Speaker 1: Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 2: It beats listening to nothingness.
Speaker 3: Being Frank fright. We're the only way to be is Frank.
Speaker 2: Bellow everyone, and welcome to being Frank. We're the only
Speaker 2: way to be is well, Frank. I'm your host, Frankleburn,
Speaker 2: and I'd like to thank you for joining us on
Speaker 2: what we like to call the Intelligent Conversation podcast, where
Speaker 2: no conversations out of bounds in all points of view
Speaker 2: are welcome. You know, we record live to tape, but
Speaker 2: I give you the date for context and relevance. It's
Speaker 2: the first of April, April Fool's Day, but we will
Speaker 2: not be fooling with our conversation today. We've got a
Speaker 2: great one lined up for you. You know, I feel
Speaker 2: it fair to say that most Americans are feeling apprehensive
Speaker 2: about the future of this country. The economy lies mostly
Speaker 2: in tatters, with the cost of living escalating at unmanageable prices.
Speaker 2: We're also involved in an unpopular war with no defined
Speaker 2: ending in sight. President Trump and his administration seem hell
Speaker 2: bent in defining America in their terms, regardless of the consequences,
Speaker 2: and perhaps no one is feeling the pain more than
Speaker 2: the LGBTQ plus community, and particularly transfolk. The administration's assault
Speaker 2: on diversity, equity, and inclusion is a direct attack on
Speaker 2: people whose only crime is to live their authentic cells.
Speaker 2: Their policies will erase years of gains earned through blood, sweat,
Speaker 2: and tears. That's why celebrating the Transgender Day of Visibility
Speaker 2: yesterday on March thirty first, has become more important than ever.
Speaker 2: These people are family and friends and deserve the respect
Speaker 2: any one of us deserves and demands as we all do.
Speaker 2: They have stories to tell of their life's journeys, and
Speaker 2: here to share. Her most unique and interesting life is
Speaker 2: my friend, Abby Cohen. She grew up as a boy
Speaker 2: in a small town in the Texas Panhandle in a
Speaker 2: nineteen sixties. After graduating from high school, she came to
Speaker 2: New York City to study at Columbia University. Distracted by
Speaker 2: her emerging gender identity issues, she dropped out of college
Speaker 2: and moved into an SRO Residency hotel on West one
Speaker 2: hundred and twelfth Street. While working as a desk clerk
Speaker 2: in the hotel, Abby began living full time as a
Speaker 2: woman on January first, nineteen eighty, at the age of
Speaker 2: twenty six. When the hotel closed, she found a job
Speaker 2: as a word processing trainee in the Central Office of
Speaker 2: the City University of New York. In March of nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty eight, she was interviewed by Rafael Pineda on Univision,
Speaker 2: a week before her sex reassignment surgery was performed by
Speaker 2: doctor Roberto Granato at Physicians Hospital in Queen's This television
Speaker 2: appearance caused quite a stir among colleagues who had always
Speaker 2: known her as a woman. Abby would earn a BA
Speaker 2: degree from Hunter College, and by the end of her
Speaker 2: career as a database designer, she would become the administrative
Speaker 2: equivalent of a full professor. Upon her retirement from Cuney,
Speaker 2: Abby opened the Coat of Many Colors bookstore in Nayak,
Speaker 2: declaring the venture a cultural success but a financial failure.
Speaker 2: She closed the bookstore after eighteen months of operation. Abby
Speaker 2: is currently writing a memoir and learning to draw. Welcome, Abbe.
Speaker 2: I really want to thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 3: And thank you so much for inviting me.
Speaker 2: You know, there's so much to be said, so much
Speaker 2: to talk about. You write frequently on social media, and
Speaker 2: your posts are well read, so well written, and so interesting,
Speaker 2: and I you know, in some ways have meant led
Speaker 2: an eventful life, but sometimes in comparison to yours, I
Speaker 2: look and I say, those are real life events, and
Speaker 2: I want to talk a little bit about them today,
Speaker 2: and I really want to thank you for sharing them
Speaker 2: with us.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: All right, Let's go back to the beginning. Let's talk
Speaker 2: about the beginning. Your life as a boy in Texas.
Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 3: Well. I grew up in Panhandle, Texas. It's a small
Speaker 3: town about thirty miles northeast of Amarello in the Texas Panhandle.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 3: My mother moved there when I was one year old
Speaker 3: to get a job as a gym teacher in high school,
Speaker 3: and a couple of years later she remarried. I was
Speaker 3: not close to my stepfather, but there was a couple,
Speaker 3: a childless couple who were like godparents to me, Smokey
Speaker 3: and Emily. Smokey was a real man's man. He gave
Speaker 3: me a bb gun for my birthday one year. Emily,
Speaker 3: although she grew up there, she had lived in New
Speaker 3: York City during the twenty She was a flapper. Emily
Speaker 3: got me tap dancing lessons. So maybe Emily saw that
Speaker 3: maybe I was a different kind of boy than other boys,
Speaker 3: So that was it.
Speaker 2: Well, would you say your childhood was standard in a sense,
Speaker 2: especially as a boy at that time, things like boy
Speaker 2: scout sports, et cetera. Did they play any role in
Speaker 2: your life at that time?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 3: Absolutely say maybe a little background. Christine Jorgensen, she was
Speaker 3: the first famous transgender person, and she wrote in her
Speaker 3: memoir that when she was four years old, she was
Speaker 3: so disappointed that she got a red firetruck for Christmas
Speaker 3: instead of adult which she really wanted. So that's become
Speaker 3: part of the narrative that was kind of standard for
Speaker 3: transgender people, and that goes back to Harry Benjamin, the
Speaker 3: so called father of transgenderism. He was a sex allegists
Speaker 3: from Germany who came to this country and he came
Speaker 3: up with this diagnos differential diagnosis that there are the
Speaker 3: fetishes who get excited by ladies underwear, There are the
Speaker 3: transvestites who are attracted to women that like to wear
Speaker 3: women's clothes. There are drag queens who are attracted to
Speaker 3: men that also like to wear women's clothes, and then
Speaker 3: there are the true transsexuals. And they fit a very
Speaker 3: specific profile and including this profile was the idea that
Speaker 3: this was something somebody was aware of all their life,
Speaker 3: from the very beginning. And so of course people seeking
Speaker 3: medical transition they read his book, and so they began
Speaker 3: to tailor their stories to meet the diagnosis. So I'm
Speaker 3: not saying that these stories aren't true for some people,
Speaker 3: but they weren't for me. And what this really comes
Speaker 3: down to is the question of whether or not gender
Speaker 3: is something a person is born with. And uh yeah,
Speaker 3: and that's uh so, I certainly, But I had an
Speaker 3: identity as a boy. Very much as a boy. My
Speaker 3: hero was Fest Parker as David Crockett, I mean, but
Speaker 3: kind of things that attracted me to him, as you know,
Speaker 3: he was He was honest, he didn't want to break
Speaker 3: the deal with the Cherokees, who lost his seat for that.
Speaker 3: He was helpful in the riverboat episode. He rescued that
Speaker 3: guy and his animals that were stranded on an island,
Speaker 3: you know, and then that guy showed him the short cuts.
Speaker 3: So it's kind of where I got this idea that
Speaker 3: what goes around comes around, and so yeah, and I
Speaker 3: was in Boy Scouts. I took it very seriously. I
Speaker 3: managed my imagine myself being Davy Crockett or Daniel Boone
Speaker 3: in the wilderness. So it wasn't until I was in
Speaker 3: third grade that things changed.
