#78 "Understanding Your Transgender Teen: Essential Tips for Parents" converation with Wendy Cole

Navigating the Transgender Journey: A Conversation with Wendy Cole

#ParentingTeens #TransgenderSupport #FamilyConnection #GenderIdentity #TeenTransition #WendyCole #Podcast #ParentingAdvice #LGBTQSupport #SelfLove #FamilyAcceptance

In this deeply insightful episode of "Parenting Teens: Advice Redefined," Cheryl sits down with Wendy Cole, a transition mentor, coach, and podcast host, to explore the transformative journey of parenting a transgender teen. Wendy shares her personal story of transitioning at 67 and offers invaluable advice for parents on how to support their teens through this significant life change. Discover how to foster self-love, confidence, and family connection while navigating the complexities of gender identity. Wendy's mission to humanize the transgender experience and guide families with compassion and clarity shines through in this powerful conversation.

Cheryl
00:01 - 00:54
Parenting your transgender teen. How do you support a teen through transition in a way that fosters self-love, confidence, and family connection? Today, we're diving into a journey that is deeply personal, transformative, and often misunderstood. The transition journey of a transgender teen and their family. My guest, Wendy Cole, knows this journey firsthand as a transition mentor and coach and now podcast host. Wendy supports individuals and families navigating one of life's biggest shifts. Having transitioned herself at 67, she understands the emotional, mental, and physical aspects of this experience in a way few can. Wendy's mission is to humanize what it means to be born transgender and to guide both teens and parents with compassion and clarity.

Cheryl
00:54 - 01:01
Welcome to the podcast. Thank you for listening to Parenting Teens Advice Redefined. My guest, Wendy Cole

Wendy Cole Guest
01:02 - 01:09
Hi, Cheryl. It's so nice to be here with you, and I'm looking forward to our conversation very much.

Cheryl
01:10 - 01:33
Me too. I'm honored to have you here. This is such a this is such a subject that really can make or break a family connection make or break a personal connection and I think it's so important to have these conversations and First of all Wendy talk about your mission. Talk about why you're here talk about What it is you want to do here for people?

Wendy Cole Guest
01:34 - 02:28
Well For parents out there, my life is a classic example of what not to do with your child. We'll start right off with that. I know for a fact that from age 10, when I told my parents that I was a girl, that didn't go well. I knew it was because of the way we're born. We immediately go into socialization with our parents and family. The minute the doctor says it's a boy or it's a girl, that's it. And the phrase you used is very appropriate, born transgender. That's how this happens. It's nothing parents did.

Wendy Cole Guest
02:29 - 03:18
that caused us to do this. It's not a choice, and it's not a trend, and it's not something that all your friends are doing. This is something that happens in the second trimester of birth. Gender identity is formed in the frontal cortex of the brain. And that happens in the second trimester. Also at the same time, sexual orientation also happens in the amygdala of the brain. And so that's all well before the doctor, you know, checks between the legs and says, it's a boy or it's a girl. And just for further clarification, gender is between the ears, not the legs.

Wendy Cole Guest
03:19 - 04:20
That is just your physical sex that happened in that differentiation during the second trimester of birth. And by the time your child starts maturing, has friends, there are play dates, then the child starts school. all of this socialization from parents and from the extended family really takes on new meaning when the child starts school. They have their friends, they have their tribe that they see every day. And we inherently know, I knew, that at age 10 telling my parents I was a girl was potentially a very bad thing to do. I just couldn't hold it back anymore.

Wendy Cole Guest
04:22 - 05:18
It's such a powerful feeling and it affects us all differently. Gender is not an absolute. It's not the same as sex and it's not an absolute. Gender is a spectrum or a continuum. No one is 100% male or 100% female. We're all a blend with a preponderance toward one side or the other. And that's it. So by the time the child becomes 10, 12, 13 years old, they know very clearly how they feel about who they are, how they identify. And nowadays it's different from when I was a child. When I was a child, there was no internet.

Wendy Cole Guest
05:18 - 05:49
There was no social media. There were no cell phones. There was nothing about this. And I couldn't talk about this with my friends. Uh, I had no idea how they would feel and not being accepted, especially for a teen, not being accepted as part of the group, that's kind of like a fate worse than death.

Speaker 2
05:49 - 05:50
Yeah,

Wendy Cole Guest
05:51 - 06:22
true. So I held on to my secret. And then when I told my parents, we had five sessions with a psychiatrist in a psychiatric center. And after the last appointment, I was told, stop thinking that you're a girl. Stop telling us that you're a girl. Otherwise, we're going to have you committed and fixed.

Speaker 2
06:24 - 06:24
Oh my

Wendy Cole Guest
06:24 - 07:30
gosh. That was my promise of what would happen to me if I continued with this. What that did to me, Um, I don't want that to happen to any other child I had to repress everything I had this big family secret to hide And There was nothing that I I couldn't talk to my parents about it. I couldn't say a word Otherwise i'd be back at the psychiatric center and committed Oh my gosh and So I repressed this and it affected my social life through high school, all through from like seventh, eighth grade. And this was a very powerful feeling because in the sixth grade, Wendy was the most popular girl in my class.

