Speaker 1: Pushkin. I found myself skipping at home. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: six one and I am a pretty gigantic black person.
Speaker 1: But I had so much joy in that moment that
Speaker 1: I literally could not contain it. And I skipped down
Speaker 1: the entire hallway of my grandmother's house and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I just skipped down that whole hallway. Huh okay, I'm
Speaker 1: feeling myself. I'm feeling good. So it was just those
Speaker 1: physical changes were really great, you know. It was I
Speaker 1: don't know, that was a very magical golden honeymoon period
Speaker 1: of being a trans man. Morgan Gibbons was assigned female
Speaker 1: at birth. In his twenties, he underwent hormone therapy to
Speaker 1: bring his body into alignment with his male gender identity. Initially,
Speaker 1: he felt profound joy and liberation, but he said that
Speaker 1: feeling was short lived when he was confronted with the
Speaker 1: reality of being a black man in society. You know,
Speaker 1: there was this aspect of feeling completely boxed in and
Speaker 1: caged by womanhood and my femininity. And I broke free
Speaker 1: of that, you know, I broke free of it for
Speaker 1: a little while. I had a few moments in the sun,
Speaker 1: you know, but the longer I've gone since that moment,
Speaker 1: the more I've realized how I have become caged once again.
Speaker 1: I'm not as free as I thought I was. I'm
Speaker 1: Maya Shunker and this is a slight change of plans,
Speaker 1: a show that dives deep into the world of change
Speaker 1: and hopefully gets us to think differently about change in
Speaker 1: our own lives. Morgan, I was wondering if you could
Speaker 1: take me back to the day when you started taking testosterone. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this doctor that I went to in that moment
Speaker 1: was like just a little piece of magic to me
Speaker 1: because he held the key to me helping unlock the
Speaker 1: rest of who I am, or like stepping into myself fully.
Speaker 1: And I could not wait for him to give it
Speaker 1: to him me. I was just like, hurry up and
Speaker 1: give it to me. Also, I could go home and
Speaker 1: be too scared to use it, you know. And so
Speaker 1: I was excited but kind of scared. And one of
Speaker 1: my good friends she was like, why are you being
Speaker 1: such a baby. I'm like, I'm not being a baby,
Speaker 1: but like you know, that's a needle, man, that's a needle.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to do it myself. And she was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: cool and like she disappeared for like three minutes, and
Speaker 1: then she came, I can just jab me in the leg.
Speaker 1: And I was like, wait a minute, and she was like,
Speaker 1: there you go. I gave you your first tea shot.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I guess it's not that scary,
Speaker 1: it's not that bad. And can you describe your reaction
Speaker 1: when you first started to notice the effects at the testosterone?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Oh I was geeked, you know. I was
Speaker 1: thought and I thought I was flying too, you know,
Speaker 1: because my voice started dropping. So I started answering the phone,
Speaker 1: like how y'all doing? Hey? How you doing? Hey? Girl? Hello? Hello? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And I was just my mom was like, who do
Speaker 1: you think you are? Why you got all these women
Speaker 1: calling you? I didn't raise you like this, you think
Speaker 1: because your voice getting deep, you can, you know, And
Speaker 1: so I had to really kind of step back a bit.
Speaker 1: But I was just very very ecstatic about it because
Speaker 1: my voice started dropping quickly. You know, I got really strong.
Speaker 1: Anything that I could pick up if it wasn't nailed down,
Speaker 1: I was going to, especially if it was heavy and
Speaker 1: it looked like a challenge. I was lifting my mama.
Speaker 1: I was lifting trash cans, and I was just doing
Speaker 1: random things, like I worked at Target at the time,
Speaker 1: I worked in retail, had just kind of come out
Speaker 1: of college. They're like, who's gonna take out the trash?
Speaker 1: And like, I got, y'all, I got. I had never
Speaker 1: ever volunteered to take out the trash before in my life.
