Demystifying Transgender Experiences: A Candid Discussion with Wendy Cole

Hey Let's Be Perfectly Queer Fam! – Archie and Katie here! This week, we’re chatting with the amazing Wendy Cole, a transition mentor and coach who’s been making her mark in the trans community. Wendy takes us on a journey through her experience of transitioning in 2015, and we dive deep into how far we've come and how much work still needs to be done for trans folks, especially when it comes to support.

In this episode, Wendy opens up about:

• The lack of support she faced when she transitioned and what the underground trans experience used to look like
• Why gender identity and sexual orientation are hardwired in our brains, and how society often gets it wrong
• The UK Supreme Court’s controversial stance on biological sex and what that means for trans rights
• How Wendy is changing perspectives by bridging the gap between cisgender and transgender people through open conversations

Plus, we touch on some seriously important topics, like the importance of unity within the LGBTQ+ community, the challenges trans women face, and why it’s so crucial to educate cisgender people.

We get real about the struggles, but also the strength and resilience that come from embracing who we truly are. Wendy’s story is a powerful reminder that it’s never too late to be yourself and to start living your truth, no matter how hard it seems.

🎧 Tune in to this thought-provoking conversation and let’s keep building a world of love, acceptance, and understanding. Catch us wherever you get your podcasts!

Until next time, we hope we’ve been perfectly queer,

Archie & Katie 🌈


Get in contact with Wendy:


Social Media Links:
Instagram: @wcole212
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wcole212
YouTube Channel: @wendycole8326
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendy-cole-gtm/

Demystifying Links:
Demystifying Project website: https://thetransgenderjourney.com
On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2U49KRk8uYHqT3Mm5PEAIt
On Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/demystifying-the-transgender-
journey/id1799458202

Transcript

Podcast: Let's Be Perfectly Queer Podcast

Episode Title: Demystifying Transgender Experiences: A Candid Discussion with Wendy Cole

Host(s): Archie

Guest(s): Wendy

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Archie (Host) | 00:00:00 to 00:00:15
Welcome to let's Be Perfectly Queer, a queer podcast creating space to talk about all things queer. My name is Archie, and I'm joined here on today's episode by Wendy Cole, our transition mentor. Welcome to the show. Thank you, Archie. I love being here.

Archie (Host) | 00:00:15 to 00:00:26
Thank you so much for wanting to jump on board and getting in touch. It really means a lot to us. Good. So before we do get into today's episode, did you want to tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Sure.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:00:26 to 00:00:47
I transitioned in 2015. I started in January of that year, and I was living full time by July of that year. Oh, wow. That's quite a quick journey because some people take a long time with the process of actually coming out socially and going that next step. Well, I hadn't cross dressed in over 35 years.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:00:47 to 00:01:24
The only thing that stopped me from transitioning much earlier in life was zero medical support, zero legal support. In 1970-71, when I tried to transition, I was a case study patient in front of a group of psychiatrists, one of whom stood up after I'd talked for maybe three or four minutes and said, you're a freak. You should move to New York City and turn tricks like the rest of them. What? That was all I knew about being in those days, a transsexual.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:01:24 to 00:02:01
That's how we were treated. That's how we were known in society. I've talked with numerous people since then and since I transitioned who went through similar experiences in the dark ages of the last century and made the decision like I did, that that doctor was right. The only way that we could do this back then was was to live underground in Manhattan, San Francisco, run risk of being arrested by the police, thrown in jail, fined heavily, and our names published in the paper. That's the way it was.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:02:02 to 00:02:24
That's why 1969, June of Stonewall, and the people that threw the first bricks were the drag queens and the transsexuals. Exactly. Do you find it hard looking back on what you had to go through and how society is still fighting with specifically trans women? Yes. I have to say this.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:02:26 to 00:02:57
The only thing I regret about my past was just how much pain it was to go through all of that as, no, this does not go away. It's part of who we are. It's part of our brain. It's formed in the frontal cortex of our brain during the second trimester of birth at the same time that sexual orientation is formed in the amygdala of the brain. And these are hardwired.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:02:57 to 00:03:29
They don't go away. You can't change them. So the only thing that I had to do was live in alignment with who I truly am. And one of the toughest things that I worked on from January of 2015 to about April of 2015 was unpacking all the beliefs that I carried from childhood. Ages 4, 5 and 10, when I told my parents that I was a girl.

