All Things Gender

Episode 56–All Things Gender

In this week’s episode of In the Den, Jen sits down with special guest Erik VonSosen and her mother Wendy to chat about all things gender related. They cover everything from gender performance, gender expression to gender experience, gender transition, and more.

Special Guest: Wendy VonSosen

Wendy joined Mama Dragons in 2016. She's the mother of 4 grown kids, including a transgender daughter. She and her husband recently relocated to Salt Lake City after living in the San Francisco Bay Area for the last 25 years. Their kids are scattered among California, Utah, and Arizona. When she's not on her computer, Wendy can be found walking her two dogs and trying to get her cat to like her.

Special Guest: Erik Charlotte VonSosen

Erik is a 22 year old writer, fashion designer, and recent college graduate living in Los Angeles. She works hard for the money, fueled by a passion for vintage dresses, transgender advocacy, and sour gummy bears. 

Links from the Show:

• Some gender definitions: https://www.hrc.org/resources/sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity-terminology-and-definitions 
• More definitions: https://www.talkspace.com/blog/gender-identity-vs-gender-expression/ 
• More on gender: https://www.apa.org/topics/lgbtq/transgender-people-gender-identity-gender-expression 
• Join Mama Dragons today: www.mamadragons.org 

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Transcript

JEN: Hello and welcome to In the Den with Mama Dragons. I’m your host, Jen. This podcast was created to walk and talk with you through the journey of raising happy, healthy, and productive LGBTQ humans. Thanks for listening. We’re glad you’re here.

Today we are going to talk about all things gender. Because inside of the category umbrella of gender, there are smaller but really distinct definitions that matter when we’re trying to understand humanity and the specific humans in it. So we are going to try to break down ideas of gender performance, gender expression, gender experience, gender transition and more! We have a great combo today to help take us on this deep dive. Today we have the intelligent and stunning Erik VonSosen. And we have her mother, Wendy. Before we dive into the total topic and start understanding your personal narrative, I’m hoping you can introduce yourself to our audience.

 ERIK: My name’s Erik Charlotte VonSosen. I’m 22 years old. I grew up in the bay area. I now live in Los Angeles on my own. Growing up, I was definitely quiet and very artistic, a lot of the things I leaned toward weren’t traditional male, masculine interests at the time. I wasn’t super keen on sports. I played seven different sports and was not good at any of them. A lot of my childhood felt like I didn’t fit in super well. And throughout my adolescence and into adulthood, I’ve really been able to find my place in my gender identity and my gender expression.

JEN: That’s perfect. How about you, Wendy? Introduce yourself to us.

WENDY:  Well, Thanks for having us on, first of all.

JEN: Thanks so much for being willing.

WENDY:  So I grew up in Michigan, Kalamazoo, Michigan; Syracuse, New York; and Madison, Connecticut. I was born and raised in a conservative religion. I have two sisters. I met my husband in high school in Madison, Connecticut. And we both ended up in a round-about way going to BYU. We got married soon after we graduated. And we have four kids. And we raised them all in the San Francisco Bay area where we’ve been for the past 27 years. We became empty nesters this past fall and we thought, “Well, we might as well up and move for some crazy reason.” So we did. We now live in Salt Lake City. And, funny enough, our nest has been quite full since we moved. We see our kids more often than we did before.

JEN: Because you tried to empty it.

WENDY:  Yeah, because we tried to empty it, which we love. We love seeing our kids and their friends and their partners. And so we’re setting down roots here in Salt Lake City now.

JEN: Awesome. Thank you for that, Wendy. I want to tell the listener from the start that I’m not ignoring Wendy, but primarily most of my questions will be focused toward Erik. So if you’re feeling like I’m neglecting Wendy, I apologize in advance. But I do want Erik to actually answer this first whole chunk of questions. 

So we can break down some of these gender words. I want to compare and contrast, and give us a ground level idea of what people are talking about because I hear these ideas so jumbled up and confused in conversations, especially as we’re entering another political season and we’ve got politicians talking about these things too and they’re so intermixed together. So, Erik, if you don’t mind, can you start by explaining the idea of gender expression.

ERIK: For sure. I think a really great baseline to think of when we’re talking about gender identity and gender expression, is gender identity is who you are and gender expression is how you’re communicating who you are. So I think, when we’re referring to gender expression, we’re referring to the way that gender is communicated in our society. Gender, especially in Western societies like here in the U.S., is very rigid. So certain characteristics that we put out into the world, whether we like it or not, will be communicated as male versus female, man versus woman. Our society really focuses on linking the two together. So, masculine, traditionally “manly” tropes are often connected with biologically male identities and vice versa for female identities. So, I think, when we’re referring to gender expression, it’s the way that gender is communicated in our society regardless of the body that you occupy.

So a good example would be wearing the color pink. Pink, if we look at the color pink in a vacuum, there’s no gender there. There’s really no communication there at all. But because the society and the communication of hundreds and hundreds of years of civilization and ideas we now see pink as this feminine thing, as something for girls, when before, it didn’t have that meaning. So a lot of gender expression is meaning that we’re putting onto things that isn’t necessarily inherently there, which I think is where it differs a lot from biology.

JEN: So you hit on this a lot. But talk for just a second more about gender identity. If somebody says, “This is my gender identity.” What do they mean?

ERIK: Yeah. I think gender identity is often linked to expression because a lot of time gender identity is communicated through expression. But identity is really a personal thing. It’s not something you can just see in someone. It’s not something that you can predict in someone. It’s very personal. And I think a lot of trans people see their gender identity very differently. And that’s also not to say that cis people don’t also have a gender identity. I’m sure that there’s a lot of cis people in the world who feel completely comfortable being a woman or being a man. Well, I know there are because that’s a lot of people.