Speaker 1: But yeah, every time I think about it, it it makes
Speaker 1: me smile. You know, it was I was in a
Speaker 1: honeymoon phase very much. Though. Do you have any other
Speaker 1: specific memories of watching your voice and body change in
Speaker 1: those early months? You know, there was there was this
Speaker 1: weight that I hadn't realized that I had been carrying
Speaker 1: moving through the world, and the world seemed me as
Speaker 1: this young black woman because at the time I started
Speaker 1: taking testosterone and I began hormone replacement, and I just
Speaker 1: noticed that I was letting down my guard in ways
Speaker 1: that I never would have done before. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: there's one time I was leaving work and I used
Speaker 1: to work this late shift at Target, and I would
Speaker 1: leave and it'd be pitch black by myself at like
Speaker 1: three or four am in the morning. And so I
Speaker 1: was always prior before I started taking testosterone, and these
Speaker 1: changes started happening. I was very cautious. I was incredibly
Speaker 1: cautious about any time I was alone at night. But
Speaker 1: I realized that I didn't feel afraid, and I realized
Speaker 1: how light it felt to not carry that fear of
Speaker 1: gendered violence, and I had not really I guess it's
Speaker 1: hard to recognize something you live with so constantly. But
Speaker 1: the freedom that came with this masculine presentation, I guess,
Speaker 1: I would say, And the way people assume I'm assist man,
Speaker 1: it's I haven't felt that type of tension in my
Speaker 1: shoulder since, you know, because it all just kind of
Speaker 1: released from my body, like I don't carry I didn't
Speaker 1: carry my keys in my hand as though I could
Speaker 1: use them as a weapon whenever I needed to. And
Speaker 1: I stopped doing that, And it was something I stopped
Speaker 1: doing without realizing it. I'm wondering you can tell me
Speaker 1: about some of the first times you noticed that people
Speaker 1: were starting to treat you differently because of your gender.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you know, And so much of this was
Speaker 1: really happening in Target. You know, Target is a microcosm
Speaker 1: of society. You know, you see, you meet all kinds
Speaker 1: of people in there. You really do all kinds of employees,
Speaker 1: all kinds of people coming in there to say they're
Speaker 1: gonna get one thing and leave with twenty, you know. Like,
Speaker 1: so my job at Target, you know, I put the
Speaker 1: things on the show. I was a program what they
Speaker 1: call us program designers. They try to give us fancy names,
Speaker 1: so we thought we I was like, I'm just putting
Speaker 1: stuff on the show. And so Anna, who was my boss,
Speaker 1: my team league, you know, she had the experience. I
Speaker 1: deferred to Anna, you know, because she respected me. I
Speaker 1: respected her and like, you got more experience, and I do.
Speaker 1: I'm okay cool. But this young white manager came in
Speaker 1: and he could not handle her telling him no. You know,
Speaker 1: and if I said the same thing. I mean, we
Speaker 1: could be standing in a circle and Anna could say
Speaker 1: something and he would act like he didn't hear her.
Speaker 1: He would speak over her and I would repeat it,
Speaker 1: and he'd be like, oh, well, you know, Morgan, that's
Speaker 1: quite a good idea, and I would have to go
Speaker 1: Anna said it. You know, this was Anna's idea. And
Speaker 1: you know, and when I saw that so clearly, because
Speaker 1: it just made me mad, because it made me realize
Speaker 1: how often it had been done to me before, and
Speaker 1: so that was one of the first moments where I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, and now it's in my face, you know,
Speaker 1: And it was just disheartening in a way, um irritating
Speaker 1: and also exhausting for selfish reasons because it's like I
Speaker 1: have to say something. It's like, now you're interrupting my
Speaker 1: day because I have to talk to you. Had your
Speaker 1: manager known you before your transition or so that's so
Speaker 1: tell me more about that, right did you? Did you
Speaker 1: really see him change through your transition more respect and deference. Yes.
Speaker 1: That's the wildest part is that people at that job
Speaker 1: who knew me before, who knew me as Morgan, assuming
Speaker 1: that I was assisted woman, they were like, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: But as soon as my voice started dropping, as soon
Speaker 1: as my shoulders started getting a little broad, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, they acted like the base in my voice
Speaker 1: meant what I had to say was more important, or
Speaker 1: they started suggesting that I get extra shifts, or they
Speaker 1: started being like, why don't you apply to be a manager.
Speaker 1: I didn't hear them asking any other women, and I
Speaker 1: asked some of my women, did they ask you to
Speaker 1: apply to be a manager. Some people who were just
Speaker 1: as good as I was at the job and better,
Speaker 1: and they were like, nuh, I didn't even know we
Speaker 1: was going to be looking for managers. So those were
Speaker 1: the types of things that would happened. Well, it also
Speaker 1: seems like they didn't ask you to be a manager
Speaker 1: a year prior. No, No, like just it was gradual.
Speaker 1: I noticed it in increments, but because it was so
Speaker 1: outside the realm of what I had experienced before, it
Speaker 1: always stood out. Those little moments just always it out.
