Speaker 1: Pushkin m and so I picked Penelope up, basically picked
Speaker 1: myself up, and moved moved us into Penelope's room. When
Speaker 1: we sat on the floor cross legged, and I looked
Speaker 1: into Penelope's eyes and I asked this question, what's really wrong, baby?
Speaker 1: Why are you so angry? Just that? What's wrong? And
Speaker 1: why are you so angry? And it was it was
Speaker 1: a million dollar question. Penelope opened up in a way
Speaker 1: I'd not seen ever, eyes filled with tears, and Penelope
Speaker 1: said the most like phenomenal words I'd never even considered. Mama.
Speaker 1: Everyone thinks I'm a girl, and I'm not. I am
Speaker 1: a boy. Jody Patterson remembers sitting there on the ground
Speaker 1: with Penelope, who was just shy if three years old
Speaker 1: at the time. Jody was filled with a mix of emotions,
Speaker 1: grateful that her child felt comfortable sharing his true gender
Speaker 1: identity with her, but also fearful of all the unknowns
Speaker 1: and changes that lay ahead for her son. What Jody
Speaker 1: didn't anticipate, however, were the changes she would undergo as well.
Speaker 1: If my daughter was actually my son, what else in
Speaker 1: the world don't I know? It felt like there's a
Speaker 1: lot that I had not learned and so I went
Speaker 1: on to quest to learn more, and that learning not
Speaker 1: only gave me insight to my son and to the
Speaker 1: millions of trans people that exist, but also to myself.
Speaker 1: On Today Show, a mother discovers herself after her son
Speaker 1: shows her how I'm maya Shunker and this is a
Speaker 1: slight change of plans, A show about who we are
Speaker 1: and who we become in the face of a big change.
Speaker 1: Jody Patterson grew up on New York's Upper West Side
Speaker 1: in a family of black activists. Doctor Martin Luther King
Speaker 1: Junior named Jody's grandmother Miss Revolution for her work in
Speaker 1: the segregated South. Jody's uncle was a legendary poet and musician,
Speaker 1: Gil Scott Heron. Her father started the first black brokerage
Speaker 1: firm on Wall Street, and her mother opened a private
Speaker 1: school for black families in Harlem. Jody was surrounded from
Speaker 1: an early age by people who pushed against the status quo,
Speaker 1: and she was eager to pass that ethos on to
Speaker 1: her own children. Today, Jodie's mom to five kids, but
Speaker 1: we started our conversation by talking about what life was
Speaker 1: like for her. Just before Penelope, who now goes by Pinell,
Speaker 1: arrived on the scene. Jodie had two little kids already,
Speaker 1: a boy and a girl, and on paper, at least,
Speaker 1: her life was filling up with all of the things
Speaker 1: she had hoped for. We were living in the heart
Speaker 1: of New York City, in the Soho right the heart
Speaker 1: of the heart of the world. We had a lot
Speaker 1: of resources, a lot of love, we had beautiful home,
Speaker 1: We traveled a lot, and at the same time it
Speaker 1: was a really confusing time, really confusing time for me.
Speaker 1: I didn't know enough, not nearly enough. Yeah, what did
Speaker 1: you feel you didn't know enough about? Probably myself. I
Speaker 1: was still feeling unaccomplished, unsure, not quite satiated, like there
Speaker 1: was just a want for more and I couldn't put
Speaker 1: my hand on it. It definitely was not lack of love,
Speaker 1: but I still couldn't figure out why, with all of
Speaker 1: this stuff that we had beautiful, healthy children, beautiful access
Speaker 1: to the world, beautiful home, why I was feeling not
Speaker 1: quite full. When you first found out that you were
Speaker 1: pregnant with Canell, what dreams did you have for your baby? Well, I,
Speaker 1: from when I was a kid, I always wanted to
Speaker 1: be a mother. The three things I wanted to be
Speaker 1: were a mother, a businesswoman in a suit and a teacher.
Speaker 1: So having children was something that I've always wanted, and
Speaker 1: I was so excited to be pregnant for the third time.
Speaker 1: I was also thinking, Gosh, you're already so blessed, maybe
Speaker 1: maybe there are no more blessings coming. So I was
Speaker 1: fearful that this wouldn't be a perfect baby. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: it's one of those things I always think of, how
Speaker 1: can I be blessed again? How can God give me
Speaker 1: one more blessing? And so I'm always I was very
Speaker 1: nervous around that. And then I was excited because I
Speaker 1: really loved the two children I had, and I was
Speaker 1: expecting this one to be just as freaking phenomenal. So
Speaker 1: the biggest feeling was excitement. I would have to say,
Speaker 1: and the doctor tells you that you're having a girl, right,
Speaker 1: do you have any visions of what that would look like? Oh?
