Latest / Dear Chelsea / He/She/They with Schuyler Bailar

Transcript

He/She/They with Schuyler Bailar · Dear Chelsea

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Oh hello Chelsea.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Thanksgiving. I was gonna say Thanksgivings over, but I meant
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: to say Halloween is over. Thank God.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: You are not a person who dresses up right now.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Hello Please. My roommate that I'm living with right now
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: said to me, he said, I just want to live
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: in a neighborhood where there's not going to be any
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: trick or treating. And I was like, oh my god,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: that's exactly how I feel. I am such a Halloween scrooge.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: There's nothing more insulting to me than adult Halloween parties. See.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: I love going to my friend's houses in Burbank.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Bourbank goes crazy because it's all the people who work
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: for Disney, so they've got these crazy yard displays and
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: like give out tons of candy. I love giving out candy.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: I think it's so fun.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: That sounds right, Catherine, I can see you enjoying that.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: But Chelsea's speaking of fun things. I have an update
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: for us that's actually really exciting.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: O good. I like updates so positive. Well, we don't
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: get a lot of negative ones. I guess obviously, why
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: would they call them? Be like, you ruined my life.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: Chelsea, This update is from d And she called in
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: a while back and she was really stressed about her neck.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Oh while back while.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: That was me emphasizing, so you understand to say long while.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: But she was dating her boyfriend for like seven years.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: He hadn't proposed, and she was like super duper stressing
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: about it.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: He'd kind of given her.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: A timeline sort of, but she says, Dear Chelsea, I
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: wrote in seventeen months ago expressing agony waiting for my
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: boyfriend to propose.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Well, you were right. Just one month.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: Later he did propose on a sweet trip to beautiful
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: up North Michigan. Flashed forward to our wedding this summer,
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: which was stunning beyond words. It was a musical backyard
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: wedding where the love of our closest friends and families
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: surrounded and lifted us. It's silly I was ever impatient,
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: because the day was perfect and came at the exact
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: right time. Your advice was to have the hard conversation.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: Since then, we've had a few. We learned more about
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: communication and each other, and now when I'm feeling anxious
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: before a serious talk, I remind myself that it's worth
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: sharing instead of dwelling all alone in my head. Attach
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: to our a couple moments from our day. We're a
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: family of musicians. But that was my first time performing
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: and it was all at once terrifying and so so fun.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: Thank you for taking my call. Another unforgettable experience. I
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: look forward to Dear Chelsea every week and will forever
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: admire and aspire to me more like her. Strong, voracious, intuitive,
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: and funny. Cheers to you and hashtag problem solved.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: And here is a cute picture of her on her
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: wedding day.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Oh that are cute. Look at that. Oh that's cute.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I'm happy for them.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: I know, I just thought those so lovely.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so thanks for letting us know, d and congratulations.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Everyone needs to not rush everything. No, rushing don't make
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: things happen. Them happen.
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: Yes, and having good heart conversations I think is a
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: great lesson As you go into your marriage as well,
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: there will be lots of hard conversations, and I think
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: it is worth having them the right way.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Who knows what I said to her about that, but
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: it sounds like it worked.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: Out some great wisdom. I'm sure great. Well, so, Chelsea,
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: we have an awesome guest today.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: So welcome to the podcast, Skyler Baylor.
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: Thank you for having me here.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, Chelsea Handlers, Skyler Baylor, here we are together.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: The book is called A He She They How we
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: talk about gender and why it matters. And I found
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: it so informative because you really break down a lot
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: of things that I think people who aren't open to
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: transness or have experienced transness in their lives, or anyone
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: who's gone through this, there's so many different angles. It's
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: such a spectrum of a different experience for everybody. Now,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: are you transitioned how many years ago?
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: Eight?
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Eight years ago? And you're an athlete and you was
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: swimming on your college team. Yes. I think first what
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about is is because there's a
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: lot to dive into on that front. But I want
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: to talk about how you know there's something in your
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: book the simplest way for you to explain that transness
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: is not the sum of someone's external parts. How married
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: we are to the idea that if you have a vagina,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: you're a girl and there's nothing in between. Yeah, can
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: you start to that?
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah? Well, I mean I think the there's a fundamental
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: lie we've all been told, which is that how our
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: bodies look at birth is equal to our gendered experience
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: in the world and our gender identities, and even our biology.
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: Isn't that simple, right, We're told that biology is either
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: penis or vagina, either xx or x y. But there's
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: so much complexity even within biological sex. There's chromosomal diversity,
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: hormone diversity, and other types of genitalia diversity. So even
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: if we look at the quote basic biology, even that
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: is diverse. And so people have this again fundamental belief
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: that is from a lie. It's told to us when
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: we're kids that this is only two categories, and the
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: realities it's far more complicated than that, has pretty much
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: everything else in.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Our life well exactly. And it's interesting that this conversation
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: is so prevalent now. So please enlighten my audience and
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: tell us about your experience. And let's start with the sports.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Let's start with you and competing on a male team
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: from being a female. So this is kind of the
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: opposite of the arguments we're facing right now, or we
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: hear a lot of I shouldn't say we're facing, but
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: we are as a society that a lot of people
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: have a big problem with men transitioning into transitioning to
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: females and then competing in sports, and you did the opposite, right, Yeah,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: and how did that work out for you?
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: Well, I want to go back just a little bit
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: a couple of language notes. So what I always recommend
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: people say is what somebody's assigned at birth? Right, So
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: I was assigned female birth and I am a man
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: people that you're talking about. You said men transitioning to female.
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: We would say people assigned male at birth who identify
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: as women, or just calling them trans women transfeminine folks.
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: As just a little language shift, right, And I talk
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: about why in the books if people can check that out. So, yes,
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: people much more focus on transwomen transformin folks. People have
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: this belief that there's something unfair about that. The sort
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: of translation to my situation is that people then think
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: that I wouldn't possibly be able to compete against CIS men, right,
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: that somebody like me, a transgender man, wouldn't be able
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: to compete against assis men because they expect that I
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: would just lose. And it turns out that I ended
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: up doing Okay, I didn't lose to everybody. I actually
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: was in the fifth and eighty seven percent house, So
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: it's faster than eighty five and eighty seven percent of
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: all men in the NCAA at my events. So I
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: didn't win everything right, but I also didn't suck, And
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: I think it's an important note. And there's other transmen
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: like me who've also not only lost right, who've also
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: done okay. We've got some trans athletes out there who
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: are transmen, who actually have beat almost all men in
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: their categories in their sports. So I think that sort
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: of ruptures this idea that everybody assigned male at birth,
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: such as CIS men and such as trans women, is
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: automatically better than anybody assigned female birth, such as me
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: as a transman or a SIS woman.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: And so was there any pushback at your school when
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: that was publicly known that you were going to be
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: competing on the team as a transgender man.
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: On my team specifically, I experienced actually quite an overwhelm
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: of support. So I went to Harvard and my coaches
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: were very supportive. They actually were the ones that came
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: up with the idea in the first place. They said,
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: if you identify as a man, why don't you swim
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: for the men's team because I have been recruited to
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: swim for the women's team, and they were just trying
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: to find what would make me happiest. They said, you
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: know what, you want, you to be happy, and we
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: want to do whatever it takes to create the space
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: for you to be happy, just like any other athlete.
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: I think when we talk about sports, there's a hyper
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: focus on trans people trying to transition for a purpose, right,
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: transition to win, transition to get access to the bathrooms,
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: get transition whatever, to hurt children. There's a very demonized
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: view of trans people, and the reality is we don't
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: transition to play sports. We transitioned because we're trans and
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: we want to live right, and we happen to be athletes.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: And I think my coaches and my teammates actually saw
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: that in some really actually impressive ways where they put
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: my humanity first.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: And how old were you when you transitioned?