Archie (Host) | 00:03:30 to 00:03:56
Wow. And that was in 1959. You cannot believe the grief I went through then. I knew it could possibly be bad, but I was praying that my mom would help me, and that didn't happen. She was a 1950s housewife under my father's thumb, who, when I tried to transition at age 22, told me, Women are property.

Archie (Host) | 00:03:56 to 00:04:15
Whoa. You wouldn't like being a woman. That was the prevailing attitude. And still to this day, there are men who feel that way. And also, what I've discovered too, since transitioning is most people cisgender people, straight people.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:04:15 to 00:04:34
I even met a lot of gay people who really don't have the meaning of the word gender. It's synonymous with sexual. And that all stems from when you're born, when the doctor pronounces you male or female. And that's at best, a guess. Yeah.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:04:34 to 00:04:52
Very true for most people. Fortunately for them, they're in alignment. They have no incongruence between what's in their brain and how their body is and how they're being socialised from birth. Yes. To be a man or a woman.

Archie (Host) | 00:04:52 to 00:05:03
It's very true. And society does that. Society puts people into boxes, which. Yeah. Takes away from you being able to explore when you're already given a label, whether it fits or not.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:05:03 to 00:05:18
Mm. And so, yeah, I just read the other day that in the uk, the Supreme Court there mandated there's only men and women and it's biological sex. And that's bullshit. Oh, it is. It is.

Archie (Host) | 00:05:18 to 00:05:32
And looking on from the other side of the world and things that's going on in the US and the. It's horrible. And we're going into elections, so it's like. Yeah. And so we are scared here as well, if a certain person gets on.

Archie (Host) | 00:05:32 to 00:05:40
And then we're going to follow the footsteps of the. The US and the uk. And it's a scary time to be transgender. It's a scary time to be lgbtq. Right.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:05:40 to 00:05:57
It's a scary time for us to all be. Exactly. It's the times like this that we need to band together and not segregate. Because I was talking to someone the other day, there are still gay men who are against the trans community. Well, when I started my transition, I moved into.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:05:57 to 00:06:34
I moved about 40 miles north of where I lived outside of Philadelphia to a place called New Hope, Pennsylvania. It's a little river town on the Delaware river in central Bucks county, right across the river from New Jersey, and beautiful little community. Used to be known in the 80s and 90s as the San Francisco of the East. People went there from Manhattan to vacation, enjoy the countryside and enjoy this little town that was a LGBT haven. So when I moved there, there was a large gay population and I thought, oh, they're going to totally understand me.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:06:34 to 00:06:48
No. You're like, oh, no. I had so much fun with them, sitting, talking and with gay men. I would look at them and they'd look at me and I'd go, well, you know, you got married. Yeah.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:06:48 to 00:06:53
You had a career. Yeah. You had a family. Yeah. You did the whole heteronormative checkbox.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:06:53 to 00:06:57
Uh huh. And then you couldn't take it. So now you're sitting here with me. Yeah. Yeah.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:06:58 to 00:07:13
No difference. Exactly. That's exactly it. So it's quite interesting, you know, when in communities and we should be all banding together, that, you know, there is that segregation and there is that like, oh, no, we are better than you almost sometimes, and it makes no sense. We are going on our journeys.

Archie (Host) | 00:07:13 to 00:07:52
They may be slightly different, but at the end of the day, aren't our journeys better if we support each other? I made some very close friends there. I moved out after about five years. I moved to another location and I was credited with having educated the gay community as to what it truly means to be transgender. And I think that's where I started my path, which has put me out now to my mission is humanise being born transgender for the rest of society and foster social change by talking with cisgender people.

Archie (Host) | 00:07:53 to 00:08:43
I love that there were signs there from the start that this is where you need to be and this is what you need to be doing. And so after our election here, I figured, well, I spent part of my latter teens and early twenties back in the dark days, protesting the Vietnam War, joined Students for a Democratic Society, sds, did organising and protesting and draught counselling. So here I am now in later life, doing everything I can to humanise being born transgender and creating social change. I met a really wonderful cisgender woman, married straight, knew very little about the LGBT community, but wanted to interview me for a chapter in her book and for her podcast. Her name is Lynn Murphy.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:08:43 to 00:09:08
She lives in Phoenix, Arizona. As an author and all that, we Became friends. And during 2024, we began a project in collaboration and I gave it the name Demystifying the Transgender Journey. Love it. And that became our new podcast, which we launched on February 28, and we're co hosting.

