The Trans Experience

Cindy Lopez:
Welcome. My name is Cindy Lopez, the host of this CHC podcast, Voices of Compassion. We hope you find a little courage, feel connected and experience compassion every time you listen.

We hear a lot more about gender expression than we ever did in the past. So it’s important for our young people to know that they’re accepted and loved no matter their gender identity. Today, we’re fortunate to hear from a trans adult and his mom who both candidly share their story with us from elementary school through middle and high school to college, the journey has included many hurdles. He experienced gender dysphoria and working to understand why he didn’t feel comfortable in his own body. So join us today as we talk with Grae and his mom, Anne, about their journey that eventually led to Grae identifying as transgender. Welcome Grae and Anne.

Thank you so much for joining us today. Before we get started, I’m just wondering if there’s anything you’d like to share with our listeners.

Grae:
Hi, my name is Grae. I go by he/him or they/them pronouns. I’m excited to talk about my own experience and also my family’s experience. I like to start off with a quote, my family and I say it all the time, is normal is just a setting on a washing machine, and that kind of speedballs into what we talk about today.

Anne Mellenthin:
I am Anne and my pronouns are she/her, and I am a proud mom of three kids in their thirties now, and I’m thrilled to be here today with my son Grae. We have had such an amazing journey together. I constantly learn from him and I can’t wait to share our experience with you so thank you.

Cindy Lopez:
As we think about the trans experience, I did a little reading myself and according to Mental Health in America about four and a half percent of the US population identifies as lesbian, gay, or bisexual and of those nearly 39% have reported having a mental illness in the past year and about 48% of transgender adults report that they’ve considered suicide in the past year. So, wow, it’s a really important topic for us to talk about, especially because of, and I’m sure Grae you can talk about this, a sense of kind of isolation and loneliness as you are figuring it all out. And that does bring me to the topic of gender dysphoria. So let’s talk about that. Why is it so important for people to understand gender dysphoria, what it is and its impact?

Grae:
Yeah. So, starting with like a simple definition of gender dysphoria is the sense of unease that a person may have because of a mismatch between their. To put that more simply biological sex and gender identity are two different things. Biological sex is your chromosomes and your gender identity is more of what what you express. So for me as a trans man I was born as a female, but I more identify as a man, more masculine, kind of all through my life, and it’s really important for people to know those terms and to kind of seek them out because there’s just many, many stories in which people didn’t come out until they were adults or people came out and unfortunately took their lives because they were not accepted through their parents and felt they could never be accepted, and I think what happens is gender dysphoria and the topic of gender is so unknown and not talked about enough that it leads to a lot of ignorance and misunderstandings and it’s just so important to have that conversation or to know what the signs of what gender dysphoria is because it could really save a life.Transitioning is life-changing, it’s important, it’s valid, and it’s here to stay and it’s not a phase. It’s not just going to be in the media for a while, it has been here for a long time and now we have finally as a society kind of opened up the conversation a little bit more, so it’s really, good to keep that conversation going.

Cindy Lopez:
Yeah Grae thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and your experience and that gender dysphoria piece ties back to that data that I shared that almost half of transgender adults report they’ve considered suicide in the past year.

Anne Mellenthin:
I would just add specifically, the way I experienced Grae’s gender dysphoria was almost an inability because he was so depressed and anxious and hopeless, everything else in his life fell by the wayside because this consumed him. So whether it was, and Grae I hope it’s okay if I say this, but coming into my room at night crying or spending late nights on the internet trying to find support through forums, it was devastating to watch, and as a parent, you know, we try to help problem solve when our children are in crisis, and this was something that I just, I couldn’t fix. So when Grae finally decided to transition and was able to put a name to what he was feeling, it was almost a relief because I thought here’s something that we can work with. Here’s something maybe that we can make an action plan about. So that would be my summary of a really difficult time as a parent watching my child suffer so much and so profoundly.

Grae:
I’ve dealt with depression, anxiety for most of my life. Once I hit puberty, it kind of all went downhill to put it a little bit more casually, and it definitely, the gender dysphoria did trigger the anxiety and depression, but once I knew what the term was, transgender or gender identity, non-binary, it really, really helped because it’s like okay now, my feelings are valid and what I’m going through is something that a lot of people go through. It definitely helped with the isolation. You said that it’s isolating, oh yeah, it’s hard because as a society, you know, you’re, led to believe you’re born this way and you will always be this gender, this sex, this expression, and when you start to think like wow I really identify with masculine things, I really believe that I’m a man inside, you know, what is wrong with me? It’s really isolating, and it’s really self-deprecating, and I think that’s why it leads to so many mental illnesses and depression and anxiety because it’s that pressure that you put on yourself and also societal pressure.

Just like, okay, something might be wrong. Why am I feeling this way?

Cindy Lopez:
What was it like for each of you when you first became aware of what was going on?

