You can listen below or you can listen on Acast, Soundcloud, or Spotify. Links:
https://shows.acast.com/women-star
https://soundcloud.com/user-961403691/ep-1-toryn-glavin
https://open.spotify.com/show/5Z6kLFWGvCppH2fWFCBn0R?si=Hw48lbBsRnmJpSvPuI2oMQ
Episode 1 Transcription
Toryn Glavin (TG): So I think as a trans person, and just as queer woman in general, I think bodies are kind of this taboo weird thing that we all have to be embarrassed [about] and we all have to wear big doc martins, and I like love doc martens - I don't wear them personally - but we have to wear jeans and long sleeves and we're always ashamed of our body and that stereotype quite annoyed me. And coming out as trans I think I was always trying to live up to other people's expectations as to what my body should be and kind of during that process I developed an eating disorder and I got very thin and I was very unhappy but I looked pretty and I thought this is how I get acceptance - Success, I've got there, I'm a beautiful person. And increasingly in the few years after when I became more comfortable and I started doing well professionally, I started dating, I was with my partner, I was sleeping with different people before my partner, not as the same time obviously, or not so obviously I guess... ehm, it kind of reminded me that actually I could have somebody and it was my thing and I could talk about it in the way I wanted and I could have whatever feelings I wanted. And especially being a trans woman with an eating disorder and who didn't want to have surgery and who had very very little interest in hormones and didn’t start hormones until maybe three to 4 years after I transitioned like - it was just I didn’t like body hair and that was the only reason I started hormones, I was like maybe this would give me a little less body hair...I was very late to hormones, I was very late to everything, and for me that w as okay but for a lot of other trans people that wasn’t super okay and they had been told by everyone, by society, by their family, by their friends, by other trans people that they had to do things a certain way and it really bothered me that they were trying to tell me the same thing. Ehm so yeah, I guess I wrote the article kind of going ‘look, I really want you all to stop telling me your norms and let me live in my body but also I want you to live in your body and I want us all to live in our bodies and be fine with our bodies’, because I think, yeah, it's one of the most damaging things to the trans community and to all queer women, and all women - it's the kind of hyper-focus people put on our bodies and the expectations people have of our bodies, and I thought it was wrong so I wrote something about it and I hope it helped.
Laura Louise Condell (LLC): Well it definitely helped me anyway, I don't know if it was aimed towards me but I love it and refer back to it quite a lot. And so, people that contact DLL, trans women, they're often talking about by coming out, by exploring their gender identity, they feel like they have to forsake having any kind of sexuality, having any kind of sex life... would you be okay to say how you got around that or how you overcame that?
TG: Yeah, and it's really weird because a lot of my friends know me as being super sex positive, and I talk about sex all the time and the first thing I do when I sleep with someone new is that I text all my friends. But growing up and as a teenager I was not. I didn’t talk about sex,, I didn't have sex, I was like nope, it wasn't for me, and that was really really the way it went. And even my dad - who has come on quite a journey with me as I transitioned and who is my biggest ally and loves everything I do and loves that my professional life is supporting trans communities - his big concern when I came out wasn't that it was wrong or that it was bad or anything, he just thought I was going to be alone and I thought that too, I was really terrified and really when I was transitioning I thought I was going to be alone.
So I have 2015 in roman numerals tattooed on my arm and that was because that was the year I really started living as myself as my trans identity, I had come out in 2010/2011 when I was 16/17 as trans, I'd come out as gay when I was 14, and kind of from 2011 to 2015 things progressed incredibly slowly, I told people but not really everyone. I still used by birth name, I still lived in the world as a man, and it was a little bit scary, I didn't have a super great time but by 2015 everything changed. I told my siblings at my 21st birthday party which was in April… ehm, and by the middle of the summer no one called me he/him anymore, no one called me my birth name and I stated having sex with someone I was dating at the time and I started living my life and it was when I was comfortable with who I was and I felt accepted and I felt supported that I really felt the confidence to start exploring my sexuality and that has never stopped since. 2015 was kind of the first time I had sex, I was 21, I had had other things with boys before I transitioned but really hated every minute of it and then I started sleeping with a friend in that year and then by the next year I was with my partner and there 3 or 4 people between that person and my partner. Ehm so really it kind of took me getting to place where I felt supported in my life [and] I felt that people had my back that I could explore my sexuality. Because I think trans women's sexuality's are so taboo and it's kind of this big scary thing that you'll be attacked or you'll be this or you'll be ashamed or you'll be fetishized and they're really really real concerns and they're kind of terrifying so I really needed to get into a place where I felt safe in my trans identity to even start exploring my sexual orientation. And yeah it's been exciting and as I said in my GCN article it's been kind of something that brokered a cease fire with my body, it made me feel a little bit calmer with my body - someone else exploring my body and someone else enjoying my body really made me a lot more comfortable with it and especially as someone who suffered from an eating disorder in 2015/16 and was still very much in the grips of that, it was kind of through sex and through my sexuality and through that kind of exploration of my body that I did kind of come to terms with my eating disorder and get past that in a large way too. It's still part of my life but a lot smaller part of my life than it was then so yeah, support and love was how I discovered sex if that made sense.
