Adoption, Transition, and a Love Story

Content Warning: This episodes has mentions of suicidal ideation.

In this week’s episode of In the Den, Jen visits with special guests Alex and Christy Florence about their individual journeys that led them to meet and eventually marry each other. Alex shares his unique experiences as a Latino adoptee and trans man from a conservatively religious family. Christy talks about her experience as an actively religious mother whose child came out as gay and later trans, and the events that led her to meet and fall in love with Alex. 

Special Guest: Christy Florence

Christy was born and raised in Shelley, Idaho. She is a farmer’s daughter and was taught to work hard, for which she is grateful. She served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Poland and is grateful for that experience. Christy is the mom of 4 amazing humans, Adam, Zoe, Luke and Isaac. She is married to Alex Florence and has been living in Farmington, Utah for the past 9 years. Christy has been part of the Mama Dragons for almost 10 years. Together, Alex and Christy advocate for the LGBTQ+ community and commit to be a safe space for families in the LGBTQ community.

Special Guest: Alex Florence

Alex was born in Galeana, Mexico, and was adopted by a family in Layton, Utah, where he was raised. Alex knew from a very young age that he was not comfortable in his body. He struggled to make sense of the disconnect his soul had with his body. After navigating through societal, cultural, religious beliefs and his family expectations, Alex finally decided to live authentically and openly when he started transitioning in December of 2011. Alex's journey has since provided many opportunities, including advocacy work, speaking engagements, and serving as President on a non-profit board for one of Utah's oldest non-profit organizations in Salt Lake City. He has helped guide other transgender individuals in their own journey towards authenticity.  Alex and Christy have been married since 2016 and live in Farmington Utah. 

Links from the Show:

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• Mama Dragons on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mamadragons 
• Mama Dragons on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themamadragons/ 

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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 this journey of raising happy, healthy, and productive LGBGTQ humans. Thanks for listening. We’re glad you’re here.

Today we are going to meet an awesome couple, Alex and Christy. Christy was actually one of the very first mama dragons, but that isn’t really why we invited them today. Alex and Christy have a lot that they can teach us just from their own journeys before they met, and their journey together after they met. Things about dating and parenting and transgender topics from multiple angles. I’ve been super excited to talk to Alex and Christy Florence. So, welcome to both of you!

CHRISTY: Hi. Nice to see you, Jen.

ALEX: Thank you.

JEN: It’s been too long for real. I want to actually dive right in so I’m not going to read official bios because I want to hear a slower, more drawn-out version to actually get to meet you guys. So, Christy- can you introduce us to the Christy that existed more than a decade ago? Talk to us about the first 30-ish years of your life.

CHRISTY: 50 decades ago, alright. Here we go. So, I was born and raised in Idaho. I’m an Idaho girl and grew up in a very conservative family, very religious. We were LDS. And I really had a very lovely upbringing, childhood, was very active in my community, school, church, all of that kind of fun stuff.

JEN: What part of Idaho were you in?

CHRISTY: Southeast, Shelley.

JEN: Okay.

CHRISTY: Shelley, Idaho. Small community, great friends, great people. I ended up deciding to serve a mission. So I served in the Warsaw, Poland mission in early 90’s, like 1991. Loved that.

JEN: So for people listening, that means you were proselyting in Poland for like 18 months.

CHRISTY: For 18 months. So I spent about 6 weeks in a training center learning how to teach and learning how to speak Polish. And my skills were very rudimentary but I did my best. Loved it. I really did love my experience and my time there, wonderful people, amazing culture. I still treasure those memories and times that I had there to this day. And still keep in contact with some of the people that – I want to say taught, but they actually taught me – but just had contact with. So it’s really treasured memories. I met actually a really good high school friend. We both served there at the same time and that was Greg who is my ex-husband. We got home from our missions at the same time, got married, had four children, all four boys. And we moved around a ton in the 20ish years that we were married. In that time, I had one of my kiddos come out as LGBTQ – gay. And I guess that’s where it takes us today. I don’t know what more you want me to say about that. I served in various positions in the church. I was very, very active, had a lot of amazing experiences all over the country Illinois, California, Idaho, Utah. So I’ve lived a lot of places, met a lot of people and had a lot of wonderful experiences.

JEN: How many siblings did you have when you were growing up?

CHRISTY: There were six of us all together, there were three boys and three girls. I came in fourth.

JEN: Fourth place, okay.

CHRISTY: [inaudible] but still winning.

 JEN: Started off in fourth but made it to the front of the pack.

CHRISTY: Right, right, right.

JEN: Okay.

CHRISTY: So there were six of us and we grew up farmers. So my dad was a farmer by trade. He actually had his – I want to say that first degree in Social Science. But he just loved farming and his family farmed, his dad and his brothers. So that’s what I grew up doing, like helping on the farm and loved every minute of that. I learned how to drive an 18-wheeler and I carry that with pride. I learned how to work hard.

JEN: There’s something really – I can’t think of the word – wholesome about the stereotype of the Idaho farmer. And, in my experience, it’s pretty accurate most of the time. So I feel like that does give me a pretty good picture of your dad. What kind of things were you into? Were you an artist, a painter, were you an athlete? What did you do in high school and college and stuff?

CHRISTY: I was always very active. I loved being outside. I never did sports because I didn’t think that I was good enough. But I loved running and playing basketball and all that kind of stuff. But I was more into dancing and drill team and I tried out for cheerleader, so I was a cheerleader for a year. I mean, I graduated in 1989. That super ages me. But my graduating class was 150 people. So I, just a small-town girl, had amazing friends. I grew up learning how – and I thank my mom for this – I learned how to bake. I learned how to play the piano from a very young age, so from the time I was 5 or 6. I was in piano until I was in high school and didn’t have the time for lessons and things like that. So I’m really grateful that I learned music. And I was in band and learned how to play the clarinet. So I had a few things I really, really enjoyed doing.