Wendy Cole Guest
07:31 - 08:00
She was the prettiest girl. She wore the nicest clothes. And I told myself, even though a lot of the guys liked her, of course, but I told myself if I could ever be a girl, that's who I wanted to be. I wanted to be Wendy. And that feeling never left me. I chose that name in the sixth grade. 57 years

Speaker 2
08:00 - 08:00
later.

Wendy Cole Guest
08:01 - 08:05
I finally got to take it 60 years later, 60 plus years later.

Cheryl
08:05 - 09:09
Wow. You know, I would love to, I really, I would love to take parents through your, through a journey, through a journey from the first conversations to finally you are who you are and you love who you are and you accept who you are and maybe not everybody does, but at some point I think it doesn't matter. But 67, wow. So let's, can we start from the beginning? So if what sort of, I don't know, social circles, conversations, behaviors, Would a parent go? Hmm, maybe we need to have some open dialogue here adversely If parents are not paying attention not not paying attention, but not seeing this but Their kid says to them I feel like a girl or I feel like a boy.

Cheryl
09:09 - 09:29
How does that conversation start? How does the parent have an open dialogue initiating the conversation? And then if your kid's initiating this conversation, what is your response? What is your best response? What are the questions you're asking, if any, at the beginning of this whole journey?

Wendy Cole Guest
09:33 - 10:40
The first thing, the initial response should be just very open and very accepting. The worst thing you can do is, are you sure about this? That immediately invalidates their feelings. This is a very powerful feeling that your child absolutely knows is not acceptable by normal heteronormative standards of society. And especially nowadays with all the adverse publicity about it and everything else, it's just not acceptable to society. So a parent who comes off with the statement of, oh, are you sure about this? Or you'll never have a normal life. Those are all the wrong things to say.

Wendy Cole Guest
10:45 - 11:19
It's a difficult conversation because again, the one thing I find that with most parents, like everybody else in society, they have no framework by which to begin to comprehend this as a subject. And they also don't have the words or the language for it. So that's the first thing that they are going to have to do is do some research on their own. I'm in the process of writing a book for parents

Speaker 2
11:20 - 11:20
that

Wendy Cole Guest
11:20 - 12:13
will go through a lot of this. And I also published an article in PFLAG for parents with transgender. And it does go through a lot of this. You just have to be absolutely open and accept this unconditionally. The worst thing you can do is place conditions on the child, telling them how they should be, how they shouldn't be. That's not going to work either. They've gone to the point of taking that one step forward, saying, this is how I feel. And I still remember the terror that I felt when I did the same thing with my parents.

Wendy Cole Guest
12:15 - 13:12
And I know that I repressed not only my gender identity and the fact that I felt like I was a girl, I repressed huge parts of my personality because of this. I couldn't be open with other people. because if I was open with somebody else, like an adult or one of my friends, I would be rejected. That's how I felt. That was the beliefs that I had. And I formed these beliefs at a very early age and they stayed with me all the way through my entire life. It's a very, um, The other thing that my parents did, which a lot of parents do, is LGBT.

Wendy Cole Guest
13:12 - 14:23
Well, that's all sexual orientation. No, it's not. The L, the G, and the B, that's sexual orientation. The T is gender identity. That's the other thing parents and most people in society. from that day that the doctor checks the anatomy and announces it's a boy or a girl, from that day forward for most people, it's sex. Sex is male or female. When in fact, that's just the reproductive organ. Period. Gender identity in the brain is where the the feeling of being male or female comes from. And that's how that happens. Yes, there are chromosomes and there's body chemistry and genetics and all of that, but you'll hear people talking about gender dysphoria.

Wendy Cole Guest
14:26 - 15:39
All that really is, is the incongruence between what you feel in your mind and your body and how you're forced to live. The social roles you're expected to accept. And all those social roles are part of the parenting unspoken language. Boys play with pickup trucks and toy cars and stuff and girls play with dolls. My favorite toy was Dolly. I don't know where Dolly came from. And it was horrible the day my father came home and took Dolly away and replaced it with Teddy. And I screamed and I got spanked. And that was that. I mutilated Teddy the next day with my little paper scissors and I got punished and a new Teddy and that was it.

Wendy Cole Guest
15:40 - 16:29
No more dollies. My father wanted me to play little league baseball. I wasn't interested in that. At the time, I don't know what I was interested in. I just knew I felt different and I didn't want to go out and play baseball on a dirty, dusty little league ball field. I didn't want to do all of that stuff. My parents did everything they could to try and socialize me the way they felt I should be. And it didn't work.

Cheryl
16:31 - 16:32
And the impact?