LLC: That's really beautiful, I feel like a lot of people we talk to feel like they have to be feeling completely confident and whole in themselves before they could share themselves with somebody else but it sounds like being with somebody else helped you to come to love yourself and become confident.
TG: And a big part of the 2015 tattoo, it was people using my name and my pronouns, that was an important part of it, but it was the fact that I was dating someone for the first time and I had sex for the first time and I was enjoying that kind of thing for the first time and these pleasurable experiences that I had kind of been held away from me as a trans woman and I had kind of being going 'no you don't get to enjoy this' I was getting to enjoy it and I felt very very lucky. And I just felt that in 2015, I don't know how to say it in a stereotypical way... but like a little someone went away and I started living my life, I don't believe in kind of dual people, I don't talk about me before 2015 as a different but really she kind of was, I wasn't happy, I wasn't living my life to the fullest and sex and pronouns and names and everything that year led to feeling a fuller life with is really important and I'm really lucky I think.
LLC: Well, you sound like you put a lot of work into it though. And if you don't mind me asking, because I'm sure people will be thinking this as they're listening, how did you meet people that you wanted to explore your sexuality with because that's definitely something that comes up...
TG: Yeah it was a challenge, I think, and maybe this is controversial and maybe I'm ghettoising my community, I don't think I am, I really think when you're exploring your sexuality as a trans person I think doing that with other trans people if you can is really beneficial. I always had this really horrible thought in my head that because I was straight, I'm a straight woman, that I couldn't date a trans man and I had these really horrible things embedded in me that I hated and it was me hating myself and putting that on to other people. Ehm and it was when I was finally comfortable to go 'I find you really attractive, let's sleep together’ that I realised that genitals really really don't matter. I don't love what people stereotypically consider a penis, I just really love men and masculine energy, I hate men actually... I would like to clarify - hate men, women should rule the world. I'm one of those Satanist feminists. Hate all men but definitely do enjoy dating them and definitely do enjoy being cared for by them.
Ehm yeah, it was kind of sleeping with trans men and dating trans men, they had experienced dysphoria and they understood what it was to be a trans person and they just shared a lived experience with me that made me so much more comfortable and made me kind of confident. So I think a good place to start is within your own community especially if it's something you're new to because it's just such a comfort to hold that experience together if that makes sense. It was an experience and it was a lesson, I think for a long time I spent so much time hating myself and my trans experience I put that on other people and it was only kind of letting go of that it made me kind of go 'look, live your life' and yeah it's been a lot of fun since hahahah.
TG: It sounds it hahaha. And is that how when you were saying you were thinking before about not thinking you'd sleep with trans men because of things you were feeling about yourself and bodies and understandings of bodies and gender and things... is that how you accepted your...and you said in the article 'look my pussy looks how it looks and I don't need surgery, I don't want surgery' Is that where you came to that or is that something you had all along?
TG: No that is absolutely where that came from. So I was sleeping with a guy, a really hot guy who I had known for a long time, we're good friends and he just referred to his dick as his dick and that was a revelation to me. I had never thought about doing that and retaking those words and retaking the words we use to refer to our genitals and making them our own because to my mind a woman’s genitals are pussies and a men's genitals are dicks and it doesn't matter what they look like, that's what they are and the language should be connected to the gender of the person and not to the biological anatomy and what it looks like, that's such a stupid way to construct language.
LLC: And yet we do...
