they were or how they worked or why someone would possibly want to shove one down one's pants.
Adam: My eyes finally landed on one of the most realistic looking ones, and before I even knew what was happening, I was walking out of the store with my very first packer in hand. I got home, opened the box, put it in my underwear, and then my hands suddenly and immediately learned how to masturbate. I jerked the thing off for all of about 10 seconds and then came harder than I'd ever come in my entire life.
Adam: Apparently, I did like dicks. I just needed them to be attached to my own body. That was also, not coincidentally, the day I realized I was [00:07:00] straight. This experience ushered in a phase of, let's call it, retail therapy. I went dick crazy for a good little while. I bought so many dicks. Big dicks, bigger dicks.
Adam: Harder dicks, softer dicks. I just could not get enough dick. Pausing here to acknowledge my financial privilege. Dicks are not cheap, especially the more realistic ones, and I'm very, very cognizant of how effed up these imbalances are. I actually wound up hosting a party for a bunch of the trans guys from my Discord group later that year, and giving away most of my collection, as by that point I had narrowed my use down to just a few favorites, and it felt really good to give the rest of the dicks loving and appreciative homes.
Adam: And yes, I sterilized them all thoroughly beforehand. So anyway, from that point on, I had a dick on my body pretty much 24 7. I had a daytime packer, a nighttime slash shower packer, and then two or three dicks I used for sex and jerking off. I loved my dicks. They felt like a part of me, and for the fleeting moments that I didn't have one on my body, I felt extremely dysmorphic and incomplete.
Adam: [00:08:00] I spent quite a bit of time researching bottom surgery and had compiled a list of local surgeons that I was planning to schedule consults with. And then Well, I don't have time to go into the details here, but I have been fortunate enough to be able to access a lot of different healing modalities over the past five years.
Adam: Traditional therapy for sure, but also a bunch of other stuff, some of which falls more into the category of quasi Buddhist spiritual practices, and some of which I cannot talk about here for legal reasons. But, point being, I've gotten the chance to do some pretty deep healing work, which has fundamentally changed my relationship to my body, my identity, and my understanding of life and my place in the universe.
Adam: And at some point, I think about six months ago, I woke up one day and forgot to put on my daytime packer. It took me quite a few hours to notice, and when I did, I realized that I no longer felt incomplete. It felt weird, sure, but I couldn't honestly say that it felt bad. bad anymore. I chalked it up as an anomaly and went back to my regular packing habits, but this kept happening [00:09:00] more and more often.
Adam: I'd forget it at night, I'd forget it during the day, and when I did wear one, it no longer felt like a part of me. It felt nice, I enjoyed it, but I don't know how to explain it other than to say that it went from feeling integral to additive. After a few months of this, I finally just stopped wearing Packers altogether.
Adam: It wasn't so much a conscious decision at that point as it was a throwing in the towel on something my body seemed incapable of remembering to do on its own. It was a little strange at first to look down and not see the familiar bulge there, but it also didn't feel bad or cause any pangs of dysphoria.
Adam: It was just different. It was just me. Last week, my girlfriend and I were staying over at a friend's house. We were all up super early as my friend needed to get to work and we needed to get back to the city, so we were all just kind of shuffling around in the kitchen, semi incoherently, while we assembled our morning coffees.
Adam: And then my friend, out of nowhere, goes, Adam, if you could snap your fingers and magically have a cyst dick, would you? Now, first, I just have to say, I fucking love my friend. I love all my friends [00:10:00] so, so much. I love the total and absolute honesty and candor we have with each other, and the fact that my friends feel totally, unabashedly comfortable asking me this kind of shit before I've even had my first cup of coffee.
Adam: But what surprised me was my response. I looked at my friend and said, Unequivocally, no. And as soon as the words came out of my mouth, I realized the magnitude of what I'd just said. I'd spent the better part of the past three years grieving, mourning, fantasizing about having a functional cis dick, but I knew that my answer in that moment was the truth.
Adam: My friend looked kind of confused, as he knew correctly of my strong affection for dicks and my affinity for using them, so he followed up by asking, why not? To which I said, because if I had a cis dick, I would no longer be trans, and being trans is the single greatest thing about being me. I know I've talked sideways about this in previous episodes, and again, I need to be clear that I am in no way dismissing or trying to downplay the very, very real and pressing dangers [00:11:00] of being trans.
Adam: And stigmas and forces of horrifically unjust oppression that trans people are facing in our world today. From healthcare to housing, to employment, to substance use schools, sports, media, politics, trans people and trans kids in particular are under a truly unprecedented level of attack. And I also acknowledge that my experience as a straight.
Adam: White, able bodied, binary trans man with passing privilege living in one of the most trans friendly places in the world has very likely colored my sentiments here. All of that said, and with all of those caveats and qualifiers, I still stand firm in my belief that being trans is a gift. The ability to exist between two worlds, to straddle the incredible spectrum of gender that is encoded into the DNA of all living things on this planet.
Adam: It is, to my mind, one of the most beautiful, sacred, rare, and amazing gifts that a human being can possibly have. The things that I have gotten to experience through being trans, [00:12:00] all of the joys and all of the pains and all of the sorrows and pleasures and weirdness and ecstasy, these are things that most people will only ever experience half of.
Adam: And not only do I get to feel all of it, but I am then able to use my experience to serve as a translator for others. Humanity is so fractured right now, as late stage capitalism continues to drive its ugly stakes into the ground between us, and the painful schisms we've created between genders, races, religions, nations.
Adam: These artificial boundaries continue to rip our species apart, generation after generation after generation. But I personally believe there's hope. You can call me crazy. Many people certainly have. But I believe that we're teetering on the precipice of a massive evolutionary leap. One that has the potential to propel humanity into a newfound state of being, defined by peace and harmony rather than by war and hate.
Adam: To be clear, I don't know that we're going to make it. Right [00:13:00] now, the way everything is bubbling to the surface, between the war in Gaza and all the other wars we're waging, both domestically and abroad, is that we're and the ever worsening prognosis of climate change, it seems an almost impossibly optimistic outcome.
Adam: But I believe, I know, that if we're going to stand a chance of ever repairing these ever widening schisms, trans people are going to play a major, major role in the healing process. We are the translators. We are the interpreters. The bridges, the intermediaries, the mediators of experience. We occupy an incredibly unique position in the world, one that I believe holds the keys to healing thousands, hell, maybe hundreds of thousands of years of evolutionary pain that has occurred at the locus of gender.
Adam: I have seen firsthand what powerful medicine our transness can be for cis people processing their own traumas. And I think. If the world would just stop standing on our necks for long enough for us to actually truly thrive, we could usher in a [00:14:00] wave of healing that would leave humanity in a fundamentally altered state of being.
Adam: And I know this may all sound grandiose and hyperbolic, but honestly, I think our world could use some slightly bigger dreams right about now. Anyway, that's it for my unsolicited, slightly to moderately, unhinged rambling for season 4. It's been an honor and a pleasure, and I wish all of our listeners health, happiness, safety, all the dicks, and all of the trans joy.
Jackal: Wow, I don't know whether to laugh or to cry, to get mad or to cheer. Every time I hear one of Adam's stories, my emotions run the gamut. We hope you enjoyed this week's segment of All About Adam as much as we did. Thanks for listening, and on with the show.
Adam: Today's interview is with Lenny Zenith. Lenny Zenith is a transgender singer songwriter and has completed his first memoir. It was edited by Kelly Caldwell of Gotham Writers Group and Lambda [00:15:00] Literary Award winner Donna Minkiewicz, who wrote Furious Romance and Growing Up Gollum. He has fronted several bands in New Orleans and New York, and has opened for internationally touring acts U2, Iggy Pop, Gang of Four, Ellen DeGeneres, and more.
Adam: and the replacements, among many others. Lenny transitioned in junior high school and later attended NOCCA, the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, home to alumni such as Winton and Branford Marsalis, Harry Connick Jr., and Terrence Blanchard. Zenith came close to securing a deal with a major record label, only for the execs to get cold feet over Zenith's gender identity.
Adam: Lenny has spoken on LGBT panels at the University of Michigan, the New York Public Library, and Marymount College, where he has discussed the intersection of race, class, and gender, and has read excerpts from his upcoming memoir, Before I Was Me, at Queer Memoir in New York City. He performs regularly in New York City and New Orleans, and his band wowed the audience at Austin's Gender Unbound Festival in 2019.
Adam: Lenny's Tranniversary is 1975, the landmark year that [00:16:00] marked the end of the United States involvement in Vietnam and the birth of the Microsoft computer. It was also the year that birthed the Rubik's Cube, the Betamax video cassette player, Big Red Chewing Gum, Country Time Lemonade, Famous Amos Cookies, and Miller Lite Beer.
Adam: Gerald Ford was president, having been sworn in the year prior following Nixon's historic resignation in 1974. 1975 was the year of reckoning for several of the key players in Watergate, with Nixon's top three advisors being sentenced to prison for their roles in obstructing justice. Speaking of scandal, 1975 was also the year of Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance.