Speaker 1: So it's just those little things, you know, and those
Speaker 1: things accumulate over a person's lifetime. Were there parts of
Speaker 1: you that you know, kind of privately enjoyed the benefits
Speaker 1: that came along with this new perception. Yes, and that's
Speaker 1: the hardest part, you know, because it does make your
Speaker 1: life easier. That the hard part is seeing those benefits
Speaker 1: and saying no to them. They're right there. You know,
Speaker 1: you've talked about how people treated you differently in response
Speaker 1: to your being a man, and that it came along
Speaker 1: with benefits. I want to know what it was like
Speaker 1: to be perceived as a black man. Do you remember
Speaker 1: the first time you faced this new reality? Yeah? The
Speaker 1: first time was when I had to deal with a
Speaker 1: cop outside of my grandmother's house, you know. You know,
Speaker 1: I had been I was coming home from work and
Speaker 1: one of those late nights, fully out of my androgyna's
Speaker 1: phase of the second testosterone, and I pulled up in
Speaker 1: front of my grandmother's house. She had this really nice
Speaker 1: home in this beautiful neighborhood, you know, one of those
Speaker 1: neighborhoods where we were kind of the only pepper and
Speaker 1: the salt shaker, at least that's how we kind of
Speaker 1: put it. So, you know, I pull up in the driveway,
Speaker 1: mind you, backed up into the driveway, and the sheriff's deputy,
Speaker 1: you know, I saw him when he drove past me
Speaker 1: to the right, and I saw him see me as
Speaker 1: I was backing into the driveway, and then he flips around,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a little cul de sac at the end.
Speaker 1: He comes creeping slowly back up, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: rolls to a stop, you know, hops out of the car.
Speaker 1: I'm already out of the car, you know, because I'm
Speaker 1: going in the house. This is where I live, this
Speaker 1: is my home. And he looks at me, he goes, uh,
Speaker 1: do you live here? What are you doing here? And
Speaker 1: I'm looking at him like, what do you mean? When
Speaker 1: am I doing here? I lift it. What are you
Speaker 1: doing here? Because at this point you're standing on our
Speaker 1: property and I can call you? And I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I live here and I can see. You can always
Speaker 1: tell an anti person, You can tell a scared person,
Speaker 1: you know, and scare people do ridiculous things, scare people think,
Speaker 1: do racist things, you know, And in that moment it's
Speaker 1: so irritating. I have to pacify him so I can
Speaker 1: stay safe. I'm like, I'm literally having to treat you
Speaker 1: like a child so that I'm okay. I can't call
Speaker 1: my grandmother because I know what she's gonna do. She's
Speaker 1: gonna come out of the house and she's gonna raise hell.
Speaker 1: Last thing I want is for something to happen to her.
Speaker 1: Last thing I want us for some harm to come
Speaker 1: to her, because what she will not stand for is
Speaker 1: seeing me threatened in any way. He goes, well, we've
Speaker 1: had some car breakings over here, and that come on.
Speaker 1: Now I knew the man was lying because this was
Speaker 1: one of those rich neighborhoods. If somebody knocked over a mailbox,
Speaker 1: they would have put out a newsletter. They would have
Speaker 1: been like, y'all, we got people breaking mailboxes. So I
Speaker 1: was like, this man is lying, you know, And so
Speaker 1: he tells me put your hands on the hood of
Speaker 1: the car, and I know there's no reason for me
Speaker 1: to be putting my hands on the hood of the car,
Speaker 1: because he has no legitimate reason to be fearful. I've
Speaker 1: told him I live here, and if he had any sense,
Speaker 1: he could have run the tag and seeing that he
Speaker 1: was attached to the home where I'm at. And I
Speaker 1: think what made me so angry was the fact that
Speaker 1: I could not fight back in the way that I
Speaker 1: wanted to because that right there, you know, I it
Speaker 1: was the punctuation mark. It was like a period. It
Speaker 1: was a pause on all that joy I had been feeling,
Speaker 1: because for him to roll up on my house, treat
Speaker 1: me the way he did speak to me, the way
Speaker 1: he did lie to me, make me put my hands
Speaker 1: on the hood of the car, like I was somehow
Speaker 1: involved in criminal activity. It's the humanizing, you know, And
Speaker 1: it's also painful. And that's the thing they try to
Speaker 1: take from us, is all of our emotions. You know,
Speaker 1: don't feel the pain, get angry, you know, don't feel
Speaker 1: the pain. Harden yourself to it. But that's painful, and yes,
Speaker 1: my reaction in those moments is anger, but my anger
Speaker 1: is masking that pain, is masking that dehumanization. And you know,
Speaker 1: there was this aspect of feeling completely boxed in and
Speaker 1: caged by womanhood and my femininity. And I broke free
Speaker 1: of that, you know, I broke free of it for
Speaker 1: a little while. I had a few moments in the sun,
Speaker 1: you know. But the longer I've gone since that moment,
Speaker 1: the more I've realized how I have become caged once again.