Speaker 2: Tell us about that. Was there an epiphany moment? Abby?
Speaker 2: Was Was it a more gradual thing that came upon
Speaker 2: you or was there a single episode or thought a
Speaker 2: moment that made you connect if you will, if that
Speaker 2: makes sense to you.
Speaker 3: Not really, I mean, I guess maybe part of it
Speaker 3: is we didn't have language for it back then. So
Speaker 3: now third grade, third grade, I started being teased by
Speaker 3: the boys, the other boys, and because I cried easily,
Speaker 3: and they had these hand gestures and they would do
Speaker 3: them and I didn't know what they meant, and I
Speaker 3: would start crying and I just thought it was so funny,
Speaker 3: you know, And they called me a sissy, so I
Speaker 3: guess I was a sissy boy. And that didn't what's
Speaker 3: kind of funny, is yeah, my response to that sort
Speaker 3: of thing was to cry. But I tried to do
Speaker 3: the boy things. I went out for Little League baseball.
Speaker 3: And then when I was in fourth grade, there was
Speaker 3: this boy who was teasing me because I closed my
Speaker 3: eyes when I was trying to catch a fly, and
Speaker 3: I got so angry that I charged him, and he
Speaker 3: was like the biggest kidney class and he just pushed
Speaker 3: me aside into this thing holding up the swing set,
Speaker 3: and I got a black eye. So that was kind
Speaker 3: of my little purple badge of courage because I acted
Speaker 3: like a boy was supposed to act with violence and anger,
Speaker 3: you know, instead of fear and crying and so but no,
Speaker 3: so I I in high school, my mother left my stepfather.
Speaker 3: I went to a much larger high school, larger town,
Speaker 3: and kind of had a chance to start over. And
Speaker 3: I reinvented myself as a hippie. And it was very
Speaker 3: important for me to grow my hair long, even like
Speaker 3: had a petition, you know, got signatures, went to the
Speaker 3: school board. It was like really really important for me
Speaker 3: to grow my hair long. And I wore the hippie clothes,
Speaker 3: you know, like the Jimmy Hendrick shirts, that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: A lot of people assumed I was gay, but I
Speaker 3: like girls, so I knew I wasn't gay, but I
Speaker 3: didn't know what I was. There was maybe one episode
Speaker 3: when I was ten eleven, previewbescent. I would dress up
Speaker 3: on my mother's clothes and because my stepdad would take
Speaker 3: everybody else for a ride, in the country and I
Speaker 3: got to stay home, so I don't. I mean, yes,
Speaker 3: her girl, her stockings, her dress, sometimes put her makeup
Speaker 3: on the mirror, and I would just stare in the mirror.
Speaker 3: I was looking for something. I guess I wanted to
Speaker 3: know what it felt like to be in my mother's skin,
Speaker 3: and I was looking in the mirror. I was looking
Speaker 3: for something, but I didn't know what it was.
Speaker 2: If you couldn't, I might be retorting. How did it
Speaker 2: make you feel when you saw yourself? That? Was there?
Speaker 2: A sense of satisfaction, confusedness, This is where I need
Speaker 2: to be, this is where I want to be. Maybe
Speaker 2: I shouldn't guilt. I mean, it must have been a
Speaker 2: huge range of emotion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was.
Speaker 3: Mostly it felt queer. I mean not in the old
Speaker 3: fashioned sense of the word, not in the sense of
Speaker 3: the LGBTQ word. But it just felt I guess, a
Speaker 3: little bit, a little bit of elation. But it was
Speaker 3: just yeah, it was just it's very hard to define.
Speaker 2: Interesting, was just incredible.
Speaker 3: So it wasn't really until I was in college and
Speaker 3: I had a steady girlfriend that I began to understand.
Speaker 2: Well, explain that, how did how did that turn? And
Speaker 2: the fact now you're older, you're more mature your relationship,
Speaker 2: uh head of sexualiz whme, you're still a man at
Speaker 2: this point or seen as such with a relationship with
Speaker 2: a woman. How did that start to change your head
Speaker 2: if you could?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean in high school I had a few
Speaker 3: hit and runs, you know, as the battle of cars
Speaker 3: like boys do. But it wasn't until my sophomore year
Speaker 3: in high school, I mean college, excuse me, Columbia, that
Speaker 3: I had a steady girlfriend and it was a lot
Speaker 3: of fun at first, and I would think, and I became,
Speaker 3: you know, more acquainted with female anatomy than I had
Speaker 3: been before you close, And I think what really ruined
Speaker 3: it was that she got birth controls, she went on
Speaker 3: the pill. And so before that we you know, we
Speaker 3: were I guess what you call it petting whatever.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: It's when we started really having heterosexual intercourse that I thought, no,
Speaker 3: this doesn't feel right, this is not me. I would
Speaker 3: you know, I want to be her and uh yeah,
Speaker 3: so I know that may sound a little pervy, but yeah,
Speaker 3: that's that's when I began.
Speaker 2: Think at all. I think it's very interesting to I have.
Speaker 2: I worked with a friend who came out years after
Speaker 2: after relationships with women and had a similar experience. At
Speaker 2: one point you said, this is just not right to
Speaker 2: feel right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so one time I yeah, so, I know, when
Speaker 3: I was breaking up with her, I had this thing
Speaker 3: with the guy. Took me down to the village, took
Speaker 3: me to the ninth circle, to the anvil, you know,
Speaker 3: trying to give me an idea of that community and
Speaker 3: trying to find, you know, my taste level. And spent
Speaker 3: a night night with him. But that didn't feel right either.
Speaker 3: I mean, the syntax wasn't right. It was like a
Speaker 3: double negative. It just I knew it was not a
Speaker 3: gay man. You know.
Speaker 2: You mentioned that terminology and how it's more often changed
Speaker 2: through the years, and the what is the importance of terminology,
Speaker 2: you know, calling people, defining them, I guess in the
Speaker 2: sense or lack of a better word or concept. But
Speaker 2: how important is we used to say transvestites, for example,
Speaker 2: is not used anymore. Transsexual has changed, even the LGBTQ
Speaker 2: adds more letters, et cetera. So it's an evolving thing.
Speaker 2: So how important is the terminology? To understand?
Speaker 3: It's basically all political. It's and again it goes back
Speaker 3: to this thing I brought up. I mean, are we
Speaker 3: born with a gender or are we like, do we
Speaker 3: get a gender? And if we develop a gender, you know,
Speaker 3: can that gender be changed? You know? I mean gender
Speaker 3: is a gender is a cultural artifact. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: kind of like a language, like I was. I was
Speaker 3: very effeminate. I mean, and I don't know. People are
Speaker 3: born with a capacity for language, and there are different languages.
Speaker 3: Maybe people are born for capacity for gender, but that
Speaker 3: people are born with a specific gender and whether or
Speaker 3: not it should match match their you know, a sex
Speaker 3: assigned at birth, as it said, Now we don't see
Speaker 3: so it's so so the thing is so transsexual is
Speaker 3: out of vogue now. I mean I still identify as
Speaker 3: a transsexual. And I think that's largely because we don't
Speaker 3: want to privilege people who have had so called bottom surgery.
Speaker 3: That somehow people like me aren't more real women than
Speaker 3: people who than trans women who don't want bottom surgery,
Speaker 3: which is certainly true. I mean, surgery in itself isn't
Speaker 3: something that makes anybody more or less a woman. Okay,
Speaker 3: so we have transsexual, we have transgender. We now have
Speaker 3: so called biological sex, which was being mentioned. You know
Speaker 3: by the people in this anti trans rhetoric, you know
Speaker 3: that we shouldn't have biological males in the ladies room.
