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Speaker 1: This podcast has content that may not be appropriate for

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Speaker 1: all audiences. You'll hear about some difficult subjects like substance abuse,

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Speaker 1: suicidal thoughts, childhood, sexual abuse, and sexual assault. Please take care.

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Speaker 1: Last time on Crumbs, I got my one year sobriety chip.

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Speaker 1: I was feeling independent, stable, more and more confident in

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Speaker 1: my new lifestyle, but still I struggled with depression. Sobriety

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Speaker 1: didn't magically give me a new brain or a new body,

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Speaker 1: and I started to focus on that body. I'd always

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Speaker 1: had a tough relationship with it and with my weight,

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Speaker 1: weight up, depression up, weight down, depression down. So last episode,

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Speaker 1: I made a big decision to undergo gastric bypass surgery.

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Speaker 1: But was a lower weight actually what I needed to

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Speaker 1: feel happy and feel like myself? Or did I have

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Speaker 1: to search further underneath the layers of flesh and into

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Speaker 1: my core. Other thing is slowly making its way into

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Speaker 1: my conscious awareness. At the same time, it's something that

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Speaker 1: started to explain my pains with dating, with so many

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Speaker 1: of my challenging relationships, and with my body. It started

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Speaker 1: to explain my drinking and drugging, feeling depressed and not

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Speaker 1: a place something that would grow and grow and eventually

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Speaker 1: would help me feel whole. I'm emmy and this is crumbs.

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Speaker 1: It's to show what the things we settle for and

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Speaker 1: the bits of ourselves that make us who we are.

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Speaker 1: This season my sobriety journey in twelve steps, Step eleven awareness.

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Speaker 1: This episode, I find what's missing as I recover for

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Speaker 1: my surgery. I started losing weight, I'm not hating a lot,

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Speaker 1: and I'm starting to feel better about myself. My clothes

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Speaker 1: is starting to fit me better. Then I have to

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Speaker 1: buy new clothes because my clothes is too big for me,

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Speaker 1: or I'm fitting into old clothes. It was kind of

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Speaker 1: a fun process, the feeling that you have when you

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Speaker 1: put on something that no longer fit you and now

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Speaker 1: fits you big. It's like a hit of something. Yet

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Speaker 1: deep down inside, I'm not really happy because there is

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Speaker 1: something missing and I can't pinpoint it. And the surgery

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Speaker 1: didn't make that go away. So I started taking stock

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Speaker 1: of my life. Was I doing something wrong recovery. Not

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Speaker 1: a lot had changed. I was going to school, I

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Speaker 1: was working full time, I was making good money. Why

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Speaker 1: did I feel this void? After I came home from

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Speaker 1: the hospital. I remember that Cynthia had to come to

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Speaker 1: visit me. I had this memory of her sitting by

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Speaker 1: my bedside, holding my hand, being the matron figure that

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Speaker 1: she was, and she's telling me how proud she is

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Speaker 1: of me. She says, I'm so proud of you. You've

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Speaker 1: come so far in your recovery. Seems like everything's falling

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Speaker 1: into place. The only thing that's missing is you becoming

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Speaker 1: a woman. And that moment, I kind of felt like

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Speaker 1: she was looking at me naked. I felt insulted, I

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Speaker 1: felt offended. There were so many negative thoughts going on

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Speaker 1: in my head, like you're wrong, you're crazy, Like what

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Speaker 1: the fuck are you talking about? She was saying something

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Speaker 1: that kind of felt like blasphemy because it just didn't

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Speaker 1: align with like my quote unquote Catholic upbringing. But at

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Speaker 1: the same time, there was this glimmer of recognition that

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Speaker 1: maybe she wasn't wrong, And I think that's what made

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Speaker 1: me feel insecure and embarrassed, Like she had X ray

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Speaker 1: vision and she was seeing something that she wasn't supposed

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Speaker 1: to see, something that was really private, so private that

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Speaker 1: I didn't even know about it. This memory kind of

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Speaker 1: kept coming back to me over the next few weeks.