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: I realized I was trans right after my teenth birthday,
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: a couple months after, and then I began to shift
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: how I was presenting in the world somewhere around eighteen nineteen.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: In that space, and when you realize this, what does
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: that realization look like? I mean, there are pictures in
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: the book of you as a female. So how did
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: you feel as a woman until the age of eighteen
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: when you had that realization, like as a girl growing up?
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: What was your thinking?
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting because language and
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: how we talk about these things, to me is really important.
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: I don't think I ever felt like a girl, So
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: I always like to offer again a shift of language,
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: and that it wasn't when I was a girl, but
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: when I presented myself as a girl, when I looked
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: like a girl, when other people thought I was a girl,
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: because I didn't wake up one day, you know, you
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: ask me, what does it feel like to realize that
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: I'm trans? What was my childhood like? I didn't wake
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: up one day and oh my god, now I'm trans. Right,
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: I've always felt this way about my gender, similar to
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: I think I would. I would expect you've always felt
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: a specific way about your gender, and you've always had
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: a specific feeling about your womanhood that equals your womanhood, right,
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: and so I've always had a fee that is my
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: gender and experience it is my gender, but I haven't
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: always been able to express that. So I think for
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: a lot of my childhood That was a conflict for
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: me because everybody gave me the word girl, and I
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: was like, that doesn't fit. But I didn't have other words.
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: I didn't have other community. I didn't have people to say, oh,
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: if that doesn't fit, well, here's all these other identities
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: that you could have access to. I just was handed tomboy,
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: and so I was religiously attached to the word tomboy.
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: If people ask me who I was, I would say, Hi,
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: I'm Skylar. I'm a tomboy, right, That's the first answer
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: I would give them. And I was very connected to
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: that word because that's what it was closest right to
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: my identity. For a lot of my childhood, I was
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: I really struggled because I think I was bullied a
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: lot for looking different, acting different. All the girls would say, well,
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: you're not a real girl, and the boys would say, well,
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: you're not a real boy. So that was a very
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: difficult space to be in. I was bullied in bathrooms,
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: harassed in bathrooms, thrown out of bathrooms, so I couldn't
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: even like pee in peace, you know, And so I
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: tried really hard in high school to be that girl.
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: But the pictures that you saw in the book are
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: pictures of me in high school when I we really
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: tried to conform to whatever it meant to be this woman,
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: and it made me miserable. I mean, I was struggling
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: with an eating disorder, with depressions, suicidality, self harm. I
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: was really struggling, even though externally I was doing all
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: the things everybody wanted me to do.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which I think is the most common theme when
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: people don't understand the struggle that anyone questioning their sexual
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: identity has to deal with and the suicidal thoughts that
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: come with it, and how much pain you know it
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: can cause to not feel like you're living your truth.
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, I think that that is actually a universal experience.
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: People who don't have an experience with transits are no
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: people who are trans might not understand. And I think
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: you're right, But the reason they don't understand is because
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: they're not extrapolating the same emotions that they could have. Right.
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: We've all felt like we didn't belong. We've all felt
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: like a part of ourselves wasn't accepted to somebody else.
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: We've all, I think, hidden pieces of ourselves in some
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: social situations. And if we can extrapolate to living your
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: whole life like that, right, having your whole society believe
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: in this lie that you're for me, supposed to be
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: this girl and you're not. I think there's actually a
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: lot more empathy we can strike with others.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there seems to be a real dearth of empathy
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: when with regards to other people's choices. But also it's
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: just such a representation of otherness, right, Like people can't
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: understand something that they haven't been through. And when you
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: hear people ask questions, I find myself always we're in
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: such a divisive time already as a society, you know,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: and then all of these conversations, it's just like there's
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: like a boiling point that it feels like we're at,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like almost on the brink
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: of enlightenment but not quite there, and who knows, who
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: knows if it will happen in our lifetime, but almost,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: you know, Like, because there's so many feelings about this
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: and so many opinions about what's I mean, especially in
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: our country with everything that's going on with legislation alone,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: you know, it's really frightening to know that little children
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: are being denied their own existence. So tell me a
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: little bit about emotionally what it means to you to
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: be living your truthfulness now, what it means. And also,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: I do want to get into a little bit. This
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: is something I've said before on the show, but I
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: don't think people realize how difficult, like you said, you know,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: like as if you're going to transition to be on
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: a sports team. It's not that fucking simple to transition.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: It is an arduous, arduous process that takes years of counseling.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: It's not like you go in one day and you
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: come out and you're the opposite sex people who are
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: doing this. There are less than one percent of people
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: that have any regret about doing the surgery. There are
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: more people who get breast reductions or plastic surgery who
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: go in and try it to reverse things than there
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: are people who a.
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: Lot not like a little bit, right, yes, yes, thirty
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: times more kind of mounts.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So talk to me a little bit about that
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: journey for you and your happiness, your self esteem and
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: all of the things that developed by becoming by stepping
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: in the in the shoes of the real person that
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: you are.
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: I mean, I can tell you that I'm happier than
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: I ever was before my transition. And I think I
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: can say that with so much conviction and peace and
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: people who have tried to challenge that by you know,
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: if I ever say that I'm struggling with any kind
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: of mental health anything, people like see trans people are
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: mentally ill, and I'm always like, well, I'm a real person, right,
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: And I do experience difficulty here and there in my life.
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: But there's a weight that I'm no longer carrying, which
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: is this weight of being somebody I'm not right. I'm
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: not carrying around this fear that I'm a fraud, that
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: I'm not who I say I am, that there's this
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: other part of me that I wish I could show
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: the world, but I can't. Right, I don't have to
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: do that anymore because I get to be all of myself.
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: I will say, though there is a deep grief that
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: I experience in being able to be myself now watching
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: the amount of anti trans legislation that's going around the country.
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: I get access to my hormones, I can take my testosterone.
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: I've had my top surgery. Most of the people in
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: my life respect me for who I am, and you know,
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: I have a home, a partner, right Like, I have
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: a life that I really like, and there's so many
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: trans people that don't have that right now. And so
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: every time I take my shot, my testosteron shot, which
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: I just died yesterday, I think about that. I think
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: about how much of a privilege it is for me
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: to be able to have access to my life saving
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: medical care. And I don't ever want to see that
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: as something that I take for granted. But I also
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: sort of make a resolution to myself every time I
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: do my own shot and say, this is me also
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: fighting for other people to be able to have the
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: same access. So there's this dual duality to it. I
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: feel this piece and this happiness, this immense gratitude, but
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: I also feel grief and anger and frustration because while
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: I get to live as myself, there are so many
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: others who can't.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: And are there any organizations that you work closely with
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: that people who are listening can support donate to, Like,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: can you shout out some places that you've worked with
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: or that you've experienced with.
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: Well, you've heard of the Trevor Project, I'm sure. So
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: the Trevor Project is an LGBTQ plus suicide Hotline. They
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: think they do amazing work that's supported of the community.
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: I also think there's Folks Health. I work with. Folks
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: Health is a telehealth company that serves transom quer community.
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: I get my tasosterone directly from Folks. Their providers are
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: queer and trends and it's a way to actually get
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: access to healthcare specifically gender for being healthcare that doesn't
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: go through avenues where the doctors might not understand us
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: as trans people. Right, There's a lot of discrimination in
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: healthcare elsewhere, so I love Folks Health. There's a lot
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: of really great location specific places equality Florida, Quality Texas.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Is there a quality in Florida or Texas?
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: A company? A company?
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: I guess they have to. I guess that's where they
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: have to start.
