Hello, Alameda. Welcome to the Island City Feed podcast. I'm your host, Angie Watson, her gym. Today, I'm having a conversation with my guest, Theo Hopeskill. Theo is a local transgender artist, mother, activist who's going to give us a glimpse of what it's like to live as a person who is transgender trying to navigate in this world.
Angie:We'll talk about some of the misconceptions that folks have about transgender people and the work that people like Theo are doing to help bring awareness of some of the challenges that Theo and other trans people face in our community. Theo, welcome to our show. So I want to go back to your early years, your early life. Go back to your birth. Hit it a long time ago, right?
Angie:In the beginning. Well, in the beginning. So you were born a female. You were treated as a girl. I assume everyone thought you were a girl and that's how they responded to you.
Angie:But at what point in your life did you start thinking, you know, I don't quite feel like a girl. Know my parents and my community, they're treating me as a girl, but I just don't feel like a girl. At what point did you have this consciousness that something was missed, something was not quite in alignment with who you saw yourself and who you felt you were as opposed to how people were treating you.
Theo:Yeah. Yeah. So I would say, first off, usually when we we talk about how we were born and we talk about our past as trans people, we oftentimes like to emphasize that, like, we've always been trans. So we don't usually say that we were born female or even oftentimes you see less usage among trans community of phrases like biologically male and biologically female. This can even be sorta trigger phrases for us.
Theo:It depends. Obviously, there's everything's a spectrum. Everyone's different. But what the phrasing we usually use is saying someone is either assigned male at birth or assigned female at birth. And that just means you come out, a doctor looks at your outer genitalia and then they say, This looks like a girl or this looks like a boy.
Theo:It's really scientifically lacking and it's one of the ways that, intersex people can slip through the cracks. Not everyone is genetically male or female. And most of us don't know. I mean, there are a lot of, it's not uncommon for people to realize they're intersex much later in life, even especially as people get older and it's time to like let's check that prostate for the cancer or oh the menopause is coming in and then things happen a little weird and all of a sudden a person may find out in their 50s that they've been intersex their whole life. That's a time where it happens for a lot of people.
Theo:It can happen coming of age for a lot of people because they aren't really experiencing puberty the way they're being told they should. And and so those are those are some ways that intersex people can sort of slip through the cracks because we have this this sort of assumption that people are born male or born female, but not everyone is. Quite a few people aren't. So that's why we use that sort of language, assign male at birth or assign female at birth because the doctors, they just sort of look at look at your outer parts. They give it a quick look.
Theo:If it doesn't look quote unquote right to them, they oftentimes perform surgeries and then they really assign you a gender. And that's something we refer to as intersex genital mutilation because that's what it is. It's still legal in all 50 states to do that to children and it's really common and it's really horrifying that it happens so often. So anyway, that's sort of a long form explanation for why we use the language we use. Use it for good reason to try to sort of eliminate harm, but also help society understand that, like, we we're looking at gender through a lens that oversimplifies in really inaccurate ways.
Theo:So, anyway, I was assigned female at birth when I was born. My parents were deeply excited. Yes. Well, at the time, I just had one older brother. Was my older brother and then me, and then I had two brothers, one after the other after me.
Theo:We were born between 1982 and 1990. So my mom just popped us all out. She was She was she was just she was very strong and very, yeah, really amazing person actually to do that. Okay. All natural births and and all that.
Theo:Yep. Yep. Just did it. And done by 30, which was sort of the joke in our family. A lot of the women had four or five kids at 30 and then stopped.
Theo:So I kind of came from that family, that kind of family, I guess, in a way. It was very sort of cis het. It wasn't until I got older that I realized that a lot of these heterosexual women who were having all the babies were actually like bisexual. They would do their thing and then they would meet a man
Theo:and settle down and have babies. So there was this sort of undercurrent that, I discovered later in my twenties where there was sort of an assumption that you would sort choose to live this sort of heterosexual lifestyle, which of course didn't work for me. So anyway, that gives a little context to what I was growing up in. You know, anyone listening to this who remembers the eighties and the nineties, you know? We didn't even use, even trans people were using different terminology than than we oftentimes use now.
Theo:And we as a community have, continually kind of we've we've we've affected language and affected language change for sure around the world, in ways to help, better just speak to and speak about and recognize our experiences. So I was I was raised to be a girl. I was supposed to be a girl. And especially as the other came, it became a big deal that I was the only girl.