Adam: He would not be declared dead until 1982. The British Conservative Party chose Margaret Thatcher as its first female leader, and the U. S. got its first openly gay member of any state legislature in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. 1975 also marked the first time a bill focusing on LGBTQ rights was introduced to Congress, however, that bill sadly died on committee.[00:17:00]
Adam: In sports, it was a banner year for Pennsylvania, with the Pittsburgh Steelers winning the Super Bowl and the Philadelphia Flyers taking home the Stanley Cup. The Godfather Part II won Best Film at the Oscars, with Francis Ford Coppola adding yet another feather to his cap as the year's Best Director.
Adam: Art Carney won Best Actor for his role in Harry and Tonto, and Ellen Burstyn won for her role in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. Captain and Tennille's Love Will Keep Us Together topped the Billboard charts, along with Glen Campbell's Rhinestone Cowboy and Elton John's Philadelphia Freedom. We'll lead in this episode with music from Lenny himself.
Adam: Lenny just released a love letter to his hometown on May 12th with Always In My Heart, New Orleans Is My Home. Check out his music and other artistic projects at LennyZenith. com. That's L E N N Y Z E N I T H dot [00:18:00] com.
Kai: Welcome to season four of stealth a trans masculine podcast today.
Kai: We are here with Lenny Zenith. We're so thrilled to have Lenny here and I guess I should start by saying I found you because I have a sister [00:19:00] who is a musician and she texted me and said, you have to interview this guy. And I got on your website and I was absolutely just. I don't, I'm so glad you're here and thank you for responding to my messages.
Lenny: Sure. My pleasure.
Kai: Absolutely. I know that you have a website and you have music out, you have a memoir. , can you talk to us a little bit about how we can find your stuff, what you'd like to promote?
Lenny: Sure, absolutely. Most of my stuff is on lennyzenith. com. I think the one thing I haven't added to that is my TikTok link because I, I came out with the song called Where's Safe a couple years ago, almost two years ago.
Lenny: And I, I've never been on Tik TOK before, I'm old. I didn't know really what the whole deal was. I know a lot of people got into it during lockdown and I said, well, you know, this seems like a good place to put this song where I could maybe get some eyeballs on it and some ears. And it was really [00:20:00] important to me to get it to the people who I thought needed to hear it and see the video that I made for it.
Lenny: And so that kind of took off for me. So that's. A good place to find a lot of my talking videos. And, I do a lot of expository stuff on there, but my music and story, a lot of my story is on my website, Lenny Zenith. com.
Kai: Thank you. And I'm really impressed that you managed to find TikTok , I haven't even, I know that it's a thing, but I feel like way too much of a dinosaur to get on it.
Kai: And, you know, it's so well done. As far as the song goes, since we're on the topic, I want to make sure that we have an opportunity to talk about where it's safe and , can you just kind of plug it a little bit and you wanted it to reach an audience and it's a very touching song that made me cry.
Kai: So would you mind just sharing a little bit about the music? And how you came to. I will,
Lenny: and, and I would encourage you to maybe include a snippet of that. Once you do the edit of this so people can hear a [00:21:00] little bit of it. You know, what happened was I was on Twitter when it was still Twitter. And I, I was following Aaron Reed and I kept seeing all these laws being passed.
Lenny: And this would have been, I guess, 2022. And in approximately March or April of that year, I had a really terrible nightmare where They were literally rounding up trans people and putting us on barges off the coast of Guantanamo. And it was really scared the hell out of me. And it stuck with me, and I got up the next morning and wrote this song.
Lenny: And you know, I polished it a little bit, and I'm fortunate enough that my, one of my best friends, And his wife lived downstairs and he has a recording studio. So that worked out really well. And so I did all the music and the lyrics, and then I went down there and sang it, you know, on a good microphone and a good environment [00:22:00] and produced it and made it sound much better than I could have in my little home demo studio.
Lenny: I put together a video for it. I went online, found somebody to do the lyric video, which came out really good because I think if you, if you can't follow the story or hear the lyrics, the lyric video really helps to get the message across. And then it got picked up by a few outlets. I think the advocate wrote about it and a couple of trans masks.
Lenny: Blogs wrote about it and it did pretty well. And what I did was when I started to promote the song, what I really wanted to do is I wanted to donate a hundred percent of the proceeds to Southern equality, equality, Florida, ACLU, Lambda legal people who were actually in the fight. To protect trans rights and particularly protect trans rights for youth.[00:23:00]
Lenny: And so I put together sort of a release party and invited Aaron Reed and Alejandra Carballo, and a couple of my friends who are trans and the parent of a trans friend of mine who's also my dear friend, Carol, and who's also a therapist. And they appeared in the video as well. And then I invited all my friends to come in and, you know, ask questions and listen to the premiere of the song.
Lenny: So it was really quite an effort. And I think I raised a couple of thousand dollars like right off the bat. And then all the streams and royalties that come in from that song have gone to these causes I have receipts on my website, and then I decided, well, I have a full time job and I can pay my rent.
Lenny: I'm going to start donating. The royalties from all of my music to these various causes.
Kai: Wow.
Lenny: And it's not a lot because I'm no Taylor Swift yet, [00:24:00] but I thought that would be a good way for me to give back to the community.
Kai: Wow. Thank you so much. I hadn't realized that all of that went into it. Thank you so much.
Kai: And that dream sounds absolutely horrifying. So thank you. Well, it
Lenny: was, and I honestly thought it would get better. I didn't think it was going to get worse.
River: Yeah, thank you so much Lenny. That's amazing. What a powerful dream. I'm still kind of sitting with that now. Um, question for you is how did you learn about trans masculine identities?
Lenny: That's a great question. And you have to remember that, you know, I transitioned a long time ago of my own accord.
Lenny: I didn't know anything about trans masculine identities. I didn't know anything about trans. Until I was about 11 or 12 and I'd been having these feelings since I was four or five years old. My mother said she knew when I was four, but she only told me that a few years ago. And [00:25:00] my grandmother worked at the federal building in New Orleans, which is right next to the public library.
Lenny: And so I would go to work with her during the summer. Because, you know, somebody needed to watch me, I guess, and so I would go to the library and scour books and I love to read and I picked up books and I sort of embarked on my own journey of research and came across an article about Christine Jorgensen.
Lenny: And then, I think it might have been a newspaper, I don't think they had her book in the library, but I started reading these articles and I was like, wow, I think that might be what's going on with me. Like I don't feel like the sex I was born or signed and I was, you know, having a lot of despondency and my mom and I were fighting about.
Lenny: Outfits and hairstyles and you know how I like to spend my [00:26:00] time and ultimately they took me very early on like at 12 or 13 12 to Tulane Medical Center, where I met a pediatric psychiatrist and an endocrinologist and you know my parents said there is something going on here. With our child, and we want to see if there's some sort of hormonal imbalance or chromosomal anomaly and so they ran all these blood tests, and I met with the psychiatrist, and they pretty much told my mom there's, as far as we can tell, there's nothing medically wrong with Lenny, and I was always called Lenny and I can tell you about that a little bit later.
Lenny: And the endocrinologist told my parents that maybe they could dig a little bit deeper and find some stuff, you know, but they would have to send it off to another clinic somewhere, and it would be very expensive to see if I had some [00:27:00] sort of chromosomal Anomaly. And after talking to the psychiatrist a few times, Dr.
Lenny: Lillian Robinson, who was probably one of the best psychiatry, pediatric psychiatrists in new Orleans or Louisiana, for that matter, told my parents, well, Lenny's pretty much decided what Lenny's going to be. You can either accept it or not.
Lenny: And it was shortly thereafter that my parents split up. And of course I thought it was because of me. But it, it turned out that it was more complicated than that. And. My two sisters went off with my mom, and my dad and I moved to California.
Kai: I'm so impressed that the psychiatrist recognized what was happening for you and it sounds like a pretty affirming experience back in the 70s.
Lenny: Well, it really was. And what I have to say is not only did the psychiatrist kind of get it because there weren't, there was not really even you know, WPATH guidelines at that point. Whatever they call it, I always call it way path. And they didn't have a lot of, [00:28:00] a lot to go on. And the endocrinologist also confided me a little bit later after seeing her a couple of times.
Lenny: She said, we think we know what's going on here. And if you come back when you're 18, I think we can help you. And those two women, those two doctors saved my life. Wow. Because they couldn't, there weren't puberty blockers being used at the time, but they affirmed me. They told me there was nothing wrong with me and that I wasn't bad, which You know, a lot of times because you know, my mom was so unhappy with my masculine presentation, I felt bad.
Lenny: So those two women saved my life. And then I also had a parent of a friend who affirmed me around that same time. And I cannot tell you [00:29:00] how important that was. And then my dad, who was much older, my dad was born in 1907, believe it or not, my mom was his second wife. We went out to Glendale, California.
Lenny: He dropped me off at Glendale Junior High. No, it was Toll Junior High in Glendale and said, you know, go fill out the paperwork, sign up for eighth grade. I'll, you know, I'll be waiting out here. Well, I went into eighth grade and I just didn't check either of the gender boxes. And since my dad was so laid back and kind of hands off, I presented very masculine.