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: Right, Florida they are fighting for I think it's breadth
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: this he's fighting for right, right, right. But yes, yeah,
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: so's There's a lot of really great grassroots organizations that
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: I think are awesome to support. There's the Black Transliberation
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: is a one out of a New York City actually
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: with an amazing activist, Queen Jane, and she works to
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: provide better care for black trans folks that live at
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: the intersections of many systems of oppression. So there's I
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: could spend all day on I don't want to take
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: too much.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Well, but no, I thank you. The more information we have,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: the better. Talk to me a little bit about your
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: book and your family dynamics and how things shifted or
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: didn't shift with your family, how they received this information,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: and what kind of support you were able to get
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: from them.
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: My parents did a really amazing job showing me love,
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: and they struggled on the understanding. So when I first
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: I'll just sort of like a summary. When I first
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: came out to both of them, they were kind of like, okay,
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: now what you know, And there was this sort of
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: I don't want say, nonchalance but not sure what to
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: do and not wanting to say something bad right or
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: make me feel sad, And so there was an an
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: acceptance in that moment. But then when I decided that
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: I wanted to move forwards in terms of transition, I
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: wanted to get top surgery. I was considering testosterone, that
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: was much more difficult for them, and I think especially
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: for my mom, there was a resistance of you know,
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: why change your body? There's nothing wrong with it, and
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: the very loud, very common what if you regret it?
• 16:36
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: What if you don't want this? Actually? And so there
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: I had a lot of really difficult conversations, some screaming matches.
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: Wouldn't recommend the screaming, of course, but you know, difficult
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: times with both my parents trying to get them to understand.
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: And I think the moment where things began to shift
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: was again a screaming match, So again don't recommend the screaming.
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: Where I said to them, I'm not asking you to
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: understand me. Actually, I'm just asking you to trust me.
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: And I think there's a crucial swich which we often
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: experience people in a way that makes us think we
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: have to understand, right, I have to understand I don't
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: get it, and therefore it's not real, or therefore I
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: can't support it. But we actually can support and love
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: people we don't understand. We can support and love and
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: validate entities that we don't understand. Right, I don't know
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: how a microphone works. I'm sitting here. I know it works,
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: but I don't know how it works. And it's still
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: very real. Right. Just as an example, we can translate
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: that to transness. We don't have to understand the inner
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: working is of transness or transweople. Yeah, right, them to
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: be real, right, And I think when my parents understood
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: that there was actually more space to love me, more
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: space to trust me, more space to hold my hand
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: as I walk down this journey on my own with
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: their support, right, And I think that that has been
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: a crucial theme in our relationship.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because as a parent, I mean I can't imagine
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: what it must feel like toa you. You know, it
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: must feel like a loss in some sense, and then
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: such a gain when you're out on the other side
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: of it, but also such a fear of what could
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: happen and what could be subjected to in terms of
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: other people, bullying, discrimination, And as a parent, I just
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: nobody ever wants their child to be subjected to any
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: sort of pain, which is obviously an impossible task or ideal.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, everyone's going to experience it, but I think, yeah,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine how difficult that must be for some parents.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: But again, at the end of the day, it is like,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: you want your child to be whatever they're supposed to
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: be and realize their dreams. That's all you could ever want.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Is your child to be happy. That's the most important thing.
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but there is letting go. And so one of
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: the things I coach a lot of parents through their
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: child's transitions. They reach out to me and I know,
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: I see the kid and I see the parent, and
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: a lot of times there is a lot of grief
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: about their kid. And there's sort of two main categories
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: of grief. One is I thought I had a daughter
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: or I thought I had a son and now I
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: don't and I'm sad. And the other one is I
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: don't want my kid to be hurt in the world. Right,
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: I know that them being openly trans is going to
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: cause them pain, and I think there's a good response
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: to both. The first in terms of them being bullied. Yes,
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: your kid is going to be bullied by other people
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: for being trans. I have no doubts because the world
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: we live in there's going to be transphobia. But if
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: you bully your kid, then you are contributing to that,
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: right it is, It is unequivocal that other people are
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: going to do so. But do you want to create
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: your home as a place where they're going to be
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: bullied to?
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: Your only decision is actually do I also bully my
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: kid or do I protect them at home? So that's
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: the first thing. The second one is grieving who you
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: thought they were. I think that parents grieve who they
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: think their kids are every day. Right, If we're actually
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: letting the kid grow up and be their own self,
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: regardless of whether or not their trands or queer, there's
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: always little things we're letting go of unless the kid
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: becomes one hundred percent our expectations, and if they do,
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: they're probably not themselves.
• 19:34
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: So I think there's actually a fundamental realization for parents
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: to have. And again I've watched parents go through this
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: as I've coached them, where they're actually realizing they have
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: to let their kid grow up as themselves, transness involved
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: or not, and they have to let go of their
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: expectations for who they want the kid to be again,
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: transness or not.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great point, very salient. You're going to
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: be really good at giving advice to people. Yeah. No,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: it brings like tears to my eyes because I this,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: this is why I'm not a parent, because it's so
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: painful to see anyone you love go through anything difficult,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Like imagine, you know, like what you're saying is so true.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Your kid is never going to be exactly You're always
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: mourning what they were or their age or them being
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: little and then growing up and they don't need you
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: as much and you know so it's a great way
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: to frame that conversation. Okay, Well, on that note, we're
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: going to take a break and we'll be right back.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: And we're back, Catherine, what did you drum.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Up for us? So many things that I can see.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: He's gonna be Skyler's gonna be no pressure, Skyler. But
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Skyler's going to be really good at this. So I
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: can't wait.
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: With all of your resillions of degrees from Harvard, I
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: think you will be just fine.
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: I only have one, just one.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: He only has one degree from Harvard.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: Okay, but on different times, Okay, can you tell us
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: what your degrees are in because reading your book, I
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: was like, wait, not only does Skyler have this experience
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: as a transman and an athlete, he also has this
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: amazing education, Like that's why this book is so good.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: Oh well, thank you. I focused in cognitive neuroscience and
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: evolutionary psychology, which is in the psychology department. Awesome, awesome,
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: So like the science y version of psych So.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: You transitioned while you were at Harvard or do you
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: want to?
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think I was still sort of in
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: the process of transitioning, but I got top surgery and
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: started to saus before I began, So I took a
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: gap year between high school and college, and that's where
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: I learned about myself. I was in actually a residential
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: treatment center for my eating disorder at the time and
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: just sort of like doing a lot of introspection because
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: I was really sick. But end of high school and.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: You're eating disordered was related to you?
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: You know, it wasn't it wasn't? You know? I think
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: mental health can be really complicated. For me. I had
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: a lot of childhood stuff I was also working through.
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: And who's to say you can't distinguish it completely from
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: my transness, because I think my transit was a big
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: part of my childhood trauma as well. Right, it's just
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: really involved. But I think a main driving factor to
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: my discomfort in my body was my transness.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting to think about all those eating disorders.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: When they ever they say, oh, it's about control, It's like, well,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: it is a lot about control, but it's also about
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: a bevy of other things.
