049 Overcoming Challenges as a Transgender Man

In this episode I sit down with Phil, a transgender man, to share his incredible journey of his transition. Phil opens up about his experiences navigating relationships, societal perceptions, and medical challenges he faced during his transition. He talks about the effects it took on his marriage, his career and the support he reached out for and got from his community. This is a story of hope and resilience for anyone on a similar path or seeking to understand the transgender experience.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

I had surgery in the US. Within the relationship, you know, it changes the dynamic. They see you have short hair, you have some facial hair, your chest looks like this, your voice sounds like that, therefore you must be a man.

SPEAKER_00: 0:17

Hey listeners, Jenica here from Multispective and I'm here to share with you a new episode. This is a guest that I personally know, so I'm really excited that he's come out to share his story on air with all of us. I interview Phil, a trans man who talks about the transition between being born a female into what he feels more comfortable in. He talks about the relationship that he's been in. He talks about the effects of that in the workplace and everything that you may need to Phil. Phil. Welcome to Multispective. I am so, so excited to have you on this podcast. Thank you. Why don't you start off by just telling us a little bit about where you're from and where your story begins?

SPEAKER_02: 1:23

Where I'm from originally, so I'm British, but I'm one of those third culture kids who truly never grew up in the country of my passport. I was born in Germany, grew up in the Netherlands, went to university in the UK, and then after I qualified as a teacher, a couple of years spent in England and I moved to China and I've been out in Asia, primarily Shanghai since 2008. So that's been quite a

SPEAKER_00: 1:51

while. Amazing. Do you feel like Shanghai is a place for you? Like you're settled here?

SPEAKER_02: 1:55

Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, even though things have changed in the last couple of years and I think the economy and lots of other things, shall we say, have made it feel a bit more trying for people. It's definitely getting back to what feels like, quote unquote, more normal life um so yeah I still love it um I went I was in Singapore for a couple years but I actually missed Shanghai I missed the crazy and the busyness of a big city I'm on a cliff like this place is too small I need to move back somewhere else so I did in 2014 so here I've been for now another decade

SPEAKER_00: 2:32

wow that's awesome and your family are they in the Netherlands

SPEAKER_02: 2:37

um I have a brother who's in the Netherlands and I have some other family here in the UK So they haven't traveled too far from where we originally were as kids. But yeah, I don't think they've

SPEAKER_00: 2:54

got any ideas that they want to move around. But I'm quite happy in Asia at the moment. you know, most of their family is based in one place and have kind of remained, but they were that one curious person that had to just sort of get out of there, be it some kind of challenge, adversity, or just a curiosity thing, right?

SPEAKER_02: 3:24

Yeah. I mean, for me, it was originally because I identify, well, I still identify as queer, but it was version two of myself, shall we say in 2008. And I realized that I actually need to escape the confines of how far or how close it is for my parents to come travel to see me so I wanted to be somewhere completely different so yeah that's why I kind of chose China and also the fact that I wanted there to be a challenge I mean I grew up in mainland Europe so when you speak one or two languages in that sense other than English it's not too difficult to then settle in another country even if it is another culture if you speak German you can understand certain things if you speak French or Italian Right. Fair enough. Were there

SPEAKER_00: 4:28

moments where you felt or you worried about moving to China with regards your identity and the acceptance of that here? Or did that occur to you before you moved? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 4:41

Not too much. I think it was one of those things when I was trying to find, you know, a community to dial into. And there are a couple in the era of Yahoo groups. That's how long I've been out here.

SPEAKER_01: 4:57

So

SPEAKER_02: 4:58

those don't really exist anymore. But they did back then as one of the only ways of doing things. I always say to people who really don't have an idea of how long I've been here, I said, yeah, I was here before WeChat. And I was here for translation. And then they just go, and here's before line 10 of the metro in Shanghai and then they just go, oh wait, you've been here a long time. Yes, I have.

SPEAKER_00: 5:20

Wow, no, I can't even imagine a world here without WeChat because that is the one thing that connects not only people but us to transportation and payment and just everything. That's crazy. Let's go right back to your earlier days. What was your relationship like with your parents and your family in general what are your parents like? Are they quite open-minded in general? To

SPEAKER_02: 5:46

a degree, yes. I think like everybody, you're more open-minded with other people's kids perhaps than your own or it's a shock, shall we say, if there are certain things that are different about other people's kids than yours. I wouldn't say my parents are conservative massively but I think who I am as a person certainly how I identify now um even 20 years ago it was still not something that they found very easy shall we say

SPEAKER_00: 6:19

hmm do you still have a relationship with them

SPEAKER_02: 6:23

yeah I don't talk to them much um but they're still my parents definitely

SPEAKER_00: 6:29

hmm um At what point did it kind of surface for you, your identity, sort of understanding of your identity kind of surface for you to a point where you were like, I'm going to have to act on this. I'm going to have to do something about this or be open about it. And how was it coming out?