Anne Mellenthin:
Grae came out as gay first when he was about 19 and that was not entirely surprising to me given his hobbies and personality and clothing choices, we fought a lot about basketball shorts. What concerned me was that he did not seem as relieved or freed as I might’ve expected. A few years prior I had read Andrew Solomon’s book Far From the Tree, which became one of the most influential books of my life, and I began thinking that Grae might be transgender. I even picked name Grae for him in my mind, as it was a shortened version of his birth name, Grace. I don’t think I ever said anything, but that is what he ended up naming himself, and I just felt like this was his God-given path, this was the fullest expression of his humanity. So Grae was not one of those people as a young child who profoundly displayed gender dysphoria at an early age. We did have a few signals, Grae I didn’t know if you wanted to talk about them, cause some of them are pretty cute.

Grae:
So I had a doll named Erica and, one day I cut off all their hair, the doll’s hair and Erica became Eric, and I think that was like one weird, unconscious thing that I did that, I wish I could have cut all my hair or present male.

I used to just steal all my dad’s shirts and my sisters workout shirts also and that was what I was most comfortable in and many, many, trans folks are uncomfortable in their body and know when they’re very young, and I just didn’t know how to explain it, how to explain what transgender was. When we did talk about the LGBT community, I was fortunate enough to have parents that weren’t you know badmouthing it or weren’t saying, oh,, that’s a lifestyle, you don’t want to you know go there. I was fortunate for that, but once I started hitting puberty, I was still just so unknown of my body, and I just didn’t know how to feel with it. I was kind of numb and angry and kind of confused, and I knew it wasn’t stopping, you know, like I knew going bra shopping, I kind of felt more mad about it that I had to do it then like excited that, you know, like, oh, I’m growing up.

Mike:
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Cindy Lopez:
Can you talk about other ways that you’ve expressed your gender identity as you were growing up?

Grae:
I remember when I was a kid, I hung out with the neighbors, and I always wanted to skateboard with them. We had like a big skateboarding, razor scooter, kind of group, and we’d just play on the street, and I would only really want to do more masculine activities or what society thinks masculine activities are, like skateboarding, playing star wars or like lightsabers, swords. I always kind of gravitated towards playing with guys, playing with my guy classmates or my guy neighbors. At recess I was like one of the only girls that would play flag football, and I just felt more comfortable playing those things. Growing up in elementary school was fine and more went into a problem when they went to middle school when people think about their gender and in sixth grade I remember, there was my like first middle school dance and all I wanted to do was wear basketball shorts and a t-shirt and that’s what I did, that’s what I felt more comfortable in.

Anne Mellenthin:
I would say around the house, Grae always had a Cape on, he was always the Superman and a Cape translated loosely to a towel with a rubber band around his neck and for me it really didn’t show up until later on, the clothing was really predictive, I think, and the relationships with males, you know, predilection for wanting to connect with other males and kind of a gutsiness in sports too, Grae is a beautiful skier and a golfer and he just seemed to have really good fine motor skills, gross motor skills.

Grae:
So when I was growing up I lived in a lot of imagination land, trying to live out of the reality of my own gender. I would be like a spy or a ruler or anything and I was looking back and I remember it. I was like, I think subconsciously I was mostly male characters or the characters weren’t any gender. It wasn’t anything gender specific or maybe it was and I think that was a big sign. It was just me being me. It was just me letting me be comfortable of what I wanted to express.

Cindy Lopez:
It’s interesting because a lot of what you’re talking about is acting outside whatever the norms were identified to be a female or a girl, right?, Like, well, girls play with dolls, they don’t play flag football, they don’t wear basketball shorts, and the norms that we’ve developed as a society how they impact kids is an important thing to think about. Grae you chose to have surgery, and you’ve talked about how that was a game changer for you. Can you talk about what that was like and why it was so life-changing for you?

Grae:
Of course. It can be just life-changing, so affirming. Growing up I had such anger and confusion about my body and I didn’t want what was growing on my chest and I never identified with it, to me, they were just sacks of fat. A transgender person, what they do is they can bind their chest to make their chest a little bit more flat and that’s what I did for most of the time, but it also can get really uncomfortable, because it’s basically kind of a sports bra, but really, really tight. And, I think my dysphoria came a lot through my chest and so I felt like that was the surgery that I wanted to get the most. And I remember we came early. My mom and dad came with me to surgery and also my partner for seven years, and we were waiting for the surgery and I had my IV in, pre-op. And the nurse was like, all right Grae, like let’s go, let’s go to surgery. I had to walk to the surgery room and my mom was like, this is like big decision and you just decided, and I think it was probably to her it’s like, you have anxiety when it comes to decision-making all through my life, but this surgery, you know, I was so confident in that decision and it has made my life so much better. I don’t have to wear feminine clothes. I don’t have to shop for bras. I don’t have to have that uncomfortable experience. You know, it was probably one of the happiest days in my life post-op when they unwrapped the bandage and I got to see the results.