Angie:Yeah. I could imagine. Yeah.
Theo:My parents did a lot of they would say the rose among the thorns, stuff like that. It was all very, very binary views of gender. I think even if I had been a girl and even if I was someone who became a woman, I would have been a little uncomfortable. Was like too much of a big Yeah. What was even more what affected me even stronger is that when I was probably around my estimate is I was probably about three, maybe four at the oldest.
Theo:I have a very, very strong memory of a particular moment when I just had this a very real moment within myself where I just sort of recognized that I just sort of thought, I'm not a girl.
Angie:Did you verbalize that?
Theo:I mean, you did not speak such things out loud, but it was in my conversation with myself Yeah. And I sort of said that, I was like, I'm not a girl. And then I sort of followed it up with, I know I'm not a boy either or I'm not only either of these things. I think I had a real understanding of sort of the all genderedness or null genderness of my nature because sometimes I feel like it's sort of the same thing in the end. But the next thought that came from it was that, you know, I could never speak of this.
Theo:And I don't know if I felt safe at home before that, but I certainly never felt safe in my home growing up after that. I mean, there were other issues in the home, but that was a big part of it.
Angie:So you went through early childhood, elementary school, middle school, navigating the role as a female, but you're feeling that you're not. So this wasn't something you held on
Theo:to. The way would say it, yeah. A way I would say it is, I wouldn't say I was navigating as a female, but I was saying I was being treated as a female. Like I was treated as a girl. And even even to this day, I'm treated people tend to default to treating me like a woman.
Theo:Mhmm. And that's sort of how I how I view it is that I'm I'm treated like this. So, you know, it's it's interesting for me as a as as a non binary person, like, I'm really passionate about women's rights, for instance, because I get treated that way all the time. And I mean, you should be passionate about women's rights no matter what gender you are, but I think I bring something else very personal to it because I'm like, I know what it's like to be treated like a woman in this society. Mhmm.
Theo:And so you bring a certain your own trauma to it. So I feel a companionship with that, which is part of my feminine genderness in a way that, I don't experience when it comes to my masculine genderness because I don't experience the privilege of being perceived as male. Because I'm looking at you,
Angie:I know that we're on audio, so people aren't seeing you. Looking at you, if I were just passing you down on Central Avenue, I would think, Oh, that's a woman. That's what I would think.
Theo:Yeah. People tend to read me as a lesbian because of the haircut, stuff like that, because I can be more masculine at times, but I am gender fluid. And I think the other part where the gender fluidity specifically, growing up, I could shift towards more feeling more feminine or masculine vibes within myself. And I found that, like, everything was chill and I could just sort of ignore the issue when I was in a more of, like, a feminine shift or phase. And if I was in a more masculine shift or phase and I was at a place where I really, really deep down felt like I was one of my brothers Mhmm.
Theo:As opposed different from them, you know? Yeah. In those moments, it was a lot more difficult for me because, you know, you didn't have, like, transness and gender variance in general wasn't normalized at the time. So, you know, you could feel like, am I just insane? Like, you know, like, what is going on here?
Theo:Why do I why do I feel like a boy right now? Why do I sometimes feel strongly like a boy or
Angie:the So was it really painful to to hold these feelings? I mean, how how were you able to move through your life just feeling? I don't feel like I'm a boy, I'm not a girl, but still you're, I mean, being a young person, I could just imagine how it was going to school and just talk to us a little bit about that. How was that for you?
Theo:I would say it was painful, but I think more than that, there's like an extra layer of confusion because you really need to know and see that this is a normal and natural thing and it's not just your own weirdness. I developed a lot of paranoia around my mental health because I did worry that maybe I was just like insane or had the capacity to go insane because I was just sort of you're being told from all sides and certainly from my family's influence. I had a father who really exercised a massive amount of psychological control over the family. You know, you're being told that things are a certain way and there was also a religious component that I dealt with growing up. So you're being told that like, God wants it this way, which is really flies in the face of the whole loving God thing.
Theo:So I'm not sure not sure how he lived with a cognitive dissonance, honestly. I I I was yeah. It was in a way, you're sort of, like, you're just sort of psychologically messed up. It's almost the pain part is almost you get to feel that later when you start your healing journey. But in in the moment, there's just a lot of confusion, lot of shame, a lot of sort of self loathing because because because it's, you know, it's always an intersection of things.