Wendy Cole Guest
16:35 - 17:32
The impact on me was profound. I, all the way through high school, I had a limited number of friends, like three or four guys that I was friends with. That was it. I didn't date. I was afraid of girls, simply because I figured, oh, they might actually figure me out, figure out what my secret was. That's why I wasn't social. No such thing as going to proms or anything like that. And this continued all the way through college. In fact, I went to an all men's college, kind of like forcing myself to fit in immersion therapy as it were.

Wendy Cole Guest
17:32 - 18:20
I have to be one of the guys I'm going to an all men's college. Well, that didn't work either. By my senior year, I was seeing a psychiatrist and I was determined that I was going to transition. You see, in those days, we still didn't have an internet. We still didn't have cell phones or social media or any of that. I didn't know really what was going on. Yeah. But apparently, I grew up in upstate New York, about 40 miles north of New York City. And it was still very rural at that time. It's not anymore.

Wendy Cole Guest
18:22 - 19:24
It became a bedroom community for Manhattan actually. That's where I grew up. So I had no idea what was really going on. But again, this was in the 60s and into the 70s. People like myself were actually forced to leave everything behind and live underground. You lived in Manhattan, you lived in San Francisco, and in either of those cities, and in California, and in New York State, and in many other states at that time, people like myself were arrested, thrown in jail, heavily fined, and names printed in the paper for appearing in public presenting as male or female differently from the way you were assigned at birth.

Wendy Cole Guest
19:27 - 19:30
That was all through the 60s and into the 70s. Well

Cheryl
19:32 - 19:33
that's horrendous.

Wendy Cole Guest
19:35 - 19:47
And so between that and knowing how my parents felt and that there was absolutely no one else I could talk to about any of this.

Speaker 2
19:48 - 19:48
Yeah.

Wendy Cole Guest
19:51 - 20:07
Cheryl guess when the medical community Recognized this because I found out when I tried to transition in 1970 Yeah that this was considered Psychological with no treatment and no cure by the medical profession.

Cheryl
20:08 - 20:09
Oh my god

Wendy Cole Guest
20:13 - 21:26
Gay people were also considered psychological with no treatment or no cure at that time as well This was not recognized as how we were born. It's just a psychological problem. Well, gay people were changed. Their diagnosis was changed sometime in the 1970s. We were known back in those days as transsexuals and another part of the community, cross-dressers, as transvestites. So, and both were considered psychological and deviant behavior. That didn't change until 2012. Yes. That's when That's when people who are born transgender actually got rights and recognition from the medical community as how we were born.

Wendy Cole Guest
21:26 - 22:23
It's now treatable by psychological therapy. So I highly recommend that parents not only have a therapist for their child, but also for themselves to deal with this. And there are still therapists and people out there that will refer for conversion therapy. In 2015, my psychiatrist that I was seeing in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, wanted to send me to Johns Hopkins Medical Center for conversion when I found out that Johns Hopkins was actually doing conversion therapy at the time in 2015. They no

Cheryl
22:23 - 22:23
longer

Wendy Cole Guest
22:24 - 22:43
are, but that's changed, but they were among the pioneers for doing sex reassignment surgery. And it went from doing that to conversion therapy, which conversion therapy never worked with any gay people.

Cheryl
22:44 - 22:44
And it

Wendy Cole Guest
22:44 - 22:47
definitely doesn't work with people like myself

Cheryl
22:47 - 23:48
No It sounds even barbaric Barbaric. Oh my gosh Yeah, yeah, and i'm really hoping that you know i'm sure this is absolutely not an easy Process journey transition to take for parents or for kids however Parents who are listening. I hope you're really hearing the impact when the one or two people who are supposed to love you unconditionally Reject you Then who else would not Reject me like I can totally understand that part of it. I've never walked in your shoes, but I'm thinking if a parent Who you know gave birth to me or adopted me or whatever is the one person in the world?

Cheryl
23:49 - 24:03
Who I can count on to just love me says no reject Then why would I take a chance on anyone else in on the planet? Oh my goodness

Wendy Cole Guest
24:05 - 24:07
That's exactly the power of that.

Cheryl
24:08 - 24:08
Yeah

Wendy Cole Guest
24:10 - 25:32
and When even with the most well-meaning parents, navigating the whole process of their child going from male to female or female to male is a very intense process for everyone. For the child, they're exploring who they truly are. And when they start out, they don't accept themselves at all. I can honestly tell you for 67 years of my life, I hated who I was. I did not like my life at all. Suicidal ideation was very common and I couldn't talk to anybody, so the loneliness is intense. And you do everything you can to immerse yourself in distractions, other activities that will distract your thoughts and silence your mind from telling you how wrong this is.

Wendy Cole Guest
25:33 - 26:07
And the other thing is, Your child is starting out, if they've said to you who they feel they are, but you haven't accepted it. You are trying to make them feel better, but understand they don't accept themselves either. Completely do not accept themselves. And the amount of shame and guilt that that child feels is intense.