Speaker 1: I'm not as free as I thought I was. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back with the slight change of plans. About
Speaker 1: a year after Morgan Gibbons was confronted by that police officer,
Speaker 1: he decided to move to Washington, d C. To start afresh.
Speaker 1: He considered a few different jobs, but ultimately decided to
Speaker 1: follow in his grandma's footsteps. She had been a police officer,
Speaker 1: and Morgan decided to become one too, a decision he
Speaker 1: did not take lightly. So I spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time kind of standing over who the police are in
Speaker 1: reality and what I wanted them to be, which is
Speaker 1: not what they're not that you know, But because I
Speaker 1: grew up with my grandmother, who was a cop for
Speaker 1: thirty years. I've always had this complex relationship with police
Speaker 1: and authority because I know my grandma, right, she baked
Speaker 1: cookies and then she went to put her unifor I
Speaker 1: remember laying on the couch and she would go put
Speaker 1: her uniform on and walk out the door. And I'd
Speaker 1: be like, buy grandma, and like, there's cookies on account,
Speaker 1: you know, stuff like that. Did you grow up with
Speaker 1: cops or coming in out of the house. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: were in the house all the time. We had cookouts.
Speaker 1: These were people who I found to be kind and
Speaker 1: warm and funny, you know. And these were people when
Speaker 1: my grandmother's friends came in the house. I can't remember
Speaker 1: ever seeing my grandmother's cop friends in their uniforms. What
Speaker 1: I saw were the people outside of their jobs as
Speaker 1: a child, you know, and so I saw them through
Speaker 1: the eyes of a child. And my father at that
Speaker 1: time was physically abusive. And I remember one time my
Speaker 1: brother and I ran up the stairs to tell the
Speaker 1: neighbors something was happening in the house, and that was
Speaker 1: one of the last straws, I think, and my grandmother
Speaker 1: called her friends and those cops came and they packed
Speaker 1: up all of our stuff right then and drove all
Speaker 1: of it to our grandma's house. And so I have
Speaker 1: this emotional remembrance of safety in those moments that does
Speaker 1: not coincide with reality. And so I think part of
Speaker 1: what I had to do was grow out of the
Speaker 1: safety I felt around particular cops as a child in
Speaker 1: order to see policing in its fullness. What were your
Speaker 1: goals and entering the force when I joined the police department,
Speaker 1: you know, I was not I was not running in
Speaker 1: there band like. You know, these people are fantastic, They're angels,
Speaker 1: they got wings. Like I knew the history of policing.
Speaker 1: I knew where it started. I knew its origins and
Speaker 1: slave catching patrols and how it kind of blossomed from there.
Speaker 1: You know, I understood how it worked in communities and
Speaker 1: how it didn't work in white communities the same way
Speaker 1: it works in black and brown ones. And I had
Speaker 1: I would read about how people were treated who were
Speaker 1: trans and queer, And at that point in my life,
Speaker 1: I joined because I said, if police say they are
Speaker 1: here to protect the public, then that's what we should
Speaker 1: be doing. But we need to expand the idea of
Speaker 1: what that protection means and what we're actually saying when
Speaker 1: we talk about protecting people. And so I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I can go in there, and you know, I guess
Speaker 1: I can work my way up in the ranks and
Speaker 1: maybe when I'm at a certain position, you know, I
Speaker 1: can I can help, you know, I can do something.
Speaker 1: I can I can tweak some things. But at the
Speaker 1: end of it, it's that's what it's like, a tweak.