JEN: Probably most of us.

ERIK: The big difference is gender identity is very personal. It’s very introspective. And it can be communicated outwardly, but it’s through other means: through the way we communicate, through the way that we dress ourselves, through the way that we carry ourselves. That’s the way to communicate the gender identity. But really, it’s like an internal thing.

JEN: So how do you describe the idea of a gender binary?

ERIK: When we think of gender binary, I think a lot of what I was saying before about how we have certain traits that are associated with male bodies and certain traits that are associated with female bodies. The sex binary is something that we see a lot in nature. Think about reproduction in animals. All of that is really focused on male and female. But gender binary draws from that primarily in the culture we live in here in the United States – there are other cultures who don’t see gender as binary, sometimes there’s other identities that are in there – but especially in our society, the gender binary is very rigid and it helps keep societal control because everyone is required to follow these certain steps as they get older. It’s something you see a lot in organized religion. That was something that was really present in the Mormon church when I grew up in it. Binary is very, very separate. And so crossing that binary, being out of that binary, or completely disregarding that, is very difficult to do because most people grow up just thinking that gender is a very rigid, binary system.

JEN: When I think of the binary, it makes me think of everybody who’s like, “There’s only boys and girls. There’s only male or female.” Which is a position someone can take. But those are often the same people who are like, “He’s acting like such a woman.” Or “What a Beta.” I think most of us, regardless of our opinions about the binary, would have to recognize that if someone asked us to, we could line people up from the very most masculine to the very least masculine and that might not even match with their gender identities. There’s going to be a whole lot of overlap in that space.

ERIK: Yeah.

 JEN: So then I always think there’s no such thing as binary, but you’re 100% right that our society very much enforces this idea of the girls line and the boys line and things like that. How do these things differ from gender roles?

ERIK: I think gender roles play a lot into the binary because they help reinforce the binary that exists. I think a lot about these gender roles. I think a lot of times, when we talk about gender roles, we talk about the 1950s and we think about that 1950s housewife. That’s almost like the perfect prototype for how we see gender roles in American society. And I think these roles help to reinforce that binary because if there was no meaning being attached to what it means to be a man or a woman, it would be a lot easier to break away from. But, because we have these decades and centuries of roles – for example women are meant to bear children and that ends up being their destiny for the rest of their life, whereas men are able to go pursue independent careers and be tycoons and have multiple wives sometimes and things like that. A lot of those meanings help to reinforce a binary and maintain our idea of what gender is.

JEN: So this is a big one that could take, probably, multiple episodes. But when we hear people say, “Gender is a social construct.” What do they mean?

ERIK: The best way I can explain it is almost through example. I guess, let’s say you took a pair of twins and you put one twin in the forest and the twin had to grow up in the trees and hunt for food and had no civilization to look at. Whereas, you take the other twin and have it raised in a traditional American household. You can see the way that these kids would grow up. Say they’re both boys. One boy is going to be conditioned not to maybe express emotion or will be conditioned to play sports or to assert some kind of dominant role. But if you took the other child who’s growing up in a completely different environment, they likely won’t have those same ideas about gender. They probably won’t even know that they’re a man, that they’re a boy, because they just grow up male. So I think with gender as a social construct too, I think it’s something that when people hear it, they immediately turn their brain off to it because it sounds maybe too large or too revolutionary or too radical. But I think when we look at life around us, gender really is this social construct because, especially when you look at other societies, I think a lot about how trans women are treated in other countries, like Thailand. It’s a much more accepting view of gender transcendence, of change from the gender binary, or indigenous communities who have other gender expressions. Just even the notion of places in two sides of the world having different ideas of what gender is, helps reinforce that it is a social construct. I didn’t come out the womb with a little baseball cap on and ready to play with trucks. That was something I was conditioned and supposed to like as I grew up. So I think a lot of times the reason why people are so defensive about gender being a social construct is there’s a lot of conflation between sex and gender. Sex is biological. It’s very detailed. It’s very scientific. But gender is something that we associate with sex because of the communities and the culture that we grew up in.

JEN: And interestingly enough, sex – despite being biological and scientific like you said – is also not particularly binary like we sometimes pretend it is. So are there any other highlights in this world of definition that we need to hit before we take a deeper dive into your personal journey?

ERIK: Good questions. I feel like I hit on a lot of it. Also, as it pertains to some modern definitions of trans and the trans community. A lot of times when I refer to a trans community or refer to a gender diverse people, that also includes people who are transitioning within the binary and also people who are transitioning outside of it. There’s a lot of people who identify as trans nonbinary. So they’re transitioning out of a binary. Sometimes that’s with hormones. Sometimes that’s with the way that they dress. Sometimes it isn’t. It’s very specific for each person, which I think it going to be my thesis through the whole thing, is that transitioning is so different for everyone. But that is just like an asterisk, I guess.

JEN: That’s actually not just an asterisk. I think that’s super important. And I’m hoping to get a chance to talk about that because I do think, when I started learning about this stuff, there were people who did not transition and then there were people who did transition. And it was still like my world of boxes, these two separate boxes that you could even ask, “Has he transitioned.” And you thought you knew what it meant. But really that idea, like you just mentioned, is different for every single person who is transitioning or choosing not to transition, whatever they mean for those words. So I’m glad that you brought it up because I’m going to bring it up again later.

So I want to start the life of Erik and go all the way back to your preschool, elementary years. And I want to hear how you were experiencing yourself and your gender all through that young phase of life.