TG: And yet we do it that way and people get very confused because one minute I'll be talking about my pussy and next minute I’ll be talking about wanting surgery and that does not compute to them and they're like 'but if she's not having surgery, how does she have vagina?' and I'm like 'just don't worry about it too hard, it's not important, I'm using the language I would like to use about my genitals and everything's fine'. But yeah, I'd absolutely never thought about it and it was a big kind of stumbling block to me around having sex was, how do I talk about this? And this guy was just like this is what I say. And I was like oh my god I will just do that, that is such an easy fix. And yeah it really helped me become more comfortable with my pussy and kind of live with it and have that experience to just be like ‘this is fine, I can do this, I don't need to worry about it, I don't need to talk about it in any language that I'm not comfortable with’. And yeah it was a real revalation so thank god for him hahaha.
LLC: That sounds incredible because like you said taking your name and pronouns helped with your coming out and your gender identity so it makes sense that then transferring that to your genitals, taking the words that you relate to and feel good can help with body acceptance...
TG: And yeah I guess when I was living in world where I didn't have ownership with my name and pronouns, having ownership of what I call my genitals was never going to be achieved and it really kind of all came to together in 2015. And I think for a lot of trans people that's a shared experience where it will seem like, for me it was 4 or 5 years of trying, for others it's longer, for others it's shorter but it does, there is that moment in most trans people's lives where they're like 'okay I have it, this is fine’. And obviously there were things that were difficult after 2015 and there was still a journey to go on and I kind of feel like that journey is largely wrapped up now, thank god. But yeah I think for most trans people hit a point where everything falls into place and it makes everything else much easier. I couldn't have started exploring my sexuality without my daily support as weird as that sounds, I wasn't comfortable enough, and that's completely a personal experience, but I was comfortable enough and confident enough to have sex with people, having sex with people, the media doesn't tell you this, no one tells you this, it's really awkward, it's a lot of fun, it's very enjoyable but it is awkward and embarrassing and if you don't have the confidence in your life, generally finding the confidence in that really awkward, embarrassing thing can be a block I think for a lot of people and it definitely was for me. Ehm so yeah it was all the other pieces falling into place that made me like 'I can do this, I can be a normal grown up woman'. Ehm yeah, and as I said I haven't quite stopped ever since hahah
LLC: And that could take us nicely onto Stonewall if that's okay? What's that like, what was the move like, how did you get the job, what kind of work do you do?
TG: Will I just do all the organisations and activism and how I got to Stonewall, does that work?
LLC: Yeah!
TG: So I guess I started in 2013 and I met a load of trans people and it was the first time I had ever met anyone trans at all. It was November 2013 at Pink Training. So for anyone who doesn't know, it’s USI's big LGBT training and there was like 400 people and only 15 of us were trans and we went to the trans closed space. And it was really really nice and it was really weird to sit in a room with other trans people. I'm actually going to Belgium this weekend to see a friend who was there in that room in 2013, he was 17 at the time, I was 18/19 and it was like really odd to just sit in a room with trans people. And so coming out of that we set up the Irish Trans Support Alliance and we run a trans training event every two years. So at 2014 there was 16 of us, in 2016 we were 50 people and then in 2018 we were 65/70. So it's grown and we spend a whole week and we pay for everything, we make sure it doesn't cost participants a single cent, we pay for everything - accommodations, food, transport, we get them from wherever they are to the bus that's bringing them to the hostel. We rent out this entire huge hostel that sleeps 120 for us. And that had always been my passion when I was in college, so we would have like, monthly meetups and we'd go to accents cafe and we'd have coffee and it was lovely, and we would sit and we would do the trans training every two years and it was with that that I worked with TENI for quite a long time. Ehm so I worked with them on the trans youth forum back in 2015 and when the job for admin officer came up in 2016 they asked me to apply and I did and I got it which was very exciting. So then I worked with TENI for two years as the admin officer which was insane because in an organisation of 6 people no one really has a set role and everyone just does whatever they can at any time. So technically I was meant to be answering the phone and running the office and making sure the office continued to tick over and kind of answering people's requests and supporting, but really it was bit of everything. And kind of early in 2018 I decided I wanted a change, I'd been with TENI for just under two years. I left TENI three days short of my second anniversary which still annoys me to this day hahaha. I'm so annoyed that I did just under two years... Ehm, but yeah decided I wanted a change and a job for a trans engagement manger came up in Stonewall and it was really exciting, I was