Lenny: I, I artificially lowered my voice as a, you know, strapping 90 pound eighth grader. And I, you know, walked around kind of like a football player. And everybody was very androgynous then everybody had long hair and wore flowered shirts and, you know, flared jeans. So I literally identified as a boy and went to school as a [00:30:00] boy in eighth grade and no teacher, administrator, or friend classmate ever questioned me.
Lenny: And I was remarkably either stupid or brave but confident because I knew who and what I was. And it worked and it was really the most gender euphoric experience I had ever had in my life, because at that time, you know, I got into skateboarding. I started playing the guitar. I was in the talent show. I had, you know, male friends and, you know, even a kind of a girlfriend, but you know, as much as you can in eighth grade, I mean, there was no kissing or touching or anything.
Lenny: And it was like the summer of my life. Really the, the, a year of my life, you know, taking off and going to Venice beach with my friends. I'm not going to say we played hooky, but Friday afternoons, we would take off a little early and go to the beach. So,
Kai: wow. You were in the, I mean, if I remember correctly, [00:31:00] like skateboarding, they didn't have polyurethane wheels till I was a little bit older and then they started skateboarding in the pools and things like that, and on Southern California, you were right in the middle of that.
Kai: I was right in the middle of it. And I can't
Lenny: tell you how much I. envied the tan boys with their smooth chests with their shirts off and their hairy legs.
Kai: And,
Lenny: you know, I was there right when they were starting to hit the lip of the pool. They hadn't even gotten out of the lip yet, but I would skateboard for hours and hours.
Kai: Wow. That sounds dreamy. It really does. It was listening to the
Lenny: beach boys. It was sunny. It never rained. It was beautiful. And my dad, you know, who was a minister Methodist minister. We, you know, he knew I was interested in music. He took me to get guitar lessons and voice lessons on a very meager salary and it didn't last very long because.
Lenny: I have attention issues. And we had [00:32:00] money issues, but I really immersed myself in, you know, whatever music was happening at the time. And it was a great year.
River: I think what's so remarkable about what you're saying. One, you said, am I stupid or brave? I mean, I can't think of anything else, but brave at that time.
River: And I think what's so interesting about that is, is that we think of things back then as being worse. And people who weren't able to find themselves back then and that's been kind of like a new thing and yet you were able to sort of forge your identity at such an early age, but also with the help and support of some physicians and some folks in your life.
River: At that time and that's just not what we think of it just kind of shows how how nuanced and complex. It is a different times for different folks. I'm wondering. How do you think your social standings, like race, class, [00:33:00] ability, sexual identity, all those things, how do you think that those impacted your ability to transition at that time?
Lenny: That's a good question because you know, ministers are not in the upper middle class. They're firmly working class, maybe middle class. We always seem like we were struggling. My mom was a teacher. So it was very interesting to have this Latin identity because my mom's Cuban and they have have and had very strong notions of masculinity and femininity.
Lenny: I'm not saying more so than other cultures, but maybe a little bit. It wasn't as fluid. So, you know, I had that part of me and then I have my dad who was, you know, sort of like cross generations, but he was very liberal. He was very open minded and [00:34:00] accepting. And he used to tell my mom, you know, don't worry about what Lenny's going to wear to church in 20 years.
Lenny: Nobody's going to remember, and things like that would happen. Yeah. And so while he didn't understand it, I wouldn't say he was. supportive because he didn't really fully grasp what was going on. But he kind of left me alone for better for worse. I mean, look, he wasn't involved in my school.
Lenny: My performance in school wasn't particularly stellar. But he was a musician and a violinist and we share that in common. And so my decision, you know, and that was a hard part is when my parents split off, I was 13 and I had to go in front of a judge who's, who asked me which parent I wanted to go with.
Lenny: And that was particularly traumatic because, you know, you love your parents, but I knew that from my wellbeing, since my dad was more [00:35:00] permissive and understanding that. I just wouldn't have made it had I had to live with my mom.
River: Thank you so much for sharing that. That's amazing.
Lenny: But I mean, in terms of the fact, you're saying culturally, I mean, I was educated. I, my mom made sure that I went to some of the best schools in New Orleans, public schools and private. The first three years I got into a private school and then I went to a good public school and, and that ability that I had to be.
Lenny: I guess well educated and to have parents that were well educated enabled me to get to the point where I even could consider, Oh, I need to find out about something. Let me go to the library and look things up, you know, so maybe that helped a little bit.
River: Sounds like you were very resourceful in so many different ways back then.
River: I'm wondering What are some of the things you were told about how to live your life as a trans man? I know that [00:36:00] that's, you know, it's a different time, but I'm curious if you received messages about how you should live your life as a trans man back then.
Lenny: I will tell you, and this is in the memoir, what's interesting is while my dad and I were in California I kept doing research and looking things up and on cable access, do you guys know what cable is? Yes. It was like the public television or whatever, cable access. There was a trans man on TV in the 70s with a full beard.
Kai: Do you remember who it was?
Lenny: I have it written down somewhere. I did some research about it because I was like, who could this have been? I'm pretty sure his name was Steven something or other. Steve Dane, maybe. Maybe Steve Dane.
Kai: Berkeley. Yeah. Yeah.
Lenny: In California. And he was on a, you know, he was being interviewed kind of like this.
Lenny: And he said two things. He, he mentioned Stanford's gender identity program, which I [00:37:00] immediately, I was 14 years old. And I wrote to them and they said, you're too young.
Kai: Wow.
Lenny: I mean, it was a stack of papers and I did it by myself. I just wrote to them. Put it in an envelope. I got this stack of papers. I filled them out, send them.
Lenny: Okay. So I found out about Stanford and also Johns Hopkins had a program at the time. And then he said one thing that I thought was interesting. Now you can imagine how far phalloplasty has come now, but he said, if there's any way you can get through life, this is the only thing I remember from that interview was a, Oh my God, there's a trans guy on TV and be If there's any way you can go through life without bottom surgery, I would suggest you do it.
Lenny: Now, remember this was almost 50 years ago. So I can't imagine, you know, how good the surgeries were then. But I didn't know, I mean, what, what was I, I didn't have anyone to model my life after. So [00:38:00] for better, for worse, and a lot of times it was worse. I just took in cis gender heteronormative traits of what masculinity was supposed to be, which, you know, unfortunately included some misogyny some bravado that, Got me in trouble a few times, but you know,
Kai: well, and you also, you're in the music industry and I just think in the seventies and eighties, my version of cool rock stars, what I would try to emulate , that would be wild, , just to live in that.
Kai: And I know because I read a little bit about you that you opened for u2. Back then. I just think that's a wild ride.
Lenny: It was a wild ride. And that's actually the subtitle of my memoir is before I was me, my wild and dangerous ride as a transgender person or something like that. I don't have it in front of me.
Lenny: It was really wild because my dad, to his credit, did take me to a boy's teacher for a few [00:39:00] times. And My dad told him I had an interest in being a pop star. And he said, Lenny needs to understand that only five in a thousand people will ever, or maybe he said one in 5, 000, I think was the ratio he gave then, will ever make it.
Lenny: And, you know, he didn't know about trans or that I was trans or anything, but he said, you know, you've got some talent, but you need to be realistic. And so, unfortunately I had to leave California that summer because my mom also had a prophetic nightmare that I was going to change genders and she didn't know at all that I had already written to Stanford.
Lenny: She had no idea. Wow. And so my dad put me on a plane back to Louisiana where I spent a really fretful year with my mom, which was not working out. Ultimately, my dad came back to Louisiana and I continued high school for a while with my mom for about half a semester as [00:40:00] a girl. In ninth grade and then went back to my dad in New Orleans and then continued my school as a boy.
Lenny: And all through school, I mean, the, the cool thing was, was when I went to McMean Magnet. In high school, there was a program called NOCO, which is the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts. So my dad and I somehow got me into this school which is a performing arts high school, where I went to school with Wynton Terrence Blanchard, Jean Michel Charbonneau, Manan Pab, I mean, just a whole cast of extraordinarily Roxanne Leighton, extraordinarily talented people.
Lenny: They were, in a completely different ballpark than I was talent and skill wise, but I learned so much from them and from being surrounded by that level of creativity, professionalism, and focus. Things that I had lacked, , so [00:41:00] I, I couldn't. Meet up to their standards musically. But when the counselor told me my senior year I wanted to go to Berkeley or, you know, Northwestern and I wanted to be a conductor and he said, well, you, you don't have it.
Lenny: And I was like, ouch.
Kai: Yeah.
Lenny: He said, you know, you should have started piano lessons or music lessons like these people over here when you were four or five and continued through. And I did start piano lessons quite early, but I just, I couldn't keep it up. My family was unstable. My inner life was unstable.
Lenny: It was all I could do to get through school. So once the minute I heard that, I said, well, F you, I don't know if I can curse on this podcast. You
Kai: can totally curse. It's it's it's definitely.