Speaker 3: You know. Of course, the problem with that is there's
Speaker 3: no standard definition for biological sex. I mean, are you
Speaker 3: talking about someone's chrominols, chromosomes? Are you talking about someone's
Speaker 3: hormone levels? Are you talking about their gonuts? You know
Speaker 3: they're reproductive organs? Are you talking about secondary sexual characteristics?
Speaker 3: And I'm kind of skipping ahead here, but that's one
Speaker 3: of the I guess, real ironies that they that they're
Speaker 3: changing the rules for the International Olympic Committee that women
Speaker 3: have to be tested now, I mean, people have forgotten
Speaker 3: that they did that because people were suspected that the
Speaker 3: East Germans were entering men to compete in women's supports.
Speaker 2: It's a big deal. People forget that it was a
Speaker 2: big deal, yes.
Speaker 3: And then what they found out a lot of women
Speaker 3: found out, oh no, they were not genetically female. So
Speaker 3: I find it's interesting at least the language and these
Speaker 3: things has changed in terms of the executive orders. Instead
Speaker 3: of saying biological sex, they're now saying the sex on
Speaker 3: the birth certificate, which in the parlance, so the queer
Speaker 3: community is sex assigned at birth as opposed to yeah,
Speaker 3: and people who people who want to live socially different
Speaker 3: than the sex that were assigned at birth are called transgender,
Speaker 3: and people who live in the gender associated with the
Speaker 3: sex assigned at birth are called cis gender. But you know,
Speaker 3: some people you know don't like being called cis gender.
Speaker 3: They consider it a slur. But you know, it's it's
Speaker 3: just like, you know, it's just like you know a
Speaker 3: lot of times says you know, who was that person
Speaker 3: you know who is a person in college and says, oh,
Speaker 3: that's a black person. If you don't say it's a
Speaker 3: black person, I assume it's a white person. So I
Speaker 3: mean SIS people don't like sis genders because they like
Speaker 3: cis gender should be the default for what a real
Speaker 3: gender is. Right, Sorry, I.
Speaker 2: Don't know, this is just I'm just fascinating. I always,
Speaker 2: as I said, I love your writing. I love the
Speaker 2: fact that you share so honestly helps people to understand,
Speaker 2: and that's I think what is ultimately most important, certainly
Speaker 2: in any discussion to come to an understanding. You know,
Speaker 2: you mentioned and we mentioned it also in the intro.
Speaker 2: You did go through sexual reassignment surgery without no no,
Speaker 2: I'm looking details. But beyond the physical, how did it
Speaker 2: change you? Did it change you? And if so, in
Speaker 2: what ways.
Speaker 3: I can I I mean the standard answers. I felt
Speaker 3: like my real self. That's not your words. And I
Speaker 3: like to say that I did this little would it's
Speaker 3: little performance piece where I said I went from the
Speaker 3: imaginary vagina to the frank concon vagina. So I think
Speaker 3: people forget that with puberty there are radical changes that
Speaker 3: happen in the body. But they don't happen overnight. They
Speaker 3: happen gradually. And also they're happening to everybody in your
Speaker 3: peer class at the same time, so there's a lot
Speaker 3: of support for that. I would say it was it
Speaker 3: was a radical physical change, and it wasn't like anything
Speaker 3: I imagined, I would say, And I would say that,
Speaker 3: I mean I didn't I mean I didn't regret losing
Speaker 3: a penis. I mean there was no phantom limb or
Speaker 3: anything like that. I didn't have any dreams about it.
Speaker 3: But I would say that my vagina did not become
Speaker 3: real to me until I had sexual relations with a
Speaker 3: man who accepted me as a woman unconditionally. I mean
Speaker 3: so this is before we got this is one of
Speaker 3: the points I wanted to make in this podcast is
Speaker 3: besides being an identity and a language, gender is also
Speaker 3: a social relationship that you know, how we respond to
Speaker 3: people depends upon how we perceive their gender, you know.
Speaker 3: And again going back to the racial comparison, sometimes you
Speaker 3: see someone you say, this is African American? Are they Hispanic?
Speaker 3: Are the East Indian? I'm not sure. Ambiguity, you know,
Speaker 3: and these so called physical traits, which are you know,
Speaker 3: kind of superfluous. It's just culturally they mean something because
Speaker 3: of our history, because you know, you know, the history
Speaker 3: of slavery, the history of the of the genocide of
Speaker 3: American Indians, or the history of imperialism, you know, the
Speaker 3: British Empire. You know, that's why these you know, these
Speaker 3: so called races or ethnicities means something, you know. But
Speaker 3: it's the same with men and women. I mean, the
Speaker 3: way that we respond to people depends upon the way
Speaker 3: we gender them. And so I would say my feeling
Speaker 3: is I didn't become a woman until people began treating
Speaker 3: me as a woman. But the other side of that
Speaker 3: is I didn't get treated as a woman unless I
Speaker 3: acted the way women were expected to behave. So I
Speaker 3: kind of went from one bar to another box. You know,
Speaker 3: that's the nature of a society. I mean, I don't.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you want to know why, I mean,
Speaker 3: why should gender be privileged? You know, in terms of identity,
Speaker 3: driver's license, par certificates, passports about something like eye color. Well,
Speaker 3: it's only because of the society we live in. It's
Speaker 3: because men. Like I said, gender is a social relationship
Speaker 3: and which in which men are privileged. I mean, that's
Speaker 3: what it's all about.
Speaker 2: Not like your thoughts on one of the things that
Speaker 2: I observe, if you will, Often I see trans when
Speaker 2: gender women who tend to sexualize their femininity glamorous poses,
Speaker 2: you know, glamorous jewelry, makeup, et cetera. And sometimes I
Speaker 2: wonder if that's the right approach as well, too, to
Speaker 2: be overly sexualized, where where women are looking for a
Speaker 2: certain identity of equality, but yet trans women are going
Speaker 2: into the traditional what you like you were saying, they
Speaker 2: make themselves look their image of what a traditionally glamorous
Speaker 2: woman might be.
Speaker 3: Your thoughts on that, uh, are you paying attention to
Speaker 3: how thirteen year old girls dress?
Speaker 2: That's that's amazing to me. Absolutely, Yes, it's a phase,
Speaker 2: you know, want to.
Speaker 3: What can I say? There's nothing I can say about
Speaker 3: that when someone first comes out, they want to be Yeah,
Speaker 3: just trying things on.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, is that it's it's that kind
Speaker 2: of burst of freedom that you're really spreading wings. Just
Speaker 2: trying to understand that's.
Speaker 3: Part of it. But I mean they're women like I
Speaker 3: don't know, Marilyn Monroe, Madonna, I mean, who trying to
Speaker 3: be flirtatious, you know, way past her prime. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 3: so I don't. I mean, I hear what you're saying,
Speaker 3: but I mean I can't say anything negative about it.