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: Eating disorders are not simple, not just of the realms
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: of I'm actually on the Eating Disorder Coalition board and
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: so I do a lot of work in the eating
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: disorder space, and they're very complicated disorders. And I think
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: people think, you know, it's just about women wanting to
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: be thin, you know, and it's it's really not. It
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: can present that way, sure, but it is. It's about
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: control is a part of it. But it's also about
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: sort of dissonance with one's self and how one shows
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: up in the world. It's about self worth, it's about
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: negative schema. Is There's a lot of like underlying factors
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: that contribute to eating disorder risk. There's a very high
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: percentage of LGBTQ plus people compared to non LGBTQ plus
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: people who have eating disorders, and a lot of that
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: is if you look at the risk factors, social isolation
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: is one of them, Bullying is one of them, gender
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: ideals and body image ideals are one of them, and
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: if you think about how queer people and trans people
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: are treated, all of those are like heightened risk factors
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: for us.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: Okay, so yeah, so our first email comes from Dane
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: and this is actually a follow up from our Dylan
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: mulvaney episode. Dane as a trans man who was struggling
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: with his relationship with his mom, but also through our conversation,
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: we realized he didn't really have any trans community around him,
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: so we really encouraged him there and even some Dear
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: Chelsea listeners wrote in to get connected with him. So
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: Dane says, hey, there, just wanted to check in and
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: let you know I'm doing a lot better than the
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: last time we spoke. Andrew, who was someone we connected
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: him with through Dear Chelsea who had written in. Andrew
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: and I have become great friends. We hang out a lot.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: It's been great to become.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: Friends, especially from sharing such a vulnerable part of myself
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: so publicly and having it turn out like this.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: We're planning to.
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: Get tickets to see Chelsea's show together in Portland in November.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: Can't wait to laugh it up and cheer for her.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: Thanks again for everything, Dane.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Oh that's that's heartwarming. Yeah, isn't it nice? I mean
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: friends make all the difference. Yeah, you only need one friend.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you just need one. I mean you'll get more,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: but you know what I mean, you just it's like
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: you only need one person to believe in you. When
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: you're a kid, there are times in your life where
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: you feel so lonely and all you need is just
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: like one person, Yeah, you know, to make you feel
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: so much less alone. That's nice. I love that.
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: There's actually really interesting research that supports that if a
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: trans kid has one supportive adult in their life, they
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: have a dramatically reduced rate of suicide. So that one support,
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: that one friend can really change somebody's life. And I
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: think we all I think about that fact all the time,
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: because one person being nice to one other person is
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: a really small ask. And I think any of your listeners,
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: anybody can be nice to one transkid, one person and
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: truly save their life.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that applies to you know, any person.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: When you see somebody going through something, or you can
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: you can sense somebody's alone or feeling lonely, or sense
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: that there's a sense of hopelessness about them. You know,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: it's always important, even if you don't know that person,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: to just like reach out and grab their hand and
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: say are you okay? Like do you need help? Do
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: you need support? You can change people's lives all the time.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: But just being sensitive to the people that are around you,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: because people are always going through shit, and I know
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: when that's happened to me and someone's noticed, like, oh,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: your energy's off or something's going on with you, it's
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: so meaningful that somebody even takes the time to address it.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Imagine what you could do for somebody who's in a
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: tremendous amount of pain or discomfort, or if doesn't feel
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: seen or doesn't feel heard. So I want to always
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: encourage all of our listeners to really, you know, reach
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: out when you feel or you see somebody that needs help. Please,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: You're never going to regret that.
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: And it can be something really small, right, just saying
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: I see you. Like I was at a speech recently
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: and I was talking about what I would tell a
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: trans kid in this specific there's a specific scenario that
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: give they gave me, and I was like, actually, it's
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: very simple. All I would say to that kid is
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: I believe you. I believe you for who you are.
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: You tell me who you are, you tell me what
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: your pronouns are, and I believe you, and that's it.
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: And this kid started bawling in the audience, like just
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: crying in his mind was there too, and the mom
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: was crying, and they came up to me afterwards, and
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: both of them are crying, and then I was crying,
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: and it was all just because I said, I believe you,
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: you know, and I think we don't do that enough.
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: We don't tell people I believe you, I hear you.
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: I believe your experience is real to you, and therefore
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: it's real to me. Yeah, and I think we need
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: to do that more.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, Yeah, I like that.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, our first caller is Sloan, just thirty one.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, I just want to say that Skyler and Sloan,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: we're two of my cabbage patch names growing up. They
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: were sisters and the Skyler, Sloane, and Gretchen were the
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: three girls. Very nice.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I wish I had a Gretchen calling in today,
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: but no doubt. Sloan's email the subject line is how
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: to stop arguing with fifth graders about Trump?
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: And Skyler.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: I know you talked in your book about you know,
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: you speak to a lot of kids, and you talk
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: about what kids have taught you about transnis.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: So I thought this would be a good email to
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: share with you. Dear Chelsea.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: I'm a school librarian, and I'm very passionate about my work.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: I've been an education for seven years now. I used
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: to be a classroom teacher as well. In the past
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: few years have been tough for many reasons, but also
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: because of the politics seeping into our school culture. I
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: teach in the South, so I think we can all
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: make an educated guess who many of the families around
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: here voted for. I feel like a fish out of
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: water in the area I teach. I try not to
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: let their comments and strong beliefs bother me, but damn,
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: it's getting really hard. And to be honest, I hate confrontation,
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: but when people are saying openly racist, homophobic, anti trans
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: and politically ignorant things, it makes my heart rate speed
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: up and I find it hard to bite my tongue,
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: especially when the students are saying all kinds of things.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, seriously, what six year old actually has an
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: opinion about a wall being built? However, when I do
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: speak up, even in the least confrontational way I can,
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: it ostracizes me from the community, which is a crappy feeling,
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: whether it's my principle making an insensitive joke or the
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: parents trying to ban books with queer characters. It's all
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: just exhausting. I could move schools, but it would mean
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: a pay cut. How do I stay professional at work
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: and not let things bother me while still sticking up
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: for what I believe? Sloan?
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Hi, Sloan, Hi, how are you Hi?
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Cute? Look at you? Hi, cutie? How are you hi? Sloan?
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: I was just telling them Skyler's our special guest today,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Skyler Baylor, And I was just telling our audience that
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: my Cabbage Patch kids growing up were Sloan, Skyler, and Gretchen.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: So we just need to get a Gretchen in here
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: and then we're all set perfect. Do you live in Florida?
• 28:34
  Speaker 7: Basically?
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, basically that's an interesting way to put it. Yeah,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: it sounds like it. Do you want to start this?
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: Because I have to think, I feel this. I don't
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: know how you could even live there, so I have
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: to think about what advice to give you because I
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: have such an intolerance for intolerance.
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: Oh gosh, Yeslan, nice to meet you.
• 28:57
  Speaker 7: You know.
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: My first thought is a lot about how you are
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: centering yourself outside of school, which might sound kind of funny,
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: but I think a lot of what we do in
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: our jobs or in difficult situations are reflections of how
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: much energy we have elsewhere. So my first thought is, like,
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: where can you find space that you do have community?
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: Where can you find space where you are not fighting
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: people with fifth graders on Trump's wall and what have you.
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: But that's important, yes, the consideration at school though, when
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: you're actually doing these these tasks, trying to have these conversations.
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: A couple thoughts. The first thing is that you said
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: not having a tolerance for intolerance. I think somehow I
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: have learned some sort of tolerance for intolerance, and a
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: lot of it comes from trying to actually dig into empathy.
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: And I think I've interfaced with so many people who
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: deeply don't believe that I exist. They like will stand
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: in front of me and absolutely say, we don't believe
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: in trans people. I don't believe in Actually the newest
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: one people are now going back on mixed race marriages right,
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: anti misseggenation laws, So like, don't I shouldn't exist in
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: that front either as a mixed race kid. Like people
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: will take up part my danny to say I'm not Korean,
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: I'm not this, I'm not trans, I'm not a man.
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: I'm whatever right, and they'll stand in front of me
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: trying to deny my existence. And what I see is
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: a whole lot of systems that have lied to them,
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: that cause them to believe these things and then hold
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: on to them because it's their reality. And so when
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: I interface with kids who are stuck here, I have
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: to first understand that they're just repeating with what their
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: parents have said, which you know. But what do I
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: do with them? I like to ask them questions, And
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: it's actually a lot less energetically draining to say no,
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: you're wrong. Instead, I say why do you say that?