Archie (Host) | 00:09:08 to 00:09:44
Oh, amazing. And we're interviewing trans people. We're interviewing parents of transgender doctors, psychologists, and other people who support the transgender community, as well as parents of transgender. And I also started a Facebook group, and the purpose of that is to bring myself and a core group of transgender people together with cisgender people to have open conversation, answer questions and clarify this whole experience. No, that's awesome.

Archie (Host) | 00:09:44 to 00:10:24
And it sounds like you've got a big range of coverage of different pockets where you're targeting, which is really good because it is hard to get across a lot of different platforms, but it definitely sounds like you're doing your absolute best to make sure you're targeting lots of different demographics based on what they they receive and the content that they engage with. Yes. And I feel that it's incredibly important now to focus on educating cisgender people because so many of them have no concept. What I found is they have no framework whatsoever to even begin comprehending this. And even in my speeches, I always say, I don't expect you to understand.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:10:25 to 00:10:56
If you've never looked in the mirror and said, I should have been a boy or I should have been a girl, I don't expect them to understand. I just want to provide a framework for comprehension and change perspectives so that there can begin acceptance and hopefully form a network of informed allies who can talk to their friends and neighbours and multiply my voice. No, I love that, because I, you know, they always say that, you know, bad news travels five times as faster. So it's all the hate and stuff. People love it.

Archie (Host) | 00:10:56 to 00:11:15
And so it's really hard, you know, that one person who you've actually got to, who's actually informed, will only pass the message onto one other person. That's the way it usually happens. So it's like you need to be just as vocal just as they are to make sure that the correct messages are getting across. Because misinformation is crazy out there at the moment and it's getting worse. Yeah.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:11:15 to 00:11:39
And the reason it's so easily spread is you've got all the right wing politicians and religious people in their bully puppets spewing it all out to a population that has no information by which to question it. Yes. And understand it. That's exactly it. And I saw this morning, well, recently, because this will come out in A couple of weeks.

Archie (Host) | 00:11:39 to 00:12:02
I saw recently that the Pope, unfortunately, has passed. And the Pope has done a lot for the LGBTQ+ community in his time as that he can as a Pope. And so the next month or so, or as we see the next Pope come in, it's going to be interesting who comes in. Because there is so much hatred in the world right now, we don't want to add someone else to fuel that fire. Do you know what I mean?

Wendy (Guest) | 00:12:02 to 00:12:19
Right. Oh, absolutely. So I really hope that we do have someone who is informed and who is progressive and who is going to still support the LGBT community. Like, he has. Like, he could have gone a lot further, but it is nice to have a Pope who says, yes, you know, they are all God's children.

Archie (Host) | 00:12:19 to 00:12:41
And. And, you know, not everybody is Catholic or Christian, but having someone in a position of power saying, and especially someone from a religious background saying, we are all God's children, that makes a massive difference. Oh, yes, it's a massive difference. And there are just so many people putting out such misinformation and outright lies. Exactly.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:12:41 to 00:13:06
That's all it is in this country. Later this week, I saw a news piece that said they're going to put out a new study on transition regrets. The only thing I regret is I couldn't have Transitioned at age 22 when. I tried, when I started having those gender dysphoria and the gender questions. The only regret I have as well is not transitioning earlier.

Archie (Host) | 00:13:07 to 00:13:23
They say, you know, there is a higher rate of people regretting knee surgery. There's a higher rate of people regretting a tattoo rather than actually transitioning. And the only time there is regret is because of the way they're treated by society. It's not because they didn't want to transition. It's because it's too hard sometimes.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:13:23 to 00:13:42
Yep. Yeah. Back in the day. See, the other thing that I didn't. Isn't clear to a lot of people is we've only had medical support, therapeutic support, and everything that we needed to fit into society for 13 years in this country.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:13:43 to 00:14:00
2012 was when everything changed. I found out about it in late 2014 when I looked online and wasted no time. You're like, oh, I could do this. Well, that's the other thing. I didn't know any other transgender people at the time.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:14:00 to 00:14:28
I wasn't part of any community. I did go to a support group meeting in February or early March of that year at the insistence of my therapist, who was wonderful. I went twice at her insistence, and then said, no, I'M not going back. The support group was predominantly cross dressers and some of them couldn't have been nastier. You're one of those transsexuals.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:14:28 to 00:14:37
You think you're so special. No, I don't. I just started. I have no clue what I'm doing. I thought this group was just for me, but it obviously isn't.

