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Three Trans Bi Guys
1.8k Plays4 years ago
Follow Max on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maxformasc_/
Max's GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-a-trans-man-become-a-therapist?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer
Follow Ash on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/queerfuneralguide/
Ash's queer funeral guide (free resource): https://queerfuneralguide.co.uk/
Follow Etienne on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sequin_doves/
Follow Etienne on Twitter: https://twitter.com/e_sequin
Follow Etienne on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx2_NkhWnG1b-rqe_BKIU0w
Etienne's GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/az5zdx-top-surgery?utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer&utm_campaign=p_lico+share-sheet
Follow and support guest-host Gabriel Novo: https://beacons.page/bisexualnomad
We've often talked about the solidarity and understanding shared by the bi and trans communities, but there's also a lot of overlap -- many bisexual people are trans or non-binary, and vice-versa. Today, we're spotlighting three bi trans men living in the UK, interviewed by guest-host Gabriel Novo.
Gabriel spoke with Max, a psychotherapist in training; Ash, who's working to make the funeral industry more inclusive for queer and trans folks; and Etienne, an audio engineer who works in film and television. They discussed how and when these men realized they were trans and bisexual (sometimes not at the same time), the coming-out process for each, the value of supportive friends and family (and therapy!), how their bi and trans identities intersect and influence each other, what it's like to transition both emotionally and practically within the UK healthcare system, shifting perspectives and feelings on masculinity during transition, how various facets of identity can affect one's sense of self, TERFs (but only briefly, because they're scary and dumb), the effects of the pandemic on their identities and transitions, and much more!
Thank you to Max, Ash, and Etienne for sharing their stories so openly and authentically, and thank you to Gabriel for his thoughtful and caring interviews.
Two Bi Guys is produced and edited by Rob Cohen
Created by Rob Cohen and Alex Boyd
Logo art by Kaitlin Weinman
Music by Ross Mintzer
We are supported by The Gotham (formerly IFP)
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Transcript
Gabriel's Experience in London and Media Misrepresentation
00:00:12
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Two of My Guys. I'm Gabriel. And I'm Rob. And I'm only here for a few minutes. It's nice to have a guest host finally. I don't have to do the heavy lifting today.
00:00:25
Speaker
So Gabriel, tell us a little about what we're going to hear on today's
Interviews with Bi Trans Men in the UK
00:00:30
Speaker
episode. Who have you interviewed? Well, thank you for letting me be a guest host on the show. I really appreciate this opportunity. And as you know, I'm living in London currently.
00:00:41
Speaker
Yeah. And there are some stories that I believe are being unfairly shown through the media. Trans folk, especially in the UK, are going through a lot. That's an understatement. Here too. Everyone. Yeah, yeah.
00:00:58
Speaker
So I thought it'd be best to chat with a few bi trans men to see what their lives are, their day-to-day lives living in the United Kingdom. And so three bi trans men have generously given their time to me and allowed me to interview them. And the stories and backgrounds are so different and yet also interesting that it was real pleasure chatting with them.
00:01:28
Speaker
Well, the interviews are great, and I'm so happy they shared their stories. And I found it so fascinating to hear about the, this is a group that we have, I won't say overlooked, because we've been wanting to talk more and more about trans identities and by people who are also trans, but we just haven't gotten to it
Stigma and Harassment: The Reality for Bi Trans Men
00:01:48
Speaker
much yet. So I'm very glad we're getting to it now. And it's so interesting to hear the buy stuff and how they figured out they were buy,
00:01:57
Speaker
I connected to so much. It's these fundamental things that are not exactly the same for everyone, but I really identified with a lot of the things I said. And then it was also interesting to then hear how that intersects with their trans identities or their journey exploring gender, which has some parallels and some things that are very different but is interrelated in really interesting ways. So I think you'll all learn a lot from these interviews. I did.
00:02:26
Speaker
And you're right, Rob, that these are stories we don't hear a lot of because, as you can imagine, I mean, the reason that that you and Alex created to buy guys is because we weren't hearing enough stories from by men because of the stigma because of the targeted harassment that you get for poking your head up and saying, hey, I'm a man and I'm bisexual. So imagine that, you know, a hundred fold when saying, yes, I'm bi and transgender, that kind of
00:02:54
Speaker
targeted harassment is so overwhelming these days that it's hard for anyone to feel safe to be able to share their stories. So I'm really grateful that these men trusted me to do that. Also, first of all, London is one of my favorite places in the world. It's a very queer place. It's a place since I've come out that I have visited to explore queerness.
00:03:17
Speaker
And there's a lot of it there. But also the accents in this episode are fire. I thank you all really enjoy the accents because I do. If you have a thing for accents, this is definitely the kind of episode, if you want, just put on the headphones, listen to it late at night and those accents will get you going.
Meet Max: A Bi Trans Man and Psychotherapist in Training
00:03:41
Speaker
Indeed. Cool. All right. So who's up first? First, I had the pleasure of speaking with Max.
00:03:48
Speaker
a psychotherapist in training. Here we go. Hi, welcome to Bye Guys. Thank you, Max, for being on the show. Thanks for having me. I'm really happy to be here. All right. You are a bi trans man living in the UK.
00:04:09
Speaker
And so we are looking for stories of folks in the UK to see what their experiences are. We see a lot in the media. We hear a lot from conflicting sources, but it would be best to hear from people on the ground, from people living that experience. So you're a bi trans man, pronouns he, him. And I was wondering, how did you come to finding bisexuality as a label?
Max's Journey of Identity and Support
00:04:36
Speaker
And how do you identify in general?
00:04:39
Speaker
Yeah, so I do identify as a bi trans man. I came to bisexual really, really early. I knew about my sexuality when I was a young teenager, like 13, 14.
00:04:54
Speaker
And I found out about gender way later when I moved to London. I discovered that gender was a thing to think about. But I grew up in a small rural town called Kells in Ireland and caused a bit of a sensation as a 13, 14 year old by having a boyfriend and a girlfriend at the same time.
00:05:19
Speaker
Nothing's changed. I'm still polyamorous. And I had a very accepting family. I had a gay uncle. And so when I said to my parents, hey, I have a girlfriend, they were like, oh, good. And then I said, hey, I have a boyfriend. And they were like at the same time. And I was like, yeah. And they were like, OK.
00:05:39
Speaker
So my parents have been supportably unshockable for a very long time. And that is how I have come to be on this podcast with you, a bisexual trans man. That is fantastic to get that kind of support early on. He's just loved to hear it. So you mentioned that you moved to London. Around what time did you move to London? And how did that, I guess, open things up for you?
00:06:10
Speaker
So I moved to London like four and a half years ago and I remember hearing about like being non-binary when I lived in Dublin and I thought to myself that sounds like something, that sounds like something I might like to think about. But I had a boyfriend at the time and I said it to him and he sort of shut me down and he was like no that's nonsense and you're just asking for attention.
00:06:32
Speaker
And then I moved over to London and everyone I met was non-binary and bisexual and polyamorous. And I was like, oh, this sounds great over here, actually. You can be not a woman. Wonderful. I can do that. And I for a long time used to say, I'm really glad that I can be non-binary. I'm really glad that I can have this option of opting out of womanhood. It's never felt comfortable for me.
00:06:55
Speaker
I'm so glad that I'm not a trans man because then I would have to do something about it and that seems like a lot of hassle. So I said that for about two years. And then last Christmas I had some time with my partner and their family and I came to this realization that no, I am more trans than I thought I originally was and that I did in fact want to transition
00:07:19
Speaker
I came home to London after a little break in Surrey and I sent it to my best friend, Fox, and they said, yeah, did you change your name to Max three years ago? We've been waiting for you to catch up.
Challenges in Transitioning and Healthcare Support
00:07:34
Speaker
That's great when everybody else knows and you are yourself the last to know. Yeah, for sure. And I really do feel like the last to know. And it's so funny because I have also recently met up with an old school friend of mine who I hadn't seen in 12 years. And I put up a post on my Facebook being like, I need to hang out with more men.