Lenny: I was like, fuck you. I'm going to start a punk band. And that's exactly what I did. And you know, I remember rehearsing in my, in the basement of my dad's church and listening to, you know, Blondie and the Ramones and the [00:42:00] talking heads and the cramps and you know, the police and all, everybody that was coming out in the eighties and that's what I did now, unfortunately, what happened in that senior year of high school was I finally did confide in one friend that I was trans, that I wasn't really a boy.
Lenny: And And we were so close. I mean, she was an amazing musician. We listened to music together. We rode our bikes all over the city. We, you know, we're really close, but not at all sexual. We were young, we were 17, approaching 18. She told her dad, her dad called the principal of the academic side of the school and the principal called my dad.
Lenny: And they basically asked me not to return to school. Wow. So the middle of my senior year, I was kind of dismissed. So there was no prom, no graduation, I was separated from my friends, and I got my diploma in the mail. Just, here you go. Just go away. [00:43:00] And my dad said, Lenny, what have you been doing? And I said, going to school as a boy since eighth grade.
Lenny: Wow. I'll tell you now, my dad passed many years ago, 25, 30 years ago. He said, well, I guess you're not hurting anybody.
Kai: Your dad sounded like he was a dogged ally to you. He was, he really
Lenny: was. I mean, look, we didn't always get along. He did not like it when I wrecked the car the night before I was supposed to play the organ at the church. But you know, he did the best he could with Both my parents really did the best they could with the light they were given.
Lenny: And he was just a gentle, loving soul. And I did have to keep a lot from him. You know, I kept my friends away from him, lest he use the wrong pronoun. But he was off doing his preacher things and I kind of ran myself.
Kai: So you're a young person. You're an adolescent.
Kai: You're managing lots of different. You're, your [00:44:00] family is going through a lot of different transitions on it. With your parents splitting up and you're relocating and moving back. And you're so certain of yourself, you're sure of who you are, yet you're living kind of a stealth like life.
Kai: And that's, Our podcast is all about living stealth. And it stresses me out to think you haven't medically transitioned as a young person and you're going to high school. I had to go to PE and change my clothes in the girl's locker room. Right. How in the heck did you pull that off?
Kai: I don't want to sound like we're doing something underhanded, right? It's just, you're living your life, how you're living it. And you haven't told your dad. What was that like for you?
Lenny: I'll tell you, Kai, I remember so vividly in eighth grade, and I don't know if you spent much time in Southern California, but it's just so wickedly beautiful there.
Kai: Yeah.
Lenny: And the first time we went to PE, I was panicking because I didn't know what to do. I had managed to find a binder that was [00:45:00] really a back brace that had Velcro on it. And would wear that. And they were expensive. I didn't have any money. My dad didn't have any money. I just cobbled it together from change I would find here and there.
Lenny: And I'm sure, you know, it got worn, but I would just tell the teacher I didn't feel well. And I didn't do P. E. You know, in first grade, when, we did have a PE class because I went to a nice private Episcopal school in New Orleans, in first grade, I went into the boys locker room and I had to be shown back to the girls.
Lenny: And that was just sort of instinctual for me. I just didn't, didn't even occur to me that I was doing something wrong, but yeah, going to school was rough. And what I would do from eighth grade until 12th grade was go to the bathroom during class instead of between classes to avoid, you know, because at least in one of the couple of schools in New Orleans, either didn't have doors on the [00:46:00] stalls or didn't have locks on the stalls.
Lenny: So, It was all extraordinarily stressful, but also joyful in the sense that I could be myself in a way that so many trans people didn't get to do coming up. And that's when, I see, these young trans kids. They know, we know who we are. We know who we were not, you know, and everybody has their own timeline, their own ability to come to the realization of how to express their authentic self.
Lenny: But kids know who they are and you have to believe them, and I guess I was a little precocious and a little adamant that I had to, because I wouldn't have survived. I was so depressed and upset. At not being able to be myself that I forced everything I could to make that way for myself and I, I don't know where I got [00:47:00] the strength or the moxie to, to do that, but I just did, and were there people who knew or, wondered, I'm sure there were.
River: It seems like people were picking up on that before, right? When, when they told you that Lenny decides who Lenny needs to be. And that seems to be the theme of a lot of your story and finding yourself and how resourceful you had to be back then to make that happen when there wasn't any kind of supports like there are
Lenny: today.
Lenny: Right. There were no GSAs in high school, and I can only imagine that I might have done a little bit better. I mean, look, I've been extraordinarily successful, and I'm very grateful for everything that I've got, and that's happened for me. But imagine if I would have not had to worry about those things and been accepted and affirmed and not treated any different or not like I was special, but just accepted [00:48:00] and not having to worry about, oh shit, how, how am I going to dress?
Lenny: How am I going to, you know, carry myself? How am I going to pee?
Kai: Do
Lenny: I have to hold it all day or can I sneak out during class and say, you know, I have to go now.
Kai: I just think about that time, middle school and high school, I was so completely awkward anyway. And you're going through so many things, including puberty.
Kai: I had a period, how the hell do you manage that in the boy's bathroom? When you're worried about whether or not someone's going to come in or there's no door. That just sounds incredibly stressful and I'm just impressed by your ability to get through it, Lenny. So thank you for sharing that.
Kai: Thank you. Yeah. From a young age, You were low to non disclosing with folks, and as time went on in your life, have there been periods where you may have been more open about being trans or lived a stealth existence over time?
Kai: Has that [00:49:00] shifted in any way?
Lenny: It has shifted in a sense, there, there was this time since I went to school in New Orleans. As a young kid and then left, went to California for a year and then came back once I started to perform publicly, which was, right after high school, , so 1980 where I was being written about.
Lenny: And so there was this crossover between people who'd never heard of me and people who said, wait a minute, I used to know a Lenny that went to school at, you know, Trinity or Heinz. Is that the same person? And so then some people put two and two together. And the reason I'll just tell you real quick, the reason I was always called Lenny is because my name was Blanca Elena. And. I had a cousin in Cuba whose name was Leonard and his nickname was Lenny and my grandmother who came from Cuba To take care of me when I was born said I mean I guess if I didn't say Lenny, you know
Kai: Yeah,
Lenny: they look like their cousin.
Kai: Yeah,
Lenny: and so [00:50:00] it's stuck So from that was another fortuitous event in my life was that I had this sort of androgynous name Like all through school So that probably helped me a lot.
Lenny: And I always forget about that. So, you know, the press would sometimes say weird things like, Oh, the gender bender, Lenny Zenith. Which I changed my name, , when my early twenties legally, because my band was getting checks written out to Lenny Zenith and they had to cash them. But I also wanted to change my name.
Lenny: And somebody would say, Oh, what's Lenny going for this Halloween, a boy or a girl? And I wrote that guy a scathing letter back in the eighties saying, how dare you run this national inquirer expose about me, it was just like a paragraph or sentence. And so I was like, don't do that.
Lenny: And later he apologized to me many years later about
Kai: that. Wow. That's great.
River: Yeah, it sounds like there were people, it was such hot gossip back then, right, for people to [00:51:00] know that somebody was trans.
River: There was like this excitement and buzz where people wanted to disclose that information and tell each other and things like that. So it just had a really gross feel. I'm wondering about We talked a little bit about your life as you're coming around and thinking about who you are , as a gendered being.
River: I'm wondering what are some milestones, whether they're successes or challenges in your life, post transition, whatever that means to you.
Lenny: Well, post transition was interesting because I was in college and in college back in the day, they probably still do this. They would give young kids year olds credit cards with very little strings attached, very few strings attached.
Lenny: And my girlfriend at the time, and now even though I was married 25 years between those two times had a 5, 000 credit [00:52:00] limit. And I found there was another guy who was transitioning at the time in new Orleans, Aaron. And he introduced me to a guy in Houston named Justin, who had had top surgery and hooked me up with a doctor.
Lenny: This would have been 84, 85. And I used that credit card to get my top surgery. So that was a huge milestone for me. And it was really life changing. Absolutely. Life changing. So that was the big milestone. I lived a very stealth heteronormative life for up until the early nineties. I always had girlfriends.
Lenny: I got married in 1998. But in the nineties I started to come out more because it was easier. I had a band called Jennifer convertible and you know, Zines would write about us. And occasionally they would mention that I was trans and I wrote a lot of coded songs about being [00:53:00] transgender, the car song, probably the most notable one that got a lot of indie college radio play in the mid, early, mid nineties.
Lenny: So the milestones came little by little. And I felt, especially here in New York, once I moved to New York in 91, that I could be more out. And I felt it was more important. I mean, all my bandmates always knew, I would always tell them even in the eighties, you know, this is me, this is who I am. Nobody had a problem with it.
Lenny: I had. A couple of people threatened me in the eighties to SA me. One guy tried to beat me up, but really I didn't get a lot of flack from it. So here in New York, you know, I've met other trans people. I went to the center. I was able to get healthcare. And I felt more comfortable with telling my story and being more out, but I wasn't fully out at work because I was scared, I guess,
River: I'm wondering, I'm [00:54:00] thinking also about, you're a singer, and I think you started testosterone around age 18 or something like that. What was that voice transition like?