Speaker 1: I was so excited. You know, I come from four girls,
Speaker 1: or four of us, so I have three sisters and
Speaker 1: my mom has sisters, and I just love the women
Speaker 1: in our family. I was so excited to have a girl.
Speaker 1: I had all these girl names. Big sister Georgia was excited,
Speaker 1: sort of to have a sister a little jealous, She's like,
Speaker 1: you know, this could ruin my whole princess thing. But
Speaker 1: this just the idea of all the rituals that we
Speaker 1: would be doing together. We did a lot of hair
Speaker 1: rituals in my family. We did a lot of quiet
Speaker 1: private time with just the girls and the women in
Speaker 1: my family. We have a lot of auntie celebrations with
Speaker 1: just women. So there was like this real anticipation of
Speaker 1: raising and spending time with and building up another strong,
Speaker 1: confident woman because I think the world needs more of that.
Speaker 1: And so this was like, not only was I going
Speaker 1: to have another blessing in the family, but like another
Speaker 1: gift to the world, Right, That's what I was thinking of. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't long before you realize that Kennel was different
Speaker 1: from your other kids. When was the first time you
Speaker 1: realize that that's something? So, you know, once we got
Speaker 1: home and brought baby Penelope home, Penelope was just bubbly,
Speaker 1: I mean, tons of smiles. Sometimes we'd you know, panel
Speaker 1: would crawl up onto the dishwasher and like sit inside
Speaker 1: the dishwasher. There was just Penelope was so phenomenal as
Speaker 1: a baby. Everything you would want to see moving and
Speaker 1: physical and smiley and inquisitive even as a little child.
Speaker 1: But I think the first time when I started to
Speaker 1: see that there was a energy and Penell that was
Speaker 1: not settled was around the first birthday. You know, you're
Speaker 1: you're trying to learn so much about your kid in
Speaker 1: the beginning, your baby in the beginning. But by birthday
Speaker 1: number one, I knew something was different. You know, Penelope
Speaker 1: was not comfortable with physical touch. So even putting on
Speaker 1: a diaper needed two parents. I'd have to just like
Speaker 1: call in for backup. We'd have to have people hold
Speaker 1: the baby down so that Mama myself could put the
Speaker 1: diaper on. Penelope was not a certain point, became less
Speaker 1: snuggly with me. Penelope would push me away and say, no, Mama, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not talking to you, which mean I'm not talking
Speaker 1: to you. Penelle wanted to be abound big brother and
Speaker 1: dad way more than me, and I was not used
Speaker 1: to that. All my kids are really snuggly with me
Speaker 1: in the beginning, and so Penelope was rejecting mama, rejecting
Speaker 1: mama's touch, And then it became a little bit more
Speaker 1: layered than that. It would be rejecting dresses, rejecting hair brushing,
Speaker 1: rejecting certain shoes, rejecting toothbrushes. Penelope never wanted to use
Speaker 1: Penelope's toothbrush. Penelope wanted to use big brother's toothbrush. Same
Speaker 1: thing with dips, shirts, jeans. So we had this toddler
Speaker 1: running around the house with big brothers clothes draping off
Speaker 1: of baby Penelope, and it was the only those are
Speaker 1: the only things that could make a Penelope happy. There
Speaker 1: was nothing that would see the Penelope more than putting
Speaker 1: on big brothers T shirt. And then eventually, by the
Speaker 1: second year of Penelope was a bully at home and
Speaker 1: at the playground, so pushing siblings around, pushing kids at
Speaker 1: the playground, stomping, screaming. We did a whole year of
Speaker 1: just screaming, screaming, screaming, then reoccurring nightmares the monster's going
Speaker 1: to get me, mama, Then writing fingernails until the fingers
Speaker 1: are bloody. You know, it was sort of it was
Speaker 1: progressing more so than temper tantrum. You know, when you
Speaker 1: have a mother of multiple temper tantrums don't get you,
Speaker 1: they don't frazzle you too much. But this was much
Speaker 1: more than a temperate tantrum. This was a heavy, heavy child.
Speaker 1: So most of that year, that second year was frustrating.
Speaker 1: We couldn't get out of the house. I couldn't get
Speaker 1: to work, I couldn't get the kids to school. I
Speaker 1: was feeling very frustrated with the way I was mothering.