00:07:56
Speaker
I would like to connect with more men and they got into my inbox and they were like I'm not a man but I am non-binary and I also want to hang out with more men. So we met up and we had a we had a drink and it turns into like 10 pints and you know we're best friends again and they said to me you know you were talking about your gender when you were 18 but in a really flippant sort of like ha ha ha I should have been born a gay man ha ha ha kind of way.
00:08:20
Speaker
And I had blocked this out. I had no recollection. Yeah, if you'd asked me if I would think about my gender 12 years ago, I said no. Oh, here I am. It is interesting when you have people from your past kind of bring you the clues that you yourself didn't know you were dropping in your journey. So how was that a shock when you heard it? Or was it more like, Oh, yeah, maybe I would have said something like that.
00:08:47
Speaker
Um, no, I mean, it was a bit of a shock, but it does make sense. Um, I've got a really good relationship with my mum now, especially since I started to transition. And she, she thinks that my childhood and growing up makes a lot more sense now. And initially she was like, but you're not very manly, um,
00:09:12
Speaker
You look very manly. And she's right, I'm not very manly. Initially she was thinking, like, does this mean that you're going to want to do, like, macho things now? And I was like, no, Mum, I'm still a fairy.
00:09:31
Speaker
So yeah, the family were initially confused and then they were like, oh no, this makes sense, this tracks you. Bye man, this tracks. Ah, nice. So you've always kind of had this bubbling, you've got a London, your friends know before you do, now that you've told everyone, now that you've come out,
00:09:54
Speaker
I guess to yourself really, since I've moved around you already, since you came out to yourself, what were the next steps for you? How was that then? So transitioning in the UK is maybe a little bit different to what people might be used to in the States. Recently we've seen Elliot Page come out and he's had like a really sort of apparently quick transition, which is easy when you have access to funding and
00:10:24
Speaker
like when health care is something that you pay for and you can just go and you can get that thing. It's a bit different in the UK. Being rich and famous does help speed things up, yes. Yeah, for sure. And there's sort of two routes that you can go down in the UK. You can you can choose to go down the private route or you can go via the NHS and the NHS is public health care. And I am on a pilot scheme that the NHS is running classically.
00:10:53
Speaker
There's been very long, long, long, long waiting lists and you have to be seen by two psychotherapists, or psychiatrists actually, and they have to say, yes, you are trans, we agree, you are trans enough, you have ticked enough of the boxes that we will now give you access to hormones, you get put on a waiting list for hormones, you get put on the hormones, you get put on the waiting list for surgeries if you want them. But I am going through a different route
00:11:21
Speaker
And it is meaning that things are a lot quicker for me, which I love. I love this for me. And it's, it's called Trans Plus and it's being run as like a community care based model of transitioning where you go and you meet with your nurse and you say, this is why I'm trans and they just believe you. And it's really nice. Isn't that incredible when people just believe
Emotional Impact of Transitioning and Family Relationships
00:11:46
Speaker
you? Yeah. And I was really nervous going and I was thinking, you know,
00:11:50
Speaker
I'm gonna say to this person like I don't follow the I don't follow the classic trans narrative of I always knew I always knew I was a boy trapped in a girl's body that's that's never how I felt and actually I worked for a very long time to feel neutral about my body so I was coming in with a with a different story of hey what's it like to be a bi trans guy I don't know I just got here but can I can I have some hormones please and
00:12:20
Speaker
They said, yeah. And so I had some blood tests and they all came back fine and they said, okay, we'll give you some testosterone. And I had my first shot of testosterone on the 24th of December, 2020. Mazel tov. That's great. Thank you. It was a very nice holiday present to myself.
00:12:44
Speaker
And you know the thing is, I think a lot of trans people, we doubt ourselves because we live in a fairly transphobic world and a lot of people do think that trans people don't exist or are faking it or you know, I'm working in psychotherapy and psychotherapy kind of things that we don't exist. So right up until the four days after I had my first shot, I was like, oh God, what if I made this all up? What if I'm not actually trans?
00:13:15
Speaker
And then, I tried to really describe to you, but a deep sense of calm came over me as the tea kicked in, and I just felt like I had put down 30 years of baggage that I did not know I was carrying.
00:13:35
Speaker
That must have been amazing. I mean, amazing is probably an understatement. That must have been phenomenal to experience that kind of calm. Yeah, it was. It was completely phenomenal. And it is the reason I have such a good relationship with my mum at the moment, because she wasn't too sure about the whole non-binary thing. And she was even less sure when I told her that I was going to take hormones, have top surgery. She was kind of like, oh, why would you do that to yourself? You're perfect just as you are.
00:14:04
Speaker
And then she saw how calm I was and she said to me, you've never been like this your entire life. You've never been this calm. I was so wrong. I'm behind you. Like I'm going to join this support group called Transparency that I found.
00:14:21
Speaker
She watched all the documentaries. I had to go home for a funeral and she was like, this is my son, Max. That's lovely. Yeah, it was really nice. She did the homework. Wow.
00:14:36
Speaker
I have to say that I hear a lot of similarities, at least for me, when I fully accepted being bisexual and I got out. It got out like, yeah, I escaped. It was a daring escape. They'll never find the tunnel.
00:14:51
Speaker
But it's this sense of calm, the fear goes away, the not being worried that saying the wrong thing will bring the wrong idea and that you won't fit into this like box that you're trying so desperately to fit into. At least for me, I'm speaking from my experience, I felt constrained by this version of masculinity that you can admit to.
00:15:16
Speaker
having emotions, you can't admit to liking a musical, you can't admit to a lot of things. And then finally just saying, fuck that, and queer, and I don't need to deal with this crap anymore. It was incredibly freeing. Did you find that? I mean, the calm, did you find that freedom too? Did you feel that? Yeah, I think I really did. And my experience is obviously very different to yours. I grew up queer.
00:15:46
Speaker
And I was trying to escape a box of femininity that didn't work for me. And also quite nervous to go into masculinity because I've had a lot of negative experiences with masculinity and with men in my life. So I was stuck in this liminal space of I want to get out of this thing that I'm not, but I'm a little bit scared of where I'm going.
00:16:12
Speaker
and I felt the calmness about, I guess, my internal world, and I'm still figuring out the rest.
00:16:20
Speaker
but transitioning has allowed me some space to think about what kind of masculinity I personally want. Who do I look up to? Who do I want to emulate? And I'm really lucky that I have some really nice men in my life, some really queer men, some men that do like musicals. And yeah, I feel a lot freer. And additionally, I've now discovered a few extra boxes that I would like to get out of.
Masculinity and Body Image During Transition
00:16:51
Speaker
really okay i want to get to the masculinity part but i'm intrigued by the extra bonus boxes so what do you mean by that i think the extra bonus boxes are really about the masculinity because you don't see an awful lot of um femme trans guys i
00:17:10
Speaker
I know that there was a contestant on the last RuPaul's Drag Race who is a femme trans guy and I love that for him and I saw something that he said about delaying his transition because he didn't feel manly enough and then seeing that he was actually surrounded by all of these extremely femme men and if they could do that then so could he and I guess that's how I feel but I'm
00:17:35
Speaker
I'm on a waiting list for surgery and I'm sort of thinking like I'm finding myself in some spirally thoughts about oh but my body is not a man's body yet so I'm trying to I'm trying to like catch myself on that one because it is a man's body yes of course definitely I'm in it yeah and that makes it that makes it male yeah um it is
00:18:05
Speaker
interesting how masculinity, at least the way that I've felt it, is a kind of like role that makes you question yourself almost like with an edge, right? For sure. Especially with regards to like space, right? Like how much space do I want to take up? Where are my edges? Yeah, yeah. And it feels like it's not a
00:18:35
Speaker
It's almost like a competitive criticism, as opposed to a self-doubting or breaking down. Like, are you man enough? Are you macho enough? How about the guy next to you? Have you punched him yet? What's going on? Can you chew nails? There's this weird competitiveness and this maybe a tinge of anger, too, depending on how it's been. But I always feel like this edge to the way that self-talk goes with masculinity.