Archie (Host) | 00:14:37 to 00:14:59
No, that's hard as well, because you're going to a group that you think you're getting support but you're actually getting backlash from. Right. So I was absolutely thrilled when I started living full time, moved into New Hope, met my first gay neighbours, Chad and Jason, who left flowers at my front door one night. Oh, that's lovely. I walked down the next day to introduce myself.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:14:59 to 00:15:13
We started talking at 9 o'clock on a Sunday evening. I introduced myself. They said, well, there's a running bet in the neighbourhood. Are you a cisgender woman or are you a crossdresser? I said, I'm neither.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:15:13 to 00:15:27
In the old days, I was called a transsexual. Today I'm transgender. I was born transgender and I'm living full time. I'm changing my legal identity, I'm going to have surgery. I don't know where or when, but that's it.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:15:27 to 00:15:47
And then I ended that with, I'm an open book, ask me anything you want to and nothing's off limits. And Jason said, you shouldn't have said that to Chad. We had the greatest conversation, Archie. It was wonderful. We talked from 9 in the evening on a Sunday night till 3:30 Monday morning.

Archie (Host) | 00:15:47 to 00:16:04
Oh, that's amazing. That's so good. It was mind blowing for both of us, for all of us. That's so good. I made so many friends and have so many friends in the gay community that still follow me that are still my friends and absolutely love them.

Archie (Host) | 00:16:04 to 00:16:22
That's awesome. So now this. I absolutely have had nothing but good experiences throughout all of this. And I also attribute my transition so quickly. One, my therapist challenged all my beliefs and made me change them.

Archie (Host) | 00:16:22 to 00:16:45
Oh, wow. Which helped dramatically. And that's when I got into Dr. Joe Dispenza and Breaking the Habit Of Being Yourself was my favourite book of his. And it's all about your mindset and changing your beliefs, which changes your thoughts and emotions so that you can do what you need to do.

Archie (Host) | 00:16:45 to 00:17:03
Yeah. When I went into it, I also found out, and later on, that common within the community is this belief that transition is difficult and takes a long time. If that's what you believe, that's how it will be. You can't live outside your beliefs. That is very true.

Archie (Host) | 00:17:03 to 00:17:12
And that's why they say manifestation. And it is really important. And if you say it's too hard, then it is going to be too hard. And this actually leads into the question that I wanted to ask you. Why is it so important to do all the.

Archie (Host) | 00:17:12 to 00:17:48
The mental work before transitioning? Not just going straight into transitioning and say, yep, day one, but the mental work and the things like the putting out in the universe, why is that all that important? It's all about energy. Not only your energy, but the energy that people around you in society sense when they're in your presence. Some of the things that I teach are when you walk into a convenience store and you're walking up to the cash register, the person glances at you and within a matter of seconds assigns your gender based on the cues they see.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:17:48 to 00:18:14
And what I tell my clients is, from that point forward, it's up to you not to confuse them. And you present yourself. By the time you're at that point, you should have a really fundamental level of self acceptance. And that all comes from that mental work. That self acceptance is so critical to being able to blend into everyday life.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:18:14 to 00:18:46
Now, I understand that there are people who don't care to blend in and they do their own thing with gender in their gender presentation. And that's cool, too. If I was in my 20s, I would probably do the same thing, but who knows? And it's okay. But yes, that mental work is very critical to being able to feel comfortable with who you are, comfortable in your own skin and, you know, the dress, the hair, everything else is window dressing.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:18:46 to 00:18:53
It's not the reason that I exist. It's like putting a fresh coat of paint. Exactly. That's what it is. But yes, it's.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:18:53 to 00:19:20
And people do sense that energy. I've had people tell me I've been living full time for eight months and I'm constantly getting misgendered. And granted, I'm on zoom with them, but I look and I go, you look great. Then we go into, what are you thinking when you're out in public running your errands, doing your shops, whatever. And where you're getting misgendered.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:19:20 to 00:19:34
Well, and they ran through a whole bunch of things. And then, oh, and it's really difficult being a trans woman. And that's when I said, stop. That's an unnecessary qualifier. Why do you call yourself a trans woman?

Wendy (Guest) | 00:19:34 to 00:19:50
You didn't go through all of this to be a trans woman. You went through this to be who you actually have always been. A girl, a woman, period. And then I tell them, I totally get it. I'm born transgender.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:19:51 to 00:20:23
I am transgender, but I identify as female, as a woman, that makes it so much easier for me to go out into society, interact with people. I'll socialise with people at different venues and things like that over the course of months, and never reveal that I was transgender. I reveal to my friends, anyone that I'm really friends with, then I tell them, and I tell them like this. I was born transgender and I transitioned in 2015. Any questions?

