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