00:19:04
Speaker
for sure I relate to this like testosterone makes you super muscly sometimes and it is making me super muscly but I'm like am I muscly enough? Am I strong enough? And I do find like I'm comparing myself to men in a way that I never have done because I've never had that option really.
00:19:25
Speaker
It's interesting that you mention anger, and it's something that I think people worry about before they take tea. Is testosterone going to make me unstable? Is it going to change my moods? Am I going to feel angry? And overwhelmingly, in my experience personally, and from talking to other trans guys, no, the opposite is in fact true. If anything, I actually have more access to more emotions than I've ever had before because I'm not trying to repress everything all the time.
00:19:55
Speaker
I'm also in the menopause because testosterone suppresses your estrogen. So I have little, I have little wibbles and sometimes I cry at kittens and you know, that's, that's chill. That's chill. That's totally fine. It's fine to be showing a picture of kitten in a park and burst into tears.
00:20:14
Speaker
That's incredible to hear that. So you have a lot of swirling things going on at the same time. But you also, from what I'm hearing, have a great support system as well around you. And that's fantastic. That's hard to find in any queer story. So it's really lovely to hear that you're going through that.
00:20:40
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. It's central to my life. I've always really believed in queer family and queer community. It's always something that I've organized around and it's always just been central to my life. I have two amazing partners. They have some amazing partners. I have a web of support that I look at some straight people in my life, the very few of them that there are. And I think to myself,
00:21:09
Speaker
It is sad that you haven't got the same structural support as I do. And I think it's something that queer people can find no matter where they go, really, because you go to any city in the world that is accepting of queerness, and you can find a queer bar, you can find queer rock climbing. We've made it so that we can find each other and connect.
00:21:34
Speaker
And to bring back the point of community, I know that we've spoken outside of here that community is very important to you and you're doing your part to help build and foster community.
Supporting Trans People in Psychotherapy
00:21:47
Speaker
Could you tell me more about that? Yeah, I can actually. So I'm studying to be a psychotherapist at the moment.
00:21:55
Speaker
It's not been easy. There are a lot of negative viewpoints around transness in psychotherapy. It's still considered kind of a pathology, so there's not that many trans therapists around.
00:22:12
Speaker
And I've started volunteering with a helpline called Trans Plus Mindline, and it's a crisis helpline. It's run throughout the UK. And with putting my heads together with some of the coordinators, we've decided to maybe try and pursue funding for a scholarship fund for trans therapy students. The fees in the UK are really expensive.
00:22:39
Speaker
There's a reason that a lot of middle-class white women are therapists, and that is they have access to a lot of time. They have access to enough money to pay for school fees. You have to be in therapy while you're studying to be a therapist, and that costs money. And then you have to pay for supervision when you're in your clinical work to make sure that you're doing proper clinical work. So it all adds up to a lot of money. It's about 15 grand a year. And I...
00:23:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's a big number and it's not money that I have myself. I'm actually crowdfunding my own fees at the moment.
00:23:18
Speaker
But I would like to use the bit of extra time and energy that I have to try and set up some sort of trust or some sort of fund that other trans people that would like to be therapists can access to make their way a little bit easier. Because I certainly wouldn't be where I am now if it wasn't for having a queer therapist who was accepting of my transness. She really allowed me to
00:23:43
Speaker
discover that I am trans and that it's fine to be trans and that this is a process of personal growth and that there isn't anything wrong with me because I feel like this.
00:23:52
Speaker
I love hearing the positivity and just the support that you've had throughout your journey. Maybe some other listeners feel this way too, but for folks like myself who did not have a very good support system going through this and through other things, it's great to hear that it's out there. It's even more lovely to hear that you're extending that to others and you're trying to build that for other folks as well.
00:24:22
Speaker
If somebody wanted to keep up with you and to learn more about this scholarship that you're putting together, where would they be able to find you? Uh, so you can find me on Instagram. My Instagram is, uh, at max for mask underscore.
00:24:39
Speaker
And it's like a transition blog, but I'm about to start updating it with news from the scholarship progression. I'm also going to be looking for other trans people to start doing an interview series about why it might be important to have access to trans therapists for them. So that's all upcoming. Watch the Instagram and there will be updates. It's probably going to come in the form of a YouTube series. Fantastic.
00:25:09
Speaker
Thank you so much, Max. This has been a really wonderful, lovely time. I feel happy, uplifted. I just feel it feels good to hear your story, and I really appreciate you taking the time to share it with me today. I really appreciate this face for putting it out there. I mean, not every trans person has a positive experience, but I really hope that some trans people out there listen to this and think, yeah, I can have a positive experience.
00:25:38
Speaker
Maybe it's not going to be perfect, maybe it's not going to be everything I wanted it to be, but I can definitely find joy and I can definitely find happiness and I can definitely find community that's out there somewhere. Yeah, that's wonderful.
Meet Ash: Inclusivity in the Funeral Industry
00:25:52
Speaker
Now we're going to speak with Ash, who's trying to make the funeral industry more inclusive to queer and trans folks.
00:26:00
Speaker
Hi, Ash. Welcome to Two Bye Guys. Hi. Just jumping right in there like, hi, hello. Yes. How are you? Oh, God. No, that's great. That's what we want. Full contact conversation. For our listeners at home, Ash is a bi trans man living in London. His pronouns are he, him.
00:26:22
Speaker
And today he has been gracious enough to join us for an interview to discuss what it's like to be a bi trans man in the United Kingdom today. So, Ash, it would be accurate to call you a bisexual trans man, yes? Yes, yeah, absolutely. Okay. Since bisexuality is such an interesting label and it comes from different angles for different people, if you could please share how you identify and also what bisexuality means to you and how you came on that label.
Ash's Journey with Bisexuality and Therapy
00:26:53
Speaker
Yeah, so I identified as bisexual. I came out at the age of 14 and bisexual was the word that I knew that described being attracted to the same gender and other genders. And like at that point in time, I didn't know any trans people. There was no kind of
00:27:12
Speaker
representation of any other gender identities, like it was like the 90s. So my understanding was always like, I look at the time I was, I was, you know, I'm doing air quotes here like a woman, and I was attracted to women and men.
00:27:30
Speaker
And then as I've got older, as I've understood my gender identity more, my understanding of bisexuality is that I'm attracted to people of the same gender as me and of other genders. And I think if I was a teenager now, I would probably describe myself as pansexual. But yeah, it's just a word. It's the word that comes easiest to me. And it's the one that I always kind of
00:27:58
Speaker
like used. So that's why I use bisexual. Very cool. So 14, that's an interesting time to come out in the 90s nonetheless. Yeah. So how was your experience coming out as bisexual? It was really interesting. So I remember coming out to my parents and they don't remember me coming out to them. But I think
00:28:24
Speaker
I think that's normal. You're a teenager, you say stuff to your parents. I was a tricky teenager, I admit. I probably just went along with all of the other crap I was doing. I remember coming out to my brother and my brother said to me, you just greedy, you just want to have the best of both worlds. I was like, yeah, I do want to have the best of both worlds.
00:28:48
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, he's my brother is great. And he he was 16. No, yeah, he was 16 at the time. So what else is a 16 year old going to say? But he was really supportive and he was just like, yeah, cool. Do your thing.
00:29:01
Speaker
And I remember, like I had friends that were bisexual at school as well. And, you know, like I was, I was like bullied a little bit and I was always called a dyke and I was, and I don't know if you have this thing over in the States, but like I was kind of like a little bit of a punk and what now I think would be called like emo, but we were called Grebos. So like we were really into like,
00:29:30
Speaker
pop punk and grunge music. Grebo's. Grebo, yeah. There are other people I know in the UK who had that term at the same time when they were at school, but it's weird because I can speak to people who are from the north and they're like, no, we never heard that word.