Speaker 1: I couldn't figure it out. Trying to fix it, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't figure it out. Yeah, you were in problem
Speaker 1: solver mode, right, I said, more nap time, more love,
Speaker 1: more hugs and kisses, more story time. I even talk
Speaker 1: out dairy. I said, maybe it's about the diet. Maybe
Speaker 1: this is all just a dairy allergy. Anything that I
Speaker 1: could think of, everything that my mom did that I
Speaker 1: thought was great parenting, everything that my grandmother did that
Speaker 1: I thought was great parenting, and nothing was working. So
Speaker 1: I was I was angry. Yeah, yeah, no, I completely
Speaker 1: understand that, and I would just feel so defeated, you know,
Speaker 1: because you were so experimental with your approaches. At some
Speaker 1: point you realize that while you're able to pacify Penell
Speaker 1: at times and force obedience at other times, there's perhaps
Speaker 1: something deeper going on, because Penell still seems so troubled
Speaker 1: day to day, right, And so there's this one night
Speaker 1: where you decide to engage differently, where you carve out
Speaker 1: some one on one time. It was this summer, the
Speaker 1: end of the summer, and you know, Penelope was just horrendous,
Speaker 1: knocking over things, pushing big brother, screaming, and so I
Speaker 1: picked Penelope up, basically picked myself up, and moved us
Speaker 1: into Penelope's room. When we sat on the floor cross legged,
Speaker 1: and I looked into Penelope's eyes and I asked this question,
Speaker 1: what's really wrong baby? Why are you so angry? Just that?
Speaker 1: What's wrong? Why are you so angry? And it was
Speaker 1: it was a million dollar question. Penellope opened up in
Speaker 1: a way I had not seen ever, eyes filled with tears,
Speaker 1: and Penelope said the most like phenomenal words I had
Speaker 1: never even considered. Mama, everyone thinks I'm a girl and
Speaker 1: I'm not. I am a boy. And what was your
Speaker 1: initial response to that? No words? I really thought Penelle
Speaker 1: was gonna say, I hate you, the stupid family. I
Speaker 1: you know, this sucks, something like very typical of a
Speaker 1: three year old, almost three year old. But when Penelope
Speaker 1: said I am not a girl, I'm a boy, Wow,
Speaker 1: I just, you know, kind of stumble the way I'm
Speaker 1: stumbling now. I did not know what that meant. And
Speaker 1: then I quickly try to pull some things out of
Speaker 1: the mother rolodex because I have great mothers to rely on,
Speaker 1: So go into my mother rolodex and I'd think, oh, oh, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: she this is my thought. She is a feminist, she
Speaker 1: is tough, she wants to be seen like her brothers. Oh,
Speaker 1: I get it. She's like, she's going to be maybe
Speaker 1: a lawyer. These are the things I'm thinking. Literally, in
Speaker 1: split seconds, I thought that, in those split seconds, that
Speaker 1: I was dealing with a girl who wanted to be
Speaker 1: seen as tough, a girl who recognized the inequality in
Speaker 1: this world and didn't want to have second best, wanted
Speaker 1: to be seen as lead character. And so I, you know,
Speaker 1: almost like raised the fist in solidarity with this girl
Speaker 1: that I thought I was looking at. And you said
Speaker 1: that you felt this was a parenting failure. Can you
Speaker 1: say more about that? I grew up with great stories
Speaker 1: of great women, Shirley Chisholm, Billy Jean King, Nina Simone,
Speaker 1: my Angelou was our neighbor, and those stories of those
Speaker 1: women helped me to be this woman. And those stories
Speaker 1: are part of my story, and so I was really
Speaker 1: excited to have my daughters raised around powerful women. And
Speaker 1: so I thought, oh shit, did I not tell the
Speaker 1: Shirley Chisholm story to Penelope? Did I not raise this
Speaker 1: kid on all of the strong, bold women that have
Speaker 1: changed America for the better. And I was thinking, Oh,
Speaker 1: maybe I didn't tell enough of the stories of women
Speaker 1: and aunties and that female perspective that is so important,
Speaker 1: that female energy. You know, I thought I had dropped
Speaker 1: the ball on feminism and therefore this girl didn't want
Speaker 1: to be a girl. And I was also thinking of
Speaker 1: it from a self centered perspective, as most of us do. Right,
Speaker 1: It's also like very typical. This is something to do
Speaker 1: with me. What Pannella is saying about him? Is it
Speaker 1: really about me? So when Pannell says I don't want
Speaker 1: to be a woman, I'm not thinking what did I
Speaker 1: do to set up this child? Why does he not
Speaker 1: want to be? Like? Don't you want to be like me? Exactly?
Speaker 1: I thought my life was pretty darn good as a
Speaker 1: black woman. You know a lot of people think differently,
Speaker 1: Like they don't know, maybe maybe folks think that black
Speaker 1: woman is bottom of the barrel. I'm actually and the
Speaker 1: women in my family actually think of it as the epitome.