Cheryl
26:07 - 26:37
Yeah. As part of the journey, I understand and not very much about but hormones and taking supplementary hormones. At what point is, like what is the process there? This is the first step, this is the second step, this is the third step that makes sense, that is, and also age appropriate.

Wendy Cole Guest
26:38 - 26:38
Can you

Cheryl
26:38 - 26:39
speak to that?

Wendy Cole Guest
26:40 - 27:52
Sure. For the most part, most surgeons would never consider any kind of surgical procedures on anyone that is still under parental care and definitely under the age of 18. The best thing that I, the thing that I would have loved, When puberty started happening for me, that was horrible. My voice got deeper. Things started happening to my body that I knew were not things that happen for girls. And I didn't want any of these things happening, but I had no choice in the matter. It just had to happen. And again, Not only was I going through all that hormonal teenage years, but all the negative stuff associated with it, the things I didn't want to happen to me.

Wendy Cole Guest
27:55 - 29:08
And today, if a parent starts to go down this path with their child, Um, there's several things that need to happen for the parents the parents need to transition as well This is a whole mental process the parents need to go through The best thing that can happen for the child who is beginning puberty is um, they have the See, because the medical profession didn't fully recognize us or have the diagnostics for us to transition until 2012, the research into all of this basically really took off in 2012 as well. So nowadays, there are puberty blockers that are quite effective, quite safe, And what it does is it just puts that whole process of the body changes during puberty.

Wendy Cole Guest
29:09 - 30:17
It puts it all on hold until the child is older. Could be 18, 19, 20 and decide, well, you know, I've been on these blockers now for X number of years and I don't really think I'm, I don't wanna, I don't wanna transition anymore. They can stop the blocker, stop doing that and allow puberty to just happen. And it will happen. Just as it will happen in the late teens, just as in the early teens without any harm whatsoever. The advantage is, oh, your child who was assigned male at birth. And that's another key thing that's in the ethos at this point going around in the social media and the news and all of that.

Wendy Cole Guest
30:22 - 30:27
The sex assigned at birth is based on the physical anatomy between the legs

Cheryl
30:28 - 30:28
and has

Wendy Cole Guest
30:28 - 31:27
nothing to do with gender and how the person actually truly identifies and feels. I wouldn't have had the voice deepening, I wouldn't have had the facial hair, body hair, all of that, and the physical developments that happened as a result of testosterone. For a child going from female to male, it would retard and slow down the breast development. So in later life, if they transition, they won't have the need for this whole mastectomy to happen

Speaker 2
31:27 - 31:28
to

Wendy Cole Guest
31:28 - 32:22
make them feel more comfortable in their bodies. And the testosterone, I have seen this as well. It does a wonderful job of lowering the voice. I went to the Philadelphia, in Philadelphia, the Transgender Health Conference is held in the Convention Center in Philadelphia. And my first visit to that event, there were over 6,000 people there. which blew me away. I didn't know there were 6,000 people like me. Wow. Yeah. And I walked by this group and one of my, one of my acquaintances was talking with this group of guys and I'm walking by and I'm looking, okay.

Wendy Cole Guest
32:23 - 32:41
Group of guys. Wow. They all went female to male. You'd never know. the facial hair, the muscular structure, the hair on the arms, everything.

Speaker 2
32:42 - 32:42
Wow.

Wendy Cole Guest
32:42 - 33:18
And the deep voices. And okay, I get it. Yeah. But this is something that we as people are born this way and we need to do. For teens, it's doubly confusing. They don't have the life experience yet. Teenagers are also in groups and their social life with their friends is uber important.

Cheryl
33:20 - 33:21
Yeah, of course.

Wendy Cole Guest
33:22 - 34:26
The one thing I have seen, and again, it depends on where you live and the region of the country and everything else nowadays as to what's going on, but more often than not, your child's friends are going to be far more accepting than you would ever imagine. My grandkids, their friends could care less about me. It doesn't matter. As far as names go, they called me Wendy. That was it. And that was fine. Yeah. But it's, it's, it's the parents have to go through transition as well. Anybody that stays with the person who is transitioning needs to shift their perspectives too.

Wendy Cole Guest
34:26 - 34:28
And that's what it is. It's a change in perspective.

Speaker 2
34:29 - 34:29
Yeah.

Wendy Cole Guest
34:32 - 35:30
I, I will look at any adult, um, be they a parent of a transgender person or Anyone else and say if you have never looked in the mirror And questioned your own identity as male or female. I don't expect you to ever understand this It's a change in perspective is what is necessary and being open to accept this as a new possibility because I had one of the parents that I was talking with, um She was explaining to me something that was not surprising to me. For a child, she would say all these things like, you're so pretty, you look so nice, I love the way you look today, you're just a very pretty young woman.