00:29:49
Speaker
Yeah, so I was called a Grevo and a dyke all the time, which was really annoying because I was like, I'm not a dyke, I'm bisexual and not that there is anything wrong with being a dyke, but that wasn't who I was. Yeah, but it was like I had a really supportive group of friends and for us it was just like, yeah, you just are who you are and you like who you like and why narrow it down? Why
00:30:17
Speaker
why not just kind of do what you feel is right with who you want as long as they want to as well. It's nice to have that kind of support, especially from friends and family. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think it made a huge difference to me. And I think that's why, you know, like I was 14 and I was able to be like, right, this is who I am. I've always been just so sure about my bisexuality. It's just
00:30:41
Speaker
something that just always made total sense to me. Like, why would I not just love whoever for the person that they are and not the gender that they are? I'm there with you, but some people just don't get why that's okay. I don't know. So, all right, fast forward now to today. Living in London. Tell me a bit about yourself. What is your day-to-day? What are you up to?
00:31:11
Speaker
So, yeah, at the moment I'm kind of doing some part-time currently voluntary work in the funeral sector. I was a funeral arranger and now I do kind of like a bit of diversity training for funeral professionals. And I've just embarked on a project with the trans charity GIRES who are the, I think I get this right, Gender Education and Research Society.
00:31:38
Speaker
And we want to create training for funeral directors, celebrants, faith and belief leaders, anybody who cares for people when they've died or people who have bereaved. And we're in the process of like finding funding for that project. So once we get the funding, I'll have a part time job again. But yeah, I mean, I I've got a mental health condition. So I was I was basically off work for like nine or 10 years. I was
00:32:07
Speaker
I was too ill to function. I couldn't do anything, basically. And I kind of got myself to where I am now. I did some volunteering. I volunteered with Stonewall Housing, who are an awesome charity who help LGBT people in the UK find secure housing. And I did some volunteering with Educate and Celebrate, who do, they work with teachers helping to make schools LGBT friendly.
00:32:35
Speaker
So, my whole thing seems to be like, wherever I go, I find the queerness. I'm like, yeah, I'll find this thing. Yeah, and I really enjoyed working as a funeral arranger, but then, you know, anxiety, mental health, you have to just manage it.
00:32:54
Speaker
Sometimes that means taking a step back and sometimes it means taking a step forward. I mean, it seems wherever you go, you're also giving back to the community and helping to make people feel safe and accepted, which is wonderful. It's incredible work. Thank you. But how has it been then managing your mental health and going through that? Because I can imagine it's a little tricky in general on the best of days.
00:33:19
Speaker
Yeah, so I was diagnosed with something called borderline personality disorder, which is now often called emotionally unstable personality disorder. And I think they're now going to change the name again, because all of the names are just so horrible. Yeah, none of those are good names. Yeah, they're awful. It's just like, hi, you've got something wrong with your personality. I was like, fuck off, my personality is fine. And
00:33:45
Speaker
Yeah, so basically what it means is that for me, I struggle with relationships with people, just kind of like friendships, like family relationships. Like I have quite intense emotions and like sometimes to run away from my emotions I would self-harm or I would drink or I would
00:34:06
Speaker
end up in A&E because of overdoses and stuff like that. It's been like a really rocky ride but I've like had some amazing therapy and that's been great. But all through my therapy what was really interesting is that there was every single therapist I've ever had. For some reason they ask about your sexuality and that I don't understand why.
00:34:25
Speaker
And then whenever I've said bisexual, because part of the thing with personality disorders is that you have like, some people can have an unstable sense of them themselves. And like, I would go through phases where I would like dress really kind of like preppy, or then I would go through phases where I dress really kind of punky and I dye my hair all the time and kind of just like figuring out who I am, basically. And a lot of therapists thought that my bisexuality was like,
00:34:53
Speaker
part of that and like I couldn't decide they were like oh so you're basically you can't decide whether you're gay or straight and it's like no I'm bisexual and like there were some therapists that would try to really kind of like dig deep into it and you know so do you think your bisexuality is you know part of your struggles with your and I'm like no fuck off no
00:35:17
Speaker
I am bisexual, that is it. End of story. There's not really much more to say other than I like people of all genders. Yeah, so it's been interesting actually to go through that.
00:35:34
Speaker
It does seem to be a thing that mental health professionals still struggle with, the fact that bisexuality is legitimate in and of itself. It's not a halfway point. It's not half and half. It's not going from one to another. It just, it is, which is also why it's so important to find queer positive, you know, sex positive types of therapists. Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah.
00:35:59
Speaker
I mean, I was really lucky, like the last individual therapist that I had for my borderline personality disorder. She didn't really know a lot about being trans and she didn't really know a lot about sexuality and stuff. I mean, I don't think that I educated her. I think that she went and did a lot of work and then adjusted how she was working with me.
00:36:24
Speaker
And it was really good that she, she, we managed to find this kind of space where she could challenge me sometimes on why I was doing things or why I was saying things or exploring certain things, but without invalidating me. And I don't know how she did it. Like she was a great therapist, but that's a really important thing to be able to sort of, especially when I was exploring my gender identity.
00:36:48
Speaker
And, you know, when you have a mental health condition and you have got like a bit of a, like I did have a really unstable sense of who I was. Um, and then, you know, that ability to kind of gently question like, well, so, you know, what is it about this that feels right as opposed to that and why, and let's explore it without invalidating me and without telling me that I wasn't trans or telling me that I wasn't bisexual. Um, yeah, she was great. And she was an NHS therapist as well. She was absolutely.
00:37:18
Speaker
I cannot fault her at all. Yeah. That's the dream, right? Just having someone there to hold space for you and to understand, but also help you interrogate in a gentle and targeted way. Why? Because
00:37:39
Speaker
Not questioning, but interrogating ourselves is always a healthy thing to do. If we become inflexible, it's like that story of the oak tree and the reed in a storm. If we're unable to bend with the way that the world changes and what we encounter, sometimes we break.
00:37:58
Speaker
I'm a little jealous, a little low-key jealous that you had that kind of space. No, it's fantastic. It really is. It's also hopeful to hear that that kind of experience exists, that you had that kind of support.
Authenticity and Family Acceptance
00:38:12
Speaker
Also, as you're going through the mental health and seeking help for that, you were also
00:38:19
Speaker
interrogating your gender identity. How was that process and how did you end up where you're now, if you don't mind me asking? No, that's fine to ask. I think I was 31 when I started really realizing that I was trans. As a kid, there had been so many moments that I now look back on and I think that makes so much sense.
00:38:48
Speaker
I felt like I was a boy but I didn't have the language to talk about it and because I've always been a really sensitive person, I've always been like really into kind of arts and crafts and like knitting and crochet.
00:39:04
Speaker
I hate sports and all of those really stereotypical kind of like guy things. I just, there was nothing when I was a kid that made me really question my gender identity and the way that I know, you know, there are some kids who you just, they just know from the age of like two or three that they are
00:39:22
Speaker
you know, who they say they are. And that's not what they were assigned when they were born. And that wasn't my experience. You know, it's like, because everybody has completely different experiences of like, you know, you know this. Yeah, so I got to the age of like 31, 32, something like that. It's all been a bit of a blur.
00:39:44
Speaker
And I had a moment, I was on the London Underground. I was going past Angel Station. I was on my way to do some volunteering at Educate and Celebrate. And I just had this like, it was like in a movie, I had this sudden realization. I was like, shit, I...
00:40:05
Speaker
I am trans. And all of these jigsaw pieces kind of fell together. And I was having all of these, oh, so that's why I did that when I was a kid. That's why I did that when I was 15, 16 years old. That's why I feel all of these things. And then for three or four days, I was just in this fog.