ERIK: First of all, I didn’t have nearly the understanding that I have now of what gender was. I was just kind of trying to navigate the world as a preschooler, as an elementary schooler. Especially growing up religious, there were very set boundaries I needed to abide by. But I didn’t feel the pressure of those as heavily until I got into middle, high school, more adolescence. So my preschool and elementary school days, especially the early ones, were very almost euphoric because there’s a certain threshold of time where you’re allowed to exist outside of the binary just a little bit. I dressed up in princess costumes all the time. I was very into dressing up. All my friends were girls. It was just so much fun for me because it was an age where it was early enough that I wasn’t having too many expectations put on me for the way that I should exist. And it was encouraged for me to be imaginative. And I grew up, I learned how to read when I was really young. So I was reading all the time. and I would babble a lot, according to my mom, like I would just talk and talk and talk and talk without words. I didn’t know how to do words yet, but I would just talk. So I think I could see a lot of that. In hindsight, I can see a lot of that freedom that I had and I was very open to expressing my thoughts even if they weren’t coherent yet because I felt, I guess, more in tune with what, maybe, my gender was. Again, only being something I could see in hindsight. I definitely would not have been able to articulate that at four years old.

JEN: And how were you doing, Wendy, during this phase? Elementary school, you have this child who is mostly playing with girls and dressing up in princess dresses. Were you like, “My kid’s the most creative and it’s awesome?” What were you thinking as a parent at the time? And your spouse, speak for Ralf, too.

WENDY:  OK. I thought that she was going to make the best husband because she understood girls so well. But she loved dressing up and I think that we were pretty okay with it at this point. And like her favorite thing was to play with her cousin, her little girl cousin. And they would play Polly Pockets all the time. She loved Polly Pockets. So we just knew she liked that kind of thing. And we weren’t really too worried about it.

JEN: Did it occur to you that there might be some gender dysphoria in the future or did any of that enter your mind?

WENDY:  Well, no, because I think, coming from a conservative religion, I wouldn’t let myself go there because it was such a scary thing to have happen in my world view at that time.

JEN: Yeah. All right. So, take us into middle school, Erik. You said it was pretty free until middle school and then you started to become aware of things. Talk to us about that.

ERIK: Yeah. I think a lot of the freedom started to wear off in actually late elementary school. I started to get bullied more often because the way that I carried myself and the way that I communicated was not very masculine. And this was the time period where I’m trying to play all these different sports and I’m bad at all of them. I wasn’t bad, I was actually kind of good at some of them. But I didn’t like them. So it was like, why even do it. And then when middle school came around, I think that period of time, I still didn’t really understand anything about gender. I definitely would not have been able to see myself that way. But I was becoming more aware of my sexuality. And I think that sexuality and gender, oftentimes, do have a lot in common, and there’s a lot that’s intertwined there. So, in middle school, I think, is when I found out that I was more attracted to men. And I came out to my mom as gay in like, 8th grade. I think I was 13.

JEN: Did you have any concept of gender, of your own gender at this point. Obviously you knew what a man was because that’s who you were attracted to. But when it came to yourself, were you aware at all?

ERIK: I definitely knew that I was different. Even in elementary school, even in grade school I knew that I was different. I didn’t like being called a boy. I didn’t really have the knowledge of gender to be able to actually communicate that. But I definitely felt different. I didn’t feel like a man. In my mind, I didn’t even see the idea of becoming a man because it was like the early stages of puberty. I wasn’t ready for what that would mean.

JEN: So like those ideas sometimes little kids express, like, “I want to be just like my dad.” Or they want to practice shaving their faces to be like dad. Did you have any of that going on when you were a kid?

ERIK: Not really. Not at all really. I grew up close with my dad and my brothers, too. So I was doing a lot of these very masculine things. But I didn’t really have that much of that.

JEN: So you weren’t imitating adult manhood?

ERIK: No. Not at all. If anything, I was probably more closely imitating adult womanhood. Like I loved a lot of those traditional things we associate with women, things like cooking, decorating, watching HGTV with my mom, things like that. And I think, when it comes to my understanding of gender, I think I didn’t have that down yet. But I did know that, if I was to function under the label of gay instead of this assumed straight maleness, it would almost give me more of a pass to be more feminine. So if I come out as gay, and people know that I’m gay, it makes sense that I would be a little bit more effeminate. I would wear slightly less masculine clothes or it would explain a lot of the behavior in a way that is easy for me to understand, easy for people around me to understand to a certain extent. So I think that’s why I found comfort in the label of calling myself gay, like I was a gay boy.

JEN: Tell me how old you were when you told your parents that you were gay.

ERIK: I was 13.

JEN: So you were a baby.

ERIK: Yeah.

JEN: And how did that go from your perspective, Erik, to tell your parents that you were gay?

ERIK: It went okay. It wasn’t like a “10 out of 10 smash out of the park” reaction, which I wouldn’t expect it to be. I think my parents really affirmed that they still loved me. I think I was really scared of that. I think that’s always a really scary thing for people who come out. I think, even though it wasn’t the perfect reaction that I would’ve wanted, I also had this understanding that my mom grew up in a very different environment than I’m growing up now. My dad grew up with very different values than I have now. They have different perspectives on things and it’s going to take them time to see the way that I view the world. And, as long as I got that unconditional love, I was pretty happy. And it was nice to see how my parents have progressed through that and have become incredibly supportive. Now, if we did it over, it would probably be the perfect response. But I don’t want to come out again.

JEN: So how about from your perspective, Wendy? You’ve been kind of watching this exploration and at 13, there’s an announcement. How did it land?