Speaker 3: But yeah, but that's but that's the problem. See, I
Speaker 3: would say socially, there's a difference. I did not grow
Speaker 3: up with a mother telling me you can't do this,
Speaker 3: you can't do that. A lady doesn't do this, A
Speaker 3: lady doesn't do that. I mean, And so sometimes there
Speaker 3: are cracks and my facade and my performance. I use
Speaker 3: words I shouldn't. And I had one friend tell me that,
Speaker 3: you know, women never say tits, women say boobs. You know,
Speaker 3: there's little things like that. So when you don't grow
Speaker 3: up with the kind of social conditioning when you don't
Speaker 3: have this inner voice that tells you got to behave
Speaker 3: then of course, yeah, but yes, I think that's where
Speaker 3: that's coming from.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate appreciate that answer, and again comes to
Speaker 2: come to an understanding. We talk a little bit about
Speaker 2: your husband and your relationship with him, if if I
Speaker 2: remember correctly, he was an Orthodox Jew. When you often
Speaker 2: associate your situation in an Orthodox any Orthodoxy, ultra Christian,
Speaker 2: ultra Jewish, Muslim, etc. That seems to me there would
Speaker 2: be bound to be some level of conflict. But yet
Speaker 2: it's obvious to me through your writings and speaking with
Speaker 2: you and knowing you you loved each other very much.
Speaker 2: Talk a little to that, you know, getting into a
Speaker 2: situation that was loving but also dangerous, if you will.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, I came to Judaism separately. I mean it
Speaker 3: was Actually maybe I shouldn't say that. It is very
Speaker 3: common for people who go through gender transition to change religions,
Speaker 3: and I guess partly because I feel that the belief
Speaker 3: system they grew up with wasn't meaningful anymore. So, Actually
Speaker 3: this isn't unusual at all. But I two years after
Speaker 3: the surgery. I was invited to a boss s mitzvah
Speaker 3: and I had some kind of experience, and there was
Speaker 3: a synagogue I would pass on the way home that
Speaker 3: had a beginner service. Happened to be a modern Orthodox synagogue,
Speaker 3: Lincoln Square Synagogue. I'll say that out loud. Now, A
Speaker 3: lot has changed in twenty five or thirty. This was
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety, so that's what that's like thirty six years now. Yes,
Speaker 3: And the beginner service was actually designed for people who
Speaker 3: grew up without any kind of foundation. But the programming
Speaker 3: was perfect for someone who didn't know anything about Judaism.
Speaker 3: I like to say I was a dolphin that got
Speaker 3: hot in the tunanette.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: They weren't fishing for me, but they got me, you know,
Speaker 3: they was what want? Yeah, And when I started keeping coach.
Speaker 3: So the man that became my husband, he worked in
Speaker 3: the Kosher Delhi around the corner from where I lived,
Speaker 3: and I would go there and I always like they
Speaker 3: sold chicken in quarters and I like tops, and he
Speaker 3: would flirt with me. He would say, like tops for
Speaker 3: a top lady, And sometimes he gave me a little
Speaker 3: extra chicken. His name was Mendel By the way and
Speaker 3: one day, oh, so there was this thing. Oh, this
Speaker 3: is really intimate. But so I started to ask about conversion,
Speaker 3: and I found out that my history would be a
Speaker 3: problem for an Orthodox conversion, and I prayed to God.
Speaker 3: I said, if you know, maybe this isn't what you
Speaker 3: wanted for my life, but I've come so far. Please
Speaker 3: let me know love is a woman, even if it's
Speaker 3: only for a year or two. And then I'll do
Speaker 3: whatever I have to do to become Jewish. So you
Speaker 3: have to mind understand my mindset. And so that week
Speaker 3: Mendel asked for my phone number, I said, and he
Speaker 3: was like twenty years older than me. And I'm like, God,
Speaker 3: this is who you send me? A daily worker, twenty
Speaker 3: years old enough to be my father, but my number.
Speaker 3: And I think he's going to say, you know, you
Speaker 3: want to go up for drinks, maybe dinner, And he says,
Speaker 3: I want you to come to Brooklyn for Shavis and
Speaker 3: meet my father. And that's how I knew he was
Speaker 3: the one. Okay, that's that's a big deal. Yes, And
Speaker 3: when I yeah, also, I mean I went with this
Speaker 3: total stranger. Turned out I was he's staying in his apartment,
Speaker 3: not his sister and yeah, and when I told him,
Speaker 3: I said, well, well we'll slow down. And I said,
Speaker 3: there's something I have to tell you. I wasn't born
Speaker 3: a girl. And she says, it only makes me love
Speaker 3: you more because I see how much painess this cost you.
Speaker 3: So yeah, but then things happened, right, so he was
Speaker 3: part of He was like, he came from this very
Speaker 3: religious family that goes back for generations Lithuania, then Jerusalem
Speaker 3: and then Brooklyn. And of course he's awesome. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think he wanted to get caught. That's what he said.
Speaker 1: In the end.
Speaker 3: He knew it would come out in the end, and
Speaker 3: it did. But yeah, So and we lived in Borough Park,
Speaker 3: a very regimented community, and I wore a wig. I
Speaker 3: wore you know, skirts below my knees and blouses it
Speaker 3: came down past my elbows. And it's kind of funny
Speaker 3: because just because I know something. Somebody once said that
Speaker 3: because of the wigs and the heavy makeup and the
Speaker 3: heavy jewelry, that the acidic women look like transvestites. And
Speaker 3: there's a certain truth to that, but yeah, but it's
Speaker 3: like it's kind of because they just looked at superficial
Speaker 3: things like the way I was dressed. My husband's ex
Speaker 3: wife was much more suspicious. She would say, why can't
Speaker 3: you say you're chuffs? I mean that's you know, it's
Speaker 3: a Jewish consonant, which isn't you know, part of the
Speaker 3: English language or certain like I say, there were cracks
Speaker 3: in my first thoughts. People assumed, you know, that I
Speaker 3: was about to call a balchuva, someone who didn't grow
Speaker 3: up religious but became religious. So yeah, so and then
Speaker 3: uh they' and then my husband is diagnosed with cancer
Speaker 3: died eighteen months later. So his husband, his family found
Speaker 3: out about my past. Most of them shunned him. And
Speaker 3: so after he was done, after he died, and I mean,
Speaker 3: like I said, he was the one who made me real.
Speaker 3: I mean, he chose me over his own children when
Speaker 3: they gave him an ultimatum, you know, and he accepted
Speaker 3: me as a Jewish woman. You know, I wasn't legally Jewish.
Speaker 3: I wasn't, you know. And so anyway, I was grieving,
Speaker 3: and but I remembered my promise to God. So I said, okay,
Speaker 3: so now I'm going to be the Jewish, whatever it takes,
Speaker 3: I would say in retrospect, it was also kind of
Speaker 3: an active grief what I did. But anyway, so so
Speaker 3: I went to the rabbis, and although there was a loophole,
Speaker 3: there was always a loophole in Jewish law that would
Speaker 3: have allowed me to convert as a woman. No one
Speaker 3: was willing to say that publicly, and so they were
Speaker 3: all saying what to the highest authorities in Israel, and
Speaker 3: they're always saying, well, I would have to that I
Speaker 3: was still according to Jewish law male, and I would
Speaker 3: have to accept all of the Mitzvahs commandments that men
Speaker 3: have to do that women don't have to do because
Speaker 3: they take care of children, like praying three times a day.
Speaker 3: And there's also there's a specific biblical injunction against cross dressing,
Speaker 3: so I would have to wear men's clothes. I would
Speaker 3: have to be on prey on the men's side of
Speaker 3: the synagogue. And I don't think anybody thought I would
Speaker 3: actually do that. So yeah, so let's say it did
Speaker 3: not work out at all. It was uh, it's it
Speaker 3: was very disillusioning for me that these people have these
Speaker 3: rules and I say, we have nothing against you personally,
Speaker 3: it's just we have these rules. And then when I
Speaker 3: follow the rules, then no, no, we can't have this
Speaker 3: because you know, you're obviously doesn't matter how you address
Speaker 3: your office like the woman. So I'm sorry, I even
Speaker 3: forget what the question was at this point.