SPEAKER_02: 6:46

Well, it depends which identity you're talking about. Because, you know, you've seen me perhaps do storytelling with Unravel, which was an awesome initiative that sadly didn't doesn't exist anymore you know the people who originally involved in it moved away during um covid and there was nobody else who had maybe the time or or the the passion that clara had to to be able to run with something like that so there was me as the the queer identity then there was me as the um gender identity were two different things if we talk about the former um I think the stable door opened and it closed a couple of times in my 20s. And my parents were not overjoyed, shall we put it mildly with that one. But they were sort of reluctantly getting used to it. But who I am now, what I've affirmed myself as, which is a trans man, is not something that they are happy with, shall we say. We don't have a lot of communication because of that and I didn't tell them my brother outed me to them without my permission so that I think has had an impact in how my story has been able to be you know unraveled with my parents I think there's a lot of shock and sadness surrounding that because I wasn't the one who was telling them it was somebody else and so I didn't have control of my narrative so it's a bit more complex, shall we say.

SPEAKER_00: 8:32

That's interesting. So, I just want to clarify, you had a sort of sexual preference, I guess the technical term is sexual preference, identity, understanding happened to you younger, at a younger age, and the gender identity was something that came to you later, it wasn't something that when you look back or think back on, you can kind of see the patterns from back then?

SPEAKER_02: 9:42

Well, I think as a teenager, I was more aware of possibly who I was attracted to. And then when I was at university, there was this point where I volunteered with the LGBTQ society at university. So I did peer-to-peer counseling work there anyway. So I met a lot of different people through that. My neighbor in my halls of residence The buildings that I lived in had a best friend who was transitioning at the time. So, you know, even back in 1998, when it was still something that was more of a rarity, shall we say, I had a lot of people that I was associating with and that's how they identified. And there was some point during my university days when... It was more of a slow realization of, I think I want to have, I think I want to physically alter the way that I look. By that, I mean my chest. But it was just such a weird, confusing and scary idea to start with that I just went through this cycle for the last, well, really 20 years of periods of where I wanted to do that. But then I was freaked out as to what the implications were if I did that. I don't know what that means. And I didn't talk to anyone about it. So I just kept on looking at it and then putting it away. So that's kind of how that's evolved.

SPEAKER_00: 11:15

Interesting. So how did when when you mentioned that you had this sort of idea, perhaps maybe from hearing about it, reading about it, you know, being exposed to it, this this idea, this concept of like having the the chest surgery was something that sort of triggered at what point did you go from that idea to realising that this is more than just one surgery, this is a whole identity thing?

SPEAKER_02: 11:45

It must have been a couple of years ago. My wife would have said that when we first met, I'd always said that I want to alter how I look. She says, gosh, even back in our early days when we were dating, you told me very clearly that this is not, you're not okay with certain terms. You wouldn't you would be personally a front of any, if anyone called you a lesbian, because it's just not who you are. Um, you, you want to alter the way you look. And I don't remember saying that, but she was, Oh yeah, I remember very clearly that you told me that. Um, but it was, uh, a couple of years ago, no pun intended when I transformed myself, uh, weight loss wise, uh, because that's one of the things that through storytelling, I was also talking to people about, and I lost over 40% of my body weight. Uh, within the space of less than two years. And it was just this... moment that really truly was transformative and i thought well if i can do that um it just literally it felt like a burden had been lifted off me um and then i just thought i want to do something for myself i'd done it because i wanted to be getting fit before i was 40 and i wanted to look good um before i got married i think ironically i'm probably one of the only married people i know that seems to have lost uh more weight since marriage it seems you know wedding before the wedding and i kept on going um And I just felt I can do this. I can just be myself. And I just felt so good about it. And I thought, you know, I have to stop hiding in this whatever closet cupboard dark space I was I was in and just live my own life and be happier. So that's when I started inviting other friends into, I suppose, wider circle of not trust, but

SPEAKER_01: 13:39

not trust.

SPEAKER_02: 13:39

letting people know about things as it was um and then it was only sort of 18 months ago that i started uh socially transitioning at work which was a really really scary thing to do i mean still it is because i'm the only one i mean there could be more people but i believe i'm the only one um who identifies as a transgender person at work so it's it's different shall we

SPEAKER_00: 14:02

say no what would you say is your pronoun right now

SPEAKER_02: 14:06

oh he him for sure

SPEAKER_00: 14:08

he him okay

SPEAKER_02: 14:09

yeah

SPEAKER_00: 14:09

that's all Awesome. Yeah. This is so interesting. There's so many, so many little aspects of what you've said today. I'm so impressed by the fact that you started with a physical sort of transformation and how that empowered you to make bigger changes for yourself to sort of better feel like you fit in with that identity that you've always envisioned for yourself or you've dreamed for yourself. So, you know, huge props to you. And especially when you're talking about you going through one of Yeah, definitely. I'm very determined. I like that. Yeah. When was the first time, and can you walk me through that very very first time that you came out as as in terms of in terms of your sexual preference and your your gender identity the two times that you've come

SPEAKER_02: 15:20

out so sexual preference because I was 16 I was at school and so you know I was growing up in the Netherlands so not not a surprise even back in the 90s for people to identify as anything other than for want of a better term straight but at my school it was still something different. And so they would pick on my brothers. My brother's four to five years younger than me. And the first time that something I was alerted to was a problem is my mum came to me and said, oh, one of your brothers came home crying. And he said, oh, I don't understand this thing they're saying about my sister. And of course, I was not prepared for that. So I said, well, even if I was, you know, it's not true. Um, I mean, okay, I wasn't happy that somebody was picking on my brothers. And, you know, I sought out the person and said, look, you've got a problem. You know, you can pick on me, but don't you dare do that to my brothers. I will make a complaint if you do that. They stopped it pretty quickly. It was, you know, a spineless move to do that. It really was. And then with regards to how I decided to let people know, hey, hey, this is who I am. These are my pronouns. It was that transition period where, I don't know, full of puntastic things, right? But it was really in a case of, I think I'm not the only person who doesn't automatically go to, let's say, call me by these pronouns. I know that I'm not the only person that I've met who goes through a period where they say, maybe identify as non-binary. Maybe can you use, you know, they, them as pronouns. I think for me I certainly did that at work with a couple of people because I wasn't quite sure of what the reaction was going to be um