Speaker 1: We want to be black women, we are excited to
Speaker 1: be black women. And so when this black child said
Speaker 1: I'm not a girl and I don't want to be
Speaker 1: a woman, I thought I had failed. And I said,
Speaker 1: you know, however you feel inside, baby, it's fine if
Speaker 1: you feel like your brothers, go ahead and act like
Speaker 1: your brothers. And so I said, look, you know you're
Speaker 1: perfect the way you are. Your body is perfect, you
Speaker 1: are phenomenal. And that that that language was absolutely not
Speaker 1: landing well on Penelope. When I said your body is
Speaker 1: perfect and you are perfect, and I love you just
Speaker 1: as you are, he looked at me again with this
Speaker 1: anger because I wasn't getting it, you know, when someone
Speaker 1: doesn't see you and you're trying so hard to explain
Speaker 1: yourself to them. He gave me one more shot and
Speaker 1: he said, Mama, no, I don't feel like a boy.
Speaker 1: I am a boy. And that was the last that was,
Speaker 1: you know, that was I had to get it on
Speaker 1: that point. I had to get it to not get
Speaker 1: it at that and that moment would have been so
Speaker 1: many backward steps. In that moment when he said I
Speaker 1: don't feel like a boy. I am a boy. What
Speaker 1: I did know was that we were talking about something
Speaker 1: more than an emotion. It was an identity that we
Speaker 1: were talking about. And so once Penelope said I don't
Speaker 1: feel like a boy, I am a boy, I really
Speaker 1: just listened for a long time. We must have been
Speaker 1: in that room for about an hour or so, and
Speaker 1: Panelle really just told me about how he saw life,
Speaker 1: how he felt inside, what he was experiencing, none of
Speaker 1: which I knew. He said, Mama, I love you, but
Speaker 1: I don't want to be you. I want to be Papa.
Speaker 1: He said, I don't want tomorrow to come because tomorrow
Speaker 1: I will look like you. I want a doctor to
Speaker 1: make me a peanut. Mama, Can a doctor make me
Speaker 1: a peanut? Here's a kid who was very aware his
Speaker 1: body at that time was the culprit. At that moment,
Speaker 1: at almost three, Panel's body was the enemy. And I
Speaker 1: understood how deep that was, and I understood how painful
Speaker 1: that must feel. But he was confiding in me, which
Speaker 1: was the most beautiful thing and most courageous thing. He
Speaker 1: confided in me, and he said, will you helped me, Mama?
Speaker 1: And I said yes, saying yes was a yes, an
Speaker 1: overarching yes. It wasn't yes to any one particular next step,
Speaker 1: because I didn't know what the hell, what the hell
Speaker 1: were the next steps? But I was saying yes to him,
Speaker 1: Yes to his life. Yeah. Yeah. When we were talking.
Speaker 1: When I was listening to him, there was a river
Speaker 1: behind us, and it was moving with such depth, and
Speaker 1: the force of the river that I could hear felt
Speaker 1: like the urgency of the life in front of me.
Speaker 1: It was a connection that I'll never forget. And Penelope
Speaker 1: talking about his life, it was, it was happening. It
Speaker 1: wasn't like I could stop Penelope being who he was.
Speaker 1: It was in motion, and he needed me to be
Speaker 1: with him in motion. And then it struck something in
Speaker 1: me that was so primary that if I had not
Speaker 1: said ye, as tip Penelope, I would have been saying
Speaker 1: no to even myself. That that moment when your child
Speaker 1: is you is life and there's no half stepping. You
Speaker 1: just gotta go all the way. You cannot tiptoe. And
Speaker 1: so I jumped in, We'll be right back with a
Speaker 1: flight change of plans. I'm talking with Jody Patterson, a
Speaker 1: mother activist and author of the book The Bold World
Speaker 1: and memoir of family and transformation. Her son Pannell, came
Speaker 1: out to Jody as transgender more than a decade ago,
Speaker 1: when he was nearly three years old. I wanted to
Speaker 1: know what the days and weeks were like for Jody
Speaker 1: after that pivotal moment with Pannell. There's so much crying
Speaker 1: that is that comes with this, Like when you raise
Speaker 1: a kid who's different, the NonStop angst of a parent
Speaker 1: is real. So I was, you know, spending a lot
Speaker 1: of time on the couch crying, spending a lot of
Speaker 1: time in the bed crying, and it was getting to
Speaker 1: the point where it was overriding other things, overriding my
Speaker 1: ability to be there for all the children, be there
Speaker 1: for my husband, be there for the daily tasks that
Speaker 1: needed to get done. And so one day I was
Speaker 1: sitting on this couch, on my couch just crying, I
Speaker 1: mean like really sobbing, curled up. Then of all, the
Speaker 1: kids were at school, and my my sister friend, who
Speaker 1: was like an auntie to the children, was sitting on
Speaker 1: the couch next to me, and she usually just let
Speaker 1: me do what I you know, needed to do, which
Speaker 1: was cry, But this one day in particular, she just
Speaker 1: looked at me, calmly and quietly but very clearly said
Speaker 1: to me, you know, Jody, big girls we cry and
Speaker 1: type at the same time, you know. And as I
Speaker 1: looked at her, because it was first of all, I'd
Speaker 1: never heard anything like it, so it wasn't like, you know,
Speaker 1: a catchphrase, big girls cry and type at the same time.
