Speaker 1: They welcomed doing, they accepted him, and I think they
Speaker 1: treated him better than when he was a girl. So
Speaker 1: welcome back. All right here we are Azzy Confidential, and
Speaker 1: uh we've got something special happening right now. Uh, not
Speaker 1: too long ago, several months, a year doesn't make a difference.
Speaker 1: It doesn't for you, o c s out there. It can't,
Speaker 1: It can't possibly. But I got a letter. The letter
Speaker 1: was from a woman who also happened to be a mother,
Speaker 1: and it was an impassioned letter about her life and
Speaker 1: her relationship with her son. So in the first for
Speaker 1: Ozzy Confidential, we're gonna have the mother and the son
Speaker 1: in the studio duel duel at the same time, uh,
Speaker 1: and talking about a special kind of relationship forthwith ladies
Speaker 1: and gentlemen. Karen and Dylan Barnes. Now, Karen came to me,
Speaker 1: an editor, you know that this angry, disheveled that all
Speaker 1: the all the common things you hear about editors are true.
Speaker 1: She came up, I want to talk about my relationship
Speaker 1: with my son. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: don't really what what was special about it? If they're
Speaker 1: gonna make a movie about it, what's what's the special,
Speaker 1: what's the what's the what's the artful device that makes
Speaker 1: you your story worth telling? She as well, my son
Speaker 1: Dylan used to be my daughter, Erica sold thank you
Speaker 1: for taking the time to show up. This is very cool.
Speaker 1: I know you guys are jet setters. Yeah, but we
Speaker 1: covered a little bit before we started talking. Um. You
Speaker 1: talked about how you got the piece to us, But
Speaker 1: what was the Was there an origin story connected to
Speaker 1: creating the piece? Yes. After Dylan started going through transition,
Speaker 1: I didn't get a chance to talk to some of
Speaker 1: our family members, and I felt like they might not
Speaker 1: treat Dylan the way that I wanted him treated to
Speaker 1: be loved and accepted. Where's his family now here in California?
Speaker 1: And uh So I wrote them a letter and just said,
Speaker 1: you know here, here's from my heart where I'm coming from. Um,
Speaker 1: And the response I got from them was amazing. They
Speaker 1: welcomed Dylan, they accepted him, and I think they treated
Speaker 1: him better than ever before. In my mind, they were
Speaker 1: more accepting than ever before when he when he was
Speaker 1: a girl. So, UM, I thought, I've got something here.
Speaker 1: I want to make a difference for other people. So
Speaker 1: you you had actually written a letter to them and
Speaker 1: sent it before it had gotten to me, oh a
Speaker 1: year before or maybe nine months before. So their reaction
Speaker 1: is actually what emboldened YouTube. Absolutely, and one and one
Speaker 1: other thing. Um, I had the opportunity to meet one
Speaker 1: of Dylan's friends who's a trans woman, and she was
Speaker 1: telling her story to me about how she didn't have
Speaker 1: family acceptance and that her mother didn't accept her as
Speaker 1: a woman, and it was very very It made it
Speaker 1: very very big impact on me, and I felt very
Speaker 1: sad and I wanted to make a difference with other
Speaker 1: parents and families. So did you did you tell Dylan
Speaker 1: that you're going to write the piece before you start
Speaker 1: working on the piece? No? In fact, I kept it
Speaker 1: a secret from him. But then after I saw the
Speaker 1: because I wasn't planning on doing anything with it after
Speaker 1: that one effort that I'm sending it to the after
Speaker 1: send it sending it to my nephews. So I, um so, then,
Speaker 1: I are your nephews are the same age as you are? Okay,
Speaker 1: almost exact? Okay, so these are people you grew up with. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: all right, So I um so I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: like I told you, I think I have something here.
Speaker 1: So Dylan was visiting with me, and I said, Dylan,
Speaker 1: I have this thing I've written, and I want you
Speaker 1: to look at it because um I wanna distribute it
Speaker 1: and I want your permission to distribute it. And so
Speaker 1: he looked at it, and he asked me for a
Speaker 1: red pen, and he took my red pen and he
Speaker 1: started marking it. And I didn't know what he was doing,
Speaker 1: and I said, what's wrong? He said, your grammar is terrible.
Speaker 1: You need to get an editor. Was okay, that's all
Speaker 1: you like to say. So did you did you have
Speaker 1: any feelings in trepidation at all? She said, I'm going
Speaker 1: to tell our story as it's connected to you, to
Speaker 1: the world, or was it just like cool? I think
Speaker 1: I had some feeling of trepidation just because it revealed
Speaker 1: a lot of personal things. But then I realized that
Speaker 1: I'm not embarrassed about them and that I could help
Speaker 1: other people. So yeah, and the trepidation went away. But
Speaker 1: I have transference, and it seems to me that commented
Speaker 1: their experiences them knowing way before everybody else knew. Gosh, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I mean so I knew when I was like five,
Speaker 1: but I didn't know what it was like, I knew
Speaker 1: that I was a boy, I knew that I was
Speaker 1: a man, but well, I was a boy at the time,
Speaker 1: but I didn't know that that was called transgender anything
Speaker 1: like that. And then, you know, after a time of
Speaker 1: kind of society denying that in me, I learned to
Speaker 1: deny it in myself. It was like society, you mean
Speaker 1: the people around you as a five year old, so family, exactly, friends, Yeah, school,
Speaker 1: when I was in kindergarten probably, and you know, I
Speaker 1: would go to the hair salon and be like, I
Speaker 1: want this boy's haircut, and I would wear boxers underneath
Speaker 1: my pants, and you know, family members would say like
Speaker 1: what are you wearing or why are you wearing that?
Speaker 1: And it would be funny, like people would make fun
Speaker 1: of me for doing what I felt was naturally me.