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Speaker 1: And honestly, I was really embarrassed. It made me feel

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Speaker 1: very insecure because where does she get this from? I

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Speaker 1: didn't know, but it sort of stayed in my head

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Speaker 1: because truth is, ever since I was a little kid,

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Speaker 1: I had all I wished that I was a girl

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Speaker 1: instead of a boy. However, transitioning was never something that

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Speaker 1: was a thing back then or talked about, so I

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Speaker 1: never really thought about that, and I definitely didn't know

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Speaker 1: that other people knew that I had those thoughts. I

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Speaker 1: think it was something that I shut down because I

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Speaker 1: didn't know how to deal with it. There were times

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Speaker 1: in the past where maybe for Halloween, you know, I

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Speaker 1: had done some drag and that would come up sometimes like,

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Speaker 1: oh my god, I look so pretty. I had maybe

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Speaker 1: some makeup laying around from a Halloween. So one night,

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Speaker 1: on a whim, I took it out of my drawer

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Speaker 1: and started playing with it. I leaned into the mirror

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Speaker 1: and started layering my lashes with mascara, and all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden, my eyes brightened up. They take on a

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Speaker 1: feminine say that they didn't have before. I saw a

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Speaker 1: reflection of something that just gave me joy. When I

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Speaker 1: started doing my mascara, I saw myself in a different way.

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Speaker 1: So if that happened, what happens when I do more?

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Speaker 1: Then I plucked my eyebrows and applied some foundation, eyeliner, blush, lipstick.

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Speaker 1: Then I bought a wig. It was a beautiful, long

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Speaker 1: brown wig, curly hair with blonde highlights. I could identify

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Speaker 1: with what I was looking at, and it scared me.

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Speaker 1: I only knew two trans women in my life. One

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Speaker 1: of them was a hairdresser that I knew when I

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Speaker 1: was younger, and the other one was a woman in

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Speaker 1: the program. It was very strange to start relating to

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Speaker 1: these two women, to think about them because I had

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Speaker 1: heard comments that people had made of them. I had

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Speaker 1: experienced some transphobia in the rooms of recovery with that

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Speaker 1: other woman who is trans, because when I first met her,

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Speaker 1: I didn't know that she was trans until she opened

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Speaker 1: her mouth she said something and her voice was just different.

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Speaker 1: So I became curious, and so I was going to

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Speaker 1: ask one of my friends in recovery is she and

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Speaker 1: then he's like a real woman, no girl, And it

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Speaker 1: felt very aggressive, transphobic, even though at the time I

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Speaker 1: didn't identify with that woman. I was pretty off put

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Speaker 1: by that comment, and obviously it stayed with me. Then

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Speaker 1: I had another friend who I knew from recovery, who

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Speaker 1: was straight. He confided in me that he came to

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles one day and he met a beautiful trans woman,

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Speaker 1: and so he had hooked up with her. And this

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Speaker 1: trans woman would come and visit him every weekend. She

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Speaker 1: would drive from Los Angeles to San Diego and spend

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Speaker 1: the night with him. So I felt like he was

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Speaker 1: a safe person to go to about this new identity.

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Speaker 1: So one day I got up the courage to take

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Speaker 1: a picture all done up here and me, and I

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Speaker 1: sent it to him and he replied, dude, you make

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Speaker 1: such an ugly female hahaha. I think he thought it

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Speaker 1: was a joke. He didn't realize that I was kind

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Speaker 1: of coming out to him, and that's stung. But in reality,

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Speaker 1: I was mesmerized by that picture. I couldn't believe that

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Speaker 1: that was me. I was into it. I remember just

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Speaker 1: staring at the picture and feeling like, Wow, I can't

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Speaker 1: believe that's me. Nothing had ever really fit before. Think

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Speaker 1: about this, like being gay. I wasn't attracted to gay man.

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Speaker 1: If you think about George, George was very masculine. If

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Speaker 1: I would have met him out of public before knowing him,

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Speaker 1: I would have never thought he was gay. And I

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Speaker 1: didn't really connect or have relationships with gay men. I

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Speaker 1: only called myself gay because that's what people told me

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Speaker 1: that I was, because I liked men. I didn't know

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Speaker 1: there was something else because back then times were so different.