SPEAKER_01: 17:19

I

SPEAKER_02: 17:19

think when you always feel like you're by yourself in that sense and you don't know how people are going to react to you and so it was a case of people going oh wait that's a bit strange but then they just rolled with it um and then it was three years ago that I said to a couple of people look and it really wasn't that it was about one or people at work. It was mostly people outside of work that I said that this, this is who I am. And my friends, you know, I have a small circle of friends. Um, and they said, of course, we, you know, we love you for who you are. It doesn't matter. Um, and then that positive reaction led me to think at some point I need to fully transition at work. Um, and that's in socially because either I want everyone to call me by certain pronouns or I want everyone to call me by these terms and that was really overwhelming to try and find somebody how do I navigate that when it's never been done before there's not a handbook for it who do I talk to so I went on the HRC and I looked at their guidance for what you would do if you were transitioning in the workplace I downloaded the PDF I talked to a certain person in senior management and I sent them this PDF and said FYI I think you need to go and talk about this with everyone else because this is what I'm going to plan to do at some point. And I penned my own coming out letter to all the staff at work.

SPEAKER_01: 18:51

I

SPEAKER_02: 18:52

took it from a couple of different sources. I looked at in terms of what people have done in Australia, what they've done in the US and the UK. And I took elements of all the things that I liked and I added in my own personal touch. And I put in some information resources in there as well. What it means to be an ally, you know, what you can and can't say to me. and then I sent it to my principal and said do you have any problem with this being released and he said oh no I'd be delighted to support that and the first time that I knew that something was happening is about 20 minutes after I'd sent that I started getting all these emojis on WeChat and it was going through all these pride emojis and then the cheesiest things that you could find from the Simpsons and I thought this is really strange I'm getting a whole string of a whole string of waiter messages and starbucks rainbow things and i went okay this is freaking me out why are people suddenly sending me this on a monday morning and then i checked my inbox and he'd sent it out to all the staff so hey the cat was out of the bag

SPEAKER_00: 19:59

right yeah how did you feel about that though this was this was being sent out by you you'd ask for permission for you to send them out am i right in saying that or did you ask yeah yeah

SPEAKER_02: 20:09

but he sent it out himself so he took my text um And he sent it out, I think, because then, you know, the message comes and people will... listen and respect it, even if they don't necessarily agree with it when it comes from him. I think if I'd sent it out, there's a different level of, oh, maybe we don't have to listen to it. So it was the beta and the text that I'd penned that he sent out to everybody, which was, I still blink and go, man, I did that. It was, yeah, I think people would just go, really? You did that all yourself? I said, yeah, no, nobody told me to. I just thought I need to do it because enough people were you unintentionally misgendering me and I can't get angry at people if they don't know how I want to what pronouns I want to have used and I also don't want to correct every single person especially when kids are in the corridor around because I'm a teacher so

SPEAKER_01: 21:06

I

SPEAKER_02: 21:06

just wanted to get it done in one go so that everyone can say look this is what you need to do when you see me this is how you refer to me if you're around kids this is how you know I want to be referred to if it's just amongst co-workers and so forth.

SPEAKER_00: 21:23

Interesting. So what was, what was the, what was it? How did you want to be referred to around colleagues versus around students?

SPEAKER_02: 21:32

How was that? I think, you know, looking at, you know, where we are in China, you've obviously got that opportunity where if you wanted to be just called a teacher in the sense of the terminology that you would have, let's say in Chinese is they would, they would call you, you know, the Chinese word for teacher followed by your And so for me, that was a perfect opportunity to say, look, this is just what I want to be called in English. And of course, for our students who have at least one Chinese parent or have been here for a long time, that's a term that they're quite familiar with. And so some will call me Mr. I won't correct them. But I'm not trying to encourage it because I've been at my workplace for a long time. and so I have a lot of students who are now much older and they've seen me as one identity to then go into another one I don't want to be the talk of the town I don't feel comfortable with that I think some parents don't quite know what to make of me when they see me because clearly I look different I sound different but they are perhaps too polite to say anything but I don't want to make it more obvious than that to people.

SPEAKER_00: 22:54

Yeah, I find this very interesting. I feel like maybe China and not only China, a lot of cities haven't just quite got to that place yet where they can be open, welcoming, and actually encouraging of the diverse nature of us human beings. Because I think by opening that space, what you're doing is you're also giving permission to children to explore that side of them. And that's That, you know, we haven't gotten to that place where it's seen yet in some cultures as a, you know, let's open arms to this, maybe because of the conservative nature of it or, you know, the historical fact that, you know, humans are biologically supposed to be a certain way. But we are getting there. We have seen significant changes. You know, just the mere fact that the company was supportive of this is still ways away from where It used to be maybe once a while ago, right? Yeah. Did you ever explore relationships with men as well?