Lenny: It was great. I hated losing some of the upper range. I mean, I used to be able to sing as high as sting and there's a, there's an interesting recording of me singing an old police song when we opened for this band called XTC great eighties band.
Lenny: Yeah. And somebody said you can hear it on the recording of the band, like. That's not a dude. That's not a dude. And then later in the set, I go on seeing still lonely or something. And I could hit those notes and it's so great, but then little by little your voice changes and you lose those those higher notes.
Lenny: And it was fine. I mean, you just, I just learned to sing a different way. You know, it never occurred to me that I would not transition because of my. Music or my singing.
Kai: We've had a [00:55:00] few other singers on and I'm in a room with both, two of you. I, one of the things that I've heard is that one may be reluctant to transition because the fear of what testosterone will do to their voice, to their vocal cords.
Kai: It sounds like it was pretty smooth sailing for you, aside from losing the upper. Exactly. It
Lenny: really was. I mean, I didn't lose my intonation. I didn't lose my breath control. I didn't, it just, the quality of my voice changed. And even now, Sometimes I find that it feels a little bit thinner than I would like it.
Lenny: And I can't get the, I think what the native testosterone voice might sound like but I did, I did well enough and still am, I had a show last week and I'm doing another one in two weeks in new Orleans. So, It's nice to be able to keep singing.
River: Yeah, I can remember when I got to the place where I could sing Tracy Chapman really well, when my voice was starting to lower and that was kind of like, Oh, I'm changing. I'm moving. I'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit about what [00:56:00] your life is like for you currently.
Lenny: Well, as I said, I was married for 25 years, most of them very happy and successful, big family and big wedding. And unfortunately that ended mostly amicably, I would like to say. And I have Someone I'm involved with in New Orleans now who I knew a long time ago, and that's very gratifying, but I'm working here for the New York city teachers union, where I'm not out really at work, even though they're very, they, we have very intense DEI training every other year or every year at the, I'm not part of the union, but I work for the union.
Lenny: And I, I could be out if I wanted to be, I've told a couple of people at work. But, anybody could look me up on the internet, listen to my albums. Read articles about me, go to my website and it's pretty much out there. I had my boss came in cause he joined Tik TOK recently. And he said, wow, I learned a side of you I didn't [00:57:00] know about.
Lenny: And I said, yeah, I said, with everything that's going on, I felt that I had to be even more visible and more vocal than I've ever been. I mean, my ex wife was in graduate school in Ann Arbor and I worked for the university of Michigan and they had a lot of panels with the GLBT group that they had there.
Lenny: So we would go and speak to different classes, whether it was general studies, dentistry, medicine, to try and help train them how to deal with transgender patients, because even a dentist has to take that into consideration for whatever set of complicated reasons. So my, my life now is. Extraordinarily busy because I still, I'm about to release a new album.
Lenny: I'm determined to release a memoir this year because I lost my agent during lockdown. We just kind of lost touch and things went awry. And I'm always preparing for a show or editing videos for as [00:58:00] teasers for the songs. I'll just tell you a quick snippet, the new album, which is called He Him. But it's H Y M N is sort of a nod to my dad's being a preacher.
Lenny: a play on he him obviously but it was mastered by a trans guy in California named Emerson Mancini, who's recently won a couple of Grammys for working with people like Lizzo, Kendrick Lamar, John Baptiste. So I was so grateful to be able to find a trans masked person to master my record. And then I also purposely sought out a non binary or trans Graphic artists to do some of the artwork on the record.
Kai: I want to thank you for all the advocacy and work that you've done and just all the, you're forging so many paths for people who come after you and for us. And I really want to thank you for that. I'm going to just go off a little bit on the. I'm thinking about dating and relationships and you talked about being [00:59:00] pre transition dating and not having physical intimacy with folks and, and then post transition.
Kai: And I think you said you had a sweetheart, you got married and now you're back with that same sweetheart. Is that, is that true? Did I hear you right?
Lenny: That's absolutely correct. Okay. After almost 30 years.
Kai: Can you talk to us a little bit, like with a little bit about that?
Kai: Would you
Lenny: mind? Just. No, not at all. What's interesting is, as I have told a lot of people who've asked, I remember one bandmate that I had here in New York. I was with another woman and he was dropping me off after rehearsal. I was coming out to him, and he said, does your girlfriend know?
Lenny: Yeah, I thought it was really funny because, you know, we'd been living together, sleeping together for years, but of the, I don't know, five or six women that I dated after high school and into my thirties, they were, With the exception of one, all identified as heterosexual. Some, one couple later [01:00:00] came out as lesbians.
Lenny: And I think one or two of them might be by but I always made a point of when things were getting serious of saying, hold on a second, you need to know something about me and I would come out to them and invariably it never mattered, they were attracted to the masculine parts of me and to hopefully my spirit, my kindness, my sense of humor.
Lenny: Not so much my body, but. Sexuality was really important to me, which is another reason I really opted against pursuing any kind of bottom surgery, because what I had worked really well, and I didn't want to lose that part of my experience.
Kai: Thank you. I think it's so important for us to remember that we're lovable and desirable and that we can have really positive experiences and find partners and playmates and there's also times where we're rejected as Other [01:01:00] folks are. This thing can hurt a lot more if it's because of our trans status But I'd rather know, you know straight up as it were
Lenny: Absolutely, and you know a lot of the breakups were really painful.
Lenny: I don't want to say they're any more painful for me than they would be for a cisgender person. But in the back of your mind, you always think, Oh, it's because I'm trans or it's because I'm lacking something.
Kai: Yeah. And it's
Lenny: because I don't have a penis.
Kai: Yeah. And it's before social media too, where dating apps, you can weed a lot of that out and just be really forthcoming with things.
Kai: We find people and people find us and that energy that you're talking about that the Sexy rock star with a good spirit and good heart. The way that you embody a masculinity in your own way It's really beautiful. So I'm really glad. I have no doubt that you found really sweet people And so you're back with your partner from before your marriage.
Kai: Yeah, I think that's like intriguing . Somehow you reconnected or stayed in touch, but that's really sweet
Lenny: We didn't stay in touch. [01:02:00] That's the thing, you know, I was writing this memoir and in the memoir, I talk a lot about my relationships and about meeting women. And then later on discovering that I was bisexual and having a few not great experiences with cisgender men, but enjoying enjoyable enough.
Lenny: But realizing I wanted, I preferred to partner with women. And so as I'm writing this memoir, I wanted to run these chapters by these people that were my life to see, to say, am I saying anything about you that isn't true or inaccurate, or that makes you feel uncomfortable because I will take it out, but I think this part of our story is really important because,
Lenny: I adored this person and we lived together for many years. And, oh, and here's a great part of this story. So my mom and I were pretty much estranged for almost 15 years. So our holidays, birthdays talked on the phone, once a month or something, [01:03:00] but we would just, she was not really a part of when I met This woman we set up house, we had a cute apartment.
Lenny: We ran into my two sisters at a dress store at a clothing store. And they were like, Lenny. Oh my God. I was estranged from my own sisters because I don't know, maybe, but they thought I was weird or something. They were so happy to see me and I'm with my very gracious and beautiful partner.
Lenny: And we had them over to the house and they told my mom, mom, you have to go see Lenny. He's doing really well. He's with this wonderful person. They have this really cute apartment. And that's when my mom and I reconnected.
Kai: Wow.
Lenny: And I'll never forget the time she came over. Cause she was, you know, in a good place in her life at the time. And she took me out shopping for a car and, you know, she's Cuban. She's got kind of a heavy accent. She's very beautiful and she's, all dressed up and we walked into a used [01:04:00] car dealer and she said, I'm here to buy my son a car. And it was the first time I ever heard her call me her son.
Kai: Wow. Oh yeah.
Lenny: And I was almost 30 at that time.
Kai: Wow. Wow. That
Lenny: just really gets me.
Kai: And having had similar tension with my, my mom and having a period of time where we weren't in contact. I'm so glad that you found each other again and your siblings connected you and that you got to hear those words.
Lenny: Yeah, it was great. It was really a, a turning point for us. And you know, we've been a lot closer ever since. And so that relationship ended, although we were together for six or seven years and I moved to New York and I fell in love with someone else and got married. And her family was great and accepting for the most part.
Lenny: And my mom and my two sisters came up to New York for the wedding, [01:05:00] even though it was a hardship for some of them to travel. And it was this big, joyous, amazing thing. And I think it really, gave our families sort of, and I hate to say this because it shouldn't be this way, but it, it lent our union a certain sort of legitimacy because we were perceived as heteronormative.
Kai: Yeah. Yeah.
Lenny: You know, and for a set of complicated reasons that didn't work out, although I still have a tremendous amount of love for my ex wife and always will. But then when I was writing this memoir, I finally contacted. My girlfriend from the eighties and said, you know, hi, you know, and one thing led to another in the last few years.
Lenny: And she's very supportive of my music and of me as a trans person, my advocacy and all the things that we had in common or that we connected over. Back then are still in place and even greater now.
Lenny: [01:06:00] That'll make a great second book
Kai: When I'm thinking about your life and it's it sounds like there've been times We've been more out And, and being more open about being trans. And now I feel this sense of urgency that you have with all the legislation that's happening and in the world and the difficulties there.