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Speaker 1: It was not something I'd seen in the media or

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Speaker 1: seen as acceptable. I was sort of just going on

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Speaker 1: instinct on what felt good. Being sober, my mind was

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Speaker 1: cleared up to kind of start exploring with this stuff,

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Speaker 1: and I started shaving my legs. Then I started ordering

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Speaker 1: women's clothes. I started with jeans, then boots, with a

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Speaker 1: little bit of a heel and maybe a little bit

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Speaker 1: of eyeliner. My first perfume was Maya Carey's Butterfly perfume.

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Speaker 1: I went to the store and I just tried different fragrances.

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Speaker 1: So I picked something that was fresh, feminine, floral, that

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Speaker 1: felt like me. So I started doing what was called

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Speaker 1: part timing, or at least that's what we call it betan.

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Speaker 1: During the week at work, you present male, and then

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Speaker 1: on the weekends you dress up and go out as

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Speaker 1: a female. I was doing a lot of research on

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Speaker 1: what transgender was, and I was exploring a lot. So

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Speaker 1: then I started wearing eyeliner torque. It was scared, and

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Speaker 1: I was nervous because I worked in this Hispanic center

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Speaker 1: at the phone company, where there's the machismo, and like

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Speaker 1: the gender rules are so strong and culturally, it just

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Speaker 1: didn't feel right to just go bang full force. I

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Speaker 1: was already loved by a lot of people in the office,

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Speaker 1: and so I kind of had to prep because I

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Speaker 1: really thought that I was going to lose everyone's friendship.

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Speaker 1: I don't think I talked about wearing eyeliner to anyone.

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Speaker 1: I just showed up with eyeliner. It was a very

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Speaker 1: gradual process, like first the eyeliner, then women's genes, and

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Speaker 1: then like a little bit of a booty with the heel.

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Speaker 1: But wearing the eyeliner was nerve wracking, of course. Walking

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Speaker 1: into the building, walking to my cubicle, I felt like

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Speaker 1: all eyes were on me, but they weren't nobody bad

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Speaker 1: an e. It was like I was easing my way

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Speaker 1: into the feminine more than I already was. In some ways,

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Speaker 1: it felt freeing, like I was shedding old layers that

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Speaker 1: didn't fit me. And finding new stuff underneath and letting

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Speaker 1: these new layers grow. But it was also a very

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Speaker 1: lonely process. I didn't have someone to call and say,

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Speaker 1: how do you do this? Guide me through this. I

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Speaker 1: was always interested in fashion, both for myself and for

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Speaker 1: the women in my life. Remember I started working at

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Speaker 1: Macy's when I was eighteen and loved shopping and in rehab.

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Speaker 1: I was obsessed with putting together my own outfits and

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Speaker 1: with giving my female friends makeovers. It was always one

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Speaker 1: of my favorite ways to make friends, and I was

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Speaker 1: always drawn to women with good style. I had a

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Speaker 1: friend Carolina, who was super fashionable, and I used her

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Speaker 1: as inspo when I styled other friends or my sister Andrea.

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Speaker 1: I was soopted from a very early age from Amilicha

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Speaker 1: that how you dress is really important. She was so

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Speaker 1: particular about the clothes that she wore every single day

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Speaker 1: and what I wore to as a kid. It was

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Speaker 1: about self expression, wearing things that made her happy, but

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Speaker 1: also wearing things that showed the world how she felt

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Speaker 1: about herself. And I practiced out my whole life now.

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Speaker 1: As I was trying to find women's clothing that felt

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Speaker 1: like me, I think I felt a lot of pressure

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Speaker 1: to get it right. All to say, I was used

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Speaker 1: to women's fashion, but when I came to myself, I

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Speaker 1: felt onted. I would have wanted to have kind of

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Speaker 1: like a big sister, but I didn't, and I couldn't

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Speaker 1: call my mom. I mean, even if I wanted to

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Speaker 1: call her, I couldn't. But even if I felt really

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Speaker 1: comfortable with a certain group of friends, making that phone

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Speaker 1: call and having that conversation felt like it was going

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Speaker 1: to make it permanent. One of my close friends who

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Speaker 1: was all up on trends and brands, I mimicked her,

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Speaker 1: so I was taking ideas from her without her knowing

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Speaker 1: of makeup of shoes, clothing, but I couldn't talk to

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Speaker 1: her about it. I spent a lot of time with her.