Archie (Host) | 00:20:24 to 00:20:32
That's it. That's just. For some people, it's the label, I think, that makes it easier for everybody on society. Like, this is who I am. And it's just interesting the way you say that.

Archie (Host) | 00:20:32 to 00:20:50
If you say you're a trans woman and it's hard, then you're putting that out into the universe. And that's. I think that's what we see a lot of online and in different spaces. And I think, as well, that might also come down to society and the government targeting trans women more. And then instead of living their truth and being like, I'm just a woman, this is who I am.

Archie (Host) | 00:20:51 to 00:21:16
By saying I'm a trans woman is hard. You are allowing other people to also say that as well. I do, but the danger in that, that qualifier is, is it changes your personal energy and how you interact with the world. Yes, that's very true. People that I know who blend into everyday life perfectly everywhere they go, don't do that.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:21:16 to 00:21:35
But yet they're not above telling people that they're. They were born transgender or they're transgender, it doesn't matter. Yeah, it's so true. And then we're talking about transgender people and, you know, people's ideas and perceptions and that kind of stuff. What do you think is the biggest misconception that you hear people say about transgender people?

Archie (Host) | 00:21:35 to 00:21:38
Oh, you're like, let me get to my list.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:21:41 to 00:22:28
Most especially most straight people that I encounter, even my friends that I hung out with all last year, because I recently moved to a new city in Rhode Island, Providence, Rhode Island. And so I hung out last year with people at different venues and stuff, and they had no idea. And when I told them and came out to them, they still didn't really get it. Nobody asked me any real questions. There was some people that had children in their family, you know, say children like 18, 19, 20, who are transgender or queer or whatever, and they would ask me questions, but nobody else.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:22:28 to 00:22:41
And I made it abundantly clear. I'm open to talk to you. If you have any questions, I'll explain it. I also had one person come out to me and say, I liked you before. Now I admire you.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:22:41 to 00:22:58
And I said, why? And he said, because you're living your truth. And so many people don't. So many people stay in the closet because they can't. Well, the other thing too, Archie, is he was talking about people in general that's true, is that most people are not true to themselves.

Archie (Host) | 00:22:58 to 00:23:31
It's like the rat race, you know, you end up doing jobs you don't want, you end up in situations you don't want because it's what society or what you think you should be doing, not what you actually want to be doing deep down inside. Yeah. One of the things that I discovered when I first started my transition was I had no way, Archie, of planning it or thinking about what it was going to be like. I have never lived this way before. I had none of these experiences over the first two years of my life.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:23:31 to 00:24:04
As Wendy, there were days, one after the other, where I had granted simple but all very new experiences doing something for the first time as a woman. And that was really quite interesting. It's something that I. If you need to do this, and that's the operative word there too, you need to do this, then just start finding a way to start moving ahead one step at a time. Doing things with guidance.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:24:04 to 00:24:15
It's a lot easier. People that I've guided through this process, the fastest one. I swear, Archie, you're not going to believe me. Go ahead. Our first session.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:24:15 to 00:24:28
I'm tired of living a lie. I'm scared and I have no clue what I'm doing. Six weeks later, she came in with her legal name change, done. Driver's licence, done. And was living full time.

Archie (Host) | 00:24:28 to 00:24:41
Wow. All that stuff is such a big mental load of change, too. And it's just like, done like that in six weeks. That's incredible. She was one ready and knew she needed to do it and was just tired of living the lie.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:24:42 to 00:24:54
And with the guidance that I provided her, she nailed it. Amazing. Changed a lot of her beliefs and all of that. I've had other people doing it in 10 weeks. It's not a race and I don't make people do it fast.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:24:55 to 00:25:14
I just remove those, what I call limiting beliefs, the things that block us. And I had a tonne of them that I started forming at age 10 when I told my parents I was a girl and they still occasionally raise their ugly heads. Yeah. Oh, yeah. They never go away.

Archie (Host) | 00:25:14 to 00:25:31
It's just that. Just to remind you, hey, here's that little fork in the road and here's the little obstacle that you forgot about. We're just going to chuck it out then, see how you deal with it. But I've got tools now to go and deal with them and let them say, okay, no, I'm different now. You don't have to do that anymore.