Speaker 1: Even at that time I was saying to myself, I
Speaker 1: can tweak some things, not realizing I was saying tweak,
Speaker 1: not fit. So it's like, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: part of me seems to have recognized the impossibility of
Speaker 1: the task. The Audrey Lord quote that we hear all
Speaker 1: the time. Boy, you're gonna take them tools and try
Speaker 1: to dismantles whose house you know? And so, but part
Speaker 1: of me wanted to to make policing be what it
Speaker 1: says it is but is not. So you were the
Speaker 1: first openly trans policeman in the DC workforce. How did
Speaker 1: you approach those conversations and how were you received by
Speaker 1: the force? Had you always plan to be open about
Speaker 1: about that. I went into the academy with the intention
Speaker 1: of being open about it, because I do recognize the
Speaker 1: psychology of how people's hearts soften when they know someone,
Speaker 1: even if they don't like that person. I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, if I'm open in the academy, you know,
Speaker 1: and they get to know me, it will influence an
Speaker 1: impact how they interact with trans people they meet on
Speaker 1: the streets, because their understanding of who we are is
Speaker 1: not based in the lies told about us. I was
Speaker 1: hoping that they would remember a little piece of me
Speaker 1: when they interacted with people. And I had this guy
Speaker 1: who trained us, you know, I remember he met me
Speaker 1: and we went through the entire week, and after I graduated,
Speaker 1: you know, he came up to me and he was like,
Speaker 1: you were like one of the best recruits we've had,
Speaker 1: and you know, I just wanted to let you know that,
Speaker 1: like you really changed me. You change how I view
Speaker 1: things and how I go through the world. And I
Speaker 1: was just really kind of blown away because this was
Speaker 1: like this gruff, middle aged white guy who'd been doing
Speaker 1: this for quite some time. He was just very rough
Speaker 1: around the edges. But I was very very meticulous about
Speaker 1: how I came out in the academy and who knew
Speaker 1: what when so by the time I came out three
Speaker 1: months into the academy to my classmates, they knew me.
Speaker 1: And so it wasn't oh, there's a trans guy in
Speaker 1: our class. They're like, oh, Morgans here in his trans
Speaker 1: You know. I imagine certain police forces can foster a
Speaker 1: kind of macho broye culture. I mean, yeah, So first,
Speaker 1: what it was that the case? And were you included
Speaker 1: in that bro culture? And importantly did you want to
Speaker 1: be oh man? So, yes, it was the case. There
Speaker 1: there was this It was It was very much machismo.
Speaker 1: It was very much you know, all the worst traits
Speaker 1: of quote unquote masculinity that you could kind of put
Speaker 1: into a blender and hand a powerful badge, dude, and
Speaker 1: a weapon. Um. And it was when I when I,
Speaker 1: and I want to be specific, because the masculinity parth,
Speaker 1: this this this tough guy thing, was this idea of
Speaker 1: power and containment that you do not back down no
Speaker 1: matter what because you're the cop. And I did not.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be part of that because my
Speaker 1: whole goal was that's not how we should be doing it.
Speaker 1: I would, honestly, you know, actually get clowned a little
Speaker 1: bit because I did not arrest as many people, or
Speaker 1: I would do more talking on my scenes. And if
Speaker 1: I come at them with the way we've been taught gruffly,
Speaker 1: you know, screaming, don't back down, be a man, quote unquote,
Speaker 1: it's not going to make the situation better. It's not
Speaker 1: going to solve the issue. And so it was there,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't something that I sought to be a
Speaker 1: part of. But I was not excluded. Yeah, I'm wondering
Speaker 1: if you found yourself learning anything new about masculinity from
Speaker 1: being in the police force, if it changed a relationship
Speaker 1: with it. It did because it made me treat it
Speaker 1: not as precious as I had before. Like, I think
Speaker 1: that was me beginning to step more away from the
Speaker 1: traditional ideal of masculinity, you know, being gruff and stoic
Speaker 1: and emotion what's that you know, and kind of do
Speaker 1: I want to act as though this doesn't affect me?
Speaker 1: Do I want to act as though I don't know
Speaker 1: what joy it is I do I want to behave
Speaker 1: in those ways? And so it pushed me further away
Speaker 1: from the traditional idea of masculinity. That was me beginning
Speaker 1: to take the path to I think just being me
Speaker 1: because we have to communicate, because we have to know
Speaker 1: how to talk to one another. We have to label things.
Speaker 1: We have to label actions that are just human actions,
Speaker 1: things that we just do that are just inherently human.
Speaker 1: We label the masculine feminine. That started me on that
Speaker 1: journey of why does it matter? You know, who cares?
Speaker 1: Why did you end up deciding to leave the police force? Gosh?
Speaker 1: I had been on the police department for almost almost
Speaker 1: three years, and I was just tired. Also just facing reality,
Speaker 1: you know, just facing the uphill battle, facing how insurmountable
Speaker 1: that was, realizing that policing would change me before I
Speaker 1: could change it. Because if you wear a costume long enough,
Speaker 1: you start to think it's your real clothes, you know,
Speaker 1: And so you wear this costume of masculinity on the job.