Kai: What's it like now being more present and putting out music for the younger folks . What's it like for you now?
Lenny: Well, Kai, I have to tell you, I feel at times. A little bit of remorse for not being more out and more present and more vocal before. I felt safer when I came to New York and I did a lot of readings at Kelly Dunham series, queer memoir. I spoke at the New York public library and at different universities here in New York, as well as I did in Ann Arbor in the early 2000s. And I, I wish there would have been a way to have been more visible and more vocal earlier so that I could serve as [01:07:00] more of a representative of the trans community, but I didn't feel safe.
Lenny: Which is interesting because that's why I wrote the song, where is safe, you know, and so now that I have a job and I've got my life set up and I've got a safe place to live and I live in a refugee, a refuge state, I am safe. But as I consider my move back to Louisiana, particularly with their new governor.
Lenny: I'm wondering if I will be safe, and are the kids there safe. I mean, look at what's going on in Kansas, Florida, Iowa, Oklahoma, so many states where we've, I thought we'd be so much further along and we've moved so far back. So now there is a sense of urgency and it almost feels like a responsibility to be present and to be out. And I have now in my office, you know, in the last couple of years, more signs that, you know, protect trans kids. [01:08:00] And, you are safe here in my office. And, I wear a trans and a gay rainbow lanyard on my backpack so when I'm on the subway, people will know that I'm part of the community. It feels like I have a sense of responsibility and to be out. You know, I started writing my album that's coming out soon, about three or four years ago. And it's taken a long time because of the pandemic.
Lenny: But I probably would have written more songs about being trans. Even though there's some of that in there, I write kind of coded, more coded songs, but where is safe? And then I also wrote a trans anthem called I am what I am that came out for transgender day of visibility. And I tried to get as many trans people as I could to be in the video.
Lenny: I think it's important. It's, it's what little I can give back to the community in terms of the meager royalties and streaming income that I get.
Kai: One comment about that is, I think one of the [01:09:00] benefits of transitioning when we did, was there wasn't as much, we weren't on the radar, and there wasn't as much visibility and representation, which can be a double edged sword because representation is so important, but it's easy to track us down.
Kai: If people look, so it's just a really interesting way that we live and in this climate, you're right there, it is so important to flag support so folks know, and also be mindful of safety. So, yes, really appreciate you sharing that.
River: Well, and I can also appreciate how the feeling of remorse right of not being more out or available to folks back then but I also heard you say that how you didn't feel safe and I can really relate to that and feel feel that remorse sometimes you should I have been more out back then and yet at the same time not not quite feeling safe so that really resonates.
River: Kind of speaking of that. What are your thoughts on how we can be more [01:10:00] supportive of our transmasculine brothers?
Lenny: Well, I think it's really important to be supportive. Not just of our transmasculine brothers, but also our trans sisters, right? And non binary people. I think it's important for me, and look, I met my first non binary person 15 years ago, and I had to wrap my head around it.
Lenny: I didn't get it, you know. I think it's important for us to show The full spectrum, you know, I listened to some of your earlier podcasts and there's a musicologist that was on that I found fascinating. There was Gaines from the university of Michigan where I worked for a while. And I think it's important to show the spectrum of trans masculine lives that are out there, whether you're a fitness expert, a musician, a lawyer you know, a medical professional and to show that we can have full, vibrant, [01:11:00] rich lives. And that not only that, but we contribute to society in sense of our, whether it's our social justice initiatives, our art, artistic contributions, our scientific discoveries, our engineering prowess like Emerson Mancini that you can live a happy and full life as a trans masculine person, you know, and you can have love and loss just like everybody else. Yeah, and
River: I hear you also wanting to support all trans folks too, and I'm wondering you kind of mentioned a few things, but are there other things that you would say to newer trans and non binary folks who are just kind of, think about those things?
Lenny: That's a good question. I was so certain of who I was at such a young age that you know, I don't want to discount anybody's experience who may have taken more time, but you will know, you know, My [01:12:00] mom once said something when my ex and I bought our first house. She said, when you walk in the house, you will know it is your house.
Lenny: And I'll say that about your body and your identity. When you land on it, you will know what it is. And you'll know that it's yours and protect it fiercely, fearlessly, and surround yourself with those that will uplift you and that will support you because that's what got me through is I had some amazing supportive friends and adults in my life.
Lenny: So if you're a newer trans person, look for affirming individuals, look for people who will value you and see the importance of who you are, no matter how you want to express yourself, no matter how much you want to, how, no matter how you dress, maybe you're not, you know, lumberjack mask with the full beard and the, you know, muscles and [01:13:00] everything.
Lenny: Maybe you're a little more femme, which is fine, but live authentically me. And live honestly and be true to yourself. You know, I probably will relate to this a little bit, both of you. There are times where you feel, or I felt like I had been lying and I wrote a song on one of my EPs called, I didn't lie. I, I did what I had to, to get by. And so there's this feeling of like, Oh, do the people think I'm dishonest? Because I'm presenting as a gender that I wasn't born. And so then you kind of overcompensate and you become super honest.
Lenny: I think the most important thing is to be true to yourself. I love that.
River: Thank you so much for saying that. And I wonder how would you like to be remembered? Kind of like a legacy, of course, you've been around so long.
Lenny: I know I'm old. Dude,
Kai: somebody at my job the other day was [01:14:00] like, let's hear from the resident elder Kai.
Kai: And I was like, wait, Me? Okay, I guess I'm like 20 years older than y'all. Typecast. Here we go. Yeah,
Lenny: yeah, I did I subbed for my friend Marty's podcast a week or two ago, and we're both 62, and we both came out, we both transitioned in the 70s, you know, so we call ourselves trans elders. I guess I would love to be remembered as the first transgender rock star.
Lenny: I mean, I never, you know, achieve that, that pinnacle, but you know, I think out. com said, that I forged a legacy is the first transgender rock icon, and certainly early in the eighties when I was opening for Iggy Pop and U2 and all these other bands, it really did seem like it was on the brink.
Lenny: And I had a producer fly me out to LA to meet an A& R guy and the A& R guy said, Oh, we can't sign you because if they find out I'll lose my job. Wow. That was heartbreaking. That was like my, [01:15:00] my brush with almost making it and then having the rug pulled out because in the eighties, they, they didn't know that I wasn't, it wasn't like Boy George.
Kai: Right.
Lenny: Of Culture Club or, you know, even though there had been many androgynous rock stars, but I was living as a guy. So yeah, I would love to be remembered as, as a, as a fierce advocate for the community as well as a rock star.
Kai: That's awesome. When I think about rock and rollers back then, and the more that we know about it, there was representation, David Bowie was definitely playing with gender.
Kai: There were other rock and roll stars that were definitely playing with gender. And there's also toxic masculinity in there too. So you had a lot to choose from on that spectrum.
Lenny: Yeah. And unfortunately I picked a little of both. And like I said, I didn't have other trans role models and we didn't know As much about toxic masculinity then as we do now.
Lenny: So, for any women that I may have [01:16:00] unfairly objectified or lyrics that I wrote in my early twenties that were, probably a little bit cringy now. I am very apologetic, but I had to learn,
Kai: you know,
Lenny: I had to grow and I'm still growing, thankfully.
Kai: Thank you for that. I'm just so glad so much of my life and especially that time is not on social media and isn't documented because talking about fucking up, all the time, so, Yeah.
Kai: I appreciate that. So Lenny we're running towards the end of the initial part. We're going to have some bonus questions in a moment, but is there something that we didn't ask you in this initial part that we should have asked you that you'd like to share before we get to the bonus questions?
Lenny: I don't know. We covered a lot. I think We haven't really missed anything too much.
Kai: You're doing great. This is such a beautiful interview. we're so thrilled that you're here and I really want to thank you for responding to my message out of the blue. So thank you so much for your time.
Kai: So welcome back to Lenny's Episode we're here asking [01:17:00] our bonus questions,
River: What do you think about being asked to identify your pronouns that's kind of become like a common practice but what are your thoughts. It doesn't bother
Lenny: me at all. I think that it could become sort of a normal part of human interaction because if any of us walked into a room, no one would question that we are he him, or they would assume we are he him but the more I learn about non-binary identities or people who are agender or gender fluid, I think it should become a normal part of confirmation. Can I, can I assume that you're he, him, or can you tell me your pronouns? Doesn't bother me.
Kai: And I have a follow up with that. Just sometimes that's a tough lift for us who've been around for a while. How have you, how have you come to this?
Lenny: Well, I'll be really honest. I came across some people on Tik TOK, which is there's an incredible trans and And queer community on Tik [01:18:00] TOK and I got a lot of followers really quick. I came across some people who identified as trans who were not traditionally masculine or feminine or consider themselves trans, but didn't want to transition at all. I'm like, okay, I had to wrap my head around that and I have to respect their identity. You know, and so if someone tells me they're non binary, but I'm pretty clear on the fact that they were either assigned female at birth or assigned male at birth, who am I to disrespect what they choose to, to call. So, yes, as a trans elder, it took a little while, but I am there.