Archie (Host) | 00:25:32 to 00:25:53
It's funny, though, because, like, no matter how far along in your transition you are, those obstacles still pop up, those limiting beliefs still pop up, and it's just how you deal with them. And I think you get better for me, every time those same obstacles come up. It used to be a mountain and now it's just a little. Like a little speed bump, Right, Exactly. I would totally concur with that.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:25:53 to 00:26:14
And yes, in November, when I came to the realisation I'm going to start doing more and I'm going to be out more publicly, that's when they started to rear their heads again. I've got all this stuff that I want to do and you're going to give me extra hurdles that I have to do to. Isn't that the way. It's almost like, okay, let's see how prepared you are. It's the universe.

Archie (Host) | 00:26:14 to 00:26:25
Like, yeah, you're prepared. Let's make sure you're really prepared to go that next step. Exactly. Yes, I totally agree with that. It's like the energy of the world and, you know, making sure that the time is right.

Archie (Host) | 00:26:25 to 00:26:56
And obviously the time is right because you're doing everything now, which is amazing. And I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens with your podcast and your public speaking and how that goes. Are you scared about your safety at doing public speaking events where I'm located right now? No. If I travelled someplace, like, to a bright, shiny red state, I would still go, but I would also be preparing myself emotionally for something negative, and that can happen anywhere.

Archie (Host) | 00:26:56 to 00:27:16
Anyway, recently we spoke to a drag queen who was going to do a. I can't remember how many states they were going to get to and they had to cancel it for the safety of not only themselves, but their whole crew and the venues. And so it's. It's crazy when you know you want to be that message for the LGBT community, but sometimes safety does play a massive role in what you can and can't do. Right.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:27:16 to 00:27:59
Well, with my community that I'm forming, I'm very protective of that. I want to completely isolate that community, make it possible for people to Come in, but safely. And I'm not concerned for myself. That's the thing. My concern is parents of transgender that come in, they're more closeted than people who are transgender because they're in total fear for their child, be they 15, 25, or 35, they still have that fear for their loved one.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:27:59 to 00:28:26
So I don't want them to have a negative experience in a community meeting on Zoom. And so that's why I screen and monitor everybody who comes in. And it's a closed, private group, and I promote it and I put it out, and people can join, and there's a way to do it that's safe for everyone. No, that's awesome. That's a good way to make sure that you're only allowing the spaces that you're creating to be safe spaces in a way that you best can.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:28:26 to 00:28:48
When I go out myself publicly, and I'm planning either later this month or early next month to see if I can get a newspaper article about what I'm doing and something like that going and other. Other platforms out there to expose. I don't. I'm not afraid to do that. I know that I.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:28:48 to 00:28:57
I know that I can handle it and be safe and all of that, but who knows? We'll see. Won't know until I. That's exactly it. You can only control what you can control.

Archie (Host) | 00:28:57 to 00:29:12
Everything else is, you know, you can't control someone, how someone's going to react. Right. I've never. I've honestly, over the last 10 years, I've never had a really bad experience. And even within the gay community, I'm sitting on a patio.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:29:12 to 00:29:37
It was a spring day, and sitting on the patio, I'd only been out for 10, 12 months, you know, probably closer to 10. Anyway, I'm sitting there, and two guys walk over, and they looked at me and said, we want you to know we consider you both to be our sisters. That's lovely. And if anybody F's with you. Yeah.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:29:37 to 00:29:44
Let us know. They won't do it again. I love that. I loved it, too. I walked over, gave them both a hug, kissed them on the cheek.

Archie (Host) | 00:29:45 to 00:29:51
It's lovely when people do that. No matter what, we're with you. That's such a beautiful thing. And they didn't have to do that either, right? No, they didn't.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:29:51 to 00:30:00
They were just great guys. That's awesome. We need more great guys in the world. There you go. What do you want to say to people who think it's too late to transition?

Wendy (Guest) | 00:30:01 to 00:30:17
It's never too late. I Mean, as long as you've got your health. That's another thing. Three years into this, my primary care physician looks at me and says, what's going on with you? Your blood work's coming back perfect all the time.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:30:17 to 00:30:27
You're no longer diabetic, not even close. What? And you've lost 70 pounds. Wow. I said, it's because I'm happy.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:30:27 to 00:30:36
It starts with that. What a difference that can make. Yeah. So right now I'm 77. You're 77.