WENDY:  I don’t know if you remember the specifics, Erik. But you chose to tell me the evening after your dad left on a trip for 12 days. So she came out to me. It took a while for you to actually say it to me. I kind of had a little bit of an idea. And I just remember leaving your room and just going into the bathroom and crying, like “I don’t know what to do with this and I don’t know anyone with a gay kid.” And that was a long 12 days because I didn’t want to be the one to come out to your dad. I wanted it to be you. But I think I really didn’t have a whole lot of experience or understanding. I didn’t know any gay people growing up that I knew of. And so I think we tried our best. We probably would do it a lot better this time. But it was quite a lot to try and figure out.

JEN: This is about when I met you, Erik, right?

ERIK: It was probably like 14.

JEN: And you were just this delightful happy kid in the spaces where I saw you. You fit in brilliantly and you were super well-liked. The spaces we were in, it seemed very natural for you to just be there and shine. You kind of were shiny. I can’t think of a better way to articulate that. It seemed like that is about when you started to pick up some skills. You learned some really amazing things. You became so good at makeup. I would see the pictures and stuff. You were so good. And you could sew these ball gowns out of multiple different types of fabric. And it was so fun to watch. So how did you go from “I’m a gay boy” into this more performative space?

ERIK: I think I started experimenting, definitely, in high school. I think once I felt like I was getting a lot more support from my parents – not that I wasn’t before, but now that it felt more articulated and they had a more complex understanding thanks to Mama Dragons and these different support groups my mom was able to go in – I felt like my environment was getting a little bit more comfortable for me to start to break out of the box that I was in with my gender. I also think that going through puberty also influenced at that time because I started to see these changes in myself that I really didn’t like. And I wasn’t able to articulate that I didn’t want those to happen and that I wish they were different. So I think I started to find comfort in this concept of gender performance. I got really interested in makeup. I thought it was such a cool artform and the way that it could just transform a face. And I really liked the power it gave me. It was a really small sliver. A lot of my transition is baby steps. So I started by coming out as gay. And then I feel like the next step up was, “Okay. I’m going to play with makeup now because it feels like a very lowish stakes way to get in some more feminine gender performance.” And so I started to get really good at makeup. It was the one thing that I was able to really hone in on. And it was my number one skill and I loved it. And I was like, “I want to be a makeup artist.” Because I think I was projecting so much of those issues with my own gender identity into this one thing.

JEN: Did you at all, at this point, think that you were experimenting with gender identity, or did you feel like you were a cis boy who just liked makeup?

ERIK: I think I felt like I was just a boy who liked makeup because that was also – around that time there were a lot more cis boys wearing makeup and sharing that makeup industry. And so there were these kind of role models to say, “this isn’t that weird. Maybe this is something that I can fit in.” So I still really didn’t have that understanding. I still knew I didn’t feel exactly like a boy, like I wasn’t the perfect prototype of a boy. But I guess I didn’t know where I would go if I distanced myself from that label. So it felt a little bit safe to cling to.

JEN: Did you have ways that you were attempting to conform? So you’re doing this gender performance type stuff, exploring a different gender than the gender you were living. Were there things you were trying to do to conform, simultaneously?

ERIK: There were a little bit and then I started to kind of let go of them, I think around when I was 16. For the first year and a half of high school, I was still going to seminary every morning before high school. I was still going to church. But I think, to a certain extent, I just got tired of trying to balance the two and trying to exist in this delicate balance where I felt like one side I was getting a lot of comfort out of and it felt very introspective. And the other side felt very conditional. I feel like a lot of the way I grew up, the church community I grew up with was great, always so supportive, always so sweet. But I think, when it came to church leadership, that’s where I felt really alienated. It didn’t feel like I was exactly wanted. I felt like the want and the community was very conditional. And so I kind of had this choice to make where it’s, “Do I focus on something that feels really good that feels like a community, something that is expanding on my creativity and my own identity. Or do I try to stick with this religion that doesn’t quite work out?” And so I think, when I was around 16, is when I stopped going to church and I stopped trying to reinforce these certain ideas that I had and I started to experiment with drag. That was like the next step up. My grandma taught me how to sew and I started making dresses and catsuits and all these things. And it felt like another little escape that I could go into and leave being a boy behind for a couple of hours.

JEN: So when you talk about the perspective, your conservative mom with multiple kids, but you did live in the Bay Area. So maybe some exposure to bigger things. But, Wendy, you have this kid who wants to wear a full face of makeup to school or a prom dress to prom. How did that feel at the time to you? Was that like you were just comfortable, felt good?

WENDY:  Oh, yeah. No. I think my main concern was always for her safety. So I didn’t want her to go out in public with makeup on. That was our first rule. You could do it as much as you want at home, enjoy doing it at home. And I was actually really shocked that she was so good at makeup. I was like, where did you learn this?

JEN: This was a next-level skill.

WENDY:  It wasn’t from me.

JEN: Yeah.

WENDY:  She was really, really good. In fact, she had a little side business going for a while where she did makeup for events for people. So I was always worried about her safety when she went out. But she did ask us, the next step was, “Can I wear makeup to school?” And we ended up letting her. And she would drive to school early, like an hour early, and do makeup in the car because she didn’t have a parking spot. That’s the moral of the story. But like a full glam face of makeup at school. And as far as I know, nothing major ever happened and the school was fairly supportive of her. We lived in a suburb of San Francisco which was pretty conservative. So it wasn’t like we lived in San Francisco. But, I think for us, the school ended up being pretty supportive of her. She did ask us if she could go to – was it homecoming or prom, do you remember?

ERIK: I think the first one was Junior Prom.

WENDY:  Junior Prom in drag. And I said, “Aw, I don’t know. That’s really scary for me.” But we had a conversation and I said, “As long as you get permission from the school to do that and as long as the chaperones know about it and as long as you stick with a friend all the time, then you can.” And she did. And I think it was a really positive experience, right?