Kai: Thank you.
River: Excellent. Another question we have for you is we talked a little bit about this, but I'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit more about your naming story. If there's anything more you want to add.
Lenny: I was extraordinarily fortunate and [01:19:00] sometimes I say is sort of You know, the universe's way of saying, this is who you are. The fact that my grandmother basically gave me the nickname Lenny from Blanca Elena. I just, and it's stuck, and I went through every, from kindergarten to, now as Lenny. And it was very lucky and it's got some, funky pop culture references, you know, that go along with being a Lenny Zenith was just sort of an eighties thing because a lot of people were changing their names. You know, there was like Joey Ramon and there was, Blondie and a lot of, Musicians change their name to something that's catchy and Prince.
Lenny: So I just picked Zenith, but yeah, that's my naming story.
Kai: It's a great rockstar name. It's a great name. I'm so impressed I'm just thinking about your musical career and the climate back in the eighties, seventies and eighties, and when you were talking about meeting with record producers and how [01:20:00] homophobia and transphobia and just the fear of.
Kai: You know, what that would mean for the record company or the producer, whoever that person was that, that didn't move you forward. Just how utterly heartbreaking that particular moment or series of moments must have been.
Lenny: Yeah. I mean, after you opened for a bands like Iggy Pop and Yeah. And U2 and, you know, there, I think the whole list is on my website, X from Los Angeles.
Lenny: Yeah. xtc, you know. Mm-Hmm. Ian Hunter. You think, Oh, well, I'm going to be next. My band's going to be next. You know, we're going to get signed. We're going to tour like REM. And that's what I really always wanted was to be a pop star. And it was hard because a lot of times you didn't know if people were stringing you along so they could be part of your wild story or if they were really into your music. But fortunately for me, I think most of the time, the, I hope that my ability and my songs [01:21:00] were part of the reason that my bands were chosen. Because they were always my bands. I started them. I wrote the songs.
Lenny: I was the leader. I was a singer.
Kai: Yeah. Thank you.
River: Yeah, I was wondering you know, sometimes Disclosure comes up in the most interesting ways and I think about times when I've been asked questions like, how would your life be different if you were born a girl, those kinds of questions that come up that kind of force us to think, Oh, how do I disclose or what am I going to do with that?
River: I'm wondering if you can tell us about a time you hadn't expected to disclose your trans status. And what did you do?
Lenny: That's a hard one. I'd have to think about it. Most of the time that that happens has been in medical settings, where I'm going for something that's not necessarily invasive or where I have to Get naked. But if I had mammograms for years and you walk in and there's a technician and they don't always look at your chart and I would have to say, [01:22:00] look, you know, I am transgender and you have to disclose at that time.
Lenny: I did back in the eighties have someone tell me, Oh, you shouldn't transition, you should just be a girl rocker and you'll be so famous and you'll be so popular, you know, look at Joan Jett. And I was like, That's not me. Wow. You know, and they may have been right, but I would have never traded my authenticity as a trans mass person for a chance at, you know, rock stardom.
Kai: Mm hmm. Wow. You're just thinking about how we connect with each other and how we pay it forward, which. It's a big part of your life right now. You're paying it forward. Your proceeds. You're going to non binary, trans, queer, you know, the ACLU.
Kai: A lot of us have joked. We need some sort of code to identify each other. I know passing isn't the goal for everyone, but so many of us do, and you wouldn't know us if you see us sometimes, how would you suggest [01:23:00] when somebody who may, when you don't really know someone, but you suspect or think they're trans masc or non binary when you meet them, how do you typically respond?
Lenny: I just try to treat them with a tremendous amount of kindness and compassion, especially if maybe they're not passing or maybe they're getting to that point to if I have an opportunity to take them aside and say, Hey, by the way, I don't know about you, but I'm trans and if that means anything to you, fine.
Lenny: If not you can just pass off. But I have taken to making sure that whenever I'm in public, on the train, at work, on my bags, that I have a trans pin somewhere.
Kai: Thank you.
Lenny: And I will wear your t shirt proudly. And often.
Kai: Thank you. How would you suggest another person who knows you or knows https: otter.
Kai: ai
Lenny: I am very easy to find, [01:24:00] which scares me a little bit because I'm very public. If I'm playing a show, it's on my website. But if somebody wants to find me, they can find me. I'm very contactable. And I would welcome anyone reach out to me if they want to talk about it. You know, the experience of transitioning or being trans. I'll tell you one other quick thing.
Lenny: I, I, when I put out my album in 2018, that was, you know, that's when I got my review and billboard out. com advocate. I got a lot of press and I had a good publicist. And so I couldn't find a label that I felt comfortable being with. So I started my own label called X, Y, Y, X records. And I was really hoping to, for it to be just like a trans record label, which I'm sure there's gotta be others out there, but it was my attempt.
Lenny: And I'd signed one artist from the UK named ethereal, who's very talented. trans woman in the UK. But it never really took off and I didn't have money [01:25:00] to, to make it happen or to, you know, to run with it. But I would love to continue that work and, and do whatever I can to uplift other trans musicians, performers, and writers.
Kai: That's beautiful. That's beautiful. And your album was released before the pandemic. And then the pandemic happened. It sounds like your career has had like many musicians, ups and downs and more physical presence or more publicity than others. You know, and you've just been persistent over the years and just so successful.
Kai: Your music is beautiful. We're going to, with your permission, if we can post, links to it. And then if we can borrow some, a little bit of your song where it's safe, where it's safe. That would be. Absolutely. Okay. All right. I want to thank you Lenny for your time today.
Kai: I want to thank you for sharing about your life and your experiences, and I'm really touched by the amount of courage that you had as a young person and throughout your life. And I think we all can recognize the importance of [01:26:00] representation and being out and also just that tension with, okay, how safe am I?
Kai: Right. And you're doing it anyway. There's a lot of benefit in it and connection with young people. I'm sure you're getting responses from younger people and other folks on Tik Tok. I find that so inspiring and Instagram, we read every comment. We respond to the comments.
Kai: I mean, I'm so touched that people even care, you know, and that they listen to that. Our presence is meaningful. So thank you so much for doing that. And you're doing it at potential risk .
Lenny: Well, I just, I want to say something that I think is particularly important because I have members of my close family who are Republicans and who voted for Donald Trump and you love us, if you love humans and believe that every human has a right to exist and to pursue happiness, joy and safety, you cannot possibly vote for anybody who wants to collect our names like [01:27:00] they want to do in Texas. Put us on a list. Deny us healthcare.
Lenny: Basically deny us life.
Kai: Lock up parents. Lock
Lenny: up parents, take kids away from their parents. It is unconscionable to think that we would be headed in this direction. So if you love me, if you love someone who's trans or queer, you cannot vote in that way. You cannot vote for people who want to harm us and potentially drive us to extinction, eradicate us.
Lenny: Right. It's a very dangerous and scary time. And I, I can't even imagine, I mean, look, I've lived my life. I've had a lot of experience. I can't even imagine what it's like to be a trans kid at the moment, especially if you don't have supportive parents or if you live in a dangerous state. So it's something we didn't get to talk about too much, but we just have to do whatever we can to uplift and show some kind of support for, you know, trans You know, young [01:28:00] trans kids that are going through what we did.
River: Yeah. Thank you so much, Lenny. And I just want to say just sitting here and receiving your story. I think, I'm here because of people like you coming before me. And I just want to thank you for, for paving the way for people like me.
Lenny: Thank you. That means a
River: lot.
Kai: Definitely. And I'm so glad you saw Steve Dane and that, we we've interviewed Jude Patton, who's, in his eighties and we've interviewed Rupert rat Raj, who's in Canada, who's in his seventies. Jamison green who's in his seventies. there's plenty of, and you're another piece in the puzzle of just like we're out there. We've always been here. We're living lives and we're lovable people where we have lives outside of our transness and we're, that's part of who we are and it's absolutely beautiful. Thank you for being here today. Thank you. Thank you so much
Lenny: for having me. It's always a pleasure to talk to other trans guys and share our experiences. And I am glad we had this opportunity.
Kai: Same. When I come [01:29:00] to New York, I'm I might hit you up and say hi.
Lenny: Please do, absolutely.
Kai: So River, what did you think of our interview today with Lenny?
River: Wow. I was just so blown away by how somebody like, I think about how hard it was for me back in the mid nineties to come out and forge my identity as a young person, even in the eighties as a child. And I think about all the ways that, he just got out there, how he went to high school without telling his dad. How he just had a sense of who he was enough for his mom to bring him to the endocrinologist at age 12. And just how sure he wasn't , and courageous. And I'm just, I don't know if I've ever heard a story like that before.
Kai: Yeah. I don't know about you. I was a little sneaky as a kid and I would sneak pants, I would sneak my sister's jeans and change out in the backyard before I went to school because I didn't have jeans or wear my friend's football shirt to cause they were masculine clothes, but I [01:30:00] never had words or. knew that we could be trans, that trans men existed. His sense of self, that is really profound. It doesn't sound like he wavered at all. He just knew. And that's wild. Do you think if you had known that we existed back in the day that you would have embraced it a bit earlier?