working between Stonewall and the trans community in the UK and it seemed like a fantastic role and I kind of applied for it and went ' I will never hear from them’...and they were like can you come to London next week for an interview?' And I was like 'okay'... And I went to London and I left the office and I was like 'I'll never hear from them, that was it'. Ehm, and shockingly two weeks later they called and said 'we'd like to offer you the job', and of course I had no intentions of moving to London, I just did the interview for the craic, I didn't plan on going. So I said 'okay can you give me a few days to think about it? It's a big decision’. I called my Mum and she was like 'of course your fucking going aren’t you?' And I was like ‘I don't know’ and she was ‘like you are going’. I was like ‘I don't know let me think about’... Ehm, and I thought about it and seemed like a fantastic role and I didn't expect to get it and I did so I went ahead and moved to London. So kind of all and all there was 2 and a half months between my interview and me starting, and I moved to London with four days to spare before I finished the job so I finished in TENI, I had about 6 days in Ireland, I moved to the UK, I had about 4 days in the UK and I started the new job. And it was intense and it cost me a fortune and I had absolutely zero euro left when I got there, I was like it didn't matter I was in a new currency because I didn't have any money to spend in any currency... but it was really exciting and I'm really glad I did it and now a year later I'm in a role - the trans engagement manager. The UK have such a different climate to here and there's a lot of challenges faced in the UK that aren't faced here. But it's been exciting and a real learning experience and I'm so glad to be there and looking forward to returning to Dublin hopefully not in the too distance future.
LLC: We’ll be so happy to have you back hahaha.
TG: I will run back hahah
LLC: And did you miss Dublin?
TG: Do I miss Dublin? I didn't think I did miss Dublin until I was on the bus going through Stoneybatter where I used to live and my partner used to live down the road as well. Ehm, and then I went past the TENI office and I was kind of sitting here on the bus on the way here.... listening to Wallis Bird and I was like queer Irish vibes all the way, and I was like yeah I really do miss Dublin but I think the experience in the UK is amazing and really the trans community in the UK has been so welcoming and so fantastic that I'm really enjoying my time there. I really can't say enough, they're wonderful people and there's such a different dynamic, people think UK and Ireland is just across the sea and we were part of the British empire so of course it's all the exact same... like literally, I work in Berlin as well, I'm the treasurer for transgender Europe so I travel to Berlin every two months for board meetings and literally feel closer to Dublin when I am in Berlin than when I am in London, it's a different world and the trans community in Berlin is much closer to the trans community in Dublin than the London trans community is to anyone. So it's been a real learning curve and some people with amazing stories and have done incredible things and people who have fought for the original gender recognition act in the 90s and just fantastic people so it's a very different dynamic. And it's taken me a while to settle in and kind of understand where everyone lies and where people's expertise are but it's really fantastic if that makes sense?
LLC: It makes total sense; I'm just in complete awe... What is the difference in experience living as a trans woman in Ireland vs. UK?
TG: Yeah I think one of the main differences is, unfortunately the British media kind of sensationalises trans people a little bit. So there's currently this narrative of trans people vs. feminists and it's completely untrue, every feminist and every lesbian and every woman and every queer woman has been a massive supporter of trans people, I've never had a problem with women or feminists and it's kind of this fake narrative that has been created of feminists vs. trans women and it's absolutely not the case. So I'm hoping that it's a temporary thing and I think we'll work through it and we'll work past it and we'll get somewhere. Like a lot of damage has been done to the trans community and it's incredibly hard to see your existence debated and to see people being quite so vicious about trans people but I really cannot stress enough that it's a very niche part of society that says these things and it's incredibly fringe people, for whatever reason, have been given a platform and in a country of 60 million people of course some fringe voices are going to come out. And if you hold them and give them a platform the media has to take responsibility for doing that, those people wouldn't have the reach they did if that wasn’t the case. I think it will blow over, I think give us 2 or 3 years we'll be back in calmer waters. But yeah it's been a real learning curve because obviously the trans community is very aware of that and takes it very personally as you of course would. And we have such a difference experience here with the Irish media where they were always kind of coming to TENI and going 'what can we talk about? we want to talk about trans people living their lives' so it's been a new perspective and a new challenge to face but I think we're on the right track and I think the British people, in my experience of coming out to people, are completely just as accepting as the Irish, it's just a bit of a media spin on it at the minute.