SPEAKER_02: 24:23

No. No, I didn't. Okay. Yeah. But, you know, my identity is... I'm not just attracted to one gender, but that was also a bit of a switch because that wasn't something I was really maybe recognizing as much in my 20s. And now that I'm in my 40s, you know, you hear a lot about it as well when you're taking HRT that things are different. It wasn't different. It was just the fact that I was less concerned about thinking about other people's perceptions and it's more about honesty to myself in that respect. But I think the biggest difficulty has been obviously, you know, a married woman when physically I look different and transitioning within a relationship, you know, that comes with its challenges too.

SPEAKER_00: 25:20

What were some of the challenges?

SPEAKER_02: 25:23

You know, the fact that it's, I think... How do you relate to your body? How does the other person relate to you? how does it change attraction for example is that something that they're okay with because if you go on this voyage of self-discovery then it's oh well I don't need to think about you I'm thinking all about myself and you become very self-centered perhaps because

SPEAKER_01: 25:51

it is you know

SPEAKER_02: 25:52

the other person isn't going on the same journey they're on the outside looking at what's happening to you but the changes aren't happening to them as much as they're happening to you so of course within the relationship you know it changes the dynamic but for me you know when I started taking HRT when I started thinking about surgery you know my wife supports me but it's still a case of I had to say no when I'm doing preparation for surgery and I'm thinking about things you know I'd say I had a 50 I had a 50 item spreadsheet list of all the stuff I wanted to get done before surgery and she went yeah that was a little extreme I said yeah but you know what I needed to do it for myself and we'd lead to these arguments of do you really need to put that much effort into I went well yes seeing as I'd had it cancelled twice within China which is also you know a very interesting story I didn't want the third time to be unlucky shall we say I wanted it to go through without a hiccup which it did

SPEAKER_00: 27:35

yeah no that's so interesting right like that dynamic between you and your partner working through it the kinds of conversations that had to be had between the two of you and Even her having to accept that, hey, this is no longer a relationship that we kind of once had. This is officially going to switch out. And what would that mean for her sexual preference to sort of being put into this? I can only imagine some of the conversations. Do you feel like that she was probably that one support? And not only her, but who else did you feel very supported through this process?

SPEAKER_02: 28:14

I have a couple of very dear gay friends who I've known for a couple of years. I also have somebody I know who I think you have probably connected to or you've seen before, maybe not on your podcast, but you may have met this person when they were working in China. And they were also really helpful with questions in the early days when I didn't quite know who to talk to. talk to and in terms of where to look for resources when I was thinking about possibly surgical options within China because at first I thought well I'll try and get surgery in China and yeah after the second time that it was cancelled here I said I need to look elsewhere so I had a couple of friends that I was talking to and then I also connected I found an app that was set up by this i suppose you could call him a fitness influencer in that way um aiden dowling uh in the us and he set up an app for trans and non-binary people and their allies and he just said you know this is a safe space for people to connect um so i ended up talking to people there as well which is really helpful

SPEAKER_00: 29:39

wow yeah there are a lot of like uh online and and i mean offline for sure is well here in Shanghai, but online communities. And so it's great that we can live in a world where we never really have to be alone, you know, in a sense.

SPEAKER_02: 29:52

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think the only drawback is that a lot of these communities seem to be quite North America based. So time difference is huge. And yeah, you can always have an online community. But I think in person connection is so much better. And that's something that I still feel very alone with. I don't have that here. I think people don't necessarily maybe feel as open about meeting perhaps in person. Certainly, I have been part of WeChat groups. So, you know, Chinese social media groups, but the ones that are very full of people who, how can I put it, aren't necessarily always using healthcare professionals to be able to take HRT and a lot of what What they're saying in terms of their advice and recommendations, I think, are a little bit dangerous because it's quite obvious that perhaps they're not. And again, you know, for anyone who's listening, I'm not passing judgment on anybody because I can completely understand having been through an experience of going to a hospital here that I can see that. not everyone has access to that. And there are various reasons why people can't access medical professionals to be able to pursue their desires for how they want to change themselves. I say that because the first time that I went for a surgical consultation here at a hospital, the surgeon and I brought along a friend who is Chinese for translation purposes. And the surgeon said to me through my friend, oh, do your parents give consent for this procedure?

SPEAKER_00: 31:44

Can we just say one more time, how old were you when this happened? You were above 18, right?

SPEAKER_02: 31:51

41.

SPEAKER_00: 31:54

Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 31:56

And my friend said, yeah, just maintain a poker face, smile, because I don't want to give them the wrong impression. And I just said, mm-hmm, yeah, smiling as much as I could, trying not to portray shock, absolutely. And what transpired is, and this is the reason why, you know, to draw it back to the WeChat issue and in terms of how people give advice to each other and, you know, the types of things that they're pursuing to be able to have those physical changes that they want is that it turned out that they didn't want to get sued, the hospital. So what seems to be quite commonplace is to be able to pursue a medical procedure, to be able to take, for example, HRT, you have to get your parents to sign a form which explains what you want to have carried out and that obviously is going to be a major issue with regards to safety for people if they're not out to if they haven't let their parents into who they are and then the first acknowledgement of who they are is a form from a hospital that's going to create a huge issue and so there's obviously reasons why people don't choose to pursue that route or it may be cheaper to pursue alternative routes for me I'm very fortunate in the fact that I don't have I didn't have to go down that route I eventually had surgery in the US but the translation barrier and you know just that alone could have put a lot of people off you know I tried twice to get surgery here because I thought well if I can recuperate you know at home I don't need to travel anywhere that would be so much better for me I'd feel really comfortable but the misgendering and the assumptions and the stereotyping that I was getting from the surgeon's assistant, shall we say, not the surgeon himself, just made me think, I don't feel safe having a procedure here. I really don't feel that it's going to be what I want. I don't think they understand why I'm doing it. I think they're just looking at it as money in the bank. They're not truly understanding, you know, the impact that it would have on me and therefore the fact that I want to get it right the first time, which is why when I had a consult, um, last spring in seattle and the surgeon went oh i totally get what you want to do um i think she was shocked that i had to ask i told her the story about permission and i told her the experiences i'd had in china and she said oh no we'd never do that here absolutely