Cindy Lopez:
Wow that’s amazing, and I’m just struck listening to you. Thank you for sharing your experience and such a personal experience and just the impact that, that surgery had and how you’ve explained it as life changing.

Anne Mellenthin:
Regarding Grae’s surgery, I would echo what he said about his determination and resolve to have this happen. He was absolutely radiant that morning and it was so apparent even though it was 5:30 and we were all bleary eyed, but the other thing, when I was in the waiting room as a mom, I knew it was the right thing for him, but I had this overwhelming sense of sorrow that and guilt in some way that I had created him wrong for him, that somehow it was my fault, and I, I just couldn’t get beyond the fact that he had to go through all of this because of the way I grew him and that’s a mother’s worry. So I remember feeling so relieved that he was going to express himself more fully, even though it’s hard to see your child go to surgery and then afterwards, literally four days later, he came downstairs in a button-down shirt and we went to lunch and he had this most peaceful smile on his face, and it was a joy to see and even for the month after surgery, he would rub his hands up and down his chest just to make sure they weren’t growing back. I mean, it was almost a state of disbelief that this was actually his future and as a parent, I was very concerned about his safety in restrooms and bars and in town, and I felt like after the surgery, I felt like he could be in the world safely, more safely because he could pass. That was really important to me, obviously, as a parent.

Cindy Lopez:
Yeah, Anne I’m wondering what advice would you have for parents who might be in a similar situation or just might be wondering?

Anne Mellenthin:
I think what really helped me, first of all is reading as much as I could and what was very helpful to me was connecting with other parents with transgender teens who were transitioning or had transitioned because they were very supportive and knowledgeable, and I felt like I was building a bit of a community, so that was really helpful. Also I feel like just seeing Grae lift a little bit in his attitude and his sense of hope for the future just kept spurring me on to advance the cause.

Cindy Lopez:
So at CHC, we are looking at mental health issues kind of across the board with children, teens and young adults and so this is a mental health issue in the sense that we go back to thinking about gender dysphoria and the isolation that comes from kind of questioning yourself and Grae you expressed that, questioning yourself, and that mental health piece is a big piece, and so as we think about, gender identity, and the mental health piece is a big piece of that, we want people to feel accepted and loved.

Grae:
To piggyback on that, if a child comes to you or talks about the LGBT community, a transgender person or a gay person or whatever they identify, it’s really important for parents to not talk negatively about this type of community because I have a couple friends that had talked about, growing up, you know, if something came on TV, the parents would say something negative and that really like stunted their growing up, their journey to gender identity. So it’s really important to talk about I would say alternative lifestyles.Talk to your kids like there’s more ways to be partners with someone or to have a relationship with someone and to talk to them in more of a positive light. It can really, really help a child through their gender expression or sexuality expression.

Anne Mellenthin: I want people to know that there’s love and community, and then there’s hope, and that there’s a future for transgender youth and people of all ages.

Anne Mellenthin: I know a lot of transgender youth do not have support from their families their parents, and their siblings. So my heart goes out to them. In our case, the family was fantastic. Grae’s dad is a very accepting person with a big heart. He was on board every step of the way. He proudly invites Grae to tailgates at his men’s club. Grae’s brother and sister were really supportive and they sought to educate themselves. They were also very protective of Grae. Grae is a compassionate part of our family, and you’re the most kind patient and wise young man, and we just value you so much in the family. We would do anything to nurture you and help you realize your full potential.

One time Grae had been bullied at a family event by his young cousins, and I’m going to use Grae’s pronouns now, which is they/them; they were just shaking. I looked over at my other son, Michael, who was texting. I was irritated and asked him what he was up to and he said, mom, I’m writing my friend who’s gay to see what the right thing to say to Grae is right now. Later, he went on to invite Grae to be the best man at his wedding when he married, and my daughter, Kelly recently invited Grae to Los Angeles to visit with her. She had one of her friends who is bi took Grae out to a night on a town at a gay bar to meet some friends. Grae called me the next day and said, “mom, that was one of the best nights, everyone was so friendly. I could have stayed for hours. Usually parties are work for me, but it was so easy with that group.” My daughter really gave Grae a gift that night. I don’t think that we as cis people have any idea how isolating it is to feel other, so I just want to say that, I guess for me, this journey was one of love and humanity and helping Grae realize his full potential as a human being, but also helping our family to grow in compassion and empathy for all the people around us. So Grae has taught us that.

Cindy Lopez:
Wow, thank you. Thank you both for being with us today and for sharing your story, and it’s so important for people to just realize that, you know, we are all different and different is good and that love and compassion trumps everything else. To our listeners, thank you for joining us and we hope you’ll join us again.

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