00:40:25
Speaker
And I was, and I didn't want it to be true. And I kept thinking, I can't be trans. I can't put my family through me transitioning because they'd, you know, been through a lot with my mental health and kinds of like, I'd been in hospitals before I'd kind of like, um, it's been quite a, like a big deal for the family. And I was just like, I can't put them through that. And I can't put my friends through that. And what if.
00:40:53
Speaker
my family reject me and what if I kind of lose all of my friends. And I sort of sat with it for about six months and I was seeing this, the therapist that I was talking about at the time.
00:41:07
Speaker
And I spoke to her about a lot of it and then kind of like after the six months, I thought, okay, I have to do this. I have to transition. And it was a choice between transitioning and living my life authentically. And I mean, I was quite suicidal at the time and it was a choice of, do I live?
00:41:30
Speaker
as the person that I know I am, or do I try and be this person that everybody thinks I am? And I was like, I can't do that. I can't do that anymore. So yeah, I decided to transition. Yeah, which was
00:41:47
Speaker
the best decision I ever made but it was it was it was hard and at the beginning it was I think it was it was difficult for my family because they'd always always seen me as the person that I was um but now I mean they're incredible they're just really supportive they're you know we have our moments like everybody does but I mean I I'm so grateful every day and even in the times when it was difficult I never I never
00:42:15
Speaker
I never thought that they didn't love me. I always knew that they loved me. I think that that's quite a rare experience and I know how lucky I am because I know so many people have not had that experience. I've been disowned by the families. I know of teenagers that have literally been thrown out of a house and made homeless and turned up at Stonewall housing saying,
00:42:37
Speaker
family have disowned me, I'm living on the street. I'm trans or I'm gay or I'm bi or I'm a lesbian. Absolutely horrific and heartbreaking and I don't know how anyone could do that to their child.
00:42:52
Speaker
No. And I think this is the piece that some folks don't understand, some folks outside looking in, that for many of us, the decision between living authentically, or continuing to hide ourselves, erase ourselves, or conform to a set of ideals that are not ours at all, is without hyperbole killing us. Oh, God, yeah. Yeah.
00:43:21
Speaker
I know that dealing with the masculinity in some of the professions I was in, I was an IT consultant for a long time. And it's surprisingly macho. It's a bunch of hyper nerds trying to make up for the fact that they're hyper nerds. And I myself am a nerd too. I'm not disparaging nerds. I am also a nerd. But because they're nerds, they overcorrect on the masculine side. So it's super bro-y and macho and that kind of experience.
00:43:51
Speaker
it felt more like a game I had to play or a suit I had to wear than it was anything that I myself was. So it was very difficult and you cope.
Exploring Masculinity Through Ballet
00:44:01
Speaker
You cope by, in this case, drinking for me. It didn't hurt that the job itself also entailed a lot of drinking.
00:44:12
Speaker
So it's socially acceptable and expensed alcohol consumption. And so you're like, Oh, no, this is this part of the gig. I'm not hiding pain. I'm not pretending to be something else. I'm not trying to numb myself. I'm just yeah, I'm just you know, being a lad and having some pints and who cares if you black out, you know.
00:44:32
Speaker
Yeah, it's so easy to go there. I have had a similar relationship with alcohol for a long time, and it's almost like, oh, I'm having fun because I feel a bit more like I fit in, or I feel a bit more like I'm a bit more palatable to these people because
00:44:49
Speaker
I'm, yeah, numbing myself so that I can be this person that you think I am. And then when you do kind of come out and you do sort of like take that step away and you, and you really sort of allow yourself to be yourself. I don't know what your experience was, but for me, it felt quite liberating. It was terrifying, but it felt quite liberating to be able to kind of say, no, this is who I am. And then the people that don't get that or the people that
00:45:19
Speaker
kind of try and bring you down or try and invalidate you to be able to say to them, well, okay, I'm done with you now because why would I spend my time around somebody who's trying to make me be the person that I'm not? And then you step away. And then, I mean, I found an incredible community of
00:45:37
Speaker
queer people through irreverent dance who used to, they don't exist now, but they were an LGBTQIA dance group. It was like adult beginner dance classes and I learned ballet while I was transitioning.
00:45:52
Speaker
I don't know how good I was at it. I think I was kind of okay, but I loved it. And that was such a weird thing for me to be exploring this love of, and I'd never been a dancer. I'd never done anything like that. Like I was exploring my love of ballet while exploring my masculinity. And I felt so strong and I felt so confident and like my posture improved and it was hard to do in a binder and I don't advise that.
00:46:22
Speaker
say. And it goes to show that the masculinity can be such a bigger, more open, encompassing existence than the kind of limited version that we have to work around sometimes.
00:46:37
Speaker
Yeah. And when you when you actually kind of like start to pick it apart as well, because I had a conversation with my dad about because I do a lot of crochet. I had this conversation with my dad about crochet a while back. And he was saying that like, in the army in the Navy, the soldiers would be taught how to knit and sew and crochet because they had to repair their own clothes and things like that.
00:46:58
Speaker
And actually during lockdown, he taught himself to knit. And we now have conversations about yarn and it's great. And it's like, and it doesn't, there's nothing about it that feels unmasculine. And I really love that. I think we are moving more towards a world where
00:47:16
Speaker
Guys kind of have and I'm doing little bunny ear quotes again like permission to explore all of that stuff that has been seen as feminine and of course, it's not feminine like it's just because society's got these mad ideas that like there are man things and there are woman things and that you can't do and
00:47:36
Speaker
the other one, if you're not... But it's hilarious how if you go back far enough, you'll see that these things keep flipping. High heels were a very manly thing. Yeah, and pink, the colour pink was for boys because it was like a watered down version of red, which was the colour of war.
00:47:56
Speaker
War and blood, so blood blood light. Yeah, it's crazy how people can like you get some people who get so ingrained in this sort of like you put you you you dressed your two year old boy in pink. How day you're going to confuse him? That's right. Yeah, like you say, go back far enough. And it was the masculine thing. So now you find yourself part of the community giving back. How does it feel, I guess, to be
00:48:25
Speaker
in this part of your journey right now.
Pandemic Delays and Life Planning
00:48:28
Speaker
Um, right now is a weird thing because obviously we've got the pandemic, which I like to call the pandy because it makes it sound less scary. So I, I had this idea that by now I would have had, uh, so I had top surgery a few years back. Um, and it was really affirming and like really kind of like, I felt much more at home in my body and I should have had, um, by the first stage of my lower surgery by now, but
00:48:58
Speaker
because of the pandemic, things kind of stopped. I mean, all surgeries stopped. But the surgeries for trans women and top surgeries for trans men and non-binary people, they have restarted. But the lower surgeries for trans guys hasn't.
00:49:17
Speaker
And so nobody really knew what was going on. The hospital that kind of deal with all the surgeries are not great at communicating with people. And so we're all left in limbo. And we all had a letter, or some of us, I think, had a letter, some didn't, basically that said the NHS has let the contract run out and they haven't renewed it with another hospital. So with a lot of trans healthcare in the UK, it seems to get contracted out to private hospitals or private surgeons.
00:49:48
Speaker
And yeah, in the case of lower surgery for trans guys, I think it might be three surgeons and that's it. There's this one hospital in the UK that does the surgeries and if you go private, it's still the same doctors. It's bizarre really when you look at it. So three people for the entirety of the UK are supposed to handle trans healthcare in that regard?
00:50:12
Speaker
that they're handling lower surgery for trans men. Yeah. That doesn't sound like it scales. No, it's not a lot. I mean, they're supposed to be really amazing, and I think that they train other surgeons, and that's great.
00:50:26
Speaker
But yeah, we need more. We need to be able to get on with our lives. And I know of guys who, because some of the surgeries happen in like three stages or two stages and it's quite major, it takes quite a lot of recovery time. And there are guys who've had their first stage and then the pandemic happened and now this contract hasn't renewed. And I don't even know when it's gonna be renewed. We know nothing, no one's being told.