ERIK: Yeah.

JEN: Do either of you think the response would’ve been different from your peers and the school if you weren’t so good at it? Like if you had been wearing a lot of really bad makeup or really bad clothes – because you have some skill. We’re talking like Billy Porter-level skill going into these venues and these gorgeous, gorgeous gowns. Do you think your skill helped pave the way a little bit for you?

ERIK: I think it did. And I think being able to bring my skill into that also helped people see me as a whole person, almost. I think if I was just throwing on hair, throwing on makeup, it would feel almost like I’m putting on a costume. But I think because a lot of my skill and a lot of the time I spent working, polishing makeup – I was doing makeup every night. Every night, “Okay. I’m done with dinner.” I would go in my room and do some new cool makeup, take pictures of it, and wipe it off. So I was putting a lot of work into these creative ventures. And I think that because that skill and that time and that dedication came through in the execution, I think that’s why I felt maybe more respect and more encouragement from my peers. But it didn’t just seem like a little one-and-done thing or something super out of left field. These are skills and creative ideas that I’ve been talking about forever. Now, I’m just letting everyone see them.

JEN: So, how did you get the confidence to do it? I think about myself in high school and my limited ability to break out of anything that might draw extra attention to me. And you were breaking some pretty big boundaries at the time. Where on earth did that self confidence come from?

ERIK: I think it came from almost the idea of, like, “What else am I going to do?” because I already felt like I didn’t fit in with the people around me. And I already felt this sense of incongruence. And so, instead of trying to condition myself to fit into these boxes, I think my thought process is like, “I’m already so far gone, I might as well see what other stuff I can break and be as true to myself as possible.” I think it helps that I really didn’t like high school, either. Clearly, because it was a period of incongruence for me. So it was like that loosened up a lot of inhibitions because I don’t really care about what these people at school think of me. I want to just be myself and people can choose to like it or not. But, at the end of the day, I can’t really control it.

JEN: That’s pretty mature for a high schooler, though.

ERIK: I had a lot of confidence then, I almost wish I had more of it now. I think some of it left as I aged up. But I was very confident.

JEN: And how was your confidence in all of this at the same time, Wendy?

WENDY: My confidence in her?

JEN: In pursuing this. Were you like, “Try for a little bit, but then could you please get back in the box because that’s where life’s easy.” Or were you like, “This kid’s gonna shine forever and it’s going to be fantastic.”

WENDY:  I think at some point I just said, “She’s really good.” There was one time, and I always talk about this and I don’t know that Erik appreciates it all the time. But she went and she bought like 50 Trader Joe's bags from Trader Joe’s and she created this amazing dress out of paper bags.

JEN: I saw that dress.

WENDY:  Yes. It was amazing. And I don’t even know if I can find a picture of it any more, but it’s my favorite thing.

JEN: It’s like the kind of thing you see on a TV show, like where they give people weird stuff and then you’re like, “Wow!”

WENDY:  There’s like a full corset that she made and it was just the cutest and most amazing thing. And I think that might’ve been like the turning point where I was like, “She’s really good at this. She should do this.” In fact, I wanted her to do, like make a YouTube channel and start making money off of it. But that didn’t work. But she has always been so intelligent and kind and just really a happy, happy kid. And I just wanted more of that for her. And if this was the way that she was going to do it, then I was all in for that.

JEN: All right. So, take us from performative drag, you’re in high school. Something changed. You came up with new language or new labels or became more self-aware before you headed off to college. What was this next step?

ERIK: Yeah. For college, I still wasn’t – I knew a lot about trans identity. I had friends who were trans, I had online, online friends who were trans. I knew what it was. But I think it was something that I still wasn’t able to really associate with myself. So I went to college. I was living with a roommate at the time who I did not like. It was a really difficult freshman year of college. And I think a lot of that came from this feeling of gender dysphoria that I was facing. I lost a lot of my passion for doing fun makeup for school every day because I was just getting really tired with having to exist as a boy – as a man because now I had to exist as a man because I was now 18. And I think college is when it got really hard for me because it was very lonely. And I didn’t have the same confidence. All of my confidence had just completely depleted. I think my senior year of high school it started to go down a little bit as I started to realize there is a future, I’m going to grow into a man at some point. I can’t stay in this Peter-Pan state forever. And so I think college was when it got really hard. And a lot of dysphoria got really dark. And I can only label it as dysphoria now. I couldn’t in the moment. So I was very lonely. I was barely doing drag. I did like one show in LA which was really fun. But it was hard for me to make friends and I was struggling with an eating disorder at the time which was really linked to that gender dysphoria. And so it was when I think the weight of it all started to hit me because I was really thinking, “Something’s really wrong, and I’ve been putting it off and masking it with all these really cool interests.” But it can only hold up for so long. And then my freshmen year was cut short, the second semester because of COVID. So I ended up moving back home which I think was a really great thing for me to be back in the same space that I grew up playing around with gender and so I felt a little bit more connected to myself. So then that summer of 2020, I came out to my parents as trans which is a much different conversation than the first time. It was like very casual. It was just a random day and I was like, “Can I talk to you guys?” And then it was just, it wasn’t casual, but it was so much less scary. And I think it brought me so much relief. I think it took me a long time to figure out that this was something. But I remember I kind of came to that conclusion after talking to some of my friends who are trans and just learning. And I was talking to one of my online trans friends and I was like, “Wow. Everything you’re talking about sounds a lot like the things that I’m dealing with all the time.” And then, while I was living at home, everyone else in my family went on vacation and I was watching the dogs or something because I didn’t want to go. And the whole time my family was gone, I was putting on very casual female clothing. And I was like, this feels really natural. This feels very freeing. And I spent that whole week just thinking about – trying to piece together what a future could look like of being a trans woman. And I think it brought me so much hope at a time that I hadn’t felt hope in a really long while to where I had to get it out. I’m not good at keeping things in. So I was like, I feel like I’m trans, I’ve got to tell my parents right away because I want to be actionable on it. So then I started hormones a couple months after that and that led me to today.