Wendy Cole Guest
35:32 - 36:39
Well, this 20-something, a person who's only been living full-time for a year or two, still doesn't really accept themselves. So when the parent comes across with just this generalized glowing recommendation of how pretty they are and how good they look and all of that, they can't believe it themselves. The child can't believe it themselves. and doesn't know how to interpret that from their parent. Whereas if a parent says, oh, you know, that cop looks good on you. Now that's much more believable. So this is the fine line parents are going to walk through this whole process is keeping everything that they say to the child believable for them

Speaker 2
36:41 - 36:41
and

Wendy Cole Guest
36:41 - 36:42
assuring

Speaker 2
36:42 - 36:42
them

Wendy Cole Guest
36:42 - 36:48
that they're accepted without overdoing it and

Speaker 2
36:48 - 36:48
taking it

Wendy Cole Guest
36:48 - 36:54
to that next level where the child is not really willing to go because they don't believe it either.

Speaker 2
36:55 - 36:55
Yeah,

Wendy Cole Guest
36:56 - 37:42
yeah, I had to do a lot of work personally to undo Decades of socialization as a male Decades of beliefs that kept me safe Kept my secret safe. I had to undo all of that I had to mentally and emotionally transition as well as physically. The physical part, to me, the physical part is just the window dressing. It's the emotional and the mental aspects of transitioning that make all the difference.

Cheryl
37:42 - 38:32
Yeah. Is there... Is there, I don't know if I want to say a grieving process, but is there a grieving process for parents who not are losing a child, but are navigating the loss of what they thought life would be? with the gender they thought their child was. And at the same time, if our kid can be open and honest and really have that, you know, accepting conversation with their parents, they're now celebrating. And our parents, is it fair to say there's a grieving process? And what does that look like if there is, or would you call it something else?

Wendy Cole Guest
38:35 - 39:38
Actually, no, it is a grieving process. Parents, the minute that child is born, they are personally invested in their child. And they have hopes and dreams of what their life is going to be like, what your child's life is going to be like. So all of a sudden now, your son is now saying, here's your daughter. And that's a huge difference. Or the daughter is now your son. Another huge difference. And grieving, yes. Um the last thing a parent should ever do Is share that with the child?

Cheryl
39:41 - 39:42
Good i'm so glad you said that

Wendy Cole Guest
39:43 - 40:47
yeah that just piles on the shame and the guilt and The feeling that they're being rejected So The last thing you want to do is go down that path. It's more of accepting them, assuring them that no matter who they are, no matter how they present, no matter how they feel they are, either a boy or a girl, it doesn't matter. I still love you. You're my child. That's the approach that parents really need to take. And that's a difficult thing to do because, well, a son that a father had. In my case, my father was looking for someone to continue the family name.

Wendy Cole Guest
40:50 - 41:36
He wanted a son more than anything and went to great lengths. In fact, my parents had me and that was the end of my father's first marriage. His first wife had two daughters. So he left his first family to be with my mother, have me as his male heir. And again, there are no guarantees in life. All this worked out. That's right.

Cheryl
41:36 - 41:37
I'd

Wendy Cole Guest
41:37 - 42:28
love to, sorry. I did get married. I did, I did have a family and it wasn't because of all the normal stuff. that I went through that in the 1970-71 time frame, I tried to transition. And that's when I was taken by my psychiatrist at the time to a quarterly meeting of area psychiatrists in a hospital conference room where I was the case study patient. And I spoke for no more than about three to five minutes about my life and how I felt and all of that And one of the doctors stood up looked around a room said i'll see you all next quarter looked at me and said you're a freak

Cheryl
42:29 - 42:29
You should move

Wendy Cole Guest
42:29 - 43:28
to new york city and turn tricks like the rest of them Again, I had no clue what he was talking about None of none of this was public It's not on social media, it's not out there for everyone to see. A very different time. But yes, what I found out later, much later, about two years later, that doctor wasn't wrong. And that's when my psychiatrist told me, it's a psychological condition, no treatment, no cure, and basically you're on your own. I had been told my entire life by doctors and my parents, you're the only one who feels this way, which I knew was wrong.

Wendy Cole Guest
43:30 - 44:46
By the early 70s, I knew that was wrong because there was Christine Jorgensen, 1971, Wendy Carlos. did the soundtrack to Clockwork Orange and she transitioned. I came to the realization that yes, I could do this then, but only if I were a celebrity and had the means. Because it wasn't open for everyone, not in this society. So I started checking off all the heteronormative checkboxes. I was told, you have a career, Checkbox a wife checkbox Uh a house and a family And you'll forget all about being a girl No Never forgot it not for one day No, it's with it was with me from morning till night and even in my dreams And that's how my wife found out about about me I was talking in my sleep about being a woman.

Wendy Cole Guest
44:46 - 45:26
I had been married for a few years. We had the house, I had the career, we had the family, two kids, and we were off and running and I couldn't take it. It was horrible, the stress. And it just came out in my sleep. So when she woke me up one night demanding an explanation, I told her everything, expecting to be divorced by morning. But no, we stayed together. She had her own reasons for that. And we did. We stayed together. I was married for 40 years.