JEN: Awesome. Okay. That’s perfect. Thank you so much. Alex, your story’s probably going to be a little less stereotypical.

CHRISTY: Not really.

JEN: Those first couple of decades of your life, there’s going to be a little part there that differs from maybe Christy’s. But talk to us about that. Help us get to know you.

ALEX: Let’s see. I was actually born in Mexico.

JEN: What part?

ALEX: Chihuahua, Mexico. A city called Galiana, I think it was.

JEN: Okay.

ALEX: So I was born there and up here in the states my parents were wanting to adopt. And because my dad was quite a bit older than my mom, they weren’t allowed to go through the religious avenues of adopting through their church. So my mom’s sister – so my aunt – knew somebody down in Cedar City who was a lawyer and he had a little side gig back in the late 70s.

JEN: It’s amazing what we did in the olden days.

ALEX: It’s so true. They got away with a lot of things. And so about $3,000 later and a color TV, I was brought up to Utah.

JEN: Oh, you’re like a toaster. Get a kid, open an account, and you get a TV.

ALEX: Here you go. So there was a little business down there where there was some polygamist groups from the US that lived there. So they would bring children over the border and get the money. And, so anyways, I was dropped off.

JEN: Wait. I have to go back. I wasn’t going to dive into this. But I did not know this. Technically, would this be considered child trafficking now?

ALEX: I mean, probably.

JEN: Okay. Okay.

CHRISTY: They were smuggling children across the border.

ALEX: I mean, it was the 70’s. It was the 70’s. Who knows.

JEN: So now, maybe 60 years later. But back then it was just wholesome adoptions. Okay.

ALEX: It was just wholesome adoptions for some appliances, entertainment things, I don’t know.

JEN: I feel a little uncomfortable right now.

ALEX: No. No. Please don’t. It’s just part of my story.

JEN: I’m just teasing.

ALEX: It’s all good. So two months after I was born I made it to Cedar City, Utah, and my parents got a phone call. And they’re like, “Hey, remember that kid that you paid for in December, well that child is here now. Do you still want this child?” And so my parents were like, “Yeah”. So they came and got me. And in between the time I was born and they came and got me, they received another child, my brother that I grew up with. So by the end of February they had two babies that were pretty sick, a lot going on with them.

JEN: Were you guys close in age to each other?

ALEX: Yeah. We’re a month and six days apart.

JEN: Oh, wow. Okay. Your parents are tired. Okay.

ALEX: Yeah. There was a lot going on. So then I grew up in a very conservative religious household as well. I grew up LDS. My parents, my dad was pretty old school. He was born in the 30’s so he had a whole different idea of what gender roles were and things like that.

JEN: Did you just have the one sibling or were there other kids at some point?

ALEX: I only grew up with one sibling. But my dad had two other, two other litters of children, I guess.

JEN: I’m going to laugh this whole conversation. I can already tell.

ALEX: But I really didn’t get to know them because they were so much more older than we were. They were 20 to 30 years older, some of them, than we were. So we didn’t really get a chance to get to know them until later in life. So I grew up in Layton, Utah, amongst all of the culture that comes with Utah. And my brother and I were the only Mexican kids in our neighborhood and in the church at the time. So that kind of, that was hard for both or us on different levels. Our parents, man, there’s so much to this. But our parents with our birth certificates said that we were Caucasian for so many reasons. But it was obvious that we weren't. And my mom at the time just kind of played us off like she had had us or something.

JEN: Did you know?

ALEX: I didn’t know until I was about 8 that I was adopted, which was really just a short conversation with my dad like, “Oh, yeah. You were adopted.” And that’s kind of where it ended. And I was like, ‘What does that mean?” So, you know, a kid goes to school and asked their 8-year-old friends, “What does that mean?” And their friends are like, “Oh, that means your parents didn’t want you.”

JEN: That’s so sad.

ALEX: So now I’m 8 and I’m like, “Oh, my gosh. My parents didn’t want me.” And even prior to that, like how darker my brother and I were compared to the kids in our school because we’re outside a lot. We tan really, really well even on the playground I would have somebody come up to me and be like, “Why do you look like a brownie? Why do you look so dark?” I mean, we’re talking elementary kids. And I don’t know. So I go ask my mom and she’s like, “Oh, you’re just special.” And I’m like, “Okay. I guess I’m special.” And now my parents didn’t want me and I’m so confused about things. So I grew up in Layton. Went to elementary, junior high, and high school there. Let’s see. And when I was in junior high – well, no. I’ll go back before that. When I was probably in first or second grade, I had my first crush on a girl. And I was like, “Oh, this is interesting.” Because at the time I was socialized and presented as female. And so, as you do, you watch movies and you’re like, “Well, people who like each other kiss each other.” So, playing with my friend that I liked, and I kissed her.

JEN: Did you know this was going to be the cause of a lot more marital discord?

CHRISTY: Like, “uh oh!”

JEN: Did you know at the time that, socially, “I’m supposed to kiss her because I like her. But it’s a problem because she’s a girl.” Or were you just like, “Crush! Let's kiss.”

ALEX: In my mind, as much as how I visually represented female, my mind was not there. I just felt male. I hated having long hair. I hated the clothes that my mom would put me in. At any point, at any time of the day, if I could wear – pretty much what I’m wearing – shorts and a T-shirt and just be really casual but not in a dress and not girly, that’s kind of what I went for. If I could be in a baseball cap where I could hide how I looked, in my mind I was hiding under a baseball cap. That was what was comfortable for me. So in my mind, some place in my elementary-aged mind, kissing a girl was just what I should be doing. I guess.