SPEAKER_01: 34:39

not

SPEAKER_02: 34:40

um you know if i'd said to them because i like working out a lot um so i said it's really important to me that the type of um sutures that i'm going to get or the way that you're going to obviously can or the skin together after surgery for me that I don't necessarily look like I'm going to be advertising for Sports Illustrated but it also doesn't look like Frankenstein because you know in China when I said that to the surgeons he said well it just depends on the experience of the person on the day who's doing the sutures and I think if my eyebrows were on my forehead they probably would because I thought really on the experience of the person, oh hell no, I'm just not gonna do that. That was

SPEAKER_01: 35:28

one.

SPEAKER_02: 35:31

In a cartoon, if I could have left in a cloud of dust, I probably would have, but that really petrified me. And especially when he was drawing things on little pieces of paper and he was looking through his surgical calendar, which was in a sheaf of papers and not on a computer, I thought, oh no, this is just not gonna work. I cannot do this. And so all of these questions I was asking the surgeon in Seattle I think she looked at me as if I was slightly unhinged. I went, yeah, but the reason I'm asking about this is I've just had these wild experiences. When she knew that background, she went, oh, I understand because nobody usually asks questions about sutures. We'd always do them as dissolvable. They'd always be like this. And she said, you know, have a choice of this or that. At that stage, because I'd had two failed surgeries and I felt, you know, at that point, on a darker note, I'd felt very suicidal after the second time because I'd psyched myself up. I got permission from work to have time off work to have the surgery. I, you know, worked out how long I'd need to potentially be off work before coming back to work. I tried to work out if I could choose the times to have it for Christmas, combine it with a couple of weeks of work, Chinese New Year, long period of recuperation. And then it fell through. And I just felt really desperate that I'm you know, I need this. I don't think I've ever felt like I've needed something before.

SPEAKER_01: 36:58

So when

SPEAKER_02: 36:58

I have this surgeon who just goes, oh, yeah, well, you work out. So we got more of a canvas to work with sometimes than some of my other patients. And I said, well, you know, can you put the switches underneath my pecs so that they don't look like they're scarring too much? He says, oh, sure, we can do that. No problem. And it just, it felt so good to, you know, just be able to with what Hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 37:43

Hello, beautiful souls. My name is Abigail Gagnon, and I am the host of the Beautiful Legacy podcast. It can be found on all podcast platforms. We can also be found on Instagram, beautiful underscore legacy, as well as threads. I love hosting a podcast. I love being able to talk about all things growth, self-development, mental and chronic illnesses, as well as what kind of legacy we all want to leave Why do we want to leave it? I have special guests in almost every single episode. And I also share some of my own stories, my own wisdom. And I just love being able to hear from the listeners, hear what they want to hear, be able to talk about all kinds of topics. And it just has been such a fun journey. And I hope that you come along for the ride.

SPEAKER_00: 38:41

Can you walk me through like sort of what were the steps that you took in terms of the transition, medically transitioning? You started off with HRT. Was there anything else that you took prior to the surgery? I'm guessing the surgery was the last thing you'd done, right?

SPEAKER_02: 38:56

Yeah, yeah. So I started off taking… The oral form of testosterone, first of all... Is

SPEAKER_00: 39:06

that a pill?

SPEAKER_02: 39:08

Yeah, it's a pill. Okay. So they're little brown pills. You have to take them with fat or you have to take... They're lipophilic, so they absorb better when you consume with fat because of the way that it's, I suppose, manufactured and the way it's designed to work with you. And what

SPEAKER_00: 39:28

were the first sort of differences did you notice on your body when you started taking those pills and how long did it take before you started noticing the changes

SPEAKER_02: 39:37

I think within a couple of months I think my voice didn't sound I couldn't reach high notes when I was singing so I think it was a little bit like a teenage boy whose voice is breaking at a certain point I tried to sing and I went oh yeah that's really not pretty it sounds like I'm squeaking so I'm just not going to try to sing

SPEAKER_00: 39:56

anymore but that must have been a really joyful moment though even though it was you know it