Speaker 2: So no, No, that's very important that how you after
Speaker 2: the death of Mendel, your husband, and you keeping your
Speaker 2: promises and yet still not finding the satisfaction in it
Speaker 2: that you really, I think were seeking. If I might
Speaker 2: say that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say it's kind of interesting. Again, it
Speaker 3: depends gender is culturally specific. I don't know if you remember.
Speaker 3: There was a movie and then early nine he called
Speaker 3: The Stranger among Us with Milanie Griffith, and she was
Speaker 3: working undercover in this Jewish community where there's a murder
Speaker 3: and she's like the ultimately liberated woman. I mean, she's
Speaker 3: a police officer and she has a gun, right, she
Speaker 3: has this phallic symbol, and she goes into this community
Speaker 3: where there's a very different definition of what it means
Speaker 3: to be a man. And I don't know if I'd
Speaker 3: known about that, I would have this interest earlier that
Speaker 3: I couldn't be couldn't have been happy living as a
Speaker 3: Jewish man, you know, instead of growing up in Texas
Speaker 3: with cowboys and oil men and that sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: I don't know, but anyway, but yeah, but that that
Speaker 3: ship sail and yeah, so I mean I definitely did
Speaker 3: not want to continue living in Borough Park as the
Speaker 3: widow Cohen. I wanted to go on with my life
Speaker 3: and I couldn't do that in an older Orthodox community.
Speaker 2: So well, I'm when you talk a little about your
Speaker 2: moved to Tanaiak and making that change, but before we
Speaker 2: do that, and we do that after the break, but
Speaker 2: before the break, you mentioned being revealed to his family.
Speaker 2: Tell us about how you revealed yourself as a woman
Speaker 2: to your family and what was how did that happen,
Speaker 2: how did you go about that and what was their reaction?
Speaker 3: Okay, well, so I guess the first person that knew
Speaker 3: about my proclivities was my college girlfriend, and she was
Speaker 3: not into that. And so I went to see a
Speaker 3: college counselor who says, well, it's perfectly normal. Normal. I
Speaker 3: mean a lot of men, you know, get erotically aroused
Speaker 3: by wearing women's clothes and that, Okay, this is not
Speaker 3: the person I need to speak to. H And when
Speaker 3: I dropped out, I had moved into this residential hotel
Speaker 3: which had all kinds of people, which didn't have the
Speaker 3: same kind of rules that I grew growing up. There
Speaker 3: was yeah, there were some transgender women living there. But
Speaker 3: what really made a difference for me was the movie
Speaker 3: Outrageous about a drag queen, and I thought, well, if
Speaker 3: she can perform as a woman on stage, why can't
Speaker 3: I do that in real life? Well, I mean, it
Speaker 3: doesn't really work that way. But I found this person
Speaker 3: in the Village Voice who was a coach for transsexual
Speaker 3: and transvestites to help them pass in public, you know.
Speaker 3: And I made the transition there in this hotel, and
Speaker 3: I think and of course men assumed if I was
Speaker 3: wearing a dress and lipstick, then then I must want
Speaker 3: a man in my life, right, you know. So that
Speaker 3: that was scary, you know, Thank god I survived. And
Speaker 3: then by the time the hotel closed, I was able
Speaker 3: to get an office I passed well enough to get
Speaker 3: an office job. So yeah. So my mother was one
Speaker 3: of the first people I told during this period of transition,
Speaker 3: and she told me that I it's like I put
Speaker 3: a knife in her back. I could not be a daughter,
Speaker 3: I could not be a sister, And nobody spoke to
Speaker 3: me for three years. So I'm not one to hide
Speaker 3: my light under a bushel. So this was like a
Speaker 3: year after I started working at Cunie. I went back
Speaker 3: from my jeniorar high school reunion and I said, do
Speaker 3: you want to see me or not? I kind of
Speaker 3: put my family on the spot. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 3: mean I'm always testing people. You know, it's guilt, something
Speaker 3: I'm guilty of. But my mother did something very funny.
Speaker 3: She told one person who was a horrible gossip and
Speaker 3: I told everybody else, so everybody knew I was coming.
Speaker 3: And like I said, this was nineteen eighty three, this
Speaker 3: was I mean, there had been Christine Jorkinson, there had
Speaker 3: been Renee Richards, but this was before being friends was
Speaker 3: the kind of thing it is today, and so people
Speaker 3: didn't know how to react. I think they were mostly curious,
Speaker 3: you know, so that I know that kind of repaired
Speaker 3: your relationship. I would say this that my mother ultimately
Speaker 3: accepted me as her child. And I know that because
Speaker 3: she remembered me in her will. She wanted me to
Speaker 3: know that she left me as much as she did
Speaker 3: her other two children. But I don't think she completely
Speaker 3: forgave me for taking away her son. You know, mothers
Speaker 3: and son. That's a very special aunt, and we never
Speaker 3: did the kind of things that mothers and daughters do
Speaker 3: when they're growing up. So that's and that's the thing
Speaker 3: about Like I said, gender is a social relationship. The
Speaker 3: relationship between a mother and a son and a mother
Speaker 3: and a daughter is very different. So that was but
Speaker 3: I mean, I was very happy that we were reconciled,
Speaker 3: but I was, Yeah, I think in her mind I
Speaker 3: wasn't the person that she knew growing up.
Speaker 2: If I might found it interesting, believe it or not.
Speaker 2: In a Crazy Family Guy cartoon, okay, one of the
Speaker 2: main characters is the sex fiend Quagmire Big as you
Speaker 2: well know, and if you know the plotline at all,
Speaker 2: his father starts out as this macho fighter pilot and
Speaker 2: he transitions to a woman. What are your thoughts on this?
Speaker 2: There was an interesting conversation where the father is speaking
Speaker 2: boldly and how he's come out and he feels strong
Speaker 2: about it, and he's he's been transitioning it, certainly in
Speaker 2: his own mind for years, and Quagmire says, but what
Speaker 2: about me. I don't know where I don't know where
Speaker 2: I fit in, And you know, you don't have children
Speaker 2: as I don't, So it's again maybe a rhetorical but
Speaker 2: I just thought the reaction, especially when I see other
Speaker 2: people who have transitioned, who are parents and transitioned later
Speaker 2: in life, and the struggles. Sometimes I think there is
Speaker 2: acceptance but then also understanding. And I thought, for that
Speaker 2: moment in a brief in a crazy comedy thing, there
Speaker 2: was that poignant moment and he said, well, I don't
Speaker 2: know how to deal with this. You've had time to
Speaker 2: deal with this. Now you're asking me to do it
Speaker 2: on the spot, and I can't. Just kind of your
Speaker 2: thoughts on that, I think.
Speaker 3: If if I had to do it again, I wouldn't
Speaker 3: have done that. I think I didn't I And why
Speaker 3: did I do it? I don't know. I mean because
Speaker 3: I wanted people to know the truth that I wasn't
Speaker 3: a gay guy in high school, that I was at
Speaker 3: this secret desire I wasn't aware of to be a
Speaker 3: woman and to sort of rewrite history by going back.