Speaker 1: And so for me, that's where the denial came in,
Speaker 1: because it was like, oh, this is funny, this isn't
Speaker 1: serious what I'm doing as a joke. And yeah, and
Speaker 1: I remember asking my dad at a young age, like
Speaker 1: how do people get sex changes? I didn't even know
Speaker 1: how I knew what that was, and I remember him
Speaker 1: explaining it to me. And and that's it. I don't
Speaker 1: remember being like that's a possibility for me. I just
Speaker 1: remember him telling me kind of what it was, and
Speaker 1: that's it. How did you how did you process? I
Speaker 1: guess maybe I should take a step back and ask
Speaker 1: was the making fun of Did you perceive it to
Speaker 1: be mean spirited or was it casual like that's a
Speaker 1: funny outfit, or was it mean spirited? I perceived it
Speaker 1: as being mean spirited most of the time. Um. Like,
Speaker 1: when I was in kindergarten to second grade, I was bullied,
Speaker 1: and I think it had to do with me looking different. Um,
Speaker 1: but you know, lots of people are bullied for different reasons. Um,
Speaker 1: But I was really bullied. And in second grade they
Speaker 1: made a joke about putting a bomb in my house
Speaker 1: and then things got really serious. Yeah, and things got
Speaker 1: really serious, and I remember going to the principle's office
Speaker 1: and having like a lot of anxiety as a kid
Speaker 1: at that time. And then I remember, you know, I
Speaker 1: switched schools because my sister was going to a like
Speaker 1: a cooler school and I wanted to be there. It
Speaker 1: was like a hippie school, and I remember going there
Speaker 1: and still being kind of boyish, and then you know,
Speaker 1: fourth grade came along, and I was like, I gotta
Speaker 1: conform now or something, and I started dressing about nine
Speaker 1: in fourth grade. Yeah, and then then I started dressing
Speaker 1: more like a girl. I don't know. I think it
Speaker 1: was like puberty was approaching, and I felt like, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to I didn't want to miss out,
Speaker 1: you know, like I I felt so other for so
Speaker 1: long that I was like, Okay, I'll conform now so
Speaker 1: that I can like fit in. So, yeah, because I
Speaker 1: went through a period when I was growing up, I'd
Speaker 1: see a movie and I would have to dress like
Speaker 1: the character from the movie, right, which is okay if
Speaker 1: you're seeing like sound of Music. But when I was
Speaker 1: like ten or Levin, so I'd come into re expensive
Speaker 1: private school, dress like super Fly, which at the time
Speaker 1: in a maxiquot platform shoes, a cane I had with
Speaker 1: a feather. My very middle class mother said, you're not
Speaker 1: leaving a house like that, you know. I okay. So
Speaker 1: I show up at school and I was vaguely aware
Speaker 1: of people making fun of me or being amused, but
Speaker 1: I just didn't care because I knew I looked just
Speaker 1: like the guy from the movie, and in mine that
Speaker 1: was it so outside of and identification and external external
Speaker 1: identification through clothes, what was happening inside your head? Like
Speaker 1: you're like, Okay, I'm getting a lot of grief or
Speaker 1: just wanting to wear what I wear. But was there
Speaker 1: other stuff happening in your head that was like kind
Speaker 1: of that felt to you like I know something that
Speaker 1: they don't know. It's not just a stud I'm wearing
Speaker 1: shorts of sneakers and I'm a tomboy and that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. Hey, anybody can see that, but it was
Speaker 1: there stuff happening inside your head that other people didn't know. Thoughts, feelings, ideas. Definitely.
Speaker 1: I think I think after that whole bullying thing and
Speaker 1: the bomb thing, it really got to my head and
Speaker 1: it made me go into a denial of just like
Speaker 1: I can't be this way because it's dangerous, like it's
Speaker 1: and and the kids were joking and they were young,
Speaker 1: and like, you know, they weren't going to bomb my house.
Speaker 1: But I think I took it like really seriously at
Speaker 1: that age and just kind of internalized that as like
Speaker 1: this is not okay, and like in order to keep
Speaker 1: myself and my family safe, I need to be a
Speaker 1: certain way. And I need said we're gonna bomb your
Speaker 1: house because you look like a boy. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they said because you look like a boy. But
Speaker 1: for two years they bullied me, and they you know,
Speaker 1: I had this best friend who was a girl, and
Speaker 1: they would just make up things about me, like he's
Speaker 1: picking his nose now, or like you know, just and
Speaker 1: like laugh and I just always had this audience of
Speaker 1: people who were laughing at me. That's how I felt.
Speaker 1: So I felt like paranoid. Yeah, And so I felt
Speaker 1: like paranoid that if I was who I really was,
Speaker 1: that there would be like a group of people laughing
Speaker 1: at me. Now we you, I mean, were you aware
Speaker 1: of this? I mean, I'm a parent as well, so
Speaker 1: I know what happens to my kids. School a very
Speaker 1: frequently the last to know. But you're you're there, holiday dinners,
Speaker 1: you're day day. I knew nothing that that he was
Speaker 1: getting bullied. What happened was he stopped wanting to go
Speaker 1: to school. UM, and this was probably around the middle
Speaker 1: of first grade. Stop wanting to go to school, and
Speaker 1: UM said he was sick. And then in the middle
Speaker 1: of the day, all of a sudden he'd get better.
Speaker 1: And this happened many, many, like three days, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, we thought there's a pattern here. And
Speaker 1: he wouldn't tell us why, but he told his sister,
Speaker 1: and then his sister told us, and I immediately called
Speaker 1: the principal at home, and I said, I want something
Speaker 1: done about this. This is not okay with me. I
Speaker 1: didn't know how serious it was for him, but it
Speaker 1: was serious for me. And the principal said, oh, kids
Speaker 1: will be kids, it's not anything to worry about. So
Speaker 1: he wanted to go to the other school. But for me,
Speaker 1: it was a I wanted him out of that school.