JEN: That makes a lot of sense to me, actually.

ALEX: Children are pretty innocent in a lot of things. And society may have not gotten to me at that point. But my mind knew already, this is who I like, so innocently.

JEN: And obviously who I’m supposed to like because everyone else likes girls too.

ALEX: Everybody else that I’m looking and viewing at that I want to be like, -- which were the boys – like the girls.

JEN: That makes sense.

ALEX: So that was kind of my first experience of being like “I like girls.” Got into junior high and that’s the angsty time of life and I was really angsty with everything going on of identity and within my junior high, I was all the sudden now with a bunch of kids who visually looked like me as in the skin and the dark hair and these kids are identifying as Hispanic. But they weren’t what I had grown up with in elementary and I was just really confused, like where do I fit in. On top of gender, where do I fit in?

JEN: Were you more focused, kind of, on the racial stuff or more focused on the gender? Middle school is so hard anyway. But, it’s torturous. 

ALEX: Yeah. I was focused on both of them. It was really a difficult time in junior high. I was super focused on that, super focused on the fact that I just felt out of place no matter what. It didn't matter. At church I was out of place. At school I felt just awkward and out of place. And even at home, I was feeling super out of place because how I wanted to dress or interact with people or whatever was just not okay at all. So junior high was a really tough time.

JEN: Yeah.

ALEX: I got into high school and I was like, “To make things easier, I just need to embrace this femininity that I’m supposed to be smashed into.” So I started dating the boys and dated quite a few guys, had a pretty – I guess – serious boyfriend for almost two years, sent him on a mission, as you do. And my boyfriend at the time, he went to a different high school. So it was easy for me to be like, “Oh, I have a boyfriend so I can’t date you in that way.” or “I just sent a boy on a mission so I’m waiting.” It made things easier socially.

JEN: Yeah. Those are valid reasons.

ALEX: Yeah. But inside, I was like, “Oh man. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know how I’m going to pull this off. But if I don’t, the shame that is going to be thrust upon me from my parents and from my church and from just society in general, I don’t know if I can live through that either.”

JEN: So you’re basically just procrastinating any sort of decision.

ALEX: Oh, yeah. I was so good at the procrastination. And then my boyfriend came home from his mission. And within the procrastination portion though, I had written him quite a few “Dear John” letters. Like, “I just don’t know if this . . .” you know.

JEN: It’s not funny except it’s so relatable.

ALEX: Yeah. “I don’t think eternity is meant for us,” kind of thing. But it just didn’t get through to him at the time. He comes home. He asks my Dad for my hand.

JEN: Oh, it went far. Okay.

ALEX: Yeah. Later in life I found out from my dad that my dad literally was like, “Dude that’s not a good idea.” This is not a good idea.

JEN: So did your dad kind of have some ideas?

ALEX: He did. He did. And I didn’t know that until later as well. So my boyfriend asked me to marry him. The night that he did, I went to leave for the date and it was the normal late-1990’s date where the boy takes you to temple square and that whole . . .

JEN: Yeah.

ALEX: SO I went to leave and my mom basically was like, “He’s going to ask you to marry him so the way you get out of this house is you get married, you go on a mission, or you leave on bad terms.” And I was like, “Okay . . . “

JEN: Okay. Mission it is.

ALEX: Well, at the time in my mind I’m like, “Well, I gotta get out of this house.” Because it was a really tough environment in my home.

JEN: Oh, yeah.

ALEX: Based off of religious things and a lot of other dynamics in the house. So I was like, “Well, I guess I’ll get married because I can get out of the house quicker.”

JEN: Oh, you did get engaged. Okay. I didn’t predict that.

ALEX: I did say yes to him and he asked me this whole beautiful – he was saying some beautiful words. And I was like, “Uh, I guess so.” That’s literally how I answered him.

JEN: Wow. Enthusiasm. Okay.

ALEX: The enthusiasm was just dripping. And he went and told everybody and I was like, “I don’t want anybody to know about this. I don’t want anybody to know.”

JEN: We can be engaged, but don’t tell anyone?

ALEX: Yeah. That’s how, in my mind, it’s just the way I could, I don't know, it was just a way for me to compartmentalize what was happening in my world. I guess.

JEN: It almost sounds a little bit like you’re just like, “Okay, we’ve just got to survive this next step. We’re just going to do this one thing. And I don’t know what happens next. But right now, today . . .”

ALEX: Yeah.

JEN: Okay.

ALEX: And to add onto that. When he had come home, he was only home a month before he asked me to marry him. But we had had a conversation a few weeks before we got married and I can’t exactly remember what was being said. But I basically remember I said to him, “Listen, I like girls. And I just want you to know that.” And his response was, “Oh, we’ll deal with that later.” I’m like, “I guess we will. Okay.”

JEN: How did any of us survive the 90's?