SPEAKER_02: 40:00

was but it was kind of a bummer because I do like singing so I can sing I'm not a baritone but I'm definitely a lot lower than I was and the next thing I noticed was we gave my facial hair a nickname so we used to call it tiny Tash because it was just like a couple straps so we gave it a nickname and a hashtag and then I didn't have anything on my neck but in the last maybe like six months it started growing in And so now we call it hashtag neck fluff as well, because, you know, the changes are not uniform to everyone taking things. You could have super bushy eyebrows. You could have thinning hair, perhaps, which touch wood at the moment I don't have. I mean, I think that's what put me off is the idea that a lot of male pattern baldness runs in my family. And I thought, OK, does this mean I'm going to start looking like Friar Tuck? um if i start taking it and i'm going to develop here at the back which my brother my brothers and my dad have um but you know i had to be brave and just go i need this change to feel like me i don't know what the changes are going to be but i'll just go for it and i get acne but not massive um okay it's more on my back than my face um you know there are other guys i know who have been taking hrt for half the time that i have and they've got a full b So I have a friend who says, I have full faith that you're going to have a beard within five years. Yeah, I don't know if that's going to happen. But

SPEAKER_01: 41:40

yeah,

SPEAKER_02: 41:41

it still provides a bit of a stop and think moment passport control when they go, wait, hang on, your hair in this passport is shoulder length. And you are you same person?

SPEAKER_00: 41:51

Yeah, yeah. Did you ever end up changing your documents? Or are you in the process of doing that now?

SPEAKER_02: 41:58

I'm not because it would cause... difficulties or knock on effects here because you know if you change your documents you have to change everything that you use to register with as in your chosen profession so all of your university transcripts all of your diplomas all of those things would also have to change otherwise you wouldn't be the same person legally speaking so for me it's the awkward discomfort let's say if I go to particularly medical appointment that I just have to deal with depending on who it is I think they've tried to put notes in the system to say please don't refer to this patient as this just try to refer to him as that if possible it is quite interesting sometimes when I've gone to pay for hospital bills and they say oh uh-huh are you settling the bill for your wife went yeah no that's me I'm settling the bill for and they just pause and go oh so sorry

SPEAKER_01: 42:58

yeah

SPEAKER_02: 43:00

Please don't say that out loud. It just makes it more.

SPEAKER_00: 43:05

Yeah. Do you feel like, though, that's the one last thing that you feel like you need in order to complete that transition? Or are there other sort of things that you still want to explore and to not explore, but to like, you know, to complete that cycle?

SPEAKER_02: 43:20

It's not necessarily that I would say viewing it as complete, because I think, you know, transition could be so different for everybody. It's such a deeply personal journey. journey you know i've met people who don't take any medication but they they they identify and they affirm themselves as trans men and trans women um and i've met some for whom having multiple procedures is necessary for them to feel like they're their true selves for me perhaps it is um the start of a journey um in that sense medically maybe i haven't done everything that i want to but in terms of socially i think For me, the biggest issue was always feeling like I can be myself at work with my colleagues and that senior management know who I am. And I just want it to be a non-issue, to be honest. we know that things are different and wider society is not aware of what I am they just they see they see for lack of a better term the stereotypical gender presentation of you have short hair you have some facial hair your chest looks like this your voice sounds like that therefore you must be a man which I am and that's all I really need so that I don't get shouted at when I go into the men's changing room which prior to Surgery last summer, going into the men's changing rooms would have been really awkward. Going into men's bathrooms was also feeling awkward, but equally going into the women's didn't feel right either. So it's just a case of, you know, bathroom phobias and issues is something that trans people, you know, it's so widely in the news how difficult that can be. So I would just have to be one of those people who searched out for the disabled bathroom some as the place that I could go to. And if I didn't just have to bravely suck it up and go to whichever bathroom was available and just avoid the stairs and try and ignore the cleaning lady shouting at me in Chinese that I was either in the right or the wrong bathroom and everyone else, it's stressful.

SPEAKER_00: 45:51

Yeah, I can imagine. Especially because over here there are no trans bathrooms or bathrooms that are non-gender specific. So yeah, I can imagine. I imagine that really being such a challenge for you at some point, especially when you were sort of like looking one way or looking another way or, you know, ambiguous in that sense, right, to other people. Yeah. What are some other sort of like infrastructural challenges you find over here or that you would wish could be more inclusive for trans people?

SPEAKER_02: 46:24

Infrastructure in what aspect? I think... For me, I think just being able to just have the correct pronouns used for me when I go to a medical appointment would just be a very simple thing so that I don't get called Mrs. I don't get called Miss. It's clearly not who I am. Really, really minor things would just be so much easier because I go to some medical appointments and they'll just call me by my preferred name, which is also them and nothing else because i go there so regularly um i might go to somewhere else and they're just they have to follow protocol they have to follow what's on your passport and then they always have to come and double check my name with me because they're not sure it's the same person um minor things like that i think would would make people feel more comfortable in a wider way changing your documents, that's not something that can be easily fixed, you know, logistically. And from a legal point of view, I guess that if you do change your passport, then if everything is in a former name, you have to get everything changed. Otherwise, everything that says who you are, as in whatever profession you are claiming to be a member of, you have to get it all changed. And that's not something that's easy. And I think certainly, that's one of the difficulties of being so far away from, in inverted commas, home or the UK is the fact that it's time difference. It's not being able to go up and take a weekend or a day off work to try and visit these places, to do stuff in person, to expedite a process. It's do it around holidays. Those type of things are just, it's a fact of life. It's going to be harder because I'm an expat. So it's not something I'm pursuing at the moment. um but for the fact that my passport runs out in a couple of years so really i think then is the time to to change things anyway so working up to getting everything lined up in a row so that within a couple of years i can do that um i think would probably be a realistic timeline for me