Cheryl
45:28 - 45:28
Wow.

Wendy Cole Guest
45:29 - 47:01
To let you know and to let your parents listening know this does not go away. Yeah. Yeah. It was November of 2014. I had everything set up, Cheryl. I was all set to kill myself. Everything was ready. And I believe the universe actually said, go check the internet one more time. And I did. I went and checked. And that's when I found out. In 2012, my diagnosis code had changed. There was now the WPATH, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, had succeeded in pressing the medical community to change diagnostic codes to now consider this to be treatable through psychological therapy, hormone replacement therapy, And any necessary surgeries and there are no rules on surgery There are no rules on doing any of this for For your child as a parent for someone like myself As I said in earlier in this, uh conversation Gender is not an absolute.

Wendy Cole Guest
47:01 - 48:07
It's it's a variant. It's varies so I got a full dose of hardwiring as female during that second trimester. There are others who are born transgender that don't have that feeling that intensely. It still affects them, but not as constant. It's not as persistent as mine was. Mine was daily. And I was actually working as a contract IT person doing work for corporations under contract. And I was working in Philadelphia. I couldn't go out and sit in the little park beside my building in the summer and the spring and all of that. The women walking by, a huge distraction for me, made me brought this all out.

Wendy Cole Guest
48:09 - 48:56
That's how I should be. So at 67, I told my wife, I said, this never went away. She said, I know. Much to her shock, to say the least. I don't know where this is going. I don't know what it's going to be like, but this is something I've got to do. I can't go on anymore. I almost ended everything and I have to go and find a therapist. And that was the first thing I did was I found a therapist and I started therapy in January of 2015. Wow. And six months later, I was living full time as Wendy.

Cheryl
48:59 - 49:09
How did you feel? Was it like, I don't even know if you can describe, but can you describe? A

Wendy Cole Guest
49:09 - 49:10
complete rebirth.

Cheryl
49:11 - 49:12
I

Wendy Cole Guest
49:12 - 50:10
discovered things about my personality that I never knew were there. It's that intense. This was five years after I transitioned. My ex-wife looked at me and said, wow. you went from being asocial, you know, we would have Christmas parties or Thanksgiving gatherings for, and it was all basically my wife's friends that were coming to these and relatives. None of mine were anywhere around. And she would put these, you know, big gatherings together, I would show up for about the first 10, 15, 20 minutes tops, and then vanish. And then pop in occasionally. I hated being social.

Wendy Cole Guest
50:12 - 50:18
Now I love it. Total opposite. I'll talk to anybody.

Cheryl
50:20 - 50:34
I'm so grateful for that one more check of the internet. I'll tell you that this is oh, you're so beautiful. I Wow, what is This is incredible Uh

Wendy Cole Guest
50:37 - 51:36
This is a very difficult thing for parents to comprehend and all and It's one of the reasons why I actually started talking with people about this during my first week or two of living as Wendy full-time. And by the way, I didn't know anybody when I started. I didn't know anybody else who was transgender. I didn't even realize until about two months in or so that there was a large community. And I'm actually glad that I didn't, for one reason. I didn't inherit or pick up a lot of the beliefs that others in the community share.

Wendy Cole Guest
51:37 - 52:38
The first and foremost is transition is difficult and takes a long time. If that's what you believe, that's how it will be. I didn't believe that. I didn't know what to believe. I just knew how I felt. My parents had raised me to be very analytical, pros and cons for everything, analyze everything. That's not who I am. I found out going through this that I could just let go and do what felt right. And going by how I felt worked out so much better because going from living as a guy to living as a woman, I had no idea what that would be like.

Wendy Cole Guest
52:38 - 53:33
I didn't even know at the time if I would like it. And this is what teenagers are feeling at that point. They know how they feel, but wow, once I take that step over to the other side, what's that going to feel like? What's that going to be like? How do I know? Well, you don't. It's kind of like you just do, and you just be, and you see how it feels. And that's what the child has to go through, is discovering that sense of being. It's a much more deep sense of self. I didn't have any self-acceptance until probably about March or April of 2015.

Wendy Cole Guest
53:34 - 54:21
I never felt good about myself at all for 67 years. And through the first three or four months of therapy, what I focused on with my therapist was shifting my thoughts, shifting my beliefs so that I could see that this was possible. And that's another thing that any child is gonna go through. They don't have the life experience to do that and put the words around it, but that's

Speaker 2
54:21 - 54:21
what

Wendy Cole Guest
54:21 - 55:20
they're experiencing. Finding a new sense of self. So once I began to become very, very aware, self-aware, and realizing, oh yeah, I've got to change so many things about myself. And then started to accept myself. By the time I got to June of 2015, I was beginning for the first time in my life, the very first time, Cheryl, to ever feel any kind of self-love. That was the very first time. And my therapist, Stephanie, this was profound. At the end of, it was an intake session, so I probably talked, and she was the first person that I had talked with in four and a half decades.