Speaker 1: And it took a second, but she never explained it.
Speaker 1: I just understood it. So it's a phrase that comes
Speaker 1: at a time. It's a South and phrase and it
Speaker 1: probably was, you know, birthed when women were typing on
Speaker 1: typewriters and were asked to do things at the desk,
Speaker 1: assisting people on typewriters. But they were also activists, they
Speaker 1: were also mothers, They were also leaders in their community,
Speaker 1: and they had a lot to be pissed off about,
Speaker 1: a lot to be scared about. And so you have
Speaker 1: to get through the day, but you're gonna cry and
Speaker 1: type at the same time. And remember this is ten
Speaker 1: years ago, so we don't have we didn't have the
Speaker 1: understanding of the language. We didn't have trends, icons, living,
Speaker 1: we didn't have Janet Mock, we didn't have posed, we
Speaker 1: didn't have any of the understanding. So the next several
Speaker 1: weeks which turned into several months, which turned into many months,
Speaker 1: I just typed away at my computer and google transgender
Speaker 1: and then I would squirrel through anything that came up,
Speaker 1: whether it was like doctors in the field, hypotheses, theories,
Speaker 1: you know, peer groups, parents, organizations. That those those weeks
Speaker 1: of just like exploring the World Wide Web were dark
Speaker 1: in a sense because they were mostly at night. I
Speaker 1: was hiding away from everyone. It's a strange time, strange time,
Speaker 1: very um, very very inward. I didn't have a network
Speaker 1: of people then to talk to. And then some in
Speaker 1: some moments, I would have these like moments of like light,
Speaker 1: like total optimism. And I stumbled upon a video of
Speaker 1: this little girl named Jazz, who is a young trans
Speaker 1: kid at the time, little girl, and I just deep
Speaker 1: dived into her story and her family. You organized a
Speaker 1: family movie night around Jazz's story, right, Yeah. We're sitting
Speaker 1: on the couch and it's you know, a few, I
Speaker 1: think three of the youngest kids, and we're watching as
Speaker 1: his family really just be proud to be a trans family.
Speaker 1: And Jazz is being bubbly and you know, so outgoing,
Speaker 1: and she's loving being a trans kid, and Panela looks
Speaker 1: at me for the first time and says, Mama, I'm
Speaker 1: trans too, like Jazz. Mama, I'm trans like Jazz, first time,
Speaker 1: first time ever putting word to how he was inside
Speaker 1: and how he is as a person. And it was
Speaker 1: this kid, you know, that he saw on the computer.
Speaker 1: Just it just you know, this is why representation matters.
Speaker 1: It's like a catchphrase, representation matters. And then when you
Speaker 1: actually realize that the only time your kid has seen
Speaker 1: themselves on a screen is once, and it lights your
Speaker 1: kid up. You want that, You want more of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're navigating this moment where you're trying to educate yourself
Speaker 1: on every thing there is to know about being transgender.
Speaker 1: You're also protecting your child right and you're trying to
Speaker 1: bring others in the family on board. Well, what inspires you, Jody,
Speaker 1: to to get to action in all this like fear, anxiety,
Speaker 1: complete and utter, like gut wrenching fear. I am terrified,
Speaker 1: and that energy is absolutely understandable. It has earned skepticism
Speaker 1: of this country, of these politics, of these folks in
Speaker 1: official positions to make laws. I am and that that's so,
Speaker 1: that energy of fear is natural and normal. And actually
Speaker 1: a healthy response to the environment, and I turn that
Speaker 1: energy into activism. So I don't It's not that I'm
Speaker 1: not scared. It's not that I don't think about folks
Speaker 1: that are killing black trans people. But I take that
Speaker 1: that inner fear and I turn it into outward action.
Speaker 1: And you very quickly become Pannell's lead supporter an advocate
Speaker 1: when it comes to getting the family and community on
Speaker 1: board with his true gender identity. You craft letters to
Speaker 1: your community and you have Panell participate in that process.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me more about what that experience was
Speaker 1: like and how it changed your relationship with Panell? If
Speaker 1: it did change it it did, You're right, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's funny. I just I didn't think about it being
Speaker 1: a turning point in our relationship. But when you say
Speaker 1: it that way, it actually was. We became partners in
Speaker 1: the sense that we were working towards a shared common goal.