00:50:55
Speaker
anything. Um, and like, you know, these guys are in limbo with like, you know, they had one stage of their surgery and they're like, well, when, when am I going to get the rest of it done? And I, you know, haven't had any of my lower surgery and in a way I'm glad that I'm not left in limbo, but I also have no idea when it's going to happen. And so you're kind of trying to plan your life. You're trying to plan, you're like, you know, like
00:51:24
Speaker
jobs or like whatever and then thinking what I'm at some point I'm going to have to take at least six weeks off work to recover so it really affects the way you plan your life um yeah but I got a dog so now I'm like like that's that's all I think about now so
00:51:42
Speaker
I think that's the perfect point to end. Yeah. I just have to say that my dog loves this podcast. I put it on when I kind of like put him to bed to kind of calm him down. And he loves it just listening to two by guys chatting away. So yeah. Oh, that's great. I love it. I love it. We need to break into the dog demographic. So thank you for this focus group. Yeah. Oh, so
00:52:09
Speaker
Thank you so much for your time, Ash, today. It has really been a pleasure speaking with you. If people want to find you online or the work that you're doing, where could they do that? Yeah, so I have a website for my funeral guide, which is just queerfuneralguide.co.uk and an Instagram, which is at queerfuneralguide. But I personally don't have any other
00:52:30
Speaker
socials because I am scared of TERFs. I'm scared of being attacked for being trans, so I just don't basically go on Twitter. Yeah. Terrifying. Yeah. Well, thank you, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you, and keep up the good work. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
00:52:57
Speaker
So we interrupt these lovely interviews to talk about shaving our balls again. Support for Two Bye Guys is brought to you by Manscaped, who is the best in men's below the waist grooming champions of the world. Manscaped offers precision engineered tools for your family jewels. Manscaped just launched their fourth generation tripper, the Lawn Mower 4.0. You heard that right, the 4.0.
00:53:25
Speaker
Join over 2 million men worldwide who trust Manscaped with this exclusive offer for you, our loyal listeners, 20% off and free worldwide shipping with the code 2BYGEYS at manscaped.com. So, Gabriel, I used it a little more since we spoke last week. This time I tried
00:53:47
Speaker
shaving the bush. But I didn't completely get rid of everything. I used the little trimming accessory, so I kept a bunch and trimmed a lot. So I'm just going to keep talking about this. I actually found that I was a little nervous to do it because I've never done this before. I've literally never
00:54:06
Speaker
groomed down there and I was like, am I going to take off too much? But I didn't take everything. I kept a decent amount. I trimmed a few inches off and it's great. I liked it. I think I'm going to continue doing this because there's still something there, but it looks more trimmed and neat and
00:54:28
Speaker
not so crazy. So you've gone from 70s Bush, from what I'm hearing, to like a nice sculpted topiary. Yeah, exactly. That's a great way to put it. You'll have to check it out sometime and see if that describes it accurately. I'm buying my plane ticket now, right after this.
00:54:53
Speaker
Have you used it again? Any new experiences? Yes, actually. I will say, funny enough, I'm kind of going the 70s route myself because I've always
00:55:07
Speaker
trimmed up from Miami, like it gets hot down there, you want to have as little hair on the on your body as possible. So now that I'm in a colder region, I'm kind of going the other way, but I still find to clean everything else up because you want it to like, adorn it, you don't want it to overrun everything down there. It's like a compliment. It's not like the main event. But it's been great. Again, like I'm surprised at that light.
00:55:35
Speaker
it's such a silly little thing when you think about it, but it is such a huge difference being able to see what you're doing. Because I know there's been a couple of times where I've had some bad situations. I'm not knowing exactly where I was going. And yeah, that sucks, especially if it's date night. So yeah, that little light has been a fantastic change in my life.
00:55:58
Speaker
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Meet Etienne: Audio Engineering and Identity
00:56:29
Speaker
Finally, we're going to be chatting with Etienne, an audio engineer who moved to the UK to work on film and television. Welcome to Tupac, guys, Etienne. Thank you for being out here. Thanks for asking.
00:56:45
Speaker
Yeah, I've been following you online for a while, and your Twitter presence and the stuff that you've been doing has been really cool, which is why I asked you to be a part. But for the listeners at home, to introduce you, your name is Etienne. You go by the pronouns he, they, correct? That's correct. Okay.
00:57:08
Speaker
How would you identify? I know bisexuality is one of your labels, but what is the whole of you? And also, how did you come to bisexuality as a label? Okay. Well, when asked, I'll tell people that I am a bi-pen polytran, just to make sure I've hit all the
00:57:33
Speaker
relevant information and that all sort of filtered out when I came out as trans which is going back two years ago, just a little over two years ago I came out and it just sort of at that point I stopped being able to suppress
00:57:58
Speaker
other parts of myself that I was concealing. I think when you're in the egg state or when you're in the prior to coming out state as a trans person, I've heard other people describe it this way and it's how it felt to me. It was like I was living down in my shoes or not quite in my body.
00:58:24
Speaker
and nothing and it was a bit impersonal like a lot of things that would offend other people didn't touch the sides it was like i didn't really have the same sense of a personhood that i did afterwards and so when i came out you know like it was like i couldn't be in the closet any kind of closet anymore so i would say that you know realistically i've been you know living as a bisexual person you know well
00:58:54
Speaker
arguably forever, like when I was a little kid, I had crushes on boys and girls, you know? But that, you know, like effectively for the whole time that I was identifying as a lesbian, really I was bisexual and I was just suppressing the side of myself for a few reasons. You know, there was, because I felt this immense social pressure from other lesbian identified people not to date men. And also because I had a great deal of social dysphoria
00:59:22
Speaker
in dates with men because it felt like heterosexuality has more policed gender roles and that in the queer community that's a little bit more fluid so it was easier to be myself and be seen as some sort of a butch, some kind of flavor of butch lesbian than it was to be with a guy and be sort of pushed into this girl box that didn't work for me.
Conforming to Identity Expectations
00:59:46
Speaker
So those two things sort of layered to sort of keep me in the closet all the while that I was in the closet as trans. I was sort of also in the closet as bi. Yeah. So what was that like then when you finally took the opportunity?
01:00:02
Speaker
And I know that feeling, that feeling where you just can't keep it in anymore. You have to. It's detrimental to your health, to your sanity, to keep this boxed in. So how was that experience when you were finally able to come out as trans and bi and be your authentic self?
01:00:24
Speaker
Well it's I think it's uh maybe it's sort of like hormone fueled as well right like it's like sort of supercharged by the fact that I'm also going through my second adolescence so you know I've been on hormones for 18 months and so I'm like that that far into my second adolescence so I kind of went a little like I would say boy crazy just like
01:00:54
Speaker
Just allow myself to start feeling things that I hadn't been allowing for so long that it was just really kind of like a bit of an explosion, you know Yeah, it's nice. I like it. I yeah, I developed a this is sort of like this little running joke between my girlfriend and I Where I'll say I'll say like if we're watching a film or something and there's a character in the film It's a blow or do not blow
01:01:20
Speaker
Blow or do not blow. I mean, it's a bit binary for me, but there you go, you know. I appreciate you enough to blow you. Or not. God, that sounds like a whole dating philosophy. I think people do enough to blow you or not.
01:01:44
Speaker
So I guess since from your accent, of course, you are not native to the United Kingdom. No, indeed. This process of coming out, did it happen here in the UK or did it happen somewhere else? And then you came over to the UK.
01:02:00
Speaker
Well, I guess there's kind of a couple of coming out separated by some years and like the second one was Arguably more momentous because it was you know coming out as trans and bi and poly and
01:02:14
Speaker
sort of all at once. But, you know, I guess I first sort of came out when I was sort of 17 and actually a friend of mine came out to me as gay.