Wendy Cole Guest
55:20 - 56:16
I didn't even talk with my wife about this. Not in any length whatsoever, because it was too upsetting for her, of course. Yeah, yeah. So Stephanie was the first person I talked to in four and a half decades, 45 years of holding the secret and repressing. And I got through that and it just felt so good. I poured my guts out. And I stood up, I turned, and I said, I'll see you next week. And she just looked at me, what's your name? I know she asked me that question, having no idea what the answer would be, or if I would even say something, or what I would say.

Wendy Cole Guest
56:18 - 56:22
But what that told me was she accepted me.

Speaker 2
56:23 - 56:23
I

Wendy Cole Guest
56:23 - 57:14
snatched back Wendy. I didn't even think. And I've been, like I said, I've been hanging on to that name since the sixth grade. Summer of 2023, I was moving from Pennsylvania, where I lived, to Rhode Island, where I live now. And I called her up. from the hotel that I was staying in while I was waiting for my apartment. I said, you realize you are the first person in 67 years of my life to ever accept me for who I am and how I feel about myself. She was the first person and not the last.

Wendy Cole Guest
57:16 - 57:57
I'm so glad to hear that. So for any parents out there whose child is saying, I should have been a boy or I should have been a girl, believe them. Don't diminish them. Don't overdo also, but accept and also understand too that The social roles that you had been raising them in for 10, 15 years

Speaker 2
57:57 - 57:58
and

Wendy Cole Guest
57:59 - 58:29
the expectations you had of them are all going to change. And there is absolutely nothing you can do about that or should except there's going to be, you know, like, Maybe you had a son who now is your daughter and you used to have him mow the lawn. Well, girls can mow the lawn too. I'm not

Speaker 2
58:29 - 58:30
going to be sensitive

Wendy Cole Guest
58:30 - 58:41
about it, but be sensitive to the fact that they're undoing their socialization at the

Speaker 2
58:41 - 58:41
same

Wendy Cole Guest
58:42 - 59:48
time. So that's normally the son's chore to mow the lawn. Now she doesn't feel comfortable doing that. Accept it, be open to it, and make the changes. There is a change that needs to happen within the family dynamic. a change in not only clothing and presentation and everything, but also the roles. Help that person who maybe used to be your son or your daughter adjust into new social roles that they themselves choose. Don't impose on them. And if you make recommendations, make them very respectfully and make them very carefully as suggestions, nothing that you have to do.

Wendy Cole Guest
59:49 - 1:00:59
And the other thing that I also see with parents that is problematic is within the heteronormative lifestyle, everything is about sex. And sex is male, sex is female, sex is, you know, the different roles and all of that. And this is not about sex. It's about who you feel you are and how you believe you are. And it's kind of like the, There's a great divide between male and female. And there's all points in between. There are women who feel much more comfortable with some of the more masculine characteristics, and that's okay. There is a double standard in society.

Wendy Cole Guest
1:01:01 - 1:01:15
Boys who like to put on a dress and go out and play in the yard with the other kids. That's not acceptable. But a girl can put on a pair of jeans or whatever,

Speaker 2
1:01:15 - 1:01:15
and,

Wendy Cole Guest
1:01:15 - 1:01:23
oh, she's a tomboy. So that's the double standards that we're

Cheryl
1:01:23 - 1:01:23
faced

Wendy Cole Guest
1:01:23 - 1:01:25
with as a society.

Cheryl
1:01:25 - 1:02:11
Yeah, so true. I uh, I feel like I could talk with you for hours. You're this has been Transformational like transformational for not just teens but for parents who are really like need to walk alongside our teens and take the journey with them and I feel like This is you know the impact And i'm, sorry Your parents did what they did and i'm sorry you spent 67 years feeling the way you did But i'm grateful that you took that brave step and that you're Finally feeling who you really are and it's such a beautiful thing now right

Wendy Cole Guest
1:02:12 - 1:02:57
physically All of those negative thoughts all of that repression everything that I went through my entire life It affected my physical health dramatically Um, I was diagnosed with type two diabetes by, uh, 38. My blood work always had problems in it. By the time I was 67, I don't think I would have lived to be 70. My blood work was terrible. It was all this stuff coming back with triglycerides and cholesterol and all the other fun stuff that comes back from that. And I was totally diabetic. And I was 70 pounds overweight because I didn't care about who

Speaker 2
1:02:57 - 1:02:57
I

Wendy Cole Guest
1:02:57 - 1:02:57
was.