JEN: Did you struggle with the label, like the word “trans” at all. Or once you realized it, did you think, “Well maybe I’m just really feminine. Or maybe I’m actually nonbinary. Or maybe I’m fluid.” Did you kind of baby step through that or did you pretty much figure out, “I’m just trans”?

ERIK: Yeah. I think I baby stepped a little bit but in terms of nonbinary. I was maybe like my identity falls more in something nonbinary. But I think I found so much – it just felt so natural to call myself trans. Like I’m a trans woman is something I don’t shy away from. I think more of the discomfort came from calling myself a woman. I think it’s something that I still have trouble calling myself because it feels really contentious. And womanhood is very debated in our culture. So I think that’s the part that I had more discomfort with because I grew up with such an incredible mom and around so many strong women. It just felt a little bit different. But, as for calling myself a trans woman, I felt so free and so happy and I was like, “This feels really right.” And I felt so, especially once my hormones started to make more of a change both mentally and physically, I felt so much more at peace with my body. I felt like I could actually look in the mirror and be happy, someone at peace.

JEN: So, Wendy, you have this daughter who says, “Welcome back from vacation. I’m trans.” How did that part go for you?

WENDY: I had been with Mama Dragons for a few years before that. And so I had been learning all I could about raising gay boys. And not as much paying attention to raising trans women, trans girls. And so I thought, “I’m almost done with Mama Dragons. I can probably graduate pretty soon and move on.” And then I was like, “Oh, no. I can’t. I can’t quit Mama Dragons yet. I have so much to learn.” But I think that once I thought a lot about it, it totally made sense. Like I could see from the very beginning that she was a girl, a woman, and everything from her childhood to middle school to trying on femininity through drag, all made sense. And I can see how much happier she was defining herself as trans, as a woman.

JEN: What about the age thing? Because, at this point, Erik, you’re an adult. 18, 19ish, right? So, Wendy, your participation at this point, like you were talking about raising a gay boy. Do you feel a little bit like you were pushed out of the chunk where you get to have a vote or a say? Or helping, like you’ve got this independent adult kid who can kind of just do it on her own? Or did you feel like you had to dive deep so you could help her?

WENDY:  I felt like I needed to understand better what the experience was so that I would know how to communicate better with her and how I could support her. I think it’s really important when you’re raising any kids that you find out how they need your support rather than just assuming how you think you should be supporting. And so I think that just being able to communicate better with her and to know what questions to ask and to kind of understand transition – everyone’s very different – but having more of a general knowledge of the trans experience was really important for me to know how best to support her.

ERIK: I also think that time of my early transition is also kind of special because I spent a lot of that at home because that was still during the pandemic. So I didn’t actually go back to school until like a year after I came out as trans. So I almost had this opportunity to stay in this cocoon and be safe at home for a year. So I did get a lot of support from my mom at that time. It kind of felt like she was still raising me as I went from 19 to 20 trying to navigate it all. And then, when school started again, that’s when I kind of feel like I got to leave the nest again.

JEN: So forgive my math. But you started to transition. You’re 19ish and so it’s been three years since then.

ERIK: Yep.

JEN: Talk to me about how you understand your gender identity and how you would describe your gender expression at this point. And, if you’re doing anything still in the realm of gender performance, how is that for you now?

ERIK: Yeah. I think in terms of identity, I think I still really feel very close to the label of being a trans woman. I think it’s something that’s only been reinforced throughout my transition. I think a lot of times it can be a scary thing to finally begin your transition because you don’t know, “What if my ideas change? What if my identity changes?” But that’s the one thing that I feel like has been incredibly constant is I know that I’m a trans woman. And then I think, in terms of expression, I’ve done a lot of work to distance myself from more traditional ideas of gender expression. I think there’s something that I found a lot of solace in them in my early transition because I know that when I had a shaved head when I came out as trans which is awful timing. But I was like, when I put on this long blonde wig and I put on my makeup and I put on my dress, people are going to see me as a woman, and it’s like, finally. So it’s almost like I passed a test in some way because those are those early days of transition. I’m home all the time. Whenever I leave the house it feels like a big test and I have to pass it. And I have to pass, I have to be treated well. And then, I think as I’ve matured and I’ve grown up and grown into my body and adjusted to hormones, I think I’ve let go of a lot of that because I think that it can be really damaging to hold on to for too long. So, in terms of my gender expression, I try to hold my identity in an internal locus of control instead of looking outward for other people to affirm it. Now, my gender expression, I’ll wear whatever I want. I’ll wear makeup if I want to. I’ll not wear makeup if I don’t want to because I know that my identity is so stalwart. That’s really something that’s important and it’s internal. I have an internal hold on it. And then in terms of performance, I think I still do perform a little bit depending on the scenario. So if I’m like even in a more professional setting I want to conduct myself a little bit more effeminate. Or if I’m worried about getting clocked or getting misgendered, I’m going to behave a little bit more femininely. I’ll maybe raise my voice more instead of just speaking in my natural tone. Or I’ll become more aware of the way that I move my hands or the way that I’m sitting, all these little things. But I definitely think about it a lot less now because I feel like this is who I am. And if people don’t accept that, I don’t want to waste my time trying to put on some sort of performance for them.