Speaker 1: And I don't think I ever knew how traumatic and
Speaker 1: how it affected Dylan until he started to go through
Speaker 1: transition and told me why he was trans I mean,
Speaker 1: I was clueless. Now you're walking around you decided now,
Speaker 1: look it's safer on nine, I'm just gonna I gotta
Speaker 1: suppress this because I can't keep living like this. Right,
Speaker 1: you do get into the cool school, right, okay? Um
Speaker 1: didn't continue there or not for a little while. I
Speaker 1: remember in third grade, like you were saying, how you
Speaker 1: like to dress up his characters. I would see a
Speaker 1: boy that would have something and I needed it. Like
Speaker 1: we went around shopping for this that that this boy
Speaker 1: had for so long. It was like a Tommy Hill
Speaker 1: figure like puffy jacket, and he was really cool. That
Speaker 1: guy was. He wasn't cool, he was like really smart,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I want to be him. So
Speaker 1: I started wearing what he wore. And then I remember
Speaker 1: this guy had these shoelaces that were like bunge shoe
Speaker 1: laces at the time, and I was like, I need those,
Speaker 1: and I got those, and then fourth and fifth grade
Speaker 1: came and I don't know what happened. I was just, oh, well,
Speaker 1: everybody in my family knows about the headband because I
Speaker 1: had really short hair. And then I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna like be a girl now or whatever. And
Speaker 1: so I used this headband to like segue like I
Speaker 1: was growing my hair out and it made me look
Speaker 1: more feminine. So like I wore this headband for like
Speaker 1: every day for a year, and so when my family
Speaker 1: talks about it, they'll be like the headband, Like everyone
Speaker 1: knows about the head but what did you think the
Speaker 1: headband was going to do? I don't know. I was
Speaker 1: really connected to those kinds of things, like when I
Speaker 1: really liked hats, as a kid, like yeah, and like
Speaker 1: it made me feel more masculine. I think that was
Speaker 1: part of it. And when we went on like trips,
Speaker 1: and I was very serious about my hat, and one
Speaker 1: time it flew off and in a car in Mexico
Speaker 1: or something, the guy turned like does a you turn,
Speaker 1: pulls back onto the street, like swipes it up, and
Speaker 1: I get my hat back, like raising Arizona. Yeah, the road.
Speaker 1: That's very cool. Alright. So so now you're you're you're nine,
Speaker 1: You're you're in school. You're suppressing, but you're you're still
Speaker 1: making manifesting ways at a private to you like the headband,
Speaker 1: the hat and so on. Was there? Did you proceed
Speaker 1: a pace to high school and everything's okay, You've got
Speaker 1: like a comfortable suppression. No, No, everything got really serious
Speaker 1: in middle school because that's when puberty started to really happen.
Speaker 1: I didn't really like recognize at the time, this is
Speaker 1: what's wrong, Like, oh, I don't want to, you know,
Speaker 1: become a woman. I just was like really depressed, clinically depressed.
Speaker 1: And it brought out a lot of bad being, like
Speaker 1: a lot of behaviors that were not ideal, like self
Speaker 1: harming behaviors, and then I got you know, antidepressants. And
Speaker 1: then in high school, like the first year was really
Speaker 1: hard for me. And I mean I always hung out
Speaker 1: in the theater in high school because that's where I
Speaker 1: felt comfortable, like, and I only hung out with theater
Speaker 1: kids really And then I did sports, which I did lacrosse,
Speaker 1: and I did track and field and water follow I
Speaker 1: did a lot of random sports, but yeah, sports, Like
Speaker 1: I mean, I had a lot of body issues, like
Speaker 1: I hadn't eating disorder, and so sports being active was
Speaker 1: what made me feel better about myself. So because it
Speaker 1: was the er fins and it makes I mean biologically
Speaker 1: it makes sense. So so it seems like this it's
Speaker 1: a philosophical quandary, right, like you feel these changes, I'm
Speaker 1: becoming something I don't want to be. Yeah, something not
Speaker 1: only do I don't want to be, but I cannot stop.
Speaker 1: This was that largely what was happening. It was like
Speaker 1: being out of control and the fact that not just
Speaker 1: out of control, but like that it's you're going to
Speaker 1: change into something that isn't you Like, oh, I'm out
Speaker 1: of control and this isn't something I ever wanted. But
Speaker 1: now now you're in high school, now so middle school,
Speaker 1: this is the Internet age. So you asked your father
Speaker 1: early on about sex change. Had you started thinking about
Speaker 1: it in a more directed way, or was it just
Speaker 1: as general, kind of in more a sense of, man,
Speaker 1: I'm depressed, and maybe you're thinking that this is just
Speaker 1: kind of puberty, young person moods thing. Yeah, no one thought,
Speaker 1: you know, no one thought back, oh, remember that time
Speaker 1: when Dylan was dressing as a boy, and maybe like
Speaker 1: that's a thing and maybe he should talk about it.
Speaker 1: Not even myself. I couldn't even do that for myself.
Speaker 1: And so it's just like, oh, Dylan's depressed, and the drugs,
Speaker 1: like the antidepressants work, but there's still something wrong or
Speaker 1: there's still something missing to this equation. And I mean
Speaker 1: for a parent, I mean, especially from the generation that
Speaker 1: I came from, thinking your child could be transgender was
Speaker 1: just not even a possibility. So he was. She was
Speaker 1: a tomboy, you know, and the issue she was having
Speaker 1: emotionally was just puberty. I mean, that was our logic.
Speaker 1: Did you going along with the tomboy piece, did you
Speaker 1: think there's a possibility that my daughter is a lesbian? Yes,
Speaker 1: of course, because she liked she liked women, too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I always knew I liked women too, Like
Speaker 1: when I was five and I was you know, I
Speaker 1: knew I was a boy. I was also like, I
Speaker 1: like women, and so that's what I was for, you know,
Speaker 1: in middle school I came out as bisexual, and then
Speaker 1: in high school, I don't know, I used you know,
Speaker 1: there are so many terms now, I was like pan sexual,
Speaker 1: like fluid. Yeah, so like I knew I liked women,
Speaker 1: and so I was very much in the LGBT community
Speaker 1: in high school and high school, and I would have
Speaker 1: So did this provide you some cover at this point now,
Speaker 1: because you finally, Okay, I can be in a place
Speaker 1: where I'm not being mocked, right, Yeah, definitely, No, it was.