Speaker 2
1:02:58 - 1:02:58
I didn't care

Wendy Cole Guest
1:02:58 - 1:03:41
about what I looked like. And that's the impact of this on later years. Well, three years after I transitioned. My primary care physician looked at me and said, what's going on with you? I'm going through your health records. Your blood work comes back perfect every time. I'm taking you off all your meds. You don't need them anymore. And you're no longer diabetic. I'm taking you off all of that too. And you've lost 70 pounds. Body

Cheryl
1:03:41 - 1:03:41
keeps

Wendy Cole Guest
1:03:41 - 1:03:45
the score. Yeah. Wow. All

Speaker 2
1:03:46 - 1:03:46
the,

Wendy Cole Guest
1:03:47 - 1:04:54
all the, all those thoughts that I was having. And that's the thing that I learned going through this transition. I learned the impact of our thoughts and our emotions on our physical health because the emotions are communicated to our bodies by Neuropeptides come from the brain. Other glands throughout the body produce chemicals and every emotion that your thought patterns bring up are communicated to your body by your body chemistry. And that chemistry is highly addictive. We're the best drug dealers we've got. We can become addicted to depression, addicted to anxiety. You can also become addicted to joy too, and that's not necessarily a bad thing too, but it's all an addictive emotion.

Wendy Cole Guest
1:04:57 - 1:05:10
Controlling those emotions. I no longer have all those thoughts. This has been a rebirth Yeah, i've been living as myself now for 10 years and it's been the happiest 10 years of my entire life

Cheryl
1:05:11 - 1:05:18
I can't believe you're 77 You're kidding me No, okay. That's just ridiculous

Wendy Cole Guest
1:05:20 - 1:05:21
Wow. Wow.

Cheryl
1:05:21 - 1:05:22
Most

Wendy Cole Guest
1:05:22 - 1:05:23
people put me in my fifties.

Cheryl
1:05:24 - 1:05:54
Yes. And I transitioned at 67. I'm like, what was that yesterday? Like there's no, oh my gosh. Oh, listen, I have, I don't know, I love this conversation in such a way that I know the impact you're going to have for people. And I think that's that's the whole point for sure. And if you tell us where we can find you, Wendy, so parents are listening, going, oh, that's the person I need to speak to. Where can we find you?

Wendy Cole Guest
1:05:56 - 1:06:06
meetwendycole.com. That's the easiest thing to remember. Just meetwendycole.com.

Cheryl
1:06:07 - 1:06:08
And the name of your podcast?

Wendy Cole Guest
1:06:10 - 1:06:44
The podcast just aired on February 28th. It's been, and I'm convinced that the universe put me on this path in 2015 to do this because I started talking with people Within the first month of living as myself and explain What being born transgender means? so The podcast is the ultimate, uh expansion of that Demystifying the transgender journey.

Speaker 2
1:06:44 - 1:06:45
Yes

Wendy Cole Guest
1:06:46 - 1:07:13
And i've also, uh formed a community around it Uh, we meet meet monthly and it's for people not born transgender, also known as cisgender within the community. It's for people not transgender to come together with people like myself

Speaker 2
1:07:13 - 1:07:13
and

Wendy Cole Guest
1:07:13 - 1:07:39
a few other transgender people that join me for open conversation with other people. That's amazing answer your questions because there's so many people in the transgender community that are not comfortable with Answering questions feel they're being challenged. Uh, don't like it, whatever

Speaker 2
1:07:39 - 1:07:40
Yeah,

Wendy Cole Guest
1:07:40 - 1:07:44
um I'll talk with anybody If

Cheryl
1:07:44 - 1:08:19
you have questions parents, this is where you need to go This is where you need to go wendy. I am so Immensely grateful for you today I thank you for the work you do and the work you continue to do to support our kids our humans And I think we need to do a part two of this. But until then, I want to thank you so much. Thank you for listening to Parenting Team's Advice Redefined. Go see Wendy. Go talk to Wendy. Get into that community. Get your questions answered. And we will see you next time.

Cheryl
1:08:25 - 1:09:06
Thank you for listening to another episode. I hope you loved this one as much as I did. And I just wanted to share something with you because, you know, parenting teens is not just about managing these challenges that we talk about on all the episodes. It's also about evolving alongside them. And I'm Cheryl, and not only the host of this podcast, but I'm also the creator of Insight to Impact, coaching and consulting. And I help you moms of teens reconnect with your true selves so you can lead with purpose, you can parent with clarity, you can create stronger, more meaningful relationships with your kids.

Cheryl
1:09:06 - 1:09:40
Because here's the truth. The transformation starts with you. Together, we will break free from the stress and overwhelm. We will rediscover your power. We will create the life and the family dynamic you always dreamed of. If you're ready to start this journey, let's do it. You might just not recognize your life in the next 90 days. It all starts with a call. There's no pitch. There's no pressure, just a call to see if I can help. We'll talk about your goals. We'll talk about what's making you feel stuck and what might be getting in your way.

Cheryl
1:09:41 - 1:09:58
And everything you need to connect with me is in the show notes. Again, I'm Cheryl. Thank you so much for joining me here on Parenting Teens, advice redefined for today's complex world and the creator of Insight to Impact Coaching and Consulting. Have a great day.