LLC: That's really interesting to hear, ehm, like it's disgusting and it's devastating to see trans lives up for so much debate in the UK media at the moment and it's something that as you said earlier when we were chatting, that you have always felt like lesbians and queer women are natural allies with trans women. I've always felt that too but then as a cis lesbian maybe I'm just imagining that...
TG: No absolutely, and when I was transitioning in college it was the cis lesbians that helped me find my identity and helped me through and even though I was a straight trans women, and really apart from the fact that we were women that was about as much we shared in common, well we were queer women of course, but I was straight and trans and they were lesbians and cis and people go 'oh that's very different experiences' but no, they were the people who helped me and they knew very little and they tried their best and they invited TENI in to give a talk. And this was in like 2012, and I didn't even know what a trans man or trans woman was and in 2012 we just didn't talk about these things so someone came in from in from TENI and I was like 'I've a questions!' And they were like 'yes...?' And I was like 'am I a trans man or a trans woman?' And they were like 'Huh?' And I was like ‘I was a boy and I wanna be a girl so am I trans man or am I a trans woman?' And they were like 'you're a trans woman...' And really I wouldn't have had that information for I don't know how long after if these lesbian women hadn't been determined to find me the support I needed and they insisted I went to pink training and I really could not afford in 2013, I had no money. Ehm, but they made sure I could afford it and they helped me fund it, and they really gave me the confidence to go and meet trans people so I think it's a completely constructed narrative that in any way lesbian and trans women live at odds with each other. I've never known that to be the case and the vast majority of trans women I know... or a majority of trans women I know identify as bi or lesbian themselves and are in relationships with cis women and no one talks about that being a really common thing across the queer community that's been happening for decades and no one talks about that. And I think it's really disappointing that we're not clued into our own history because really we shouldn't be letting people pit us against each other and it's really nasty that people would even try to do that.
LLC: It is really nasty, it's really disappointing, I always think when I see that... because it's like oh 'feminists and lesbians hate trans women'... And I'm like most of the trans women I know are feminist lesbians hahah.
TG: It's really weird that people think these are different communities and I'm like 'I think that's just the same community guys...' I don't see the different communities.
LLC: It shows the lack of understanding there.
TG: it really does but we've had some amazing support like we've had Emma Watson... Emma Watson? Is that Hermione Granger yes?
LLC: Yes.
TG: She came out in her trans rights t-shirts and Janelle Monae dedicated her Grammy performances to trans communities. Like we've had so many amazing women come out and say 'this isn't what I stand for and I will never stand for this and how dare you do this in the name of women’. And it's fantastic, it's amazing to see. I think it's a storm we have to weather for now but I'm hoping it will pass and we'll be back on to the beautiful calm ocean for that tired metaphor I keep using...
LLC: I truly hope so as well because I've seen it impacting online discussions here where people are always saying in person that never comes up but you see the online things and suddenly there's these rifts... like did they exist before or are they just coming up because of the media stuff?
TG: Definitely, and I think the thing is the British media is so kind of widespread across western culture it's really impacting other places. I think Trump is very much kind of spurred on by what he sees here. And maybe not completely, maybe he's not 100% clued into it but even just the idea that Britain in any way is turning on trans people, which it's absolutely not, I'm sure gives him every confidence to instigate his trans ban. And we're seeing it a little but here with bits and pieces leaking into Irish media but thankfully Irish media when they make mistakes have kind of been quick to go 'okay we’re sorry we didn't think that through'. And I hope the bleeding kind of ends there and we can cut this off and stop it because we are seeing it start to infiltrate other cultures and I would really hope it doesn't spread any further than it currently has if that makes sense.?
LLC: And it's up to all of us to stand up and say no.
TG: Definitely, and even something as small as if you see someone saying something transphobic on social media just saying 'well I don't agree...' It's often very hard to be the first ally to put your head above the parapet and go 'I think this is wrong' and I think a lot of the time with current discourse it's just getting that very person to go 'I don't like this, this isn’t right' is often difficult. So be that first person is my advice to any ally to a trans person. Always have the confidence, we will never attack you for trying to defend us, we will love you forever, trust me. And I think yeah we definitely need allies especially in the current climate, if that makes sense?
LLC: I feel really strongly that everyone has to... it's like the banner trans rights are human rights, it's not separate from it, it involves all of us however you identify.