Speaker 1: You know, usually it's like top down authority, parents, that's
Speaker 1: the agenda, and the kids until you you know, finish college,
Speaker 1: you're growing along with your parents' agenda more so than not.
Speaker 1: And so this was the first time when Penelope and I,
Speaker 1: when my child and I were going on a path
Speaker 1: that it was a shared agenda and actually an agenda
Speaker 1: that the child had set. There's a moment when the
Speaker 1: kid takes a lead, because only only the individual self
Speaker 1: knows itself. So I allowed that understanding of what the
Speaker 1: goal was to be set by Penelope, and then I
Speaker 1: navigated the details of that, and so it looked like,
Speaker 1: you know, writing a letter to the family announcing penelas
Speaker 1: a boy, asking for their respect and their love and
Speaker 1: their support, and also stating that if they weren't ready
Speaker 1: to give those things love and support, then they could
Speaker 1: take their time and get back to us when they
Speaker 1: were ready, but that there would be no misgendering or
Speaker 1: miss that we wouldn't be responding or acting um in
Speaker 1: the way we used to act with pinellib This is
Speaker 1: this was a new day. So I wrote a letter
Speaker 1: to the family. Pinelle signed the letter and edited the letter,
Speaker 1: and addressed the envelopes and put the stickers on the
Speaker 1: stamps on sometimes even hand delivering those letters to people. Um.
Speaker 1: And he was really proud of that letter. Go him, yeah,
Speaker 1: go little rock star. You had mentioned, Jody that there
Speaker 1: were there were dark times because you didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of people that you could talk to about this,
Speaker 1: especially in those early weeks and months. And part of
Speaker 1: your process for creating a safe environment for for Pinell
Speaker 1: and for you, right what was was to deepen your
Speaker 1: connection to the transgender community. What did you what did
Speaker 1: you learn from that from that process? I mean, the
Speaker 1: biggest takeaway from that time for me is that you know,
Speaker 1: our worlds are small, our friend groups are tiny, and
Speaker 1: they typically reflect who we are. So when I looked
Speaker 1: at my friends, I had mostly black female women mother friends.
Speaker 1: To me, that was like, that was that was doing
Speaker 1: that was doing it. You know, if you and I
Speaker 1: was raised this way, that you rely on your black
Speaker 1: community because most of the learning, most of this success,
Speaker 1: most of the tenacity, creativity, art, culture, language is going
Speaker 1: to come from the black community. You know, just look
Speaker 1: through history. And then when when I realized that that
Speaker 1: friend group did not reflect the reality of my family,
Speaker 1: I thought, well, this is ridiculous. And I had not
Speaker 1: one trans friend. I had not one gender non conforming
Speaker 1: friend that I knew of, And so I took it
Speaker 1: a bit further and said, like, who's in my chosen family,
Speaker 1: who's in my community? And no one reflected my son
Speaker 1: and that that really disgusted me because I was essentially
Speaker 1: telling myself that Pennell was the only trans person in
Speaker 1: the world. And again, that deepens your fear as a
Speaker 1: parent if your child is the only person in the
Speaker 1: world that is like themselves. And so I said, you know,
Speaker 1: it's important to go outside of your little box. And
Speaker 1: so I went into you know, this mode of like
Speaker 1: just spreading out in the world and really stretching, like
Speaker 1: physically just stretching out and touching all of the world.
Speaker 1: And that looked like googling transgender conferences, LGBT conferences, queer conferences.
Speaker 1: I literally drove to conferences. I flew to conferences. I
Speaker 1: sat and I listened for the first year. I went
Speaker 1: back the next year, sat and listened. I joined parent groups.
Speaker 1: I took our family to a parent a family trans
Speaker 1: sleep away camp. The whole family went. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: you know, there endless ways to get to stretch out.
Speaker 1: And I was really intentionally doing that. So, so it's
Speaker 1: been over a decade Jody since you had that conversation
Speaker 1: with Panell about his true gender identity. How have things
Speaker 1: been for Panell? How have things been for you since then? Um,
Speaker 1: what's what's changed for both of you and what's stayed
Speaker 1: the same? M Oh wow, what stayed the same? You know?