ALEX: I don’t even know. Literally, I don’t know how we survived. So I ended up getting engaged to him. And it was, I think we were engaged for maybe a month. And it was a terrible time in my mind and in my world. And there was a lot going on. You know, my grandma had gotten put in the hospital and she was – my grandma and I were super close – so there was that stress. There was a lot going on. It was the holidays. Holidays came and went. Grandma came home. I was taking care of her one Sunday and I was like, “I can’t get married. I can’t make this work. I don’t want to have kids. I am not connected to myself enough to be able to be physical with this guy, or anybody at that time.” And the only way out, I thought, was death. So I’m like 19 and I’m thinking, “Well, my grandma’s upstairs. I know she has a lot of pills. It’s a Sunday. Everybody’s at church. Nobody’s home.” So my thought was, “I’m going to go upstairs and see what she has.” And my phone rings. The land line, you know. And I’m like, “Who is calling on Sunday?” So I answer the phone and it’s my best friend at the time, Maren. And she’s like, “Hey. I’m going to come get you.” “Why? Why are you coming to get me? I haven’t…” She’s like, “No. I want you to come to this thing with me.” I’m like, “Get here soon.” Whatever. And it kind of popped me out of this way of thinking. And she came and got me and I ended up just opening up to her, crying, all that stuff. Her dad actually ended up giving me a blessing that night. And then I called my fiancé and I said, “I can’t. I can’t do this. I’m not going to do this.” And he’s like, “Well, I’m going to go to the temple and I’m going to pray about it to see if this is right for us.” And I’m like, “Okay. You do what you need to do and that’s fine.” But I already knew that this was not okay. So he does that. He calls and he’s like, “Yeah. This isn’t the right thing to do right now. But let’s still try to date and figure this out.” I’m like, “Whatever.” I’m just going to appease him.

JEN: I’m just doing one day at a time.

ALEX: Yeah. Trying to appease the parents, especially my mom because, I mean, for my mom this was the only thing that would give me credit of being a human is if I did everything that a good religious girl would do, right, marriage, all that. So months went on.

JEN: Even as you’re talking, it’s so hard for me to imagine you as this girl that I keep – as you’re telling the story – I keep picturing you as the boy.

ALEX: Yeah.

JEN: And then when you say “This good little religious girl,” I’m like, “Oh yeah. I forgot about that part.”

ALEX: Yeah. Because I was living, I mean, really in my mind I was living this but on the outside I was living what I was supposed to be living.

JEN: Yeah.

ALEX: And it was really tough. So I ended up completely breaking it off with him. And that was hard for both of us on a lot of levels. And a few months later, when I was supposed to be married in May of – I can’t even remember the year now – May of 2000 or something. My mom is like, “Oh, you know, you’re supposed to be gettting married today.” Kind of doing a little bit of that guilt, right? And I was like, “Yeah. But I don’t think marriage is going to be for me. I just don’t think It well ever be for me.” And she’s like, “Well, why do you say that?” I’m like, “I don’t know. I just don’t think I can ever really get married.” And she’s just like, “Why, what are you trying to tell me, that you’re a lesbian or something?” And I smiled. Unfortunately, I smiled when she said that and I was like, “Yeah. Yeah, I am.” And that’s kind of my coming out to her of being a lesbian and she got so angry, pushed me out – we were in the den at the time – and she shoved me out of the den, slammed the door, told me to get out of the house, never to come back. So I was just like, “Oh my gosh. What did I do?” So I left. She proceeded to call my dad home from work. She called all of her family. I drove around for hours like, ‘I have no place to go. I don’t know what to do.” So I ended up coming home and when I drove into the driveway, my dad was in the garage and the one person – there was my grandma and my dad that I was really close to – and I did not want to disappoint my dad. And I got out of the car and I just started crying. I’m like, “Dad I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” And he’s like, “Well, I kind of wondered.” He’s like, “I would watch how you were with the girls when you played softball and I thought, there’s something off there.” He’s like, “So I kind of knew you liked girls.” I’m like, “Dad, why didn’t you tell me?” “Oh, I don’t know. I didn’t think about it.” And then the next thing was like, “Hey do you want to go get something to eat?” Oh, that’s just how easy, okay. That’s how easy it’s going to be with Dad which I was grateful for.

JEN: That’s so sweet.

 ALEX: Yeah. And my dad, at the time, was in what, his 70s at the time when I came out, the first time that I came out.

JEN: So jump to the second time you came out. The first time you were 19. How old were you the second time?

ALEX: 30, uh, let’s see, to my dad, when I came out to my dad I was 32. But the transition, when I first started transitioning I was about – well, I had just turned 32.

JEN: For a little over 10 years, you were like, “Fantastic. I will be a lesbian.”

ALEX: Yeah. “Fantastic. I can handle this lesbian thing.” But I just didn’t really feel like it was the whole story. And in that time frame of my mid-twenties, I had ended up getting into male drag. And that is when I was like, “Crap.”

JEN: I did not know that you had a history with drag. That’s not how I picture you.

ALEX: Yeah. I started drag when I was 24. So I did male drag at age 24. And that was the time that I was like, “I could present like this every day and finally feel comfortable in my skin.”

JEN: Male drag is a lot – in my experience – the shows I’ve been to male drag is a lot less over the top.

aLEX: Oh, yeah.

JEN: So it’s a lot less costume-y. So it would've been a lot more normative-presenting.

ALEX: Which it was, for sure.

JEN: Okay.

ALEX: When I had hair, I’d cut my hair, save the little clippings and then that would be used to make this, right? I did do the color thing but then I learned about the hair clippings. And I was like, “Oh my gosh. This is amazing.” Because it felt more real. And then there was binding. And I would bind and the weekends would be drag. And then Monday morning would come and it was so hard to take that off and get out of that.

JEN: Is it kind of like when I go to yoga and I just leave the yoga pants on for a really long time because it’s more comfortable? Like, you’d do drag and then just kind of leave it on?

ALEX: Yeah. Just leave it on like, “ I just want to leave this on.” I mean, yoga pants may be a little bit more comfortable, whereas binding was, “I can’t breathe, but you know what, this is totally worth it.”

JEN: It’s different kinds of comfortable, right?

ALEX: It is pain right now.

JEN: Yeah. Different kinds of comfort.