SPEAKER_00: 48:43

yeah well that's really cool i find i find this so awesome because in a way like yeah living here in china can be quite challenging especially as an expat you need visas you need Yeah. to hold you back and you're like I just want to to finish be done with that with that part of my life right

SPEAKER_02: 49:30

definitely yeah definitely um you know for me I'm still my marriage is not legally is not legally recognized here because on paper I'm a woman so

SPEAKER_01: 49:42

if

SPEAKER_02: 49:43

it was then you know my wife who who suffers from anxiety and depression and sometimes has acute episodes you know if I if I were Mm-hmm. call it legal limbo for want of a better term so stuff like that I would love to be able to do because then she would feel that you know if in her current job if the stress got too much and I just said look jack it in you know I can support us you know legally you're going to be okay and I can't do that right now

SPEAKER_00: 50:45

yeah what about children

SPEAKER_02: 50:47

again not something that's really possible I think you know, we're both in our 40s. So the only option would be adoption. But again, you can't really, you can't do that legally on paper here, at least. I'm still a woman. So that's not an option that can be pursued. I also find it very overwhelming to try and navigate where would I look at possibly wanting to adopt from? Because if I'm looking, for example, to the US, where my wife's from, every state is different. And I'm not quite sure what to Yeah. Do you feel or have you ever felt like those, those, those few things that,

SPEAKER_00: 51:45

you know, that seem like they can be done? But also are so significant in, you know, your journey together as, as partners, for example, getting married, you know, having that dependency, having being able to plan for children, you know, like changing your passports, and your documents without any of these, like, you know, issues. Has that ever sort of occurred to both of you? Or have you ever discussed about maybe leaving China so that you can have that final sort of, you know, experience?

SPEAKER_02: 52:21

Um, yeah, but yeah. The idea of wanting to be parents is not as paramount as, for example, making sure that my passport is changed and everything else is changed so that when I go to another job that they don't ask... Not necessarily they're going to ask questions. I would fully disclose my passport is going to say something different if I moved somewhere in the next couple of years. I'd have to say that. I'd equally have to say that just in case... I shouldn't have to maintain not even a pretense, but I shouldn't feel that there's going to be a consequence for just revealing to somebody what I am.

SPEAKER_01: 53:00

And

SPEAKER_02: 53:02

again... People that I know don't always reveal who they are. They don't say to their employer or people they're working with, I'm transgender. It's absolutely personal to everybody. There may be a safety aspect to that. They don't feel that they want to reveal that to people. It's so complex, the reasons why people do or don't disclose as much or as little information as they do. And certainly for me, the only reason why, in addition to feeling like I'm I was being unintentionally misgendered at work was I just wanted to just not have to talk about it in that respect. It's just another aspect, but I wanted to feel safe in being able to say it once. And then that was it. But certainly when I'm going to, you know, a new place, a new school to work at, I feel that I have to tell my prospective employers, by the way, this is who I am just so that I feel protected. Yeah. And so they know fully who I am and they can decide if that's somebody that they're willing to employ. And if they don't, it's good that I know then because then that's clearly a school I'm never going to want to work at. And if they do, that's an indication of hopefully more open-minded thinking, more diverse thinking. attitudes and therefore it means that I feel that I can fully start in confidence and you know everything else can follow on from that but that's the biggest thing to me is feeling protected and sometimes here you don't think about that because I don't feel like I experience discrimination you know you can choose the hospital that you go to if you've got private medical insurance you can choose the doctors you want to go to if you don't like a particular doctor you can change you know the doctor you're seeing to a certain degree and so I don't feel like I experience or haven't yet experienced consciously the discrimination or the attitudes that people might experience you know abroad I'm quite lucky touch wood in that respect it's not been a major trauma or hassle for me

SPEAKER_00: 55:15

yet yeah that's actually really interesting because I did an episode with a transgender woman who's also based in Shanghai I believe I've spoken to you about her before, Ray. And she also talked about the difficulties that she experienced with the medical side of the medical aspect of it. But she was sort of on the same sort of wavelength as you in the sense that, you know, she's really found communities of people, group societies that have been very supportive, as opposed to in the US. And you would think, right, ironically, like in the US, they are very open minded, it's all, you know, free speech, freedom of, you know, expression, and blah, blah, blah. And, You know, typically it's known that that's not the case here. You know, it being legal in other places where it, you know, being a gray area over here, yet people have been able to find more comfort here. Yeah. despite the difficulties than in a place like in the US where there's more fear around, you know, transphobia or, you know, people actually acting on it in a very explicit sort of manner. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 56:23