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Speaker 1: We were very close, so naturally I saw a lot

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Speaker 1: of her family on the weekends, and her mom was

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Speaker 1: a very devout Christian. One time she left her a

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Speaker 1: voicemail in which she referred to me as a disoriented

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Speaker 1: person because I presented as a gay male. In hearing that,

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Speaker 1: even if I knew that my friend didn't feel that

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Speaker 1: way about me, just hearing that made me feel alienated,

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Speaker 1: So naturally I didn't feel comfortable talking about this just yet.

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Speaker 1: With this one close friend, I couldn't be vulnerable in

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Speaker 1: this way, so I couldn't turn to her for the

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Speaker 1: help I would have loved to have at the time.

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Speaker 1: By the time I got to being part time, I

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Speaker 1: had already researched about hormones. I had asked the woman

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Speaker 1: in the program that I knew, and she just kind

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Speaker 1: of gave me a very vague answer. She said, oh,

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Speaker 1: you have to write a letter, go to this clinic

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Speaker 1: and they'll help you. That was not very helpful. So

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Speaker 1: hearing that that vague help made me feel even lonelier.

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Speaker 1: It was just enough information to kind of get me

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Speaker 1: into that dark, stary tunnel, but not enough information to

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Speaker 1: know which direction to go. But I did more research

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Speaker 1: and I found the clinic that she told me, and

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Speaker 1: I called them and I asked them. So I made

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Speaker 1: an appointment and I went to see these doctors at

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Speaker 1: this clinic, and when I walked in, all these girls

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Speaker 1: were there, trans girls waiting to be seen by the doctor.

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Speaker 1: And that's when I met my friend, who introduced me

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Speaker 1: to the pink parties. The pink parties, which I talked

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Speaker 1: about a lot in season one. You know, not the

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Speaker 1: greatest setup, but men would come to these parties to

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Speaker 1: try and hook up with trans women. It was kind

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Speaker 1: of seed. I didn't love them. I come home, I shower,

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Speaker 1: I call my friends to see what the plan is.

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Speaker 1: I do my makeup, I do my hair, I got

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Speaker 1: my clothes. I was starting to collect women's clothes, jeans, blouses,

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Speaker 1: and I'm not spending a lot of money on them.

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Speaker 1: I'm buying clothes probably from Marshals or ross one of

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Speaker 1: those places because I don't know yet, like what this

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Speaker 1: is leading to. So I would put on my heels

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Speaker 1: and I'd walk around my apartment just to get used

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Speaker 1: to walking in heels. I had to learn how to

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Speaker 1: walk in heels. So for me, in this moment, when

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Speaker 1: I'm looking at myself in the mirror, as I'm getting ready,

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Speaker 1: as I'm doing my makeup, as I'm shaving my legs,

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Speaker 1: it's like second nature to me, and I realized that

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Speaker 1: that's the thing I'm missing. I think the more and

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Speaker 1: more I did it, the more accepting I was to

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Speaker 1: the idea that maybe I was a trans woman and

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Speaker 1: not just someone who liked to dress up part time

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Speaker 1: on the weekends. This is what is making me feel happy,

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Speaker 1: joyous and free, happy like those women i'd met so

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Speaker 1: long ago at my first twelve step meeting. I'd go

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Speaker 1: to my friend's house she lived with her boyfriend, and

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Speaker 1: we go out to a bar, or to a club,

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Speaker 1: or to a pink party. When I started doing these parties,

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Speaker 1: going to these clubs, I was not tempted at all

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Speaker 1: to walk into a bar and have a drink. I

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Speaker 1: was not triggered for me. It wasn't very difficult to

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Speaker 1: be in that environment. I felt strong. I had a

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Speaker 1: very strong, solid foundation in recovery. The thing that grounded

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Speaker 1: me first in sobriety was the fellowship. What was challenging

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Speaker 1: in terms of sobriety was that I had gotten sober

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Speaker 1: with a group of gay men who had this internalized transphobia,

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Speaker 1: and so not being able to talk to them about

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Speaker 1: this process made me feel even more isolated, more alienated.