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: Where did that come from? Where did you learn that?
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: And if you really press especially you said coworkers making
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: racist jokes, if you press them, hey, I don't think
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: you can play dumb, right, I don't think I understood
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: what that meant, Like, what does that joke actually mean?
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: You can get some really interesting places with that, And
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: I think I like to dig at the core right
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: by asking questions like that, and if anything, you'll make
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: them think right, and at the worst case, you won't
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: get anywhere. I'll be like, it's just a joke, and
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: they'll move on. Right, But I think it's easier, at
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: least for my system to do that, to be like,
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: why are you talking about this? Why do you care
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: about this? What do you mean by this? Instead of
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: trying to tell them that they're wrong. So that's sort
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: of my approach, and it hinges on empathy that says,
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: I understand why you are this way, right, especially with
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: the fifth graders, right, they're not actively hateful. They're repeating
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: what their parents are saying because they want to belong, right,
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: they want to belong with their parents, and so they're
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: saying the thing that allows them to belong with their parents,
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: and that is the most basic human thing to do.
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: So I also that helps me have more tolerance for
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: those moments.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: I also, you know, I mean you're in the education system.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: I think I love everything that Skyler just said, because
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: I think that is the right way to get, you know,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: to be a little bit smarter than your emotions, right,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: to get rise above the situation. And since you are
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: in the field of education, you know, it is important
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: to point out to the adults within your school system
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: who make those comments in a different way than it
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: is with children, because in children it is good to
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: probe them to make them think about why they're saying
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: is something or why they may think they have the
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: mental framework for something, you know, because then that really
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: pushes you beyond the surface and what do you really
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: think about this? But also with regard to adults, you know,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: I call it the miseducation of America. They want everyone
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: just to be so stupid and dumb and not educated,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: which is so ironic. You know, in the field of
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: education that people support this book banning and this anti
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: trans legislation, but it also just is very uneducated to
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: not know more about these issues. It's always, you know,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: there's always more to learn and there's more to know.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: So when I think when you're dealing with the adults,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: you don't want to lose your temper, you don't want
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: to lose your shit. You seem like, you know, you
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: have a very good disposition. In the two seconds I
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: saw you, I mean that I'm looking at you and
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: on camera and your energy like I don't see you
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: as somebody who's doing that anyway, And I think there's
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: a very joyful way for you to express yourself without
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: being so threatening to the other adults that you might
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: feel or that you know that you have different views
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: and value systems, you know, and beliefs while remaining true
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: to who you are. I think that's always a challenge
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: that we face as adults, is to figure out the
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: most reasonable way to go through life while I'm not
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: selling your soul, Like you don't ever want to pretend
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: you believe that or that you agree with them, But
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: there's a way for you to handle it with a
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: plum you know.
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: I kind of have a good example of where it
• 33:16
  Speaker 5: just gets so sticky is last week I had a
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: six year old girl like looking to check out a
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: book and we were running out of time, and I
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: was like, what about this Clifford Halloween book because it
• 33:26
  Speaker 5: looked awesome, and she was like, oh, I can't get that.
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: My mom doesn't let me watch Clifford. There's two moms
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: in that show.
• 33:32
  Speaker 7: And I was like what.
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: And then I was like uh, And I just I
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: get stumbled because I'm like, I don't want to be
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: the woke agenda and doctrinating the children and trying to
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: push my beliefs on them, but at the same time like, Okay,
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: there's two moms in it. That's normal, But I can't.
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: It's just hard and you just get stuck. You're just
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: kind of like, whoa, you are six years old and
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: you just said that, and so you get kind of
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: stuck on what to say sometimes without pushing your beliefs
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: or whatever.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Right, And I don't think you necessarily have to push
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: your agenda though on a six year old. But what
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: you can do is what Skyler was talking about, which
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: is actually ask questions about it without impressing your agenda
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: on them, you know, asking questions like, oh, you know,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: you don't have to do that every time. You know,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: I don't want you to get in trouble and get
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: fired at work, because I know that's a thing in
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Florida too, and it sure is. But you know, I
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: love the asking questions like oh, you've never seen a
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: family with two moms or you know, maybe not in
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: that moment, but down the road, knowing what kind of
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: frame of mind you're dealing with, and possibly probing it
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: in more, you know, in ways that aren't directly related
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: to her not getting the book.
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: Clifford, I think it's also like inviting the kid to
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: think on their own, right, Like, I know there's a
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: very large amount of people trying to push like, oh,
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: it's pushing an agenda. Trans people don't have an agenda.
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: We just want to live, right, That's really our agenda.
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: And I think that's important to recognize. But the narrative
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: is strong, That's that's the agenc. I think you can
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: you can talk about these topics and let the kid
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: actually think for themselves. And I think that's what I
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: would do in that moment. If the kids said to me, oh,
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: I can't get that there's two moms, I'd say, Oh,
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: that's interesting. I'm just curious, like, what do you think
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: about that? What is your thought? Do you is there something?
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: I'm just curious, right, And I would just like ask
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: them that question, if anything, not to get them to
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: check out the book or to go against what their
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: mom has said, but just to invite them to have
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: their own opinion about do you think anything about somebody
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: having two moms?
• 35:30
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: And I think that critical thinking is actually there's a
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: bigger problem with our education systm, which is that we're
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: not inviting critical thinking. We're not inviting kids to think
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: a little bit further than whatever they're told. And that's
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: a huge problem. And the whole indoctrination messaging that trans
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: people or queer people are trying to indoctrinate kids. It's
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: completely the opposite, which is that these systems that are
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: trying to ban books, that are trying to stop education
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: about black people, about trans people, about queer people, about
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: our history of systemic racism. Right, all of that is
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: indoctrinating the kids to not think right and to just
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: accept whatever's put on the page and let it be there.
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: And that's really dangerous because we want kids that think.
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: Who doesn't want kids that think people who are controlling
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: the country.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: What do you think about that, Slan, Yes, definitely.
• 36:12
  Speaker 7: I think I just need to sometimes.
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: I just when I hear that stuff, I go to
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: like emotional reaction mode and I need to just I
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: love the asking questions and just kind of almost playing
• 36:22
  Speaker 5: dumb and just be.
• 36:23
  Speaker 7: Like, oh, what what do you mean?
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: Why do you think that? And also putting it in
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: your back pocket so you know, for later when there's
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: an opportunity for another question that can probe their thinking
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: and open their mindset. You know, think of it as
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: like you're gathering information and that way you don't have
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: to be reactive in the moment. You can actually react
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: or respond down the line with some other, you know,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: in a different way or on a different subject matter,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: but knowing the kind of kids' parents you're dealing with.
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: I have one other tool for you, which is something
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: I talk about in my book, So I hope you
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: can check that out. Yea, there's this one kind of
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: idea I learned earlier in my career with people who
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: didn't agree with me, and I figured out that if
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: I tried to enter the conversation trying to change their mind,
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: trying to change their perspective, trying to just say you're wrong,
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: I'd get nowhere right. And similarly, if somebody tries to
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: enter a conversation with me and their whole goal is
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: to say that I'm wrong, I don't really want to
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: have that conversation. If I instead enter the conversation trying
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: to add perspective instead of trying to change it, so
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: again it's adding perspective instead of changing it, then I'm
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: actually more likely to be successful because my goal in
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: that conversation is to get the other person to walk
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: away thinking, gosh, I hadn't actually considered that before, and
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: now that I've considered this, maybe maybe that influences my conclusion.
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: Instead of coming to the conversation being like, this person
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: thinks I'm wrong and I'm right, and you're wrong, and
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: I'm right and you're wrong. That's not a conversation. That's
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: a confrontation. You said you didn't like confrontation. Here's a
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: way to shift it instead of trying to change their mind.