Yeah, definitely. For sure. And I think also you don't have that aspect of religion and politics coming into the mix here as much as you do in the States and how a lot of these absolutely horrendous bathroom bills, the bills that are targeting trans youth, the bills that are targeting trans adults and non-binary people in terms of access to health care, access to being able to feel that they can get their driver's license, their official ID in the state issued with the gender marker of their choice. All of these things are going to be so complex and as to the reasons why people wouldn't feel safe in certain states and feel that they need to move to other communities I know people who started off life in one state then moved to another then these bills started getting enacted and they said I need to move this is not safe for me if I'm going to have to be forced to travel however many hundred miles to get my medication if it's going to become illegal for the medication to be sent to me by mail if I'm not allowed to use a telehealth provider I have to use an in person they're making it's so difficult and it's why we consider to be Why we're considered to be evil and an object of hate and fear is the message that I would get as a trans person in the US and not necessarily the US in particular, but it's the one where there's so much in the news. It seems like every day there's something else that pops up on Instagram where the HRC are saying these are currently, let's say, 400 bills that are being passed or attempting to be passed at various levels in states around the US with regards to things that are very transphobic. agenda and I would fear certainly depending on what state I lived in I would really fear for you know my existence and my ability to be myself and you don't have that extra layer of complexity that I'm aware of here in China there are other attitudes cultural attitudes perhaps societal attitudes and that's something else that's different but yeah you're right it's you don't have that extra complexity in terms of being a trans person here I think or at least in my experience it's and again I don't know what it would be like if I was in the States I mean when my wife is from in Seattle I think I would feel very comfortable and accepted but then if I went a couple of hours east into the deepest part of Washington State I might feel not safe even though on paper the state is run by a democratic governor they're

SPEAKER_01: 59:12

very

SPEAKER_02: 59:13

pro-LGBTQ they're very good. it's it's it's very interesting and different um

SPEAKER_00: 59:20

yeah for sure

SPEAKER_02: 59:22

so yeah you're right it is yeah you experience things in a different way here i think is the easiest way to to say it

SPEAKER_00: 59:29

yeah can you talk to me about your um your spiritual journey um were you ever religious and how did that sort of and if you were how did that sort of transform for you as your identity has gotten you know more open or as you've been more open about your identity?

SPEAKER_02: 59:48

I wouldn't say I'm spiritual. I'm just... myself I think I meditate a lot but do I consider that to be spiritual no I think I just use that as a mechanism for tuning out all the busyness a way of resetting myself and you know just a nice stress reliever at times

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:12

yeah Phil final plugins tell me give us a little message that you would like to impart with our listeners ways that we can either support the community or for individuals that might be undergoing the motions right now of their own identity. What kind of message would you like to impart to our listeners today?

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:32

I would say if you are feeling like You're coming to a realization, I don't want to term different, but if who you are realizing you are now is different to the person you were even five years ago, 10 years ago, radically different to who you are as a child, if you're questioning your gender, if you're really questioning what is that very essential part of you, I would say it really is okay. There's nothing wrong with that. It's something that I remember having sleepless nights over. But just find that one person. You just need that one person that you can connect to, whether it's somebody at work, whether it's, you know, a pen pal that you have, whether it's somebody that you go work out with at the gym. You just need to be able to talk to one person. And when you have that one person that you can feel safe with, then you can grow from there. have faith that you will be able to connect to somebody there will always be someone out there I guarantee you who will accept you as you are and will help you and if you are considering making that what can be a very daunting first step I even said to it yesterday somebody it felt like jumping off a cliff with a blindfold on because you don't know what is at the end just have faith that you know who your friends are and there will always be that one person person who you can connect to that will help you and then you don't feel alone and i think that's the biggest issue is when you have such big questions about yourself and where you go it's so hard to do it by yourself and the moment you can find a community however small it is things just become so much easier and then just take it one day from a time from there

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:24

one last question i just i really want to ask you this there will be people along the way that may have a very difficult time accepting and there will be people that you may find you can no longer connect with and you may end up losing in your life but looking back do you have any regrets about that or would you do it again over and over if you could?

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:49

My only regret is that I didn't feel brave enough to admit who I was to myself 20 years ago I think I'm doing it still in my 40s. I think it would have been perhaps easier to do it in my 20s before I started on my career that I'm on, before I really became who I am in terms of where do I want to go with life, marriage, kids, et cetera. But I have to remind myself, it's not really helpful to talk to myself about the what ifs of a couple of decades ago Things were different. have changed and that has even though it is still overwhelming for people to realize who they are to affirm their true identity it's a lot easier to to navigate those first steps and then to go over those logistical hurdles than it was had I decided to to be braver and bolder about it 25 years ago for example so it's not really a regret sometimes it is but you can't regret the what ifs because you don't know what the past would have been like if it had been different it's just a looking back and just I have to pinch myself and go damn I did this in China I'm doing this in China it's not something that normally people do when they're in China I'm still doing it so I have to congratulate myself for doing that when there was no LGBTQ center here that you could go to let's say if you're in LA you'd have that resource to go to which is why my endocrine says you are the most informed patient I have.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:04

She

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:04

says that intimidate me sometimes with your questions. It's not intentional, but I don't have a resource to go to. So I have to Google everything and then I have to come to you with the

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:13

questions.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:15

So apologies. I think she views that as a very interesting academic conversation when

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:20

we talk to

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:21

each other. But she knows that my curiosity and my questions are coming from a good place and she understands why I'm asking them because I don't have those access to really resources that people outside of China may have.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:35

Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast and sharing your story. It's not easy being vulnerable. So I really, really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:43

Yeah, no problem. Hope it helps somebody.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:49

If you enjoyed the episode and would like to help support the show, please follow and subscribe. You can rate and review your feedback on any of our platforms listed in the description. I'd like to recognize our guests who are vulnerable and open to share their life experiences with us. Thank you for showing us we're human. Also, a thank you to our team who worked so hard behind the scenes to make it happen.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:10

The

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:13

show would be nothing without you. I'm Jenica, host and writer of the show, and you're listening to Multispective.