ALEX: So, come Monday morning, I’d have to switch my mind frame back to who I was identifying as at the time. But then when I got to my 30-ish, birthday, 31 birthday, I was like, “I can’t grow old in this body. I just can’t. There’s just no way I can.” So my girlfriend at the time, I told her “Hey. This is how I feel and I don’t know what path this is going to take me down because I don’t really know anything about these feelings I’m having about gender. I don’t even know what it would be considered. But just so you know.” And then that’s when I started doing a lot of research, a lot of sleepless nights of what I was feeling, things like that. And then I had a buddy of mine who was in the drag troop I was in contact me one random night in October of 2011 and he was like, “Hey. I just want you to know that I’m going to be going by Michael now.” And I was like, “Wait, what? Tell me about this.” So he proceeded to tell me and how he got a doctor up at the U and he was looking at top surgery. And I was like, “Tell me more about what top surgery is.” Because, In my mind again, the only thing that was bugging me was having breasts. I mean, that really bugged me for as long as I could remember.

JEN: At this point, when you say you were like researching it, what was the internet like as far as stuff you could find. This is like the early 2000s.

ALEX: Oh, it was terrible. Yeah. It was horrible. There was nothing positive about anything that came up about transgender anything. It was just the worst of the worst. And there was not a whole lot about trans men at the time, either. It was just very little. There was one individual that I found on YouTube and that person was probably the most positive person that was going through transition at the time. So I really kind of like connected with what he was going through and his message and what he was trying to do. But, other than that, it was very hard to find any information that was positive or could point me in the direction that a trans man would need to go. There was a lot of horror stories about these trans men that would have to find their testosterone from not the best sources so it ended up being really bad steroids that would just make them rage. And I was like, “I don’t think I’m that guy. I don’t want to be a rager. I just want to be me. That’s my biggest thing.” So I found a doctor in Utah and that’s when I was like, “Okay. I’m going to try top surgery first. I don’t want to do any hormones. I just want to – I’ve just got to get rid of this going on here. That will make me feel so much better about life.” And so I ended up having top surgery December of 2011. I had not told my parents anything at that point.

JEN: Was there kind of like a little hope inside that you were like, “I’m not really trans. I just don’t like breasts. So I’m just going to cut those off, remove those, and then I can just be the woman everyone needs me to be.”

ALEX: Exactly. That was exactly how I felt because I felt like I was going to be letting everybody down if I didn’t keep identifying as a woman, right, like my partner, my parents, even my work because I was working full time. My friends, my friends in the lesbian community, things like that. So I thought, maybe getting my breasts removed will just kind of calm everything else down that I struggle with on a daily basis. And I also thought in my brain, “Oh. I’ll get this surgery. My parents aren’t going to notice.”

JEN: You’re hiding your one ear piercing.

ALEX: I had my belly button ring, whatever. Yeah. That didn’t really work very well.

JEN: They noticed, okay.

ALEX: Yeah. My dad is the one that actually noticed and he was told, I didn’t actually come out and tell him that I had had surgery. Somebody else that we both knew said, “Oh, yeah. I heard that Alex – not Alex at the time – had surgery.” And my dad was like, “Oh. Hm-mm.” But didn’t come and ask me about it until six months later when I had decided to go on testosterone. And I was like, I should probably tell my dad at this point because I’m going to go through puberty again. And there’s going to be some stuff that happens. So he was still working at the time. He was like 82, still working because that was my dad. And so I went to his office and I said, “Hey, I don’t know if you knew, but I had surgery in December and it’s called top surgery.” And he’s like, “Oh, yeah. I had heard you had had a surgery.” I’m like, “Dad, can’t you just make this easier? Can’t you just come talk to me?” Whatever. So I told him, “Hey I don’t want to be referred to as my birth name. Can you refer to me as Alex now. I’m going to be taking testosterone so that I can transition to male.” And he was like, “Oh, okay. Yeah, I can do that. Yeah.”

JEN: That is so cool.

ALEX: And he’s like, “I probably should send an email to your siblings – so the siblings that I hadn’t really got to know – so that they know too.” And I’m like, ‘You do whatever you feel like, that would be great. I would love that.” So he ended up emailing all of my step siblings, “Hey you thought you had a sister, but you have a brother and this is his name.” This whole thing. I was just so flawless for my dad to accept.

JEN: That’s so awesome. How’d your mom do?

ALEX: On the other hand, my mom, who had already struggled with me coming out as a lesbian, this really put her over the top. And so she was like, “I don’t ever want to see you. You’re dead to me.” She even told one of my cousins that she would’ve rather had me kill myself then to have me as a son. So, at that point, I was like “Well, she’s just not meant to be part of this journey. That’s not where she’s meant to be and I’m not meant to be in her life right now. But I do have my dad,” and that’s what I needed at the time.

JEN: Did she ever come around?

ALEX: She never did. No. No.

JEN: That’s sad. I could just keep going. I’m so focused in this direction now. But I’m going to jump and spin over to Christy or back to Christy. So you have this little family. You’ve got these four little boys and a husband and you can speak Polish to each other.

ALEX: That must’ve been really convenient.

CHRISTY: Yes. When we didn’t want the kids to know what we were saying, absolutely.

JEN: That’s super. I don’t know why that stands out to me as important.

CHRISTY: It is hilarious. It was fun.

JEN: So you’re kind of doing the thing and it’s hard. Anyone who has four kids is going to know that you don’t have time to think about much else besides just raising those four little boys. But at some point your trajectory of the family sort of changed a little bit. Can you talk to us a little bit about that, especially like through the perspective of how you were experiencing it at the time.

CHRISTY: Yeah. Hopefully I can. So we, at that time when things started to kind of shift for our family and for my second kiddo, we again were very active in the LDS church. I was, at that time, was serving in the nursery as a nursery leader. Favorite calling of all time by the way.