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: What can you give them that might be additive? Right?
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: How can you widen their perspective and say, oh, there's
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: also this thing over here that you hadn't considered. Does
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: that help your consideration of your conclusion. I'm not giving
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: you the conclusion. I'm just giving you a fact you
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: might have missed.
• 38:01
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I love that.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Love that I do too. I'm really impressed with you.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: If you're really Smartana Margulis, you better watch up? Okay,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: I mean you better, sorry, watch up? You better wash
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: up and watch out. Okay, there's a new sheriff in town, Juliana.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: I know she's listening. I think that's great advice. And I'm,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: you know, even more excited that I wasn't the one
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: to give it. So there you go, Sloan.
• 38:24
  Speaker 7: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, thank you for being a teacher and doing
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: it in Florida. You're doing the Lord's work.
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: Basically, Florida.
• 38:33
  Speaker 7: It's interesting, that's for sure. Never a dull moment.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: Just yeah, think of it as a nice big challenge. Yep, definitely,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: and also make sure, I just want to double back
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: on something Skyler said, is like that community, which I'm
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: sure you have. You seem like you have your own
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: thing going on privately is so important so that you
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: are able to be around people who are like minded
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: and have the same you know, value system.
• 38:55
  Speaker 7: My tribe saves me for sure.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, thank you so much. But that's the kind
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: of teacher I always wanted somebody nice and young, right right.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: My teachers were always like eighty, well they weren't. Those
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: are more congressmen and senators. But my teachers were always older.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: They were never young. You know, not that it matters,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: but you know, I guess.
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: Well, sometimes it's nice to have people who can relate
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: to you.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like a little. It's just so much more energy sometimes. Yeah.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, our next color is CJ.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: CJ uses the them pronouns. CJ's email starts help me
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: see and see advice Factory, which I thought was clever.
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: Dear Chelsea I'm forty five, recently diagnosed autistic, live in
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: NYC and single for twenty years. I identify as transfemme
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: non binary and started my physical transition about a year ago.
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: In twenty twenty one, I met a man on OkCupid.
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: From his profile, I thought he was a handsome af
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: s's single guy. During our first conversation, he revealed that
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: not only was he an open marriage, but he's also trans.
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: Even though I wasn't looking for a hookup, we met
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: for coffee, figuring it would be great to have a
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: good trans friend for me. It was love at first sight,
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: and it's been difficult for me to think about anyone
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: else since that moment. Flash forward. He's now in the
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: process of his divorce. I helped him get out of
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: NYC to find his dream job of working on a
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: farm in North Carolina. During that time, we became extremely close,
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: regular hangouts and sleepovers, but no hookups. Although he knew
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: of my feelings, he insisted he didn't see me as
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: anything but a friend. A few months ago, our entire
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: dynamic shifted. We had a long, frank discussion and he
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: opened up emotionally in a way he never had before.
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: As strong as my feelings were before, my entire heart
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: is open to him now, and seemingly I'm happy to
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: report his is to me because these feelings are impossibly
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: rare for me. I'm having a hard time with my
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: insecurity and self doubt, worrying about absolutely everything. He's twelve
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: years younger and far more attractive than me. He lives
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: in another state. I'd love to move to be with him,
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: but I'm in a long term NYC rental paying just
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: eleven hundred dollars a month, so if I give it up,
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: it has to be the real deal. He's only just
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: realized his feelings for me, whereas I've been struggling for
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: almost two years with mine for him, what if his
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: aren't real. I don't date frivolously, and although I've had
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: a lot of first dates and four times as many
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: sex partners, my heart is alive for the first time
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: in two decades, when I had resigned myself to being
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: alone forever. I'm equally excited and hopeful and nervous as fuck.
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: Help me, Chelsea, You're my only hope.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: Cee J Hi, Honey, Hi, cj.
• 41:33
  Speaker 6: Hi, Hey, everybody, thank you so much for having me
• 41:36
  Speaker 6: on I appreciate it.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, thanks for coming on, and you're visiting your fellow
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: right now.
• 41:42
  Speaker 6: Right, I'm in North Carolina right now, he's right outside.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: Should we get him on? Should we get him on
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: and just ask him what his intentions are.
• 41:51
  Speaker 6: I actually asked him and he was like, I can't
• 41:53
  Speaker 6: talk to Chelsea. I'm so scared. No, I can't. I
• 41:55
  Speaker 6: can't to do it. So not an option.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: Well send our love.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: So how long? What's the duration of time that you
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: guys have now been together? Are you together now? Yes?
• 42:04
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're we're officially together. It's been at
• 42:07
  Speaker 6: this point. Officially it's been about four or five months.
• 42:10
  Speaker 6: But like I said, we've known each other and had
• 42:12
  Speaker 6: this sort of like weirdness for probably the last two years.
• 42:16
  Speaker 6: They're very close friends.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: Well, this sounds like a love story.
• 42:21
  Speaker 6: My big thing is like he's ready when I come
• 42:24
  Speaker 6: down here. I'll spend probably two to three weeks at
• 42:27
  Speaker 6: this point with no issue, you know, no fighting, no,
• 42:31
  Speaker 6: we just get along and it it all seems so
• 42:35
  Speaker 6: easy and simple, which is the weirdest thing for me
• 42:39
  Speaker 6: because it's never been easy or simple. And he's sort
• 42:43
  Speaker 6: of ready for me. He's like, why don't you just
• 42:45
  Speaker 6: come down here? Why are you still in New York City?
• 42:48
  Speaker 6: My big thing is I've been in New York City
• 42:50
  Speaker 6: for twenty seven years now. I've been in the same
• 42:53
  Speaker 6: apartment for twenty years. My rent is eleven hundred dollars.
• 42:58
  Speaker 6: So if I leave New York City, it's got to
• 43:01
  Speaker 6: be for It's got to be for good, Like it's
• 43:04
  Speaker 6: got to be for keeps. And I just don't know
• 43:06
  Speaker 6: that I'm ready to do that yet.
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: I have a thought, well, I have a couple of thoughts,
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: Like there's a practical side of my brain, and then
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: there's like the part of me that loves love stories,
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: part of my brain which is going to lead the charge.
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: One of the thoughts I'm having is that a lot
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: of trans people in my experience are resistant to ease.
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: And the reason is because we're so not used to
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: it right when we when we experience it, we're like, wait,
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: this isn't it like that? We can't I can't have this,
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: I don't deserve this. I'm not ready for this. What
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: if it breaks right? What if it isn't what it
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: looks like? And I heard a lot of that through
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: your email and also as you were talking. And one
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: of my favorite quotes from a friend of mine who's
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: a black trans woman who's also an advocate. She's an artist,
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: she does a lot of amazing worker names Mi La
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: Jam And she said to me, her wish for the
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: world is to have transjoy be familiar, right, And I
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: think that you're unfamiliar with transjoy. I don't know you
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: all that well, but I guess is that you're unfamiliar
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: with it because most of us are, and in that
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: we often will reject things that seem too good. So
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: I think that's like the love side of me and
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: like the wanting you to like dive into that transjoy
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: and just whatever joy you have and let yourself be
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: loved and let yourself love. And there's a practical side
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: of me that's like you also are allowed to be calculated,
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: but with how much risk you take, right, how much
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: risk you accept, because I think all relationships have the
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: potential to fail, regardless of how good or honest they are.
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: So instead of seeing it as like this is real
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: versus not because it sounds real and I don't know
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: if it's worth categorizing it as not, it's how much
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: how much risk do you want to like assign it?
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: Does that make sense? Like instead of real versus not,
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: it's like how much do I do I gamble on this?