Speaker 1: That was really helpful. I had a lot of friends
Speaker 1: who were gay. There are a lot of gay people
Speaker 1: in the theater, you know, so that was kind of
Speaker 1: my community. And I was in the g s A,
Speaker 1: so that was helpful as well, which stands for the
Speaker 1: Gay Straight Alliance, so the Gay Stright Alliance. That doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily include trans you know, but we did have a
Speaker 1: transgender person in the Gay Stright Alliance and I knew
Speaker 1: him pretty well because he went to middle school where
Speaker 1: I went to middle school, and I went to an
Speaker 1: all girls school, so he kind of went through that
Speaker 1: before me, and not even like I saw him and
Speaker 1: I knew I identified with him in some way. And
Speaker 1: I remember at one point I cut my hair and
Speaker 1: died it like he did. But I still did not realize.
Speaker 1: You yourself did not realize like why I was doing that.
Speaker 1: It sort of makes sense to me, right, if I
Speaker 1: think about my early sexual strivings. I remember being four
Speaker 1: years old, five years old and throwing my pencil onto
Speaker 1: the teacher's desk. It's like, look the teacher's desk, pick
Speaker 1: up the pencil, right, But I didn't think about that
Speaker 1: until I got to be an older adult person. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, this is what's manifest now, is a
Speaker 1: certain aspect of heterosexuality. I mean, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know what I expected, but that's that's kind
Speaker 1: of kind I was doing. So again, it makes sense
Speaker 1: that you would have gone back to say, how come
Speaker 1: I didn't see it then? How come I didn't see
Speaker 1: it then? But now you're in high school in the
Speaker 1: g s A with somebody who's trans. He said, I
Speaker 1: always liked the guy, but do you ever start to
Speaker 1: think still not still not okay, very much in denial
Speaker 1: about it. So was it the laughter factor? Was it
Speaker 1: the you had found your way and you figured this
Speaker 1: is my way I can Yeah, I think that's it was.
Speaker 1: I was comfortable, like it was easy, you know, I
Speaker 1: had found a commu unity that would accept me that way.
Speaker 1: And I was very like gender fluid, and I would
Speaker 1: have periods of time where I would be more butch,
Speaker 1: and then I would have periods of times where would
Speaker 1: be more feminine and it would just kind of switch
Speaker 1: off like that a lot um. But I think I
Speaker 1: was my biggest fear was of not being accepted. And
Speaker 1: I think that fear was so strong that I was
Speaker 1: able to put like my true identity on the back
Speaker 1: burner for so long because I was accepted, right because
Speaker 1: of course college comes with building communities, right exactly. I
Speaker 1: was surrounded you know, I'm surrounded by people all the time. Busy.
Speaker 1: That's another thing, just being busy, like especially in high
Speaker 1: school with the S A T s and getting into
Speaker 1: college focusing on what do I want to major? And
Speaker 1: I didn't really think about myself that much. It's a
Speaker 1: great line that more ascorsation line about morbid self attention
Speaker 1: if you think about other things, right, But then you
Speaker 1: get out of college. So then I get out of
Speaker 1: Are you still during this college period? Are you still
Speaker 1: are you still on antidepressants? Yeah? Okay, So through high
Speaker 1: school to college, Okay, all right, I get out of college,
Speaker 1: and I'm alone more than I've ever been in the word.
Speaker 1: Which school did you go to? I went to Pittser College.
Speaker 1: Oh my daughter's there. Cool. Yeah, Wow, that's a small world.
Speaker 1: Yeah alright, so okay, so yeah, I'm alone, like I've
Speaker 1: never been to college. You've got your degree in UM.
Speaker 1: I created it in Eastern and Western Perspectives on Mental health,
Speaker 1: so essentially psychology. Yeah, and I just had so much
Speaker 1: more time to focus on myself. And not only that,
Speaker 1: but I went out into the world and I was
Speaker 1: like looking for a career and in college, like at Pitzer,
Speaker 1: in that bubble, it's I mean, Pitzer has people like
Speaker 1: you know, they're trans people are people going by Z
Speaker 1: like there's they then and it's just a bubble and
Speaker 1: it's comfortable. And and then I get out into the
Speaker 1: world and it's not like that. And I mean where
Speaker 1: I was, I was like working in Beverly Hills at
Speaker 1: a restaurant where they required you to dress like very
Speaker 1: um gender specific, just like no um it was. It
Speaker 1: was just like a fancy restaurant and they were like,
Speaker 1: you know, women have to wear dresses all the time,
Speaker 1: and you have to wear makeup. And one time that
Speaker 1: they made me put on more lipstick at work because
Speaker 1: I wasn't wearing enough, which is weird. And I just
Speaker 1: started to get really really depressed, just like suicidal. At
Speaker 1: this point, I was just yeah, and I was just
Speaker 1: so unhappy, and I was like, why, you know, why
Speaker 1: am I so unhappy? Like and that's when I started
Speaker 1: to kind of like break down in a way. And
Speaker 1: the breakdown is what led me into the realization that
Speaker 1: I needed to start my transition. And people, you know,
Speaker 1: like by my last year of school, people like my friends,
Speaker 1: he knew me I had short hair at that time,
Speaker 1: and my friends would be like Eric, Like they'd call
Speaker 1: me Eric as like a not a joke, like but
Speaker 1: like you know, like that's your other personalities name or something.
Speaker 1: Based on how often I hear from my kids who
Speaker 1: are in college, did we you privy to any of
Speaker 1: this or I mean, after he got out of college
Speaker 1: and went into that first job. I knew that he
Speaker 1: was having some sort of breakdown. You could still talking
Speaker 1: on the phone or oh yeah, because we lived in
Speaker 1: l A temporarily for a couple of years, and during
Speaker 1: that time, around the time he graduated from college, and
Speaker 1: so he saw that whatever it was, it was pretty
Speaker 1: serious and we were very concerned. So you knew that
Speaker 1: you were going to do something, that you had to
Speaker 1: do something before anybody else knew. How did the how
Speaker 1: did how did it frame itself in your head? Right?