Navigating Coming Out Challenges
01:02:27
Speaker
And then I was like, Oh, that's a thing that you can actually, you know, rather than something that you just see depicted or that you just read about, that's a real thing that people can actually do. And so I was like, yeah, I think I'm gay too. I definitely like girls. Um,
01:02:44
Speaker
Very quickly, it didn't feel like it accommodated me fully, but I just kind of went with it because it seemed to give other people a better way of understanding me that where they would start to treat me more in a way that felt more real to me and it also meant that I could openly date women without You know and be honest to myself about the fact about that kind of attraction
01:03:09
Speaker
But I'd had a lot of boyfriends before that. And then I just kind of stopped and had all the girlfriends and just had what would often happen was I would break up with someone and, and then have sort of hookups because I could do the sex thing with guys, but I just couldn't really do the relationship thing because of the whole not wanting to be made to feel like the girl.
01:03:34
Speaker
That's definitely a whole vibe. I feel that as a fellow bisexual, the fact that sometimes you find yourself avoiding certain relationships or romantic entanglements
01:03:51
Speaker
because of the gender roles associated with it. So I've had some difficulties in that regards to the sex is easier, if that makes sense. I guess for me, that's why I find myself gravitating more towards queer people in general, whatever their gender presentation or identity is, because not everyone, but typically if you're queer or queer identifying,
01:04:20
Speaker
gender roles are a little more fuzzy. They got a little more wiggle room, or they don't exist at all. And you can just treat each other like people and figure it out from there. I mean, what an amazing fucking idea to just treat each other like people and figure it out from there. So when you came out as gay earlier on, where were you? Toronto, high school. Toronto, okay.
01:04:46
Speaker
Did you come out trans when you were already in the UK when you when you yeah 41 41 i've been in the uk for 14 years So i'd already been here for like 12 years or something. I came out Yeah Wow, and and how was that experience? Um coming out of this trans here. Oh, wow. I was a mixed bag Even just at work that was a mixed mixed bag like so I came out in my job um
01:05:16
Speaker
Well, I work freelance, so I hop around. But at the time, I'd been doing a sort of an extended stint on a particular program, sort of well-known British program. And when I came out, it was really like I got some very varied responses. You know, I had a guy who went into a whole spiel at me about how it's mutilation and, uh,
01:05:39
Speaker
and how he said to me really weird. He said to me, oh yeah, well I'd still fuck you. Yeah, cause you'd be really pretty for a boy. I was like, thanks. I had a lot of men tell me that I was just too feminine looking and that I wouldn't be, that I would never be, be able to pass. I had one person who just stopped speaking to me and then was like absolutely cursing my name up and down, swearing up and down, using my dead name, saying that they would never refer to me by my correct,
01:06:07
Speaker
gender and that I was a curse word that's very common here in the UK that we don't use as much in North America. If you're doing this and I was just like, wow, okay, well, cool. I don't know. I just think that's a bit of an asshole filter. The guy who told me he'd still fuck me and that person, I was just like, okay, well, I'll just write you. I'll just scratch your names off the invite list.
01:06:34
Speaker
Yeah, it's I'm sorry you went through that. I guess the upside is that you just don't have to deal with those people anymore. We're not feeling like you could, it's a red flag. You're like, okay, you are not worth my time. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I was like, almost like, thank you. Thank you for making it clear. Because I mean, isn't it more unnerving if there's someone who's saying shit behind your back and you don't even know? Wow.
01:06:58
Speaker
Exactly. To that extent, there were. There was a Facebook group and a WhatsApp group where people were saying all sorts of shit about me. Fortunately, one of my very good friends was in the group, quit the group because it was so offended by the things that were being said. And this is actually quite heartwarming. So a friend of mine, there was this WhatsApp group and it was mostly a bunch of cis guys who were going off at the mouth about me being trans and how much of a problem they had with that.
01:07:25
Speaker
I don't understand. Honestly, I'm like, what the fuck has it got to do with any of you? I've never slept with any of you. I never would sleep with any of you. What has it got to do with you? You were living rent free in their heads. Yeah. Well, they're probably just having some major gay feelings and not knowing what to do with it. So this friend of mine, he actually stopped speaking to a couple of guys in the group who were really, really good mates of him. He's just like, I can't even with you. This is disgusting transphobia. I can't even. And, um, the one guy in particular, well, the one guy, he just like,
01:07:55
Speaker
had a talk with himself and had a think and like came around to a better way of thinking about it. And another guy actually read a book, actually read about trans people. I was moved when I heard that story. And, and so, so there was this big gap with the lockdown wasn't there. So I'd first come out and I'd faced like a lot of misgendering and a lot of sort of weird energy from people.
01:08:22
Speaker
and feeling pretty isolated and pretty vulnerable in it and a bit depressed. And I also was very early on hormones, so nothing had really shifted yet. I didn't have any of that to bolster my confidence. And I was getting a lot of shit at work and getting misgendered like 20 times a day. It was pretty awful.
01:08:42
Speaker
And then I went away and then when I came back, it was much, much better off the back of things like this, this guy reading a book to inform himself and people just like putting in the effort to understand a bit better. So that was really quite moving. But yeah, there's still some people, you know, there's another group of people who started saying that I was only transitioning so that I could go and look at people's cocks in the bathroom, which is just weirdest kind of reverse turf kind of argument that I've ever heard. I've never even heard that from turfs.
01:09:12
Speaker
I'm just weird. Let's be honest, guys, if you've been on the internet any for any moment of time, guys are just throwing their dicks at you like on the internet willy nilly like nobody has to go searching for dicks like you just step out into public and say, Hello, dicks will come. So yeah, oh my god, that makes no sense whatsoever. Yeah.
01:09:35
Speaker
But I'm happy that there were some people that saw reason that educated themselves and tried to remove their own bigotry. And I mean, there are people who are lovely as well. Like, you know, that was the first in that job was the first time I encountered this really, really, like, gorgeous actress who was on the show, who was just really amazing and lovely, who had a lovely connection with anyway. When I came out to her, she just said, congratulations. And she was the first one to do that. And I was like, oh, yeah, that's how
01:10:03
Speaker
That's how you do it. That's how you do it. And so I picked that up. I was like, okay, yeah. So when people come up to me as trans, congratulations, you know, like good for you for living your truth kind of thing. And I was like, yeah, amazing. You know, I think like the standard one is for people to ask you a million questions about surgeries and all this sort of stuff. And it's kind of water off a duck's back, you know, it's like, it's inappropriate. And you wouldn't ask a cis person about their genitals first thing, but it's just kind of water off my back these days, that stuff. How was it in your personal life, your friends and family, when you came out as trans?
Family Dynamics and Acceptance
01:10:34
Speaker
With my friends, mostly it was fine. There were a few little hiccups, people needing to make an adjustment. I had a few people who were sort of like, oh, I don't see this for you. There were a lot of people who said, I do really see this for you, which obviously is really affirming. When someone says, oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Then you're like, oh, just kind of like breathe. I don't have to go into an explanation or defense of who I am again. But there are a few people who are more like, oh,
01:10:59
Speaker
I don't believe you. Not exactly I don't believe you, but oh, I don't see that for you. Are you sure kind of thing? And it's cool. Like you just I just carry on living and eventually they come around kind of thing. So I didn't lose anyone explicitly.
01:11:13
Speaker
with my parents. So my siblings are chill. My brother is a very effeminate gay man. So that was a pretty easy conversation to have. My sister has had two queer siblings for 25 years that she knew about, like out queer siblings for 25 years. So she's like the perfect ally that you would ever want. She's the one who finds the best spots for us to stand. And she's like, I found the perfect,
01:11:41
Speaker
roof for us to stand on to watch Pride. Yeah, my sister's amazing. So that was easy as. In fact, my sister, actually, it's really cute. My sister, she had obviously heard because I wasn't concerned about telling her, so I wasn't in a mad rush either.