River: Oh yeah. I was just. aching for that at a young age. I, I just remember, thinking about the times when I would get on my bike and ride to other neighborhoods and introduce myself as a boy and how much I just wished that was true so much that people could see me that way but having no words to talk about it.
River: Yeah. I was kind of in one of those early people that knew from a very young age as well. Yeah. So that really resonates that, that part of his story. And I think also that thing that he said, I think it was his mom or somebody said how Lenny decides who Lenny wants to be.
Kai: Yeah.
River: To let him be.
Kai: Yeah. I think that's a [01:31:00] psychiatrist actually. Yeah. And
River: I'm like thinking, wow, like, even for a person to say that to a young trans kid back then, , it just reminds me that we had these sort of guides along the way, even though we didn't know they were there sometimes, and we think of that as only now we see that, there were people all throughout our history that were probably there to support us and to really affirm us.
Kai: His story about the, I think it was, he said there was one other adult outside of his parents who really stepped up and saw him for who he was and how critical that is. And the evidence points to that. You know, having at least one adult who's affirming to queer, to trans to non-binary folks, so critical to our survival.
Kai: Mm-Hmm. . I wanted to ask so much more about. Being a skateboarder in the seventies. That was a really pivotal time in that area. And he was talking about not being able to go out without a shirt on and be one of the [01:32:00] hairy young boys in Venice beach down in Southern California.
Kai: And that was wild. And then also in the rock and roll industry. He's headlining for Iggy Pop and U2, XTC, X, all bands, Hello, love them, love his music and just a freaking rock star.
River: I had to do a double take when you said that because I didn't know that and when I heard it was like, what, really?
Kai: Yeah. What?
River: It's so amazing I'm always so amazed by trans folks and trans guys, right. Who are out there doing all this stuff that I never even knew about, you know? Yeah.
Kai: Yeah. Me too. I'm so glad that he's still putting out music and we're going to put a link to his music and please check it out cause he has stuff on all the different platforms and he is, as Jackal is, an aging punk rocker and many of my loved ones and, his music is beautiful. I would love to hear stories about that. I'm going to buy his memoir for sure. But I think I also felt his gutsiness.
Kai: Like he said, I was either stupid or, or what? Yeah. [01:33:00] Brave. Young people just are like, well, fuck it. I'm just moving and I'm going, I'm doing the thing. It's such a beautiful thing about not holding yourself back and just going for it. That fearfulness, like being in the rock and roll industry, being there in that just amazes me how he lived his life
River: yeah. And I think also about bravery also, but how we have to do it, right. We're driven to become ourselves, to be our authentic selves. And, how much you can see that in his story, that he just has to be him, you What he would do to make sure that that happens. that really resonates with me and my own story, as well as the stories of other trans men that I've heard of what we go through to find ourselves and make sure that we're seen either to selves or to other people , who care and love about us or to the world.
Kai: Yeah. He talked about being outed without his consent. And then one journalist was referring to him in really misogynistic ways and transphobic ways and [01:34:00] writing about him and how he snip, snip back at this person who later apologized.
Kai: That's pretty remarkable because it was a different era. Back in the eighties, seventies, eighties, probably in the nineties, homophobia was real. I just think, the gutsiness that he had, and maybe it was ignorance is bliss. There wasn't so much information about us that maybe the wrong people didn't pick up on it, but I was really impressed by his dad. his dad was a minister. I wanted to know if he was a veteran, and when his son came and told him that I'd been living as a boy for, since eighth grade, he was like, okay, well, we got to work this. and he lost all of his connections in high school when they just dropped him, what an amazing story in life he's lived.
River: I think about even that comment, I think his dad made about, don't worry about Lenny is going to wear to church every week and 20 years known. And just again, with that, the people around us sometimes that are so remarkable, I think about [01:35:00] my dad, who's just came out of the woodwork as being not really even understanding, But how he would stick up for me and these amazing ways, my family was taking pictures one time and they were doing like the four generations of men and the four generations of women, and nobody really seemed to want me in their pictures cause they didn't know where to put me.
River: Dad moved into the room and started to construct new photos. Oh, sessions with me in them. And it's just really gentle, where people really show up for you. And, how much that means in those times.
Kai: He talked about having a period of estrangement from his family.
Kai: And when he ran into his sisters, how his mom came in and they wanted to know that he was okay. And then was a badass with haggling for cars. She sounds like she was just, or is one of his greatest allies now. And I think you're right. Not.
Kai: Really fully understanding it or getting it, but wanting your child to be happy and live a fulfilling life and know [01:36:00] that they're loved. I think that's all it is, you know?
River: There's one thing that I really stood out to me too, just in listening to a lot of these, stories on the podcast is he talked about Christine Jorgensen and finding an article.
River: And I think about that sort of. Because we all had no role models and nobody, like there weren't books written about us back then, there wasn't when I was coming out, in the 90s, hardly anything was written except for there was a little bit about Christine Jorgensen, but When I hear guys coming out around my era, it's a lot about Leslie Feinberg and stuff like that.
River: And that was the resource that we found back then. But then when I hear guys coming out around his era, I hear about Christine Jorgensen, famous trans woman. And so it's interesting that we all kind of rest on that one person because there was no one
Kai: Yeah, I think so many of our guests have talked about, coming at this at our own pace and considering all the different things that could [01:37:00] impact us, you may know who you are, and you may recognize that this time in this place in this environment, if you're in a household where you won't find the support. Waiting or finding it somewhere else, just how resourceful we can be river.
Kai: You're absolutely right. He touched on that. And I think, whether or not somebody identifies as trans or non binary or isn't sure or agender, that's okay. And I think it's okay to change your mind and figure it out. And there are some of us that know absolutely with certainty what's up and others don't.
Kai: That's the beauty of being. Human. We get to make it up as we go along.
River: Yeah. And I'm just sitting here also if I just have to mention one more badass moment of he wrote to Stanford. Yeah. You know, and, and ask him, they told him he was young, but I'm just like, Oh, I don't know if I could have done that back.
Kai: Yeah. Back when he had to actually pen and paper and get the application. And then and thank [01:38:00] God that Stanford was there, and we've had some of the guests that have been on the show, several of them, the older guys went to Stanford for care and they were getting it, and I know of one person who was in high school actually who went to get care there.
Kai: I'm glad that it's been there and the comment about lower surgeries and how that changes over time. And he mentioned Gaines's interview. I'm so encouraged with the science and technology and trans folks, non binary folks getting into medicine and having a seat at the table and all those things are so important.
River: Yeah. I think about that with Jude Patton and then having him involved with WPATH and
Kai: And Jameson Green right. With USPATH all the things. So, to whatever degree we can be involved, or not involved , we're all good. We're all there. We're out there.
Kai: We're lovable. We see you. And we want to wish everybody an absolutely wonderful day. Thanks for your time today.
Jackal: And now it's time for Transponder welcome to the end of season four. [01:39:00] If June isn't the month to have trans joy and gay pride, I don't know what is. So let's just start off with a few things. In June, tomorrow, June 3rd, There's Albuquerque pride fest. There's capital pride fest in Washington, DC. There's the house of yes.
Jackal: Pride events happening in New York, Philly pride, and even Vienna pride in Austria near the end of the month. On June 23rd, you've got Chicago pride, Denver pride, Euro pride in Greece. You've got more House of Yes Pride events in New York. You've got Munich Gay Pride in Germany, Nashville Pride, Oslo Pride in Norway, and Mexico City Pride on June 26th.
Jackal: Have a great Pride month, everybody. Trans joy, trans love. Peace. If you have trans joy that you would like us to share on our Instagram, please contact Kira at our Instagram page at transmasculinepodcast. [01:40:00] We enjoy your comments and look forward to hearing from you. Lastly, this show would be nothing without our guests, who share their insight, their Expertise and heartfelt stories.
Jackal: We absolutely adore you and are forever grateful to you.
Kai: Good job today. Jekyll.
Jackal: Good job to you. Kai.
Kai: Thank you for listening to today's podcast. Stealth tries to capture stories of those who transitioned before. the year 2000. 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.
Kai: We also want you to know that the health and well being of our community is our number one priority.
Jackal: In fact, we want to give a shout out to parents who are supporting their gender non conforming kids. Supporting your child in the development and expression of their identity is not child abuse. We support you and love you for supporting your kids.
Jackal: We fully anticipate that people and groups will express positivity and negativity in response to our stories. We're prepared to [01:41:00] deal with this, and as you know, thrilled to be one small part of our community.
Kai: We offer 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 up.
Jackal: 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. 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.
Jackal: We do not represent any outside
Kai: entity. 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 your feedback and support are essential to our show success. podcast. Tell your friends, share on social media and rate us on your favorite streaming platform.
Kai: You can find us on Instagram, [01:42:00] trans masculine podcast on X, formerly Twitter. At podcast stealth on youtube stealth a trans masculine podcast and be sure to check out our website Transmasculinepodcast. com Thank you for joining us
Jackal: until next time You