Speaker 1: So you're depressed, like suicidal depressed. You know something's going on.
Speaker 1: You've taken the classes, right, you knew you your major,
Speaker 1: so you know something's going on. At what point did
Speaker 1: you go like, I gotta I gotta fix this. I
Speaker 1: can't keep living like this. Well, I was living in
Speaker 1: a co op with a roommate, and I had quit
Speaker 1: my job because I just had the restaurant. Yeah, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I was just like I was a mess. Like I
Speaker 1: would call my family members crying like every day, being
Speaker 1: like I hate this, it sucks um And then and
Speaker 1: then I quit my job, and then I moved back
Speaker 1: in with my parents, and then I was really isolated
Speaker 1: I started to have a lot of anxiety, and I
Speaker 1: started to have panic attacks all the time, and we
Speaker 1: probably went to the emergency room like seven times in
Speaker 1: one week because I thought that like one I thought
Speaker 1: I was having a heart attack, and then at one
Speaker 1: point I thought I had cancer that nobody could find,
Speaker 1: which apparently is like something that actually happens to some
Speaker 1: trans people where they think like they have a sickness
Speaker 1: inside of them. It's like a denial, like it's like
Speaker 1: the real sickness is that it's your body that's not
Speaker 1: right for you. But I was like, I have cancer,
Speaker 1: nobody can find it. Um And then, you know, every
Speaker 1: day just started to become brutal, Like I started to
Speaker 1: lose so much weight that it was like, well, if
Speaker 1: I don't start eating more, I'm going to dive like
Speaker 1: of malnutrition. Yeah. Yeah, so the idea makes itself known
Speaker 1: to you through this haze of depression or you start
Speaker 1: to pull out secondary effect. Okay, So I had a
Speaker 1: really good friend, like a really close friend who had
Speaker 1: transitioned while I knew him from Jessica to Mason, and
Speaker 1: you know, we were good friends and I liked him
Speaker 1: and I admired him for being true to himself, and
Speaker 1: I kept him as a friend, and at some point
Speaker 1: I realized, like, I mean, he inspired me to to
Speaker 1: transition because I saw him go through it. It was
Speaker 1: really hard and it scared me. But I also knew
Speaker 1: that I had somebody, like I had some kind of
Speaker 1: comm entity. I guess like part of the realization was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I hate my clothes. I don't want to wear these clothes.
Speaker 1: I hate my body, like I have a really bad
Speaker 1: eating disorder. And I almost felt like I just felt
Speaker 1: like I couldn't function with the amount of time that
Speaker 1: would take me to like get dressed in the morning
Speaker 1: because I couldn't pick the right clothes, or like the
Speaker 1: amount I needed to work out every day to feel
Speaker 1: mentally healthy. I was like, this is not normal, Like
Speaker 1: this is not what most people have to deal with.
Speaker 1: I think I started talking to certain friends and they
Speaker 1: started Like one of my friends, I was talking to
Speaker 1: her and I was like, I'm just really depressed. I
Speaker 1: don't even even think I told her that I was
Speaker 1: thinking about that I needed to transition or something. And
Speaker 1: she sent me a video with like lover and clocks,
Speaker 1: and I was like, you should watch this because she
Speaker 1: knew before I did, like before I admitted it to
Speaker 1: myself and I watched it. I was really inspiring. And
Speaker 1: I think as I started to watch these other people
Speaker 1: like be who they were, that is when I started
Speaker 1: to realize I can do that. And then I just
Speaker 1: started to remember the past, like, oh yeah, it's always
Speaker 1: been this way. Oh yeah, I remember that time I
Speaker 1: asked my dad when about a sex change, and those
Speaker 1: things started to come back. And then I remember and
Speaker 1: I was in therapy and so and then I remember
Speaker 1: the bomb thing and they being bullied, and then I
Speaker 1: realized it all started to connect like puzzle pieces. So
Speaker 1: it sounds like it was much harder to get to
Speaker 1: that point for a variety of different reasons than it was.
Speaker 1: I mean, because as an outsider, you would say, well,
Speaker 1: the harder part would be too, I gotta sit down,
Speaker 1: tell ma, I gotta doubt that I got to I
Speaker 1: gotta tell everybody. It sounds like the harder part was
Speaker 1: getting to telling yourself right it was, yeah, absolutely, And
Speaker 1: then I mean, there were there's a lot of fears.
Speaker 1: There's like fear of being accepted, fear of you know,
Speaker 1: scarring scars from having surgery, like fear of not loving
Speaker 1: your own self. Um, fear of just just lots of fears,
Speaker 1: I mean, homelessness, like everything that you could think of
Speaker 1: that's associated with like being a part of a minority.
Speaker 1: I guess yeah, yeah, right, So okay, so you come
Speaker 1: to this realization and then I think it was based
Speaker 1: on the piece the therapist who called you and it
Speaker 1: introduced you to the topic. Is that all right? Did
Speaker 1: you did the therapist ask you if if if they
Speaker 1: think it was a woman? Yeah, Katie, Yeah. Did she
Speaker 1: ask you if she could talk to them? She did.
Speaker 1: I remember I went into treatment and I didn't bring
Speaker 1: it up right away. It was kind of something I
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, I'm gonna try to get better and
Speaker 1: then um, you know, maybe I'll bring up the transition stuff.