Speaker 1: It's it's um. When I first that that moment on
Speaker 1: the floor ten years ago, when Panell said I'm not
Speaker 1: a girl, I'm a boy, I really thought the world
Speaker 1: flipped upside down. I thought there's nothing, nothing normal, nothing
Speaker 1: good even is going to come from this um. Since then,
Speaker 1: I clearly see things differently. But what's interesting is that
Speaker 1: he he literally is the same kid. I mean, you
Speaker 1: know I didn't. So what is consistent is that Penelope
Speaker 1: is the person I birthed. You know, the pronouns have changed,
Speaker 1: the clothing has changed, the happiness has grown, but essentially
Speaker 1: the character, the spirit of Penelope is consistent. Penelope back
Speaker 1: then did not have to disappear for Penelope today to come.
Speaker 1: I just had to shift and the world just had
Speaker 1: to shift. So the consistency is that I did not
Speaker 1: lose a child. Consistency is that the child I birthed
Speaker 1: is the child who is now a really fantastic teenager. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that was important to me because you know, you
Speaker 1: don't want to lose anything. Definitely don't want to lose
Speaker 1: a child, even in like theory. Yes, I understand that,
Speaker 1: and I didn't. Yeah, so that's an amazing thing to
Speaker 1: me to look and say, God, you're just just like
Speaker 1: that little baby I was crawling into the dishwasher, you know,
Speaker 1: crawling on like countertops and stuff, inquisitive and happy. Um
Speaker 1: what has changed? You know? I lost I shifted out
Speaker 1: of a lot of relationships when I understood my son
Speaker 1: to be transa well, you know, when I had this
Speaker 1: question that was that was swirling around in my head.
Speaker 1: If my daughter was actually my son, what else in
Speaker 1: the world don't I know? It felt like there was
Speaker 1: a lot that I had not learned, and so I
Speaker 1: went on to quest to learn more. And that learning
Speaker 1: not only gave me insight to my son and to
Speaker 1: the millions of trans people that exist, but also to myself.
Speaker 1: I was able to be as bold as I was
Speaker 1: telling my son to be. This woman was able to
Speaker 1: be bold as well. And that's that's probably the biggest
Speaker 1: thing that has changed my my The way I interact
Speaker 1: with people is different, and because of that, I had
Speaker 1: to leave relationships. I left a marriage, you know, I
Speaker 1: left some some friendships in the form that they were
Speaker 1: in because they no longer fit who I was showing up.
Speaker 1: As you know, I felt like I was preaching a
Speaker 1: really important slogan. Be bold, step into your room, let
Speaker 1: people know who you are. Hold your chin up, you know,
Speaker 1: tell people who they who you are, so that they
Speaker 1: can adjust. I was telling that to a five year old,
Speaker 1: a six year old, a seventy year old, be bold,
Speaker 1: and this forty year old woman was not as bold.
Speaker 1: So like I was feeling, you know, it was a
Speaker 1: little it was a little hypocritical that I was demanding
Speaker 1: this of a five year old and not of the
Speaker 1: forty year old woman. And so I began to to
Speaker 1: turn the mirror to myself. How bold are you? How
Speaker 1: much of your inner identity is shown to the public,
Speaker 1: shown to your intimate spouse, shown to your children. How
Speaker 1: much are you acknowledging, Jody that you are not meant
Speaker 1: to be a supporting character. You know I had supported I,
Speaker 1: you know, and moms will understand this. We are supporters,
Speaker 1: and in particular, I have a very un I can
Speaker 1: be very submissive and very accommodating. Those are things that
Speaker 1: are within me, and I don't reject them now, but
Speaker 1: they don't dominate. And I'm also a lead character, and
Speaker 1: I'm also someone who's going to set a tone, and
Speaker 1: I'm also someone who has a vision. And so I
Speaker 1: took a different approach to the parenting model that I
Speaker 1: was doing. And so now not just supporting and nurturing,
Speaker 1: I am also leading the family. I wasn't doing that then,
Speaker 1: not at all. And once I said, you know, effort
Speaker 1: to a lot of things and a lot of demands
Speaker 1: on me and a lot of people. When I started
Speaker 1: saying no, my career changed. I narrowed it into something
Speaker 1: that I really like, which is writing. I love to write.
Speaker 1: So I've written two books. I took a leap and
Speaker 1: joined a board of the Human Rights Campaign, and I
Speaker 1: took another leap and asked them to elect me as
Speaker 1: the chair of the Foundation board. And I got that honor.
Speaker 1: So places where I would not have inserted myself, yeah,
Speaker 1: I now insert myself doing things that are still really
Speaker 1: challenging because I've never done them before, but I'm doing them.
Speaker 1: I got that. I got that from Pinell, like he
Speaker 1: would literally. I remember watching Panell in karate, so he
Speaker 1: was he is, he's been doing karate for years and
Speaker 1: he goes to karate tournaments and he was competing obviously
Speaker 1: in the boys section. Boys you know ten and up,
Speaker 1: so like ten and thirteen year olds are competing together,
Speaker 1: and I would just like be terrified for him. You know,
Speaker 1: My brain was kicking and like, oh my god, is
Speaker 1: he really going to show up like these boys? Right?