TG: Yeah and it's really weird, there's kind of this strange idea that trans is something new and different and it's like, no we've always been there and we were always part of your communities, and part of our communities, we were always in these communities and it's a very artificial constructed dichotomy of trans people vs. everyone else and it's like no, we've always existed and where we exist we're happy so just kind of leave us alone for a minute please.
LLC: Ehm and what do you do to protect yourself when stuff like that is going around?
TG: Oh my God, I don't consume [trans media], and people find this shocking because are like 'oh Toryn, like wrote for GCN and she does this and she does that and she's on this board and she's on that committee’. Like I refuse to consume trans media, I just will not do it. People will be like there's this lovely documentary with a trans woman and I'm like 'I'm not watching it'. And really that has been my self-preservation and I think that’s very personal. I think that's because my job title is trans engagement manager, I do this professionally so I kind of have to disengage. But for any trans people out there you don't have to be the expert on trans things, you don't have to watch that documentary series about a trans child and their family. Those things are hard to watch. The onus is not on you to be the expert on trans things, your cis friends can read about it if they're that interested, they don't need to come to you, you don't need to have seen it the night before to keep a conversation the next day. And I think sometimes trans people fall into the trap of 'well I have to know what's happening so I have to watch this horrible debate that some television station has decided to run'. Absolutely not, as I said work professionally in this area, work very closely with our communications team in Stonewall and just trust that they've seen it and they know what they're talking about because I don't, because I have not watched it. And yeah that has been my coping mechanism. And I read a lot of Star Wars novels, I'm always reading Star Wars novels, my name actually came out of Star Wars novel, Toryn Farr was the communications officer on Hoth during the battle of Hoth and she was from Olderon and because her planet had been destroyed she made sure all the other rebels got off safe and then was killed by the empire. So I thought she seemed pretty kickass and Toryn has the same kind of letters as my birth name just with an R thrown in there but I kept my initials as TG which is the initials for Toryn Glavin and transGender which is why I have TG tattooed on my food in my Dad's handwriting.
And the really weird thing is, is that I work in trans rights and all my friends are trans, like all my friends are trans, my partners have always been trans. Ehm but we just don't talk about trans stuff which is very refreshing. And I think a lot of the time there's this expectation that if you're a trans person, or if you're a lesbian or if you're a bi woman or if you're a queer woman in any way, 'oh you're going to talk about queer stuff'... No, sometimes we just like to talk about Harry Potter and how disappointing the Game of Thrones finale was hahaha. And sometimes that's how we live our lives and that's fine too. So yeah, that's very much my coping mechanism; I buy a lot of Star Wars action figures which I have been collecting since I was 11. Ehm I stopped collecting for a little while when I was transitioning because I was like 'oh girls don't collect action figures'... and I came back to it about 2 years ago and have 5 or 6 hundred of them since I was 11 so what, the last 14 years... they take up so much space, I have so many boxes of them. I've put them all into these huge plastic boxes I got on Amazon, I thought they would fold down nicely into two boxes but there’s like 5 of them and I'm like 'what am I going to do with all you?' Ehm so yeah, just kind of living outsides the trans bubble helps me stay sane if that makes sense?
LLC: I think a lot of people could be quite relieved to hear that, it's like getting permission to not have to consume all the trans media. I feel like sometimes people feel like they need to be experts or representatives for their identities and it's just okay not to be.
TG: And definitely because my professional life is in trans stuff, I've gotten - not from anyone who is particularly important in my life - but I've definitely got attitude from members of the community because I didn't engage fully with something and they're like 'oh you didn't see it?' And I'm like 'no I didn't see it'... Some person who hates trans people shouted at some trans woman on some TV show and I'm not watching it and I just think yeah, no one has to subject themselves to watching hate. And even nice things like... nice things for the vast majority of the time are created to educate cis communities on what trans people are and how we live our lives, you do not have to sit and watch that because it will have really emotive scenes to bring in cis allies which is really important and of course we want more cis allies but for you it's just going to be a little painful so maybe just take a break and go watch some Big Bang Theory... are we allowed like Big Bang Theory anymore? I feel like that's been cancelled and like.
LLC: Because of the misogyny?
TG: Probably Hahaha...
LLC: You can like whatever you want hahah.