Speaker 3: But I recognize now there was a certain emotional violence
Speaker 3: in doing that, you know, and maybe it was unreasonable
Speaker 3: to ask people who had only know me as male
Speaker 3: to accept me as female and then the same but
Speaker 3: the same thing happened when I when I moved to
Speaker 3: the men's side of the synadogue. I had a very
Speaker 3: good friend, Susan, who was with me when I was
Speaker 3: in the hospital. She was like a second mother to me,
Speaker 3: and she just could not accept that. I mean, they
Speaker 3: were And of course the thing is because you know,
Speaker 3: when they met me, they met me as a woman,
Speaker 3: and they gendered me as a woman, and they related
Speaker 3: me to as a woman. So for them for me
Speaker 3: to put on this facade, it was a violent thing.
Speaker 3: And I have no answer for that. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think this is really an attribute of our society that
Speaker 3: we is again, I mean, Ginger's a social relationship. How
Speaker 3: we gender people depends a lot on how we feel
Speaker 3: about the relationship, and that's really what makes it so hard.
Speaker 3: I wish we had seemed to be moving in a
Speaker 3: direction that was more fluid, and now we seem to
Speaker 3: be regressing, and I think that's really unfortunately.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it absolutely is just one again rhetorical questions.
Speaker 3: I have a funny thing to ask, I to tell you,
Speaker 3: so please do so. I have this half sister I
Speaker 3: did not grow up with my father's side, who came
Speaker 3: to visit me, and so she did not know me
Speaker 3: as a boy and she is much more accepting. But
Speaker 3: you know, and we had these conversations and she was
Speaker 3: very supportive. And then when I told her that I
Speaker 3: was interested in Judaism, She's saying.
Speaker 1: Why in the hell do you want to become at you?
Speaker 3: So, I mean it's not just gender. There are other
Speaker 3: identities that people find it very difficult.
Speaker 2: Well, you know I brought that up. Could you choose
Speaker 2: a little more difficult or orthotoxy to boot to make
Speaker 2: it a little more difficult yourself? But be that as
Speaker 2: it may. Just one more question, if you will. Again
Speaker 2: it's a rhetorical nature. Your opinion is so valid and
Speaker 2: your honesty has just been so wonderful. Do you see yourself?
Speaker 2: And again this as a rhetorical I hope I'm stating
Speaker 2: it properly. Do you say yourself as kind of a
Speaker 2: before and after, almost as like two distinct people? Or
Speaker 2: is it something?
Speaker 3: So what I found out now, what I found out,
Speaker 3: I mean it's evolved. I mean people's identities evolve. I
Speaker 3: mean you certainly, I think you yours has professionally, your
Speaker 3: family's expectations, you know, and the things that you know
Speaker 3: you would that you didn't the choices. The things you
Speaker 3: didn't do you would have liked to have done. The
Speaker 3: things you do you didn't know you were were going
Speaker 3: to do. So I think what I found out when
Speaker 3: I moved to the men's side of the synagogue is
Speaker 3: I had investments in male identity and I did not
Speaker 3: realize that because saying, like Davy Crockett being my childhood hero,
Speaker 3: I would say if I described myself now as someone
Speaker 3: who's bigendered or well, the term is I forget non binary, right,
Speaker 3: That's what they say, non binary. But for me, it's
Speaker 3: not neither nor and it's not in between. It's not androgenists.
Speaker 3: It's just there are times when I think of myself
Speaker 3: as a woman and there are times when I think
Speaker 3: of myself as a man. I mean, if I'm shoveling snow,
Speaker 3: I'm shoveling snow as a guy. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 3: You know, if I'm fixing something with tools, I'm doing
Speaker 3: it as a guy.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: But but you know, like Bob Dylan's song, you know
Speaker 3: she what is it? She breaks like a little girl.
Speaker 2: But yeah, just like but she breaks just like a
Speaker 2: little girl.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So you know, I may be a little
Speaker 3: butcher on the streets. But I'm fim beneath the sheets
Speaker 3: and the problem is, you know, but to be legible,
Speaker 3: I mean, to be legible, I have to pick a line.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not brave enough to live publicly is
Speaker 3: non binary and to use you know, they then pronouns
Speaker 3: like that, and I prefer she her she. Yeah. To
Speaker 3: be legible, I have to publicly identify as a woman.
Speaker 3: So I usually don't talk about being non binary because
Speaker 3: it's just this is a very hard thing for people
Speaker 3: to relate to.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I My thought is it's just kind of
Speaker 2: hard enough to be one person, uh to one, it's
Speaker 2: one person to one person, and try to be everything
Speaker 2: to everybody just not going to work out for me,
Speaker 2: that's for sure, Abby. I just really appreciate We've got
Speaker 2: more to talk about. We talk about the future. I
Speaker 2: want to talk about some of these and you mentioned
Speaker 2: how we're retrogressing at least politically. You want to talk
Speaker 2: a little bit about your feelings towards that. I want
Speaker 2: to talk about your your move to Nayak and your
Speaker 2: your bookstore, and also your yours your vision for the future,
Speaker 2: both personally and professionally. Glad to hear whatever you can
Speaker 2: share with us, so uh don't go anywhere. Yeah, okay, please,
Speaker 2: this has been absolutely terrific. I'm your host, FRANKL. Bonna.
Speaker 2: This as Being Frank. My very special guest is Abby Cohen.
Speaker 2: It's truly intelligent conversation today. Don't go back with the
Speaker 2: second portion of our program right after these brief commercial messages.
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Speaker 4: Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 1: This is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Being Frank, the Intelligent Conversation podcast. Thanks
Speaker 2: for sticking with us. I'm your host, Frank Ubono and
Speaker 2: as always our engineer as the mailman, mister Neil Richter.
Speaker 2: We bring our audience a fresh topic every week and
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Speaker 2: our website, Hudson Riverradio dot com. Just click and you're there.
Speaker 2: We're back with our very special guest, my friend Abby Cohen,
Speaker 2: and we're celebrating Transgender Day of Visibility, and Abby is
Speaker 2: giving us plenty of that sharing her life story with us.
Speaker 2: We so appreciate her honesty and integrity. It's just wonderful. Anyway,
Speaker 2: let's we talked a little bit about the past. Let's
Speaker 2: bring things up to the future. You wound up in
Speaker 2: Nayaka is where I first met you, and you had
Speaker 2: a bookstore. What brought you from Texas? And if you
Speaker 2: might we have a little bit of time, so I've
Speaker 2: got to do the funny story of you and I
Speaker 2: and our Abbot and Costello team. When I first met
Speaker 2: you and you said, oh, I'm from the Panhandle. Oh
Speaker 2: I'm from Panhandle, Texas. And I was thrilled because I
Speaker 2: was in the Panhandle. And he said that's great, No,
Speaker 2: this is Panhandle. I said, yeah, the Panhandle. No, the town.
Speaker 2: James anyway, got like a band app in catchtell routine,
Speaker 2: who's on first? But what I just thought you could
Speaker 2: share that with folks that you've come such a long
Speaker 2: way from the small town in Texas, then New York City,
Speaker 2: Brooklyn for a short time, and now Nayak and now
Speaker 2: New Jersey. Actually for a short time in Nyack. How
Speaker 2: did you wind up here where you are now?
Speaker 3: Okay? Well, I right, so Manhattan for a long time. Brooklyn.