Speaker 1: Then at one point I just I felt so comfortable
Speaker 1: with this woman that I went in one day. I
Speaker 1: was just like, I'm transgender, and she was like, great,
Speaker 1: let's tell your medical team. And the fact that she
Speaker 1: reacted that way was I mean, it was life changing
Speaker 1: because if she had said, really, are you sure, I
Speaker 1: would have been like, I don't know if I'm sure? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I would have I mean, I was already in
Speaker 1: so much denial and questioning of it myself that like
Speaker 1: I came out to her that day, we and then
Speaker 1: we told the team and then she was like, do
Speaker 1: you want me to call your mom and tell her
Speaker 1: about this? And I said, that would be amazing if
Speaker 1: you could do that. And and then from that day off,
Speaker 1: like for the rest of treatment, I had to carry
Speaker 1: like a piece of paper that said I am a
Speaker 1: man and I am transgender, because I would go into
Speaker 1: this like thought like circle where I'd be like, wait,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm not and then it would go like, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm not, and like I would deny it,
Speaker 1: and I had to remind myself of who I really was,
Speaker 1: like on a piece of paper, and I carried it
Speaker 1: around with me in my It was like a note card,
Speaker 1: I think, handwritten or typed handwritten, your handwriting or yeah,
Speaker 1: my handwriting. I've never heard this before. So now the
Speaker 1: medical team calls you, yeah, Katie, yeah Katie and says,
Speaker 1: you know, Dylan Strands is trans and your response, well,
Speaker 1: the first thing was before Dylan went into UM, into
Speaker 1: this place that you know, the for therapy and stuff
Speaker 1: and for UM just finding out what was going on
Speaker 1: because there were so many things. I mean, he was
Speaker 1: dying of all these diseases, he was losing weight, he
Speaker 1: couldn't sleep, We were worried that he was suicidal. It
Speaker 1: was such a relief to put to put him in
Speaker 1: in a place that he was going to get the
Speaker 1: services that he needed and really sort out what was
Speaker 1: going on. So maybe a day or two before we
Speaker 1: had actually checked him in, he and I were driving
Speaker 1: in the car, probably from a doctor's appointment. He said,
Speaker 1: you know, I think I might be transgender. And I
Speaker 1: lost it because to me, it's like I've got this child.
Speaker 1: You know, of course he was an adult, but to me,
Speaker 1: he's still a child. He's um, you know, I'm afraid
Speaker 1: that it is he going to live till tomorrow. And
Speaker 1: so I got upset and I said, I want you
Speaker 1: to just get to the point where you can figure
Speaker 1: out what you really want and uh and be stable
Speaker 1: and gained some weight back, and then we can talk
Speaker 1: about if you're a transgender. So I think for him
Speaker 1: that was kind of like, oh, she's not going to
Speaker 1: accept it, But for me it was like so beyond
Speaker 1: all the other things I was worried about with him.
Speaker 1: So when Katie called me and she told me. Even
Speaker 1: though he had introduced stick to me, it was like
Speaker 1: I had never heard it before. And you know that
Speaker 1: feeling or somebody tells you something horrible in your heart
Speaker 1: just seems to like all the way into your stomach,
Speaker 1: or your stomach seems to fall out. I don't know
Speaker 1: that feeling like. And the first thing, as I said
Speaker 1: in my article, is is I felt fear for what
Speaker 1: does this mean for him? You know, is you know,
Speaker 1: are people going to accept him? Is he going to
Speaker 1: be you know, um, is it going to be hard
Speaker 1: for him to get a job, or you know, are
Speaker 1: people going to be prejudiced? Stuff like that? And what's
Speaker 1: it going to be like to go through surgery? So
Speaker 1: that was my first stop. And my second thought was
Speaker 1: because I thought, oh I have to tell everybody, I
Speaker 1: have to tell family, was what are people going to
Speaker 1: think about me? You know, are they going to think
Speaker 1: I was a bad mother? Do they think I, you know,
Speaker 1: I caused it somehow, or you know that I'm I'm
Speaker 1: too liberal? And I you know, I accepted this and
Speaker 1: I should have never accepted it. And then of course
Speaker 1: about I don't know. That lasted maybe three minutes, and
Speaker 1: then I said to myself, Karen, that is absolutely you know,
Speaker 1: and that was it. But I was still really upset,
Speaker 1: and um, so I went I, you know, I drove.
Speaker 1: I was on the freeway on the phone with the therapist.
Speaker 1: So I drove home, walked in to the house. My
Speaker 1: husband was in the house. I walked into to tell him,
Speaker 1: and I didn't tell him I was upset. I just
Speaker 1: told him what had happened, you know, that I had
Speaker 1: gotten the skull. And he looked at me and goes,
Speaker 1: that makes perfect sense. And I was like, what what,
Speaker 1: You're not worried, You're not upset. And it just made
Speaker 1: me balanced and grounded and and that was the beginning. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so when you get home, so you're there, it's
Speaker 1: still on therapy. When you get home, were you driving
Speaker 1: back were you just like, oh, it'll be fun to
Speaker 1: see everybody. How were you anticipating that there's going to
Speaker 1: be a little friction or just I was definitely worried,
Speaker 1: h But I wasn't worried about my mom or my
Speaker 1: dad and my siblings. I was worried about my cousin's
Speaker 1: and extended family, the ones the ones that she ended
Speaker 1: up contacting, Yeah, right, because they are a big part
Speaker 1: of our lives, and the fear was losing them and
Speaker 1: I didn't want that, but I was also afraid of
Speaker 1: that they wouldn't take it seriously because nobody had taken
Speaker 1: it seriously before this moment. So so now to deal
Speaker 1: with the issue of of explaining to the family. But
Speaker 1: it seems like now the other stuff that was making
Speaker 1: life difficult for you would have started to recede. Right,
Speaker 1: It's like I got, I got a plan, right, I
Speaker 1: got I got this plan. Um. And so how soon
Speaker 1: after this meeting with Katie did you start the transition?
Speaker 1: Probably like right, I mean, well, I guess you left
Speaker 1: her office with a piece of paper, right, Yeah, So
Speaker 1: that was the beginning. And then and then I had
Speaker 1: some good friends there and they were really supportive, and
Speaker 1: they were like, you need to have everybody call you
Speaker 1: by mail pronouns now and we're going to support you
Speaker 1: and when people don't like, will correct them if you don't.