Archie (Host) | 00:30:36 to 00:30:50
You look incredible for 77. It's because I'm happy and I take care of myself. Saturday, I went for about a seven or eight mile walk. Oh, wow. Through the city, two different venues, hanging out with friends, having a great time.

Archie (Host) | 00:30:50 to 00:31:04
That's amazing. But I wasn't able to do that before I transitioned 10 years ago. Difference happiness can make. Archie. In November of 2014, I was on the verge of killing myself over all of this.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:31:04 to 00:31:44
And it's the universe that made me look online and say, okay, your diagnosis has changed. You now have medical support, you now have therapeutic support. You can get oestrogen without shopping for it overseas. That's how we used to do it back in the day. My endocrinologist went to NYU Medical School and he saw girls like me dying from sharing needles, injecting oestrogen and doing at high dosage levels that were unsafe because they had no medical support or blood tests to figure out what amount they should be injecting.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:31:44 to 00:32:02
There was none of that. And the thing is, as well, it's for a lot of those trans women back in the day, it was either that or die anyway. And so, you know, I did have those feelings before getting my gender diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Like, it got harder looking in the mirror. And I thought, I can't keep living like this.

Archie (Host) | 00:32:02 to 00:32:33
So it's either do this or not be around, right? Yeah. It's that total incongruence, misalignment between what formed in your brain and the rest of your body. And you combine that with the socialisation from your parents, from your birth all the way through friends, school, society as a whole, and we get pushed into one of the heteronormative buckets, male or female, and nothing else. And that's wrong.

Archie (Host) | 00:32:33 to 00:32:46
It is. And you're already putting so much pressure, you know, because when I was a kid, I remember I was 6 years old running around the house without a shirt on, and my mum was like, put a shirt on, you're a girl. Girls don't run around the house with a shirt off. But I'm like, but dad's running around the shirt. But dad is a boy.

Archie (Host) | 00:32:47 to 00:33:00
And that was the first time I ever knew there was boys and girls. And I was like, what do you mean? I'm not like dad. And that was the first time I had a label put on me because I thought I was exactly like my dad. I didn't have the language to say boys and girls, but I thought I was like my dad.

Archie (Host) | 00:33:00 to 00:33:16
And so that was the first time a label was put on me and that was the first time that it felt like a machete come down and like cut a deep part of me. Right? Oh boy. It's definitely been a journey, that's for sure. It's one that I don't regret.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:33:16 to 00:33:45
In fact, I've never been happier with transitioning. Did you ever, looking back when you were like 22, did you ever think that was going to be something for you? Or did you think you're always going to be unhappy? I believed that I was basically stuck with no way out and it was all a matter of survival. I did have a career in tech in computers from the mid-70s all the way through.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:33:47 to 00:34:21
I loved my last 18 years as a consultant and I could immerse myself in my computer world and that helped me push down the thoughts that happened all day long. We need distractions in order to survive. In the 80s where I was living, I had ample supply of pot and it was from morning till night. Amazing that I even had a good career doing it. Who would have thought?

Wendy (Guest) | 00:34:21 to 00:34:40
But it brought me down to a point where I could survive the day, deal with people. I was never social. I didn't have many friends because I had this secret. I actually did something really crazy. I went to an all male college in order to force myself to fit in.

Archie (Host) | 00:34:40 to 00:34:52
This is going to make it work. I'm going to be surrounded by men. Men, men, men, men. You can see it didn't work at all. Oh God, I was repressing everything.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:34:53 to 00:35:20
So much about my personality too. My ex wife said to me five years in, she said, I don't believe you. You went from being antisocial, asocial to a social butterfly. I love hanging out and talking with people about anything. The other thing that I was repressing, and you might find this hard to believe, I don't know, but I was repressing my true sexual orientation.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:35:20 to 00:35:45
Oh, my male fax, male facsimile, male representative was not gay. I just knew that. Okay, that wasn't part of the checklist well, after I transitioned in 2017, I went to NYU Medical Centre and had vaginoplasty surgery. Then I got curious, like, oh, I wonder what it would be like. Yeah.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:35:46 to 00:35:54
I started dating men. Yeah. And I decided I'm going to try something. Don't know if it'll work or not. And hopefully I don't get beat up for it.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:35:54 to 00:36:05
But I'm not going to reveal that I transitioned. I dated for two years like that. 2018. 2019. And I was intimate with six men.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:36:05 to 00:36:12
And they had no clue. That's what they say. They say it's incredible, the vaginoplasty, what they can do. You don't know any difference. Right.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:36:12 to 00:36:28
Well, my surgeon, Dr. Rachel Bluebond at NYU, told me after she announced, okay, Wendy, you're ready for sex. Like, go. Okay. One of my concerns was, would anybody notice anything different?