TG: Yeah you can like whatever you want as long as the characters aren't misogynistic or racist... please. No I can't think of one... you go watch Sabrina on Netflix. Ehm but really yeah, that escapism, living outside the queer Bubble sometimes can be nice. And living outside the queer bubble with queer people is quite radical because often when we're in groups we're expected to just talk about our queer lives. But I like talking about other things, like my sex life, my favourite discussion topic. And like dating and all those kind of nice fun things that cis people and cis-het people get to talk about all the time but unfortunately queer women and trans women don't get to talk about too often. Talk about those things, talk about what Penneys is selling, Penneys has great stuff haha. Or as they say in London 'Primark'. It's been really confusing, people are like 'I got it in Primark' and I'm like 'what's that? Is that new? Can you show me what a Primark is?' And then they're like 'it's Irish'. And I'm like 'oh Penneys, okay... I know where we are' Hahah. Really you'd think you get used to it...
LLC: Ehm, just what you made me think of Penneys there, is about what's shopping and clothes and finding your style, what's that like for you?
TG: Yeah so finding my style, it was difficult; I don't know if it was difficult because it was a long time ago now. It was scary, I think a lot of people brush over that part of transitioning now and they go 'this is kind of superficial and not important and it's the last thing trans people should be concerned about, and they should understand the concept and theory of intersectionality before they understand anything else’ - And intersectionality is incredibly important; I was just using that as a joking example of social justice language. But yeah people are so often quick to go 'oh yeah you need to understand everything about trans identities and gender theory before you can be a real trans person’ and no, sometimes you just need to buy a fucking dress before you can be a real trans person, and not that clothes ever make a trans person... trans people can dress any way they want any time. Ehm, but sometimes to feel that confidence within yourself you need to find clothes that you're comfortable with and that can be a real challenge. For me I just found a friend who's really supportive... that same friend who I met in 2013 when he was 17 and I brought him to the women's section in Penneys and he was not impressed with me. And we did shopping and he was like 'I don't want to look at bras, I hate bras' because he was just getting out of wearing them himself and he was like 'I hate this, this is horrible, why are you doing this to me?' I was like 'because I need help from someone'. And it was a horrible experience. I went up with all my clothes and the woman at the dressing rooms was like 'oh the men's changing rooms are upstairs' and I was like 'I know.' And then I stood there and kind of stared her down and she was like 'what do I do, this person isn't leaving, they're just standing there staring at me'. And I just kind of looked at her and she gave me a little 'you have 4 items of clothing' piece of plastic and let me in. So it's intense, I won't lie to anyone. the first time you kind of shop for clothes you're comfortable with is really scary. Ehm but it's so worth it. And there's so many more options now than there was for me in 2013. Like 2013 seems like yesterday but it was 6 years and we did not do online shopping in the same way we do today and god bless New Look and ASOS who have plus size and bigger sizes, for most trans women don't quite fit into what the vast majority of cis women fit into and especially as a plus size trans woman for me, ehm, it's been amazing so my advice is going onto ASOS or New Look, order 20 items and you're only keeping 3 and you have free returns anyway. There's so many options and then if you want to go into a store because sometimes that it fun - I don't like it personally, crowds makes me anxious, everything makes me anxious, God bless a generalised anxiety disorder - ehm, but if you do want to go shopping, find a friend, I'm sure there's someone who will support or even another trans person who's also really anxious when shopping. I think it's definitely changing for the better and it's getting easier. And also as a trans woman, as a working class trans woman, who had absolutely no money to change my wardrobe when I first started transitioning charity shops are a Godsend and you find stuff in the weirdest of sizes and the oddest of shapes and there's always something to fit you, and especially with trans bodies we don't quite fit into the stereotypical norms that a lot of clothes are built for and I just cannot recommend it enough. If you're a little bit broke like I was in 2015 or a lot broke like I was in 2015 you cannot beat a 2 pound dress, or that's the London coming out in me... a 2 euro dress from a charity shop, it's so iconic.
Outro: The creators of this podcast are Dublin Lesbian Line’s Laura Louise Condell and Cáitríona murphy and we would like to thank Toryn for speaking to us on one of her short trips home to Dublin. Dublin Lesbian Line is a confidential support service for the LGBTQAI+ community. If you’ve been affected by anything in this podcast you can reach us at 018729911or contact us on our online chat service at www.dublinlesbianline.ie. Dublin Lesbian Line is run by volunteers and relies on voluntary contribtruions so we would greatly appreciate any financial support you can offer whether it;s 2 euro or 100 hundred euro it makes a big difference to a small organisation like ours. Thank you for listening and take care.