• 44:45
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: You will always be able to find another apartment, maybe
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: not one for eleven hundred dollars, But is.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: There a scenario where you can go down there and
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: just keep your apartment here for six months or something?
• 44:56
  Speaker 6: I like that idea as far as what I'm aware of,
• 44:58
  Speaker 6: And again I'm not al legal expert on this. From
• 45:01
  Speaker 6: what I've heard, there's like some law in New York
• 45:03
  Speaker 6: City where if you are away from your apartment four
• 45:06
  Speaker 6: greater than six months out of the year, they can
• 45:08
  Speaker 6: legally take it away from you.
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: So let's just go back a couple of times.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know that's who who cares? First of all,
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: you don't need to do it for six months necessarily,
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: Like you just want to go down there for a
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: good duration of time. It could be three months, and
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: then you could be like, yeah, I'm staying great. You
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: don't have to give up your apartment to go experience this,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: especially when you're paying eleven hundred dollars a month. If
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: you can afford to pay that, just keep your apartment.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: Who cares about the laws or the rules. You guys
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: can come to New York for a weekend. I mean,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: you know, it's going to take a long time for
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: someone to prove that you haven't been in your apartment
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: for six months. And that person has nothing else going on.
• 45:41
  Speaker 6: Also, and the good news is he lives rent free
• 45:46
  Speaker 6: because of his jobs.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: So this is perfect. I don't know what the problem is.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: I really don't. I think you need to go down there,
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: dive in. This is a love story. I'll be the
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: romantic one in this situation and fucking go for it.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: Hold onto your apartment and that way you're and don't
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: hang it over your partner's head. You know, don't be
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: like I can go home any time I want. Don't
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: be like that person. But I think what you just said,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: what Skyler just said about trans joy, you said it
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: yourself like it's too easy. Well maybe that's the way
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: it's supposed to be. Haven't you had enough to deal
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: with I mean, come on, maybe you're being rewarded, you know,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: maybe this is your golden ticket and this is your
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: life of ease and with somebody that sees you and
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: loves you and that you feel the same way about
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: I don't think there's a lot of risk involved in this,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: you know, I think you might just be creating, you know,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: like little hurdles because that might be your pattern and
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: that might be what you're used to.
• 46:37
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think because we're both in therapy, you know,
• 46:40
  Speaker 6: we don't obviously tell each other exactly what we tell
• 46:43
  Speaker 6: our therapists and everything that our therapists tells us as well.
• 46:46
  Speaker 6: But my therapist has been like, go towards the joy.
• 46:49
  Speaker 6: If you're feeling joy about something, go towards it. If
• 46:53
  Speaker 6: it's not hurting anybody, go towards that joy. Stop second
• 46:56
  Speaker 6: guessing everything that's going on because it's it seems crazy.
• 47:01
  Speaker 6: Just really go with it. The one thing that he
• 47:03
  Speaker 6: and I said to each other very early on is
• 47:07
  Speaker 6: we've never felt this safe with somebody before, both mentally, physically, everything.
• 47:13
  Speaker 6: It just feels safe to be ourselves, share our thoughts,
• 47:18
  Speaker 6: share our feelings, and that's just the most powerful thing
• 47:22
  Speaker 6: that I've ever experienced in my life.
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: I think you're writing your answer for us.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: You have your answer, you just needed confirmation and also
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: focusing on the joy. That is something you should write
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: down and remember because when you do focus, whatever you're
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: going to focus on becomes greater and bigger. So if
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: you're going to focus on all of the things that
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: may or may not be wrong, then that's what becomes bigger.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: But when you allow yourself to be in a joyful
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: place to enjoy this love, to enjoy the joy, that
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: is the word of the year's joy. Joyfulness. How much
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: joyfulness you're going to bring to people because you're experiencing joy.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: Focus on that what you just said, because that's powerful
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: and your whole life can continue to be that way
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: when you have that as the baseline.
• 48:09
  Speaker 6: That sounds amazing. I feel like this is all coming together.
• 48:11
  Speaker 6: I work from home, so that's why I'm able to
• 48:13
  Speaker 6: come down here as much as I want and just
• 48:16
  Speaker 6: work from here. And it's yeah, as usual, everything you
• 48:21
  Speaker 6: said is spot on. Thank you.
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: I think also like the feelings that you've got of
• 48:25
  Speaker 4: like but what if it doesn't work? But what if
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: I regret it? But what you know, all the what ifs,
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: like you can also answer the what ifs. One of
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: the things that I always teach people and I try
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: to myself is if my brain is going what if,
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: what if? What if? What if? Answer it? What is
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: what is the answer? To the what if, what if
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: it doesn't work out? Well, you know very well how
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: to be on your own. You know how to take
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: care of yourself in this in this like plan of
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: keeping your apartment, you'll go back to your apartment. Right,
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: You'll be able to figure it out because you're a
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: grown adult that has a lot of great coping mechanisms. Clearly, right,
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: So like answer the what if it's gonna be okay,
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: you're gonna be okay. Well, it be sad, sure, but
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: I think it's also worthwhile to be like, I actually
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: have the tools to figure out how to move forwards
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: if this doesn't work, And so why not go full
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: into this because otherwise anxiety is going to be dragging
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: you the whole time. So have anxiety sit there, answer
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: anxiety's questions and be like, look, anxiety, I have got
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: it right. I'm gonna be fine, and you're gonna be
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: here advising me along the way. And I'm not gonna
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: yell at you because I'm not going to belittle myself,
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: but I am going to say you're here, I've got you,
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: I answered your questions. Let's go.
• 49:23
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's been the biggest thing, is like separating what's
• 49:25
  Speaker 6: anxiety and what's logic? Like, is this logically an issue
• 49:29
  Speaker 6: or is this just my anxiety giving me shit? And
• 49:31
  Speaker 6: I just you know, you can go away logic. Let's
• 49:34
  Speaker 6: deal with logic and see if I can figure a
• 49:37
  Speaker 6: way around the logic.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: Well, everything is pointing for you to move there, so
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: just do it and hold on to your apartment for
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: as long as you need to to make you feel okay,
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: and then you can give it up or maybe I'll
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: rent it from you.
• 49:49
  Speaker 6: You're welcome to move in. It's fucking amazing.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: I've been dying to move to New York.
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: You can sublet it, you know, there's there's lots of solutions.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, who wouldn't want me as a tenant?
• 49:59
  Speaker 4: That's a good question.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, you have your marching orders. Go be happy.
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll do that.
• 50:06
  Speaker 6: Absolutely, have a great day, everybody.
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: Thank you you too.
• 50:09
  Speaker 7: Bye.
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: I love them.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: I love a love story.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: I know I'm like the person you've loved for two years.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know statistically what there is, but
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: there is some sort of data that backs up if
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: you know somebody for a period of time and then
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: become romantically involved with them, there's a greater chance of success.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there's that relationship you have, the years long
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: friendship with somebody. Those things are those relationships usually tend
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: to work out.
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, let's take a quick break and we'll be right
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: back to wrap up with Skyler and Chelsea.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Great, and we're back.
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: We are back with Skyler Baylor, and our last question
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: comes from Angela. Angela says, Dear Chelsea, I recently married
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: my husband, who happens to be one of the most
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: incredible humans on earth. My problem is this, we met
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: through our soccer community. Both of us love the sport
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: and played at the collegiate level. While I'm ready to
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: hang up the cleats, he isn't. He plays in three
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: major men's tournaments a year, and those all take us
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: out of state for four days at a time. I
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: do love watching him play, and I enjoy the trips,
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: But because he owns his own business, anytime he takes
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: off is unpaid, and because of that, the only trips
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: we take together are for his soccer tournaments. How do
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: I continue to enjoy watching his games and traveling for
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: his tournaments when we don't take any trips just the
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: two of us. How do I get him to understand
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: that I need a trip with my husband, no soccer
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: schedule to abide by, no other friends around, without making
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: it seem like those tournaments are out the window. You're
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: the best, Angela on Skyler. I mean, you're the sports guy.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna give this podcast to Skyler and let
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: him deal with all of this because he's got better
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: answers than I do. Skyler, why don't you go first?