Wendy (Guest) | 00:36:28 to 00:36:51
And she said, nope. In fact, she said, when you go to your first gynaecological visit, the doctor's not going to know. That's incredible. And I believed her, but I wasn't sure about it. So my first visit, of course, the girl takes me into the little room where you meet the doctor and all of that, and she starts going over and asking me this long list of questions that she asks.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:36:51 to 00:37:05
Females, warn female. Well, I said, you can stop. This was surgically created. She shocked, kind of. And she made a weird smile and said, oh, yep, you're right, that does change the questions.

Archie (Host) | 00:37:06 to 00:37:25
That's incredible. I assumed that she was going to absolutely tell the doctor. She didn't. Doctor comes in, picks up the speculum and goes in for the exam and looks at me and goes, oh, when did you have your hysterectomy? That's what Dr.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:37:25 to 00:37:36
Blubon told me it would look like to the gynaecologist. All the nerve endings, she was able to move them, put them where they belong. Everything works. It's functional. That's amazing.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:37:36 to 00:37:45
I couldn't be happier. And what do you say your sexuality is now? I'm a heterosexual female. Amazing. Well, they do say that sometimes it's taking that wall down.

Archie (Host) | 00:37:45 to 00:38:01
You're allowing yourself permission to explore more of your sexuality. I've never tried it. It could be bi, but I don't know. Yeah. And so you're fluid to whatever happens in terms of your sexuality, but for now, you're a heterosexual in terms.

Archie (Host) | 00:38:01 to 00:38:27
I always find it weird because I do have a female partner who is my co host. And it is weird being, you know, queer and being transgender, but also saying heterosexual like it's A bit of a mind, mind mess up with me sometimes. Okay, well, I'll own it for the time being anyway, so that's awesome. Before we go, what piece of advice would you like the listeners to take away from our conversation today? First of all, it's never too late.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:38:27 to 00:38:45
Never. If you can walk, move, and do everything comfortably, reasonably well, you can do this. The other thing is, and just prepare yourself for everything that's going to come. Don't try and plan it in detail. You don't know what's going to happen.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:38:45 to 00:39:00
You don't know what your life is going to look like on the other side. It's something to be experienced and it's all yours. Don't compromise it for anybody else. I love that. Such a nice way to end our conversation.

Archie (Host) | 00:39:00 to 00:39:21
I could honestly chat to you for hours. I can see why people were chatting to you from 9pm to 2am in the morning. You're so easy to talk to. You're so informative, and you just have this really nice presence to you as well that makes you very welcoming. And definitely see why a lot of people would like to come to you and go through their journey with you, because you're almost like that.

Archie (Host) | 00:39:21 to 00:39:41
Warm hug. And it's very, very, very nice to chat with you. Thank you. Archie and I do care about others in the community, no matter what. I mean, gender is a continuum in a spectrum, and as a result, not everybody's going to be like me in the transgender community.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:39:41 to 00:40:10
That's why we have non binary, gender fluid people who enjoy just cross dressing and have no desire whatsoever to live as a woman full time. And that's all okay. The society just needs to get over themselves and accept this. This is what it is. Being gay was changed from a psychological condition in 1973 in this country.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:40:10 to 00:40:26
It took until 2012 for transgender people to be removed from the psychological list. Almost 40 years after being gay was. Which is crazy disgusting. Yeah. It makes no sense.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:40:26 to 00:40:38
We're not out to hurt other people, and all we want to do is just live our lives and be ourselves. That's it. We're not there to tell, take over people's bathrooms or sports. We want to just live. It's really that simple.

Wendy (Guest) | 00:40:39 to 00:40:56
Archie, this has been wonderful. Thank you. I've had so much fun, and I hope that those of you listening out there had a great time getting to know a bit more about Wendy and transgender people as well. Thank you so much, Wendy. I really appreciate you getting in touch and wanting to come on our little podcast here in Australia.

Archie (Host) | 00:40:56 to 00:41:12
And I hope that people can get in touch with you if they're listening from around the world and they need a bit of a trans mentor that they get in touch with you. All the links to get in contact with Wende will be in our show notes. Until next time, I hope that we have been perfectly queer.