Speaker 1: So I started doing that. I started I need to
Speaker 1: think of a new name. Did you did you pick
Speaker 1: Dylan or do you let your parents pick Dling. I
Speaker 1: picked Dylan with some friends and it was because of
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan and I just felt like really identify with
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan. That's a guy from h to one. Okay,
Speaker 1: thank god, alright, um, he's you know, Bob Dylan is
Speaker 1: a Jewish you know, musician, and he changed the world
Speaker 1: with his lyrics and I really admired him. So that's
Speaker 1: why I chose the name of Dylan. So so it
Speaker 1: began immediately and how long how long starting with a note?
Speaker 1: How long did it take from So it took about
Speaker 1: like like three or four months before I went onto hormones.
Speaker 1: I was in Arizona when I was in treatment. So
Speaker 1: I came back to l A and then I started
Speaker 1: getting information on where I could go to get hormones.
Speaker 1: And then I went to the LGBT Center and I
Speaker 1: had my first consultation, and things really did start to
Speaker 1: get better. I mean I still have like this is
Speaker 1: pre hormones. Now you're you get back to l A
Speaker 1: and you're starting to take the hormones. Yeah, I get
Speaker 1: back to l A, I'm starting to take the hormones.
Speaker 1: Um which which ones? Which which one? Though you don't
Speaker 1: know this, but this is this brings our whole series
Speaker 1: full circle because the very first one we did was
Speaker 1: about steroids. Um, specifically me and steroids. Okay, yeah, because
Speaker 1: I had a past history which they interviewed me on
Speaker 1: the first of this series. So interesting, um so. But
Speaker 1: so I went scipienate and that they susted on. I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure it's sipienate. OK. That sounds familiar to me.
Speaker 1: And I remember looking up that there were different kinds
Speaker 1: and I was like, why is what is that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So taking that, um, I remember the first time I
Speaker 1: took it, it made me really hungry. That was good
Speaker 1: because I was having issues eating and energy. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just felt energized. I remember working out after that
Speaker 1: was like the best work out of my life. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I haven't taken them in a long time, but I
Speaker 1: really missed them. These are all it all really true.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you worked out like crazy. You're eating Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I was using the men's bathroom, which was scary, but
Speaker 1: no one looks at you in the men's bathroom, so
Speaker 1: it didn't matter. We'll see what you've got. Like it's
Speaker 1: there's like this great spy quality because your vantage point
Speaker 1: on how the different genders do what they do is unique.
Speaker 1: You know, It's not like I don't I have no idea. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got three daughters, four sisters. Still don't have any
Speaker 1: idea really what what's happening? So what did you? What did?
Speaker 1: What did you what? Like? What was some of the
Speaker 1: more salient kind of like if you had to write
Speaker 1: this as a book and you were like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I made this transition and this is stuff I thought
Speaker 1: was kind of bullshitt you before. But no, like, let
Speaker 1: me tell you, I mean you have more energy you're
Speaker 1: working out with. There any other markers that from your
Speaker 1: life as a woman, you would go, I had no idea. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess so I always thought like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: women and men are that different, Like I don't get why,
Speaker 1: you know we have these differences so much. And then
Speaker 1: then I started taking hormones, and I remember my music
Speaker 1: taste changed a little bit from what to want more aggressive, more.
Speaker 1: I remember my sister commenting like, did you realize your
Speaker 1: music taste has changed? It's more, you know, probably more aggressive,
Speaker 1: more beats, Like I'm more into beats. Um, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean less emotional in a way like a lot of
Speaker 1: I know a lot of transguise who say like I
Speaker 1: couldn't cry after I started taking testosterone. That hasn't happened
Speaker 1: to me. But like, I mean, you're not getting a period,
Speaker 1: like every month, You're not having like a It's like,
Speaker 1: I think the difference is like as a woman, you know,
Speaker 1: it would be like I'd expect to be really really
Speaker 1: emotional for a week every month, whereas as a man,
Speaker 1: it was more like any day I could be like
Speaker 1: more angry. Usually it was anger or like you know, impatient.
Speaker 1: It could be any day, like it could be just
Speaker 1: for a day, Like it could just be for like
Speaker 1: a few hours. So that was one big difference. So
Speaker 1: I quickly, as I was transitioning, I quickly started to
Speaker 1: realize what I really wanted to do. It was like
Speaker 1: almost I created this space in my brain that I
Speaker 1: had been occupying so much like being in denial about
Speaker 1: this had been occupying so much of my brain in
Speaker 1: this weird way for so long that it was like
Speaker 1: clarity had just come to me, like mentally physically, and
Speaker 1: so um, I decided that I wanted to go to
Speaker 1: school for audio engineering and do like music related stuff.