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's it. So in my relationship, I'm like this
• 51:59
  Speaker 4: person's husband and that I'm always busy. I'm self employed
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: and large a lot of the travel that me and
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: my partner do are because of the work that I do,
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: and time that I take off is often for work
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: and difficult to find time for us to do things
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: on our own. It's actually been this is me disclosing
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: a lot about my life, but it's been a big
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: endeavor for me in the past like several years to
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: figure out how to shift so that I can both
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: make money right, which is important for me to live
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: and for me and my partner to have our life,
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: but it's also really important for me to take time
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: for just me and just me and my partner, and
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: it's hard so I want to first validate that it's hard,
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: and it sounds like Angela really understands that. I think
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: that the conversations that me and my partner had about
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: this have been really powerful of her saying like, you
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: need to find time for you, which does mean finding
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: time for us together. And I've had to carve that out.
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: And I don't know if this is like advice or
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: if this is just like me relating and trying to
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: provide some similarities here, but for me, I really had
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: to decide, like what kind of life do I want
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: to live? Do I want to live a life where
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: I'm constantly saying, well, when I have time, will do
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: the thing when I have time, will go out to dinner.
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: When I have time, we'll take a trip to wherever
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: we take a trip to right, Or do I want
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: to live a life where like I'm actively doing the
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: things that I want to do in my life. And
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: I decided that I want the latter. I don't want
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: to be constantly saying when I'm not busy, you know,
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: next year, when the book is done, when whatever. And
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: I have lived my life like that for probably more
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: than a decade as an elite level athlete. As you know,
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: I gave one hundred and two speeches before I graduated from
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: college from Harvard. So I was doing a lot of things,
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: and I've always done a lot of things, and my
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: wife has said, but what about you?
• 53:29
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: What about your life and what you enjoy? And so
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: now we actively have to look at the calendar and
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: say where can I put in time? That's just us
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: and that does mean also budgeting appropriately, It means carving
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: out the time. But most importantly, and this is where
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: I think the advice comes into Angela, it actually requires
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: both people being really committed to doing that. And I
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: will disclose again my wife has had frustrations with me
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: where she said, you aren't as committed to this as
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: I am. Right, you aren't making the space and the
• 53:56
  Speaker 4: time to do these things. And when she said that,
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: it really hit me because I was like, wait, no,
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: that's not My priorities aren't actually what my actions are declaring.
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: So I have to figure out how to adjust my
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: actions so that they align with my declared priorities, which
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: does involve my own joy and my partner together, right.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and creating joy and compromise. Yeah, obviously there's sacrifices
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: to be made in all relationships, and it's about you know,
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: you going the only time you and your partner going
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: on vacation together for his soccer games. Doesn't sound like
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: a compromise on his behalf, you know. It sounds like
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: you're just you know.
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: Whatever, she's along for the ride.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so he's going to have to meet you somewhere
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: like halfway in the middle, and you guys have to
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: figure out a system where you're getting your needs met
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: and he can still play soccer, but maybe not four times,
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: you know, not four games or however frequent. You know,
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: a weekend that's just too that's not fair to you
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: at all.
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: So I went through something similar when Brad and I
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: were first dating. After we've been dating about a year,
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: you know, he was playing music every weekend, and so
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: all of his evenings and weekends and holidays were spent working.
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: And I was finding that, like I was left without
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: a date to every wedding and every everything. And so
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: we sort of worked at a deal where like I
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: got three days a year that I could ask him
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: to cancel work, and you know, obviously wouldn't be getting
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: paid for that time, but he would accompany me to
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: the event of my choosing, and so maybe there's something
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: similar for you guys. Maybe it's okay for every two
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: days we spend on a soccer trip, I get one
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: day of vacation with you, and those accumulate over time.
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: You might make a little game out of it.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: People's interests also change and develop over time, and the
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: whole idea of being in a couple is to grow
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: together and to evolve together. You don't stay the same forever,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: and so it's about what you're willing to do in
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: terms of compromise and sacrifice, and that has to be
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: part of the equation in our relationship.
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: I think it's also about, you know, asking him what
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: his priorities are and do they align with yours. I mean,
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: I think like that some of the most difficult conversations
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: they're not actually about the actions, right. People don't get
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: into fights because a specific action is a problem. It's
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: a repeated issue or it's a repeated tension because there's
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: something underlying that. And so you know, in my life
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: that's in my current relationship, it's been that my actions
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: weren't aligned with my declared priorities of I want to
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: spend time with you, but then I'm not actually making time.
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: And so when I realize that, I've been like, Okay,
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: let me shift right my actions so they align. But
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: if somebody is not willing to make that shift so
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: that your priorities can be somewhat in alignment, then that's
• 56:29
  Speaker 4: a big that's a big problem. And I think it
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: would be about really asking Angela's husband, you know, are
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: you willing to make these adjustments so that we can
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: be here together? And Angela, are you willing to actually
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: share what the feelings are that you're having, because a
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: lot of people will come to these conversations being like,
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: you aren't doing enough for me. You know you don't.
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: You don't make time for us to go on trips,
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: and you are playing too much soccer. Instead of saying
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: I feel neglected. I don't feel like I have enough
• 56:53
  Speaker 4: time with you. I would like to go to Phoenix
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: or to I don't know that's where I want to
• 56:57
  Speaker 4: go clearly, but wherever you would like to go, right,
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: Can you say what you want? Because maybe there are
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: other ways that you know you two could meet those
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: needs together that that would be a collaborative effort.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that I love that you've given such
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: good advice today. I mean, honestly, it's really impressive. I
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: guess I'm really missing out on a Harvard education because
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: you're just I mean, you're just great at giving information.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: And also it's very empathetic. Everything you've said, you know,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: and you look at it from like two different angles.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: I like the way that you think and address things.
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: So I appreciate having you here today. Thank you.
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: I appreciate you having.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: And I'm going to see you in Boston at one
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: of my shows.
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: Yes, I would love you up with some tickets.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: Catherine, we'll handle that, Yes, please sure, so I can
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: meet your wife.
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: And this was a great episode. Thank you so much.
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: Thank you for your time, Thank you for all the
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: work you do.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: Amen. Amen, everyone, that's how we're going to end this
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: from now on. Amen. Okay. Second shows have been added
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: for those of you coming to see my new stand
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: up tour, which you have to come because I'm having
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: the best time. We added a second show in Cincinnati
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: daytime at five o'clock PM. I'm doing my first show
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: because I don't have a night where I can go back,
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: so we added a second show at five PM, and
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: the original show is at APM. Original show is sold out.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: Second show tickets are available Cincinnati. I'm also coming to Chicago,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: the Chicago Theater, Portland, Oregon, San Francisco. They're both almost
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: completely sold out and you can go to Chelsea Hamler
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: dot com for other tickets and other information And if
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: you want to buy some of our merch, that's all
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: available on Chelseahandler dot com. And yeah, guys, I'll see
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: you on the road.
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: If you'd like advice from Chelsea, shoot us an email
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: at Dear Chelsea podcast at gmail dot com and be
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: sure to include your phone number. Dear Chelsea is edited
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: and engineered by Brad Dickert executive producer Catherine Law and
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: be sure to check out our merch at Chelseahandler dot
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: com