Speaker 3: When I got married, Queen's to annoying my husband's family,
Speaker 3: and when I got tired of that, I wanted to
Speaker 3: buy a house. I had dogs. I had a problem
Speaker 3: with my landlord. I mean, buying a house because you
Speaker 3: have dogs maybe the worst decision. I have very few
Speaker 3: regrets in my life. One was not going to Hunter College.
Speaker 3: As soon as I started working at Cuney. I wanted
Speaker 3: my Ivy League degree. That was part of my identity
Speaker 3: I would not let go of. The other regret was
Speaker 3: buying a house and Spring Valley, of all places, but
Speaker 3: that was where I could afford to buy a house.
Speaker 3: It was theoretically and communing distance of New York City.
Speaker 3: I mean it was like two hours each way. It
Speaker 3: wasn't fun. And then I decided, no, I don't want
Speaker 3: to live in Spring Valley for the rest of my life.
Speaker 3: I didn't know anybody except the taxi drivers, so and
Speaker 3: I heard about Nayak. It was a cool place. I
Speaker 3: moved there, and when I retired from Cuney, I opened
Speaker 3: a bookstore I had been. I don't know if you're
Speaker 3: familiar with the Last Picture Show. It was written by
Speaker 3: Larry McMurtry, made into a motion picture by Peter Bogdanovich. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so Marchery grew up in the town much like mine,
Speaker 3: although twenty years earlier. But he got rich and famous
Speaker 3: and he went back and he bought up a bunch
Speaker 3: of buildings. He turned them into bookstores. So that's I
Speaker 3: guess kind of where I got the idea of having
Speaker 3: a bookstore. I'm also I'm not a big joiner. I
Speaker 3: kind of like to be the big cheese, so I
Speaker 3: kind of wanted to create a community around myself. And also,
Speaker 3: bookstores traditionally have been a meeting place for queer people.
Speaker 3: I mean before before stonewall bars and bookstores. There aren't
Speaker 3: many of them left anymore. I guess people have too
Speaker 3: many of their options. So I created I mean the
Speaker 3: name of my bookstore and Hebrew Katona passim the coat
Speaker 3: of many colors. That is the phrase used to describe
Speaker 3: the coat that Jacob gave his son Joseph the coat
Speaker 3: of many colors made into the Technicolor Dream Code.
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, Joseph and the technical dream Code. Yes, I remember.
Speaker 2: I mean Joseph is.
Speaker 3: Kind of a queer character. I've identified with him, so
Speaker 3: and yeah. So I mean it was I never said
Speaker 3: this out loud. It was a queer Jewish bookstore, and so.
Speaker 2: A little niche, I would say, a little nichi, a
Speaker 2: little too n Yeah.
Speaker 3: Someone someone once told me, it says, this looks like
Speaker 3: your personal library. That's true. So I was unfortunately, I mean,
Speaker 3: I didn't know anything about retail. I was a bureaucrat.
Speaker 3: I worked with computers. I worked for a large public organization.
Speaker 3: I did not market myself well, starting with the name,
Speaker 3: my signage and everything. And I worked with someone from
Speaker 3: New York State Small Business Association. But it was I mean, well,
Speaker 3: I would like to say it was a cultural success.
Speaker 3: I had open mics, I had art exhibitions, I had music.
Speaker 3: I had a lot of people come to my bookstore.
Speaker 3: It's everything I dreamed about it. But it was a
Speaker 3: financial failure. I did not sell enough books, and I
Speaker 3: certainly could have done a better job. I could have
Speaker 3: and what I realized when I found out how much
Speaker 3: work retail was. I decided I didn't want to spend
Speaker 3: my life trapped in that bookstore. I mean I would
Speaker 3: have had to be open six days a week, ten
Speaker 3: hours a day. I would have had to market more aggressively.
Speaker 3: I would have had to try to sell the things
Speaker 3: that people wanted to buy and some of the kind
Speaker 3: of things people wanted to read. But that it was great.
Speaker 3: It was a great experience. I mean, I I had retired,
Speaker 3: I had the money to do it. I decided there
Speaker 3: was so much I was going to spend before I
Speaker 3: gave up. And so no regrets about that.
Speaker 2: Regrets, you know.
Speaker 3: So I met you, right, That's how I met.
Speaker 2: You, Yes, exactly, and Fross and yeah, Rustling and the
Speaker 2: whole and the whole gang.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, in a way, it was coming out.
Speaker 3: It's the thing I do, like, you know, like going
Speaker 3: to my high school reunion, like uh, living in Queens
Speaker 3: and bugging my husband's family, kind of getting into people's faces.
Speaker 3: And I was, yeah, it was kind of a way
Speaker 3: to be. Actually, I did have an agenda. I went
Speaker 3: to show people that a transgender person could be a
Speaker 3: business owner. They could be, you know, a player in
Speaker 3: the community. You know, apart from the Price Center. I mean,
Speaker 3: the Price Center does great work, they have great programming.
Speaker 3: I mean they've brooken you know, the boards and her
Speaker 3: staff at don a wonderful job. But I went, I
Speaker 3: want to show the world in this case, my audience
Speaker 3: was nayak that a transgender person could be someone could
Speaker 3: be an important part of the community.
Speaker 2: Before the break and we were talking a little bit
Speaker 2: about the policies of this administration, and we've taken major
Speaker 2: steps backwards in so many ways, and certainly in the
Speaker 2: area of LGBTQ rights and particularly with trends people one
Speaker 2: I want to kind of concentrate on. I think of
Speaker 2: all of them, they're in the bathroom bills, the military athletes, etc.
Speaker 2: But the one involving youth gender reassignment surgery. And it's
Speaker 2: just recently, I mean today, or yes, very recently, as
Speaker 2: of our taping, the Supreme Court knocked down a decision
Speaker 2: I believe by a lower Colorado court that was preventing
Speaker 2: gender reassignment surgery. Your thoughts on that would have made
Speaker 2: a big difference in your life to have changed at
Speaker 2: an earlier time. Were you really truly ready for it?
Speaker 2: Is there a pathway that people who feel like you
Speaker 2: did as a kid should follow. That's holistic, that treats
Speaker 2: mind and body.
Speaker 3: But let me, okay, I am going to speak briefly
Speaker 3: to the other issues. Let's say the bathroom bill. Of course,
Speaker 3: I've heard, you know, on Facebook about cisterns or women
Speaker 3: who people are thinking are men. You know, this is
Speaker 3: a total disaster. But the point of it is all
Speaker 3: of this anti trans Rhetorican legislation is being pushed by
Speaker 3: the Heritage Foundation. They were the same organization that for
Speaker 3: decades worked to overturn Roe v. Wade, and now they're
Speaker 3: doing so. What this is really all about is controlling
Speaker 3: women's bodies in the spaces they occupy. That's what this
Speaker 3: is really about in any of these bathroom bills, Military, sports, children,
Speaker 3: That's what it's about. It's about re establishing the privilege
Speaker 3: of white men, you know, are just beef. You like
Speaker 3: the military, I mean, the military has traditionally been a
Speaker 3: pathway to citizenship. Well, today the Supreme Court is hearing
Speaker 3: a case about, you know, some kind of exception to
Speaker 3: birthright citizenship. This is all about delegitimatizing certain kinds of
Speaker 3: people who are not white Christian. Okay, As far as
Speaker 3: children goes, that's a tough one. I would say, first
Speaker 3: of all, adolescents do a lot of stupid things. They
Speaker 3: get drunk, they wreck cars, they kill people, they use drugs,
Speaker 3: they get addicted, they have unprotected sex, they get ads,
Speaker 3: they get pregnant. Adolescents do the CIS gender, non queer,
Speaker 3: straight adolescens do a lot of stupid things. They can
Speaker 3: have an impact on the rest of their lives. So
Speaker 3: while it's true there are people who transitioned when they
Speaker 3: were children who've regretted, who get paraded around as proof. Well,
Speaker 3: I'm just saying. I mean a lot of kids make mistakes,
Speaker 3: and it's a very small number of people that regret it,
Speaker 3: I think. Okay. But on the other hand, I think
Speaker 3: part of the problem is the medicalization of transgender And
Speaker 3: it's like the problem with anything, like if the kid
Speaker 3: is diagnosed to be ADHD, then you give them riddling right.