Speaker 1: But if you're on the job twenty four seven and
Speaker 1: you spend so much time in uniform, you can definitely
Speaker 1: lose yourself in the mass that you have to put
Speaker 1: on to where And I did not like that, you know,
Speaker 1: I had to leave. There was just there was nothing
Speaker 1: left for me to do there except lose myself. I see.
Speaker 1: I love to zoom out and ask you a few
Speaker 1: questions about how you've been processing your transition over the years.
Speaker 1: You know, your story leads me to question this idea
Speaker 1: that we can really change on our own terms, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard enough to make that initial change
Speaker 1: within ourselves, but then you realize that there's this huge
Speaker 1: second hurdle to navigate, which is that our society will
Speaker 1: invariably respond differently to you now that you've made that change. Right,
Speaker 1: you know, based on going through this experience, do you
Speaker 1: think this notion of changing on our own terms is
Speaker 1: just a fiction we've created to help us feel a
Speaker 1: greater sense of, you know, personal agency in our lives.
Speaker 1: And have you felt yourself hitting the limits of that agent? See?
Speaker 1: I cannot you know, as you've said, I can't control
Speaker 1: how other people respond to me. I cannot control how
Speaker 1: other people, how other people treat me, you know. But
Speaker 1: even in the midst of that destabilization, even in the
Speaker 1: midst of these variables that I cannot control, I can
Speaker 1: still maintain my grip on myself. Did you ever feel
Speaker 1: like you were losing parts of yourself that you valued
Speaker 1: because you had to? I almost did. I almost because
Speaker 1: I am actually quite sensitive and I don't know. I
Speaker 1: like the things that people might say are things that
Speaker 1: women enjoy. I tend to have mostly women friends, like
Speaker 1: I don't mind having those deep emotional conversations. But there
Speaker 1: was a moment where I was like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: not what men do. So there was a full almost
Speaker 1: eight months to a year while I was like, I
Speaker 1: guess I need to find some cisk guy friends. You know,
Speaker 1: If this is how I'm going to be, I guess
Speaker 1: I have to release everything that was. I almost lost
Speaker 1: so many pieces of myself trying to fit into this,
Speaker 1: this idea of what I thought masculinity was before I
Speaker 1: accepted it's whatever I say it is, you know. And
Speaker 1: it kind of forced me to think more deeply about
Speaker 1: who I am and how I build myself and who
Speaker 1: I want to be. Because if I can dismantle my
Speaker 1: gender and rebuild it, why can I not dismantle other
Speaker 1: parts and rebuild those two? And so it helped me
Speaker 1: unchain the parts of myself that I thought I had
Speaker 1: to hide to protect them. And it's like, well, you
Speaker 1: can come out now. Trust that I am at a
Speaker 1: place where I can keep you safe enough. I can
Speaker 1: keep myself safe enough. I can sit with myself in
Speaker 1: safety and own all the parts of me. Hey, thanks
Speaker 1: for listening. If you're enjoying A Slight Change of Plans,
Speaker 1: please make sure to subscribe, rate and share the show
Speaker 1: with friends and join me next week. When I talked
Speaker 1: with Ramsey Kabaz, when he was a college student, he
Speaker 1: woke up to what sounded like a blaring fire alarm,
Speaker 1: and then it took me a few seconds to realize
Speaker 1: that the sound actually wasn't coming from anywhere it was,
Speaker 1: it was coming from inside my own head. And you know,
Speaker 1: at that point, I knew that there was something super wrong.
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans is created an executive produced
Speaker 1: by me Maya Shunker. Big thanks to everyone at Pushkin Industries,
Speaker 1: including our producer Mola Board, associate producers David Jaw and
Speaker 1: Julia Goodman, executive producers Mia Lavelle and Justine Lange, senior
Speaker 1: editor Jen Guera, and sound design and mixed engineers Ben
Speaker 1: Holliday and Jason Gambrel. Thanks also to Louis Gara who
Speaker 1: wrote our theme song, and Ginger Smith who helped arrange
Speaker 1: the vocals, incidental music from Epidemic Sound, and of course
Speaker 1: a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow
Speaker 1: a slight change of plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Shunker.
Speaker 1: You know what, I'm a text him. I'm sorry, Mason, Bobby,
Speaker 1: I'm doing an interview. Man, I gotta call you back. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: but