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Speaker 1: It was hard. My fear about what they were going

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Speaker 1: to think about me based on comments that they had

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Speaker 1: made about trans women was enough for me to want

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Speaker 1: to leave the fellowship. I felt like I had to

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Speaker 1: kind of step away from my twelve step program, and

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Speaker 1: I did, and so I shared at a different twelve

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Speaker 1: step fellowship, and I felt like they were less judgmental,

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Speaker 1: so I switched to that fellowship to continue my transition process.

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Speaker 1: Leaving a fellowship where you feel very connected to people

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Speaker 1: is a very difficult thing to do, even at a

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Speaker 1: year sober, but at the time it was the right

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Speaker 1: thing for me to do. I was still very active

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Speaker 1: in the program, so going into a bar or a

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Speaker 1: club was like whatever, diet coax all the way. I'm

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Speaker 1: just kind of people watching, talking to people. And we

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Speaker 1: were going to these clubs with other trans girls, girls

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Speaker 1: that were further along in their process than we were.

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Speaker 1: She and I had just pretty much started this transition

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Speaker 1: around the same time, and these girls were I mean,

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Speaker 1: they looked like barbies. They were done up, they had surgeries,

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Speaker 1: they were wearing their real hair. Those were goals for us.

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Speaker 1: In June of two thousand and nine, I looked into

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Speaker 1: changing my name legally. If I would have never transitioned,

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Speaker 1: would I be happy? Probably not, because I probably wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have the ability to connect with others in the same

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Speaker 1: way that I'm able to connect with them today. I

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Speaker 1: feel like I wouldn't have been my authentic self transitioning

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Speaker 1: for me was a way to feel whole. I feel

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Speaker 1: like I couldn't have transitioned if I wouldn't have gotten sober.

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Speaker 1: I don't think I could really even see myself if

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Speaker 1: my vision was always blurry. That doesn't mean I could

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Speaker 1: always see clearly. Recovery has given me so much, but

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Speaker 1: it definitely hasn't given me all of the answers. It's

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Speaker 1: given me tools when there's a bump in the road,

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Speaker 1: or when my wheels aren't straight, or when things shatter

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Speaker 1: into a million pieces, I have really useful tools next

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Speaker 1: time on crumbs. I'm ready to use these tools to

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Speaker 1: help other people too, But what if the tools are

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Speaker 1: out of reach? Hey, listeners, there's a lot of difficult

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Speaker 1: subjects that we cover in this show. If you are

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Speaker 1: someone you know needs help, you can reach the Substance

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Speaker 1: Abuse and Mental Health Services Hotline at one eight hundred

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Speaker 1: sixty sixty two four to three five seven. They'll connect

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Speaker 1: you with information and resources on treatment. There's also the

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Speaker 1: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at TWE eight hundred two seven

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Speaker 1: three TA l K. Both are available twenty four seven.

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Speaker 1: You don't have to be in crisis to reach out either.

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Speaker 1: They're available to anyone who needs help. You can also

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Speaker 1: reach the National Sexual Assault Hotline twenty four to seven

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Speaker 1: at one eight hundred six five six four six seven three.

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Speaker 1: Crumbs is a Somoto production in partnership with Iheartsmiko, Thura

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Speaker 1: Network and Trojan Horse Media. It's produced by Margaret Catcher

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Speaker 1: and Patime Ragunath and edited by Rodrigo Crespo. Original music

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Speaker 1: by Dee Peter Schmidt and engineering by Manuel Barra, Studio,

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Speaker 1: Recording by JTV Recording and Podcasting Studio. Executive produced by

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Speaker 1: Connor Byrne and jessav And Says for iHeart, Alex Filmeto,

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Schutzo and Margaret Catcher. For Trojan Horse, Camilla Vittriano,

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Speaker 1: Joshua Weinstein, fer Sonoro and me emmiolea special things to

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Speaker 1: Marina Cornella. Listen to Crumbs on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.