JEN: So anyone who’s listening who doesn’t know the nursery is the kids who are under 3.

CHRISTY: Three and under.

JEN: Eighteen months to three, I guess.

CHRISTY: That’s right.

JEN: So, they’re babies, but not infants.

CHRISTY: Yeah. It was the best. I got to just hold babies and I got to eat animal crackers and that was the best two hours of my life on Sunday. So I started to notice a shift in Zoey.

JEN: Kid number two, right?

CHRISTY: My second, yeah. Who was probably, it started kind of like I would say junior high, middle school, junior high that I think she started to realize that, again, kind of like Alex but younger, “Something’s different here. I really do think that I like boys.” And, again, the way that I was raised and the way that we were raised and maybe just the way that we parented, we didn’t have – I feel like – a healthy view on homosexuality. And I’m sure this is the way it is for a lot of these kids that they don’t feel safe talking about it to their parents. And so they find other means and other ways, kind of like Alex did, to figure out “Who’s a safe place, what is this about, what can I do?” But I did start to notice because Zoey was just always the most creative and fun and light and happy and loved music and drawing and was just so full of life and sweet and kind. And I started to notice a depression that set in, that kind of withdrawing and less talking and more moody. Which, again, goes along with being a teenager as well. But it became very, very extreme and I just seriously did not clue in to what was going on. And then it was her dad that found an email or something to somebody that was like an online presence like, “Hey this is who I am.” And it was just basically coming out and trying to find a safe place to talk about it. And he found that. And approached Zoey with that. And he was very onboard. There wasn’t any sort of hesitation about hearing and accepting and just offering an open, loving space. And this was all unbeknownst to me. I didn’t know that this was happening until the next morning. Her dad told me, “Hey, I found this and this is what is happening.”

JEN: And at that point, Zoey, just like Alex, thought that she was a gay boy?

CHRISTY: Yes. Yeah. Exactly. Just, “I’m gay.” And that’s how she identified. And, again, it’s a huge upset in the, again, the culture that I was raised in, the LDS culture. I did not have a healthy view on homosexuality. I was quite sure, I think you had mentioned it earlier, it felt like that there was no future. That I had lost hope, like I couldn’t see any sort of way forward for any of us. In my mind I’m like, “Okay, well, nothing, absolutely nothing changes how I feel about her.” Nothing. But all I knew in order for us to be together and live within the teachings of our religion, she could not act upon any of these feelings. So that kind of was my approach to her like, “Hey nothing changes how I feel. But you just can’t act on it. So let’s kind of make sure we follow that path.”

JEN: Was she young enough that that was kind of feasible?

CHRISTY: No.

JEN: Okay. Because sometimes I think kids come out, they’re like ten and the parents are like, “No dating then.” And they’re like, “All right.” Because they’re ten. But in this case, Zoey was older.

CHRISTY: She was 14 at the time.

JEN: Okay.

CHRISTY: So I think there was like maybe a sort of relief for her like, “Okay, at least my parents know, right. And they love me. Nothing’s changing. But now they’re like ‘Hey, just continue to kind of like follow the teachings that we know.’” And I kind of did like what Alex talked about. I just thought, if we don’t talk about it like, we don’t bring it up, maybe it will just maybe sort of go away. Maybe it’s sort of – and I’m going to say all the things that maybe people say – maybe it’s just a phase. Maybe it’s just this hormone. I didn’t know enough about it to really know what this all meant. And I was just terrified. Fear kind of ruled my world. And it wasn’t until, I don’t know, maybe six months later, I don't know four to six months later, somebody that was also a member of my ward, the group where I went to church, she had kids the same age. And she came over and she said, “Hey, Christy, I’ve been hearing rumors. My kids come home and say they’ve heard rumors about Zoey. They hear that she’s gay and I just wanted you to know because if that were true, it would be so terrible. But I just want you to know that this is what’s being said.” I’m like, “Great. Thank you. Bye.”

JEN: I got that same phone call.

CHRISTY: Okay. “Hey, so you know rumors are going around and it would just be terrible if it were true but I just need you to know.” I’m like “Okay…”

JEN: Obviously, we’re going to squash those rumors together.

CHRISTY: So it was that moment that I’m like, “I can’t. This isn’t realistic. It’s not healthy for Zoey. It’s not healthy for us as a family to ignore it, like to pretend it’s not happening. And she’s come out. So it’s all good now, right? We can just keep on pretending.” So there was somebody, again in my ward congregation that I didn’t know super well but I felt comfortable. I knew she was a very open person. So I called her. I’m like, ‘Hey, Carla” – her name, Carla Hoffman – “Carla, can you talk? I’ve got to talk to somebody about this.” She’s like, “Come over.” So I went over. She’s like, “What’s going on?” I’m like, “Zoey came out as gay.” She’s like, “Okay. So how can I help you?” I’m like, “There aren’t any Mormon moms that have gay kids. What am I supposed to do?” I literally felt like I was the only Mormon mom that had a gay kid. I felt so alone. And this isn’t even to begin to describe how Zoey must’ve been feeling. So I’m speaking from my experience. But I know her own journey was horrific. So she then gave me resources. She gave me a book, it was by Carol Lynn Pearson, “Circling the Wagons.” And she just was very practical and understanding because I expected her to be like, “Oh no.” She’s like, “Okay. Here’s some resources. Here’s some books.” She got me in touch with Carol Lynn Pearson. Read the book and it was just that moment where that bubble started to crack where I’m like, “Hold on just a second. There’s way more to this than I understand, than I have been taught.” And it’s a pretty scary moment when you start to have things slowly unravel. And there were times when I would remember sitting in church and – you’ve been there. You know the talks – and they talk about marriage between a man and a woman. And I remember looking down the pew and seeing Zoey just crying. And I’m like, “Oh. This “isn’t safe for her. She doesn’t feel safe.” So she would stay home and we would continue to go for a little bit longer. And I’m like, “Wait a minute, what am I doing? If she doesn’t feel safe, how is it okay for me to be sitting here as well?” So that kind of started our journey stepping back and just kind of reevaluating faith and my family and what was going on.