JEN: So when we talk about you started your transition or you’re transitioning, and don’t feel compelled to talk about anything you’re not comfortable with. But what did the idea of transition mean to you at the start and now? Like, do you feel like you’re done with your transition? What did that concept of transition mean for you specifically?

ERIK: I think, initially, a lot of my transition was based around the physicality of it. I was so eager to start hormones. And I was so ready for my hair to grow longer because I felt like that was where so much of my emphasis was. I want to look like a woman because I feel like that will make me feel like a woman. They’ll go hand-in-hand. So I think what a lot of what transitioning meant for me in these early stages is, “If other people see me as a woman, that makes me a woman.” But now, my view of it has evolved so much as I’ve matured and as my mindset has changed where it’s all internal. So now I feel like what my transition means to me is more mental, more feeling assured in my body, assured in my identity, and knowing that I can take up space the same way that my cis peers do. So I think, in a way, I’m almost never done transitioning because I’m always coming into new ideas about what my gender expression means or my gender identity means. But I don’t really think of myself as someone who’s “in transition” anymore. I feel like I’ve made it to the other side. I think there’s a lot of development that can still happen on the other side. But I feel I’ve gotten through a lot of the rough patches of it as it pertains to transferring through one side of the binary to another. Like, I feel secure in my place but I know there’s so much more. I can dig deeper in that specific spot and figure out what it is that actually makes me feel this way, what makes me feel good, and what makes me feel not good.

JEN: Wendy, talk to me about how motherhood in general, is a lot of joy and fear, a lot of trepidation and celebration. But what are some specific things that fall into those categories for you, either that joy, that elation, or that terror when our kids navigate. Watching Erik go through the past – actually, her whole life – but particularly those last three, four years of transition?

WENDY:  I am so proud of her for where she is now. And I think she’s come a long way. And she‘s taught me so much about – my generation.

JEN: I’m sitting there with you.

WENDY:  I think we have specific gender roles that we play. We get up, we put our makeup on. We do our hair and we look a certain way, usually. But just seeing that Erik has a different idea of, and more comfort in, who she is to not have to play those roles, is really refreshing to me. And I, of course, I’m always worried about my kids. There’s always one person that I’m worried more about. They just cycle through. I don’t worry so much about her safety. I think she carries herself in a way that she is confident in who she is. And being in the area that she’s in, I think is a great thing for her. I would worry more if she was in . . .

JEN: Alabama.

WENDY: . . . a more conservative state, yes. So the fear of her safety isn’t as big as it was before. I do worry sometimes if she has a bout of depression, just knowing how best to support her through that. But I do think that she has a lot of resources that she uses and she’s learning how to get through those times. And I’m just excited for her. She just finished, she just graduated college and she has a full-time job already. So she’s going to be independent. She’s looking for an apartment. And I’m just excited to see her start her new chapter in life. That’s all we really want for our kids is to see them independent and happy.

JEN: Did it free you up at all, Wendy? Like do you find yourself looking at life a little bit differently, questioning your own gender expression or your own experience with gender roles? Did Erik break you out of a bubble?

WENDY:  Oh, for sure. I grew up with gender roles that were so binary. “You should put your lipstick on before your husband gets home so that you look good.”

JEN: That’s even more extreme than me.

WENDY:  Yeah. So, oh for sure. I mean, if I didn’t have Erik and the experience I’ve had with her, I’m sure that I would still be, just have accepted the things I grew up with. I question a lot and my poor husband, I question him a lot. And he understands and he’s very patient with me. but I definitely see gender differently. And I think that’s good. I think it’s refreshing. And I think I’m more open-minded towards other people and other experiences. And overall, it’s just been a really good thing for me, personally.

JEN: That’s awesome. All right. This is another one, Erik, that you might not want to address, but I remember when your mom brought it up and I was so happy about it that it makes me want you to tell the world. Talk to us about your name because names are a form of gender expression, right? If you meet someone named Susan, you have some expectations of what’s coming up. Or if somebody named Greg. So talk about your name.

ERIK: Yeah. I think with my name, it was something that I could never pick a different one. I really struggled with that because I didn’t want my transition to turn me into a different person. I still wanted to be connected to all those great things that I experienced in the first 19 years of my life. And I think it was almost a big obstacle to transitioning; I get really stuck on logistics. So I was like, “I know I can transition. I know I feel more like a woman. But what do I change my name to?” And that was the one thing that was stopping me.

JEN: Did it feel like an obligation, like, “If I’m going to be trans, I have to pick a new name.”

ERIK: Yeah. I really felt like that. A lot of the trans people, especially in those programs that I was doing as a teenager, there was a lot of trans teens that I was friends with and they were always changing their names when they transitioned. So it really felt like that was what I was supposed to do. And then I was just like, “I can’t keep worrying about this. I’m just not going to change my name.” Because, one, it’s less hassle. But, also, I feel really connected to my name and I think of that Shakespeare quote that’s like, “A rose by any other name would smell just so sweet.” We put so much emphasis on what a name means that it’s all meaning that we’ve given to it. Like I think about there’s a lot of gender neutral names that maybe weren’t gender neutral a hundred years ago. I think of the name Dylan. Dylan is a very gender neutral name. You see a lot of new parents naming their baby girls Dylan. So names are constantly changing. And, honestly, I guess I was just kind of stubborn and I don’t want to change my name for the world around me. I’m just going to carve it out. I’m going to make it work. And it wasn’t easy. There were a lot of times in my early transition when I was looking for outside validation a lot where I would get immediately misgendered just off the basis of my name. And I kind of had to learn to live with that. And it’s gotten so much better, like I don’t really get that upset when I get misgendered anymore because I know these are just strangers. These are people who I’m never going to see again. I don’t need to prove myself to them. But I think there’s, I don't know, there’s power in keeping that name and knowing that I’m totally a woman. I’m totally a trans woman. I present myself very femininely. But having that more masculine name almost feels like a way for people to get to know me right off the bat because for me there’s not a lot of emphasis on disclosure. I’m not someone who tries to live their life without people knowing they’re trans. I’m 6 foot 3, I have some very masculine features. So I’m very open about it. And if people are going to judge me regardless, I might as well keep my old name, as almost like a battle scar or something. But I did change my middle name to Charlotte which is the name of my Oma which is kind of like continuing a tradition because my sister’s middle name is Jean, which is my other grandma. So that was my compromise for like, I’m not going to change my name, but I’ll do the middle name.