Speaker 3: It's this idea that we can solve any kind of
Speaker 3: social problem with a drug. I don't so. I think
Speaker 3: the problem is, yes, would if life had been different?
Speaker 3: I mean, well, I don't regret my life as a
Speaker 3: boy because being a girl in the Texas Panhandle in
Speaker 3: the nineteen sixties for quite frankly sucked. Okay, so there,
Speaker 3: But you know, if I was a child today, what
Speaker 3: I feel differently? Maybe now now there's the language for it,
Speaker 3: now that there are therapists, practitioners that work with us.
Speaker 3: So I guess, I guess My concern is once you
Speaker 3: stick a kid with a diagnosis like they're transgender, then
Speaker 3: you try to facilitate things. I mean, what is that gatekeeping?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: I don't know, so what I think? And again it
Speaker 3: comes to back to this idea that there's something essentially
Speaker 3: different between men and women, and it's something that's innate.
Speaker 3: It's not, you know, something that we're born with or
Speaker 3: something that's established in the first three years of life,
Speaker 3: and we have to pick a lane for them, you know.
Speaker 3: That's what I That's what I think the danger is. Otherwise,
Speaker 3: I think kids, you know, and the kind of thing.
Speaker 3: I don't think hormone blockers are particularly dangerous taking harmone
Speaker 3: with harmoned just later and no one has surgery before
Speaker 3: eighteen years of age, for sure. So this idea that
Speaker 3: you know, little Tommy goes to school as a boy
Speaker 3: and comes back as a girl, it's just completely ludicrous.
Speaker 3: But what I want to say is I think kids
Speaker 3: should allowed to be kids. They should be able to
Speaker 3: explore their gender identity. That if they want, a boy
Speaker 3: wants to wear dress and pearls, he should be allowed.
Speaker 3: She she, they should be allowed, you know, and traditionally
Speaker 3: tom girls have been giving much more leeway than boys.
Speaker 2: But I mean, but what I was going to mention
Speaker 2: that generally speaking, tom girls or tom boys as they
Speaker 2: call them, or more generally more accepted than as you
Speaker 2: even called herself, sissy boys. Why is that? Just briefly,
Speaker 2: why do you think that?
Speaker 3: I think men feel threatened. That's why very well I
Speaker 3: think I said, Oh, could I be like that? I
Speaker 3: don't know, I don't. I mean, what are really find
Speaker 3: disturbing is government getting involved with something which traditionally has
Speaker 3: been a parental concern that I mean, we had I
Speaker 3: think the case that was actually decided in Colorado was
Speaker 3: conversion therapy is legal. It was eight to one basically
Speaker 3: on First Amendment, right, so that you know that if
Speaker 3: parents want to send their their kids to conversion therapy,
Speaker 3: they should be allowed to do that. Well, okay, if
Speaker 3: that's true, then why shouldn't parents be able to authorize
Speaker 3: gender affirming procedures for their children if that's what they
Speaker 3: think is best for their children. I mean, I don't
Speaker 3: you shouldn't have it both ways. But the people who
Speaker 3: are pushing these things are the people that want to
Speaker 3: say that we live in a world where men are
Speaker 3: men and women are women, and a man can't become
Speaker 3: a woman and a woman can't become a man, and
Speaker 3: there's nothing in between. I mean, that's what's driving all
Speaker 3: of this.
Speaker 2: I mean, before we close that, give you a chance
Speaker 2: and think about it for a moment, if you will,
Speaker 2: if you'd like to, but give us three words that
Speaker 2: best describe you. Just three words.
Speaker 3: Well maybe one. I hope I'm authentic, so it would
Speaker 3: be authentic.
Speaker 2: Okay, two, that's one word we got. You got two
Speaker 2: more to go?
Speaker 3: Oh, they could be said I had.
Speaker 2: No three, Just three words. Okay, authentic?
Speaker 3: What else? I don't know? Pious?
Speaker 2: Okay, that's two. I'll give you a chance. We get two.
Speaker 2: When what about a third? One?
Speaker 3: Compassionate, terrific.
Speaker 2: There you go, it wasn't so hard, right. You roll
Speaker 2: those things to your friends, you know, it's we love
Speaker 2: Abby for Abby, and I think that's uh uh, that's
Speaker 2: damn good enough, right Abby. You know, we want to
Speaker 2: thank you for being Frank, which this was truly intelligent conversation.
Speaker 2: Abby was so honest, so interesting. I really really do
Speaker 2: appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thank you. It's a real pleasure of being here. And
Speaker 3: thank you so much for giving me a platform. I
Speaker 3: really giving me an opportunity to speak my truth.
Speaker 2: And you certainly you certainly did. We really really appreciate it,
Speaker 2: we do, you know. Of course, we offer special thanks
Speaker 2: to our listeners. They take time to give us a
Speaker 2: voice in their lives. Remember, we offer fresh topic just
Speaker 2: about every week. Catch us wherever and whenever you get
Speaker 2: your favorite podcasts. It's Apple, Spotify, all the others. Check
Speaker 2: us out on the Hudson River Radio Facebook page. You
Speaker 2: can like us and leave us a comment too. We
Speaker 2: also ask you that you consider sharing Being Frank with others.
Speaker 2: You know, because we stream, you can share us all
Speaker 2: over the world if you like. We'd like you to
Speaker 2: do that. You know, always leave you with two last things.
Speaker 2: A slogan that I think is appropriate and some great
Speaker 2: original music. This is from Laverne Cox when she said
Speaker 2: I think trans women and trans people in general show
Speaker 2: everyone that you can find what it means to be
Speaker 2: a man or woman on your own terms. A lot
Speaker 2: of what feminism is about is moving outside of roles
Speaker 2: and moving outside of expectations of who and what you're
Speaker 2: supposed to be to live a more authentic life. Okay,
Speaker 2: we've got some great original music from my friend Bob
Speaker 2: Narcission this great album, The Inconvenient Desography with I understand
Speaker 2: for our engineer, mister Neil Richter, you know him as
Speaker 2: the male Man. I'm your host, Frank Lebono. We hope
Speaker 2: to have you join us on the next being Frank,
Speaker 2: We're the only way to be is Frank.
Speaker 1: Hungerings helping by care, die I will knowing that.
Speaker 4: Stream went out that big love when the morning love
Speaker 4: when up here? No, I want to saw something, No,
Speaker 4: I want to chance, don't want a little more en don't.
Speaker 1: Little wend lovebody what it is? Once again, I don't understand.
Speaker 1: You don't know. Understand? Got a man.
Speaker 4: Where the mads God stus all ride lie you better
Speaker 4: say once to get in anywhere?
Speaker 1: Understand. Thanks Rivers.
Speaker 2: And next.
Speaker 1: This is Hudson River Radio dot Com.
Speaker 2: MHM