JEN: So this leads to you and Alex meeting, right? I want to talk about this love story because you’re married in a heterosexual marriage at the time and Alex is just starting this transition process and you’re both kind of in this world of confusion, right? And so you stumble upon each other. Tell us about that. And wait, you were still married, so you met before you dated? So you can start with the meeting and then the dating part didn’t happen for a little bit, still.

CHRISTY: Right. Yeah. Exactly. So this is all unraveling. So it’s really good that you, perfect time to bring it up. In the meantime, I came in contact with another Mormon mom who had a gay child and who lived in California. That was Wendy Montgomery. So I reached out to her and literally I felt like I could breathe for the first time in a very long time to have Wendy say, “I know exactly what you’re going through.” And so it was just like I felt like, “Oh my god, there’s hope. There’s hope.” Zoey was able to meet somebody that also was going through that same journey kind of in the same time, that same age. So we all became very close and it literally saved my life at the time. And there was during this time, again, things were really rough in my personal life, like really difficult. And she said, “Hey, there’s a conference going on up in Salt Lake. Figure it out because you’re coming with me.” I’m like, “I don’t know how I can figure this out. I’m working and I have obligations and there’s no way.” And she’s like, “Figure it out!” So I’m like, “Oh my gosh. Okay.” So I tried to switch shifts at work to try and get this figured out. And it just was looking not good. And at the last minute, one of my coworkers said, “Hey, I’ll cover you. I know you’re going. I know that you need this.” So I remember driving down to where Wendy lived, hopped in her car, drove up to Salt Lake. And it really was crazy how it worked out because it just shouldn’t have. It was just no way. And she said, “Hey, there’s this conference, there’s a class today. It’s called “Trans 101. My good friend Hollie Hancock is teaching it. Do you want to go?” And I’m like, “Sure. I know nothing about this issue. Literally less than zero so it sounds great. I’d love to meet Hollie.” So, kind of by chance because it was again just one of those things. “Should we? Let's go.” So I went, I walk into the class, sit down, and there’s sitting Alex. And, again, I was just immediately drawn towards Alex. Who is this human? And I just, again, lovely human and just so good looking, gosh darn it. Don’t make that face.

JEN: I looked at a candy dish and was also struck. I know exactly what you’re talking about, Christy.

CHRISTY: Thank you. So there was a lot of things so I just was fascinated. I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t know anything about him. I think I knew that he was – you were helping Hollie – a guest speaker but I didn’t know why or whatever. And my friend Wendy had recognized him from his tattoo that says “Be bravely” on his forearm right here because he posted about it. She’s like, “Oh my gosh. That’s you.” So we kind of got introduced right before the class started. But my attention was just, it couldn’t stop looking at him.

ALEX: And my side of that, that day that I was supposed to go speak, I was at work up at Hill Air Force Base. And I was like, “Oh man. It’s getting to the time I’m supposed to leave. I just don’t think I can do this. I cannot do this.” And I sat there and sat there and sat there. And I'm like, ‘You know, I’m just not going to do it. Hollie will understand. I’m just not going to do it.” And at the very last second, I was like, “No. I think I need to go to this.” So I went in to my boss and I said, “I need to take some leave.” And I got myself down there. So I was very close not going to speak at this, in this class because, I don't know why but it was kind of . . .

CHRISTY: Now you do.

ALEX: Now I do. But it was very much, there was something drawing me there because I just was not in a place to speak that day, but I ended up there anyway.

CHRISTY: And so class started, Hollie made her speech. And, again, my mind even with anything that had to do with transgender, I was blown away. I really didn’t know anything about it. I think I heard the word. But I had no concept. So Alex got up to speak and started sharing his journey. And it was like one of those – kind of like you said earlier – I can’t imagine you. And so when he said he was transgender, I don’t know. I think my jaw probably dropped for a while because I was like, “I don’t get it.”

JEN: “Wait, that’s what transgender is? That does not . . .”

CHRISTY: I’m looking at a guy that you said used to be – so my mind was literally just, it was blown. So it was my first exposure at all to the trans world. And it was, it was pretty cool. After that it was just a connection. We just wanted to kind of hang out that whole night. We went out to dinner.

ALEX: Yeah. All of us went out to dinner. We all just chatted.

CHRISTY: So from there it was every once in a while we’d just chat like, “Hey how are you? It was so nice to meet you.”

ALEX: Like check in on Facebook Messenger, like, “Hey how are you doing? I know Sundays are hard for you.” Because I had known about, I had learned about Zoey and what she was kind of going through, what Christy was going through. So I’d check on her like, ‘Is your Sunday okay?” And sometimes she’d be like, “It’s a really rough one.” But we were just really good friends. I saw the journey that she was going on as a parent with a gay kid also trying to unravel a faith. And as someone who had already kind of done some unraveling, come out as a gay kid, and all that kind of stuff, I just wanted to be able to be a resource or someplace that she felt safe to go and emotionally vomit whatever she was feeling.