JEN: That’s funny because my youngest changed their first name but refused to change their middle name for similar reasons. You look like a supermodel.

ERIK: Thank you.

JEN: Long and gorgeous and tall and thin. But, until you said the tallness makes it easier for people to clock you, is kind of what you were pointing at.

ERIK: Mm-hmm.

JEN: I want to hear in general, you just graduated from college. Your mom shared that. And you’re living your life. You have a job. You can pay your own rent in California. That doesn’t even happen for 20 year olds anymore. But you’re living your life as this beautiful young woman exploring the world. I think it would be silly to assume that, “Whew, life is good. It’s smooth sailing. I just move through the world seamlessly now.” So, the last question I want to pose to you is what are some of the challenges you face still as a trans woman?

ERIK: I think I have a lot of challenges with emotional maturity. I’m going to cry, oh my god. I’m not at the same level of maturity because there’s a lot of things that my cis peers got to do at earlier times than I did. So when it comes to, sorry . . .

JEN: I think these are very normal feelings.

ERIK: I just want to be articulate. When it comes to love and relationships, I think that’s something that I’m very behind on. And so it feels very raw. I feel like I’m a teenager again when I have to deal with what it means to navigate the world in that way because it’s not something I ever thought possible. And so that’s a big challenge that I have is navigating that whole sector of my world because I think, for the longest time, I didn’t even see myself as someone who could be loved. And so then, dealing with all those emotions, I think, is definitely a tricky part. I like to look like I have it all together, which clearly I don’t. I’m crying so much. I cry all the time.

JEN: I do too.

ERIK: But I think a lot of it also comes with being really connected to your emotions. I’ve been forced to know myself so well to where it’s like there’s a lot of emotions that I have to deal with. And it’s good that I know how to identify them. But it also means that there’s a lot of emotions that I’m constantly having to address and figure out what they mean. So in certain ways, I feel behind my peers. And then in certain ways I feel a little bit ahead. I’ve been forced to get to know myself a lot better. I’ve been forced to understand the inner workings of myself. And that’s something that I struggle with, with friendships and relationships, is sometimes it’s hard because the people I’m around, they don’t have that same knowledge of the self. And so sometimes there’s a bit of a communication disconnect or I’m very good at sharing, “This is how I feel,” communicating how I feel. But it’s not always reciprocated. But I do find a lot of solace in other trans people because we have these shared understandings of “This is who we are. This is how we know each other.” So it’s not all sunshine and rainbows and trans flags, obviously because I’m crying. It’s very emotional. I think it really puts you in touch with your emotions. I cry all the time. I think it’s really healthy. I think it’s good to cry, especially if you’re me. But I think a big challenge is navigating these things that I never thought possible because I’m not equipped to handle them. I didn’t have my first kiss until I was 20 years old. So I’m doing these things that people typically do at 13, 14. But when I was 13 and 14, I was juggling with the existential topic of who I am. So it’s just hard to feel like I’m emotionally mature in some ways and then immature in others. And so I think that’s something that is hard to articulate to people who haven’t had the same trans experience.

JEN: It makes such perfect sense that, in the world of emotional intelligence, there would be a split. In my experience there’s nobody more thoughtful and aware of their feelings and their emotions and their experiences than the trans community. As a whole, you guys take these deep dives. And then you’re interacting in this cis world which is a different world. And you date men, right?

ERIK: Yeah.

JEN: So often, there’s cis men who we don’t really think of cis men as being the most emotionally intelligent at the age of 20. And so you’re kind of entering this new space that you’re already ahead, and then simultaneously, in some areas, behind. I think you articulated it beautifully. It makes so much sense to me that that would be a natural evolution of all of this stuff. Which would mean you’re right on schedule.

ERIK: Yeah.

JEN: Not behind at all, just right on schedule. I think you articulated that beautifully and I think a lot of people who are listening will really resonate with that. My own son still will say things like I missed all normal development from 14 to 18, or 12 to 18 it just is missing. And I think that’s got to be multiplied with the trans experience. 

You are both amazing. I would love to just sit and talk to you about these topics anyway because I learn so much. And I think, as a society we’re getting better at understanding gender and learning about gender. But us old people have to try a little bit harder to open our hearts and open our minds. Any of these things that feel off-putting or uncomfortable, if we sit with them for a minute, I love watching what these next generations are doing with gender and the understanding of gender. And I want to thank you guys for coming and helping with that.

ERIK: Of course.

WENDY:  Thanks for having us.

ERIK: Thank you.

JEN: Thanks for joining us here In the Den. If you enjoyed this episode, please tell your friends and take a minute to leave a positive rating or review wherever you listen. Good reviews make us more visible and help us reach more folks who could benefit from listening. And if you’d like to help Mama Dragons in our mission to support, educate, and empower the parents of LGBTQ children, please donate at MamaDragons.org or click the donate link in the show notes. For more information on Mama Dragons and the podcast, you can follow us on Instagram or Facebook or visit our website at mamadragons.org.