01:12:00
Speaker
I rang her up one day with the intention of telling her, but she was upset. So I didn't tell her because we just talked about her thing. And I was like, cool, we'll do this another time. I'm not going to overshadow her whole thing by suddenly coming out of trans, which is pretty momentous in this conversation. So I left it. And then a few days later, having heard from my brother more than likely, she rang me up on FaceTime and she's just grinning down the phone at me. And I'm like, what's up? And she's like, have you got something to tell me?
01:12:29
Speaker
And I just thought that was really cute. Yeah. Oh, that's really lovely and like warm and supportive and nice. Yeah. But with my parents, it was a bit trickier and I did end up sort of cutting them off for a little while because they kind of, they just would not stop dead naming me.
01:12:47
Speaker
And it got to the point where I didn't even want to answer the phone because I knew it was just going to get dead named five, six times in one conversation. And it's just like misgendering. I dislike, you know, like, I don't know, it doesn't feel good. It feels it feels really rotten. But dead naming is orders of magnitude worse for me. I've always really hated the name that I was given at birth and
01:13:09
Speaker
never could identify with it, even when I couldn't fully understand why. I mean, when I was a very small child, I knew I was trans. I told my parents that I was a boy from the age, from as soon as I could speak, I told them. But I always hated the name and couldn't relate to it. And I'd meet other people that had that name and I'd be like, they're nothing like me, but we're nothing the same.
01:13:30
Speaker
Not seeing yourself in your own name is going to be such a struggle, especially when people just, that's all they call you. Yeah, and you just have to hear it all the time and you're just like, what's that weird noise? And people for years were always like, well, why don't you change it? Why don't you change it? And I didn't really have a proper answer. And then when I came out, I was like, it all makes sense. And then when I went through the process of changing my name, I really understood because it's pain in the ass.
01:13:57
Speaker
Yeah, don't make it easy, do that. No, it's changing over all your IDs and that. That's a fucking marathon. It's not a sprint.
01:14:05
Speaker
Yeah. Just doing the basic stuff of just trying to get new IDs is tough enough. I can't even imagine. Yeah, the rigmarole because things are a little interesting in the UK when it comes to trans rights. So I can imagine there have been some frustrations, especially on the bureaucratic end of things with you just trying to live your life.
01:14:29
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it's, it's interesting to try and parse it out because obviously the pandemic has really affected this as well, you know, because, uh, because, you know, little did I know that I was, uh, that I was coming out just before the pandemic. I didn't, you know, obviously none of us knew the pandemic was just about to happen, but that really complicated things because suddenly these sorts of administrative tasks became almost impossible. Like the Portuguese consulate just stopped just, you know, for over a year.
01:14:59
Speaker
And now they're just backlogged all the hell. And the waiting lists are endlessly long. I was able to get my deed poll after the lockdown started pretty quickly. That was pretty easy. That was like the least painful part, took about 15 minutes. And then it took about three days. For the folks that don't know what a deed poll is, could you please explain? So a deed poll is a legal change of name. And it's just sort of like you fill out a declaration that says that you intend to change your name and that you don't want to change it back.
01:15:28
Speaker
And then it goes, you used to be identified as this and now you're going to be identified as that. And for a trans person, it's super handy because you can get it on horrific on there as well. So, so, you know, like mine had dead name, miss dead name, and will be now be known as Mr Etienne. So, you know, very good.
01:15:49
Speaker
And it's a nice first step, you know, like on the ladder of changing everything over. It is the first one that you have to do anyway, but it's relatively easy as far as these things go. So I guess now, I don't want to say post pandemic, but like,
01:16:05
Speaker
in the pseudo open part of like between lockdowns, I guess is the way I could describe the best nowadays. Life seems to be more settled. I guess now things are you're finding a better rhythm. What has been keeping you I guess creatively?
01:16:22
Speaker
Okay. Well, sort of early on, uh, I knew that I wanted to set up a fundraiser for top surgery because the access to care is complex, let's say in the UK. Uh, and the waiting lists are very, very long and I didn't fancy and like wearing a binder is really uncomfortable and people spend years and years in them, but I'd really like to spend as few years as possible because I know what I want. Yeah.
01:16:52
Speaker
pretty straightforward to me. So I wanted to set up a fundraiser and I decided that for this fundraiser I would write a little album, because I have a background in music, but I write a little album. I set myself this task, you know, because here we are, we're all sitting on our asses, you know, at home and I live alone. So it was just like,
01:17:13
Speaker
I got nothing but free time and no interruptions and no distractions. What am I going to do? And so I set myself the task of writing one song per day for seven days. So I wrote this little mini album that was seven songs long. Uh, and, and then I, I give it to people as a thank you who donate to my fundraiser. Um, so that was one little creative project. And then after I had done it and I started seeing what it was like to pedal a fundraiser and gosh, it's pretty soul destroying. Let me tell you.
01:17:43
Speaker
I decided that I wanted to try and help out other people who were in a similar position. I wanted to be able to let people tell their story because it got to be really impersonal. I'd be scrolling through Facebook or Twitter and see like fundraiser after fundraiser after fundraiser and it's just like a picture in a blurb and a picture in a blurb and it reminded me of like Tinder or something where eventually all the profiles start to bleed into one.
01:18:07
Speaker
because they just sort of hit all the same notes over and over again, you know, or like some combination of you get your little bingo card out and it's going to say these things, but it didn't really, to me, they were impersonal because of that, you know, like the fact that they were become so, they begin to follow certain patterns. It makes them, it dehumanizes the actual person who's, and the experience, because I don't think people enter into these things lightly. It's not a frivolous thing.
01:18:35
Speaker
setting up one of these for health care. You do it out of a great need and necessity. And so I wanted to, I sort of conceived of creating an interview show where I would talk to trans and non-binary people who had fundraisers for their care so that they could tell their stories, so that they could talk about what it's like to be trans and why
01:19:02
Speaker
They need money for that, basically. So just as a resource for them, really, so that they could link it. They could say, hey, if you want to hear my story, check out this video kind of thing. And so I did that. Where is that living now? I have a YouTube channel that's dedicated to that called ComeFundMe. My handle on YouTube is e underscore sequin. Or no, that's my Twitter handle, e sequindubs.
01:19:31
Speaker
So how about this, we could find you on Twitter, we could then find your YouTube, yes? Yeah, very good. Yeah, you can go on my Twitter, and you can link to my YouTube there. E-Sequent on E-C-E underscore Sequent, just like the, you know, the little shiny things.
01:19:49
Speaker
And that's great. That really is amazing that you went through the process of going through the crowdfunding and saw this difficulty in it, the inhumanity in it, and then you helped to elevate other voices to kind of prevent that for them. So that's really...
01:20:07
Speaker
Yeah, I needed something to make me feel like I wasn't just sitting on my hands because it just felt like when I was doing something about it, I felt really pushy. And when I wasn't doing something about it, I felt like I wasn't going to get anywhere unless I did something about it. So it just felt kind of gross.
01:20:25
Speaker
And so it gave me something to do a place to channel that energy where I could feel like I could help other people at the same time, which is really, you know, big bonus. And where I'd be able to, yeah, you know, get that sense of momentum. Like I was doing something, you know, like I was having an impact.
01:20:46
Speaker
Well, hopefully we can help carry your story further and continue that impact. Nice one. Yeah, but no, thank you so much for being on the show and sharing your story so candidly. And it really is incredible what you've been through, but then how you're giving back to the community as well. That's a real beautiful thing. Oh, thanks. So thank you for being on Tupac, guys. Oh, pleasure.
01:21:18
Speaker
Two Bye Guys is edited and produced by me, Rob Cohen, and it was created by me and Alex Boyd. Our music is by Ross Mincer, our logo art is by Caitlin Weinman, and we are supported by The Gotham, formerly IFP. Thanks for listening to Two Bye Guys.