Speaker 1: And so I went back to school for music production,
Speaker 1: and uh, most of my teachers were men. Um it's
Speaker 1: a very like male dominated industry still, and I just remember,
Speaker 1: like there was one woman in our program, and she
Speaker 1: was treated so much differently than everybody else, and I
Speaker 1: just saw it so much clearer. Like I remember, I
Speaker 1: didn't know anything. I was like just at the same
Speaker 1: level as this girl, like of not knowing anything. She
Speaker 1: didn't really know. She was kind of a beginner like
Speaker 1: I was in terms of production, but all the other
Speaker 1: guys had had experience, and I was treated like I
Speaker 1: knew everything because I was a man, and she was
Speaker 1: treated like we need to teach her every like we
Speaker 1: need to explain it to her, like every step of
Speaker 1: the way, Whereas they talked to me, like my teachers
Speaker 1: would talk to me like you know, and I'd just
Speaker 1: be like, m I know, not dating, because I was
Speaker 1: going to say, I'm sure they always ask about dating,
Speaker 1: but since you've never done an interview, they haven't asked
Speaker 1: you about dating. Yeah. Dating. It's challenging, especially because like
Speaker 1: I am more passing, which is like what that means
Speaker 1: is that like if someone passed me by on the street,
Speaker 1: they would not necessarily be able to tell that I
Speaker 1: was transgender man, whereas other people are less passing, And
Speaker 1: so it's hard because it's like I'll find somebody ILike,
Speaker 1: like a woman that I like, and I'll worry if
Speaker 1: she knows that I'm trance or not. And then it's
Speaker 1: like I almost have to expose that about myself, like
Speaker 1: come out to them. And it kind of sucks because
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, normally people don't have to like
Speaker 1: expose something that they're worried that, like they'll be rejected
Speaker 1: based just on the fact that they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, I'm trans and then they're like not
Speaker 1: interested anymore. But the good thing is, like I'm very
Speaker 1: out on Instagram, Like I talk about my transition on Instagram,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the time when I meet girls,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, do you have an Instagram? And then
Speaker 1: they see on there like it that you know, this
Speaker 1: is a transman, and then they can decide if they
Speaker 1: want to continue with that or not. And like that's
Speaker 1: the same with dating apps now, I think too. It's
Speaker 1: like you can put like trans man and then but
Speaker 1: then there's a worry that like you're going to be
Speaker 1: fetishized or something. You know, like people are only going
Speaker 1: to be interested in you because you're trans, like they're
Speaker 1: into that, and that's a scary thing. But That's why
Speaker 1: I don't really use dating websites. I would rather like
Speaker 1: meet somebody in person and see if I like them
Speaker 1: there for long term things because as African American male
Speaker 1: people finishes African American man, So for long term things,
Speaker 1: it's a drag. You don't want to date somebody who's
Speaker 1: a member of a fan club, right, Yeah, but you
Speaker 1: know for sure to engagement. Yeah, yeah, but that's good.
Speaker 1: I like that the gate keeping. It just solves the problem. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But I think I think my like market for women
Speaker 1: like would be bisexual women, mostly because they're just more
Speaker 1: open and accepting and they're more knowledgeable about the trans community,
Speaker 1: and they're into both genders, so it's like not I mean,
Speaker 1: if you haven't necessarily like had the surgeries and stuff,
Speaker 1: it's not going to be as much of an issue. Yeah,
Speaker 1: knowing what you know now looking back, is there anything
Speaker 1: that you would have done differently from how it was
Speaker 1: it actually happened? Well, I'm I have met some families
Speaker 1: who have children that are five years old that are
Speaker 1: acting the opposite gender of their birth and the families
Speaker 1: know so much more than I did years ago that um,
Speaker 1: they are they are letting their child live as the
Speaker 1: gender they prefer, and their families are accepting it because
Speaker 1: it's more accepted. So if I could turn back the
Speaker 1: clock but know about the future, yes, I do everything differently,
Speaker 1: But given where I came from and the culture I
Speaker 1: grew up in and the environment in the early nineties,
Speaker 1: it wasn't the same as today. So I'd like to
Speaker 1: say yes, but I think it would probably have played
Speaker 1: out almost exactly the same. Los Angeles. Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I also have times where I think, man,
Speaker 1: if only like when I was five and I came out,
Speaker 1: somebody was like, great, let's have you talked about in
Speaker 1: therapy or like let's you know, explore this and like
Speaker 1: focus on it. And then I could have like stopped,
Speaker 1: I could have like been or whatever, you know, like
Speaker 1: I could have looked more masculine because I would have
Speaker 1: grown up as a man and not gone through female puberty.
Speaker 1: But then I have times where I'm like, actually, it's
Speaker 1: really cool because I got to live as a woman
Speaker 1: and a man, and I got to be raised as
Speaker 1: a woman, and now I can talk to women, you know,
Speaker 1: like now I really understand women really well, and so
Speaker 1: like that's cool, and so I kind of flipped like
Speaker 1: I kind of flipped back and forth of like, you know,
Speaker 1: I wish that, like a long time ago, things were different,
Speaker 1: and then I'm like waiting, No, actually, this is really
Speaker 1: cool and everything happened for a reason, and that's how
Speaker 1: I got to this place. I have to go back
Speaker 1: and say one thing, one thing I wish I had
Speaker 1: done differently is knowing that those boys. I knew that
Speaker 1: those boys had threatened to bomb Dylan and the whole family,
Speaker 1: and I thought by getting him out of that situation
Speaker 1: was enough. But in retrospect, that's when I should have
Speaker 1: found a therapist, and I didn't. I didn't. It took
Speaker 1: two years before I realized how really impactful that episode
Speaker 1: was in Dylan's life. You see, this is where I
Speaker 1: know I'm a New Yorker because I thought you were
Speaker 1: going to go completely different. That's when I realized I
Speaker 1: should have gone to that school with a baseball bat
Speaker 1: something like believe me, okay, even in California. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you guys for taking the time, thank you for having us.
Speaker 1: So that's Karen Dylan. They just rolled on out of here,
Speaker 1: making this our fifth fifth in a series of Ozzy
Speaker 1: Confidential from my head, in my heart, my mouth, to
Speaker 1: your ears. Know this. Thanks for listening. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I am Eugene S. Robinson. Your host is Ozzy dot
Speaker 1: com Azzi Confidential for the surprising, the shaking, the stunning,
Speaker 1: the shocking. Thanks for listening. We'll see you soon. Come back.
Speaker 1: Next up on OSI Confidential. We travel hundreds of thousands.
Speaker 1: Ten we can't say we travel a certain number of
Speaker 1: undisclosed miles to an undisclosed location where we call the
Speaker 1: phone and got another number and went to another place,
Speaker 1: much like a scavenger or a snipe hunt to meet
Speaker 1: a Mr. Jim Wesley rawls as Jim Wesley, Comma Rawls
Speaker 1: or Jim Rawls Colma Wesley. I'll explain it all later.
Speaker 1: He's ahead of the American Redoubt movement, survival blog guy,
Speaker 1: and a firm believer in the fact that we're all
Speaker 1: going to Hell in a hair basket. Next up on
Speaker 1: Oz's confidential s