JEN: Looking at you, talking to you, I was sort of on the periphery of some of this as it was happening. And it feels genuinely like the most normal relationship. You’ve got a girl and a boy and they have a lot in common and they fall in love, right? That seems like the most average normal story. But there has to be something when people know that one of you is trans. You guys are “Straight passing,” whatever that means. Like, you look like the most heteronormative couple as you move through the world. But I’m wondering if there were questions you were asked about people who were curious, even if they were kind of like offensive, I’m hoping you can answer the questions that you heard over and over again.

CHRISTY: One of the first questions I was asked by . . .

ALEX: Don’t name.

CHRISTY: I won’t say names, by a friend, again, who was in this realm of the LGBTQ community, was like, “Oh my gosh. How do you two have sex?” I’m like. . .

JEN: Oh!

CHRISTY: That’s what I’m saying. We were presented with questions and we’re like, “Time out. It’s not about that.”

JEN: That’s a weird question to ask anyone.

CHRISTY: I think it’s helpful for people to keep in mind that it just isn’t the same, with a gay couple. I think people get hung up on certain things, right?

JEN: Like the idea of “How’s the man?”

CHRISTY: Who’s the, and what’s the role and this and that and the other. And for us, again like you say, it appears because it is. In so many ways this has always been my answer. “We are just two human beings that love each other. That’s as complicated as it is or needs to be.” And that’s it. All the little nuances we work out personally. And, if we can help others along the way and be a hope or a guide or a teacher or a resource or whatever, so happy to do that. And we did get presented, I think we have along the way, with a lot of questions.

ALEX: Interestingly enough, most of the questions that we receive that are pretty invasive are from LGBTQ spaces. I have never been approached by a straight couple that we are friends with that may know about me and they just dive into, “So, what’s in the pants situation?” I think we’ve only experienced that once or twice in realms. . .

CHRISTY: Yeah, the bishop.

ALEX: Yeah. One of them was a bishop. But most of the time when we’ve been asked really invasive questions, it’s come from the LGBTQ space, which I find very interesting.

CHRISTY: It’s whatever, but I think the message is, it’s like if it’s because we look normal, because we are, we are just like anybody else living a very normal life, raising children. We have jobs. We have bills to pay. We have a mortgage. We have cats. And we’re . . .

ALEX: Just living our lives.

CHRISTY: Just living our lives and doing pretty damn good.

JEN: So for people who don’t know who might be curious, will you guys articulate the labels? Did anyone ever ask you like, “Oh, Christy, I didn’t know you were gay?”

CHRISTY: Yes.

JEN: Or those kinds of things, how the labels play into these relationships.

CHRISTY: I do think people desperately wanted to make sense of it. And, again, I can relate. When I looked at Alex, I’m like my brain has to make sense of what I’m seeing. Right? I see a guy but who said that he was born female. And so my brain was trying to just process that. And within that, I think labels make us feel like we can make sense of things that don’t always make sense. And so, when Alex and I started dating and whatever, people were like, “Okay, well, you must be bi.” I’m like, “Maybe. I don't know.” “You must be pansexual.” I’m like, “I don't know. Maybe.” Or “ You must be a lesbian.” “I don’t think so.” So they just so desperately wanted to have it make sense to them. When it made perfect sense to me and I didn’t need a label to know that I just loved another human being. So, I mean, I do understand that there are a need for some people to have a label and have that understanding. That’s great. I didn’t find it necessary for myself because I’m just me and whatever that means. So we were, I think both of us.

ALEX: I mean, I didn’t get it as much.

CHRISTY: You were just, yeah.

ALEX: Because for me it was just kind of a, I was dating who I was dating prior to transition, you know. Female to female, so my orientation wasn’t questioned. But as I got more into my transition, because I was looking at the stereotypical male things that happen in our society, who I wanted to really be, I guess, male-presenting. Things like that. I started thinking a lot of the best parts of me are all of the feminine parts that I learned as a female. That that’s the really the best, the good parts of me. So there was a lot more questions towards me within my own community within, “I mean, you’re a trans man?” Yes. I’m very much a trans man. But I also appreciate my feminine side as well. I don’t feel that I’m nonbinary. I just know that I appreciate all that makes Alex who Alex is. So I have been questioned about the label I use, but I definitely, I’m a trans man who I guess maybe I don’t want to say that I’m heterosexual, though, because parts of me are still very feminine. But I’m not a lesbian, obviously. So maybe it’s more a queer identifying label than anything.

JEN: Yeah. It makes sense to me. Most of the trans men that I know, somehow are more insightful because they got to skip the programming of toxic masculinity that we pound into teen boys. They kind of got to skip that. And, you know, people have to work through things. I love what we’re talking about. I love every part of this story. I’ve been fascinated by the details. I thought I knew more than I did. I have been super interested by this. So I think the people who know you best in real life will actually be interested in everything you said. And I don’t want to shorten it. I don’t want to edit it. But we’ve already been talking for about an hour. And I really, really, really want to have the chance to talk to you guys about parenting a queer child and what that looked like for you. And especially in a blended family situation and what it's like to be a trans man without kids who suddenly has four kids and is joining this blended family. So can we pause here and invite you guys to come back, potentially with Zoey if she’s willing to talk to us about the parenting portion of your journey?

CHRISTY: We would love that.

ALEX: Yeah. For sure.

CHRISTY: Absolutely.

JEN: That would be so awesome, I think, for our listeners. So I’m going to do that. And in the meantime I want to thank you guys, both, for showing up and for being vulnerable and really caring about making the path smoother for the people who come behind you. I think that’s awesome. And it’s not easy.

CHRISTY: No.

ALEX: No.

JEN: It’s not easy to talk about this stuff.

CHRISTY: It’s been so good to reconnect and, again, both of us really enjoy and are willing to share our story because we know it’s meaningful and it really does have an impact on people.

JEN: Yeah. Appreciate it; thanks so much.

ALEX: 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.