Speaker 1: Is he really going to be enough for these boys?
Speaker 1: Is he really boy enough? Was probably what was going
Speaker 1: through my head. And I was watching him and he said, Mama,
Speaker 1: one day, he said, at the beginning of his match, Mama,
Speaker 1: don't be scared. I'm not scared. So he's going into
Speaker 1: the ring, right, not scared, knowing he may win or
Speaker 1: he may not win. And so now I I go
Speaker 1: into these arenas knowing I may or may not be
Speaker 1: the best, but I'm going to go into them. That
Speaker 1: came from him. Wow, oh man. You mentioned earlier in
Speaker 1: our conversation when we took that time machine back to
Speaker 1: the period of your life where where your story with
Speaker 1: Cannell was just beginning, that that you didn't feel full,
Speaker 1: That your life had had what you thought were the
Speaker 1: writ ingredients to feel full, but that you didn't feel full.
Speaker 1: And so I want to know whether you feel full
Speaker 1: now fuller? No, you know, So here's the interesting thing.
Speaker 1: I really did have a deficit in my soul. I think, um,
Speaker 1: I was feeling empty. My emptiness was because I had
Speaker 1: a false expectation. The false expectation was get good grades,
Speaker 1: go to a good school, marry a good man, and
Speaker 1: it's gonna be okay. I know that sounds very simplistic,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I had the same dream, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like like intellectually you know better, But
Speaker 1: really I was doing the steps that I thought were
Speaker 1: good in life, and I thought I was going to
Speaker 1: have a quote unquote good life and it wasn't. It
Speaker 1: wasn't matching. And I think I needed to break out
Speaker 1: of those four corners just as much as Pannell did.
Speaker 1: And so now you know, Look, I do love marriage,
Speaker 1: I do love relationship, I do love children, and I
Speaker 1: do love being chosen to be the chair of the
Speaker 1: Human Rights Campaign. But I don't use that to measure
Speaker 1: the value in the validity of this woman. I'm what
Speaker 1: I'm using now as like, are you doing a good job, Jody?
Speaker 1: Is how much of this world are you touching? Like?
Speaker 1: How much are you experiencing? What? Don't you know? Go
Speaker 1: learn some more? And so That is a very fulfilling
Speaker 1: place to be because you can ingest this world, you
Speaker 1: can take it in and never accomplish a million dollars
Speaker 1: right and still feel fulfilled. As Bob Marley says, I'm
Speaker 1: rich in life. I'm watching my kids and watching them
Speaker 1: do life, and I'm taking cues from them. That's something new. Hey,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening. Join me next week. When I talked
Speaker 1: to the religious scholar Kate Bowler, she's an expert on
Speaker 1: the prosperity gospel, which preaches that if you have a
Speaker 1: strong faith in God, you deserve health, wealth, and happiness.
Speaker 1: Kate never believed in this idea of people deserving things,
Speaker 1: or so she thought, until a stage four cancer diagnosis
Speaker 1: revealed otherwise. I spent years studying people who believe that
Speaker 1: they deserve what they get, and I never once imagine
Speaker 1: myself to be that kind of person. And then when
Speaker 1: I could hear myself saying, but aren't I kind of
Speaker 1: a good person? It was like that that bit was
Speaker 1: so deeply humbling, and I realized, like, oh, things, things
Speaker 1: come apart. A slight change of Plans is created, written
Speaker 1: an executive produce by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change
Speaker 1: family includes Tyler Green our senior producer, Emily Rosteck, our
Speaker 1: producer and fact checker, Jan Guera, our senior editor, Ben Taliday,
Speaker 1: our sound engineer, and Neil LaBelle our executive producer. Louis
Speaker 1: Skara wrote our theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange
Speaker 1: the vocals. A Slight Change of Plans is a production
Speaker 1: of Pushkin Industries. So big thanks to everyone there, including Nicolemrano,
Speaker 1: Maggie Taylor, Eric Sandler, Heather Faine, and Carly Niggliori, and
Speaker 1: of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You
Speaker 1: can follow A Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at
Speaker 1: doctor Maya Schunker Sola. What did you have for breakfast? Jetty?
Speaker 1: I had m breakfast was tea and I had a
Speaker 1: red velvet cupcake. I think that was it. I usually
Speaker 1: have like an avocado with egg and sprouts. Just didn't
Speaker 1: happen today. Yeah, this is a no judgment zone, by
Speaker 1: the way, we just need audio quality. You can eat
Speaker 1: whatever the hell you want.