Theo:You're being treated terribly because you, quote, unquote, are a girl, and that's how girls and women deserve to be treated apparently. You're being told that, you know, your whole life goal is to grow up someday and serve a man like how your mom serves your father, you know, and and you don't wanna do that, but you're also being told that, like, it's, you know, sinful to experience suicidal ideation because, you know, I think that I'd rather die than be some man's work bitch is an okay thing to feel. But like that's bad. You're being told that you exist to serve others but others don't have to serve you because of this and that and because of certain body parts. You're being told you're supposed to feel certain ways about sex and not other ways And then meanwhile, you're existing as this like glorious all gendered creature who doesn't actually internally experience any of these boundaries.
Theo:You know, like I don't know what it's like for a person's gender to matter when it comes to whether or not I'm attracted to them or fall in love with them or my capacity to have a platonic relationship with them. That's all straight people stuff and I don't understand it. Those are boundaries that my heart and my mind and my body don't experience, you know, and in the same way, the way I experienced my gender, I don't experience any of those boundaries. So you're talking about,
Angie:you know, being a young person and, and just the pain of not being able to be who you really are in the world. At what point, cause there was a point in your life that you did come to where you came out and you let your family and people in your life know that, no, I am not a girl. This is who I am. So talk to us about that part of your life. How old were you and how did you come out and what was the response of those people in your life to you coming out?
Theo:I mean, by the time I was looking to leave the organization, I was like 26 going into 27 years old. And then I, you know, I did meet a cisgendered man with a lovely heart and was like, let's get married, and let's do this. I'm hitting my late twenties, and I'm gonna be done by 32. You know? No.
Theo:Were you out to him? Were you
Angie:honest about who you It's
Theo:very complicated because I was how out I was to myself is also complicated. It's not like there's just like a line you cross. I felt I could make a choice to live a certain way, which was sort of what the women did in my extended family. And he kind of told me later when I was telling him I'm coming I'm I'm coming out and doing the outing thing. He he had sort of always seen me as bisexual, whereas I had sort of been like, I'm just gonna make a choice to do this other thing, you know, because I I'm a little all or nothing.
Theo:I couldn't really be, like, fully out and fully loving myself while also, you know, hiding a part of myself. I'm I'm I'm that's not something I ever found myself capable. I'm a very, very open person. So, you know, met a guy. So that was convenient because, you know, I could I could still I was always trying to have my happy egalitarian life in a way that wouldn't cause too much conflict with my parents.
Theo:And I think a part of me also knew that I was sort of fated to just lose that relationship eventually which is what happened. But I was trying to avoid it, as I just didn't want to make them sad. I didn't want to cause them pain. And for a lot of parents it can be deeply painful to have a queer child. So to such an extent that they don't recognize that they're actually just being bigots, you know
Angie:what I mean? And they need
Theo:to chill out. But, I had those kind of parents and, and you know, I think something that we oftentimes don't recognize enough is that when parents have these extreme pain reactions and stuff, there is their own trauma and oftentimes there is generational familial trauma involved in this and surrounding the subject of queerness. And so I, in my personal life, while I would never say it's okay to reject your child for who they are, I choose to look upon my parents and any family members who don't support me as a queer person with, with grace and with a lot of forgiveness, even when I can't continue a relationship for my own mental health.
Angie:You had to break off from your family or something?
Theo:Eventually. What happened was I met this dude. I got married. I wanted to do a career shift. I've always been very career oriented.
Theo:So I was like, I'll just push out two kids by 30 as well so that I'm still young.
Angie:Everybody else in my family.
Theo:Yeah, I'm not
Angie:going to
Theo:have four or five. All right. So, so I had a kid, had a terrible postpartum experience, which was very rare in family because we just, know, we're just Appalachian Hill people and you know, we just get pregnant all the time, push the babies out, go back in the fields. It's, it's insane. So, so everyone's looking at me like, what's wrong with you?
Theo:Why, why are you sad? Why, why are your hormones crazy? And so I was just like, well, I guess I've had one kid. I'm good. And I was, I wanted to, stay home and just care for my kid for a couple years because I I wasn't really capable of working with what was happening with me on a health level after he was born anyway.
Theo:And so I was pushing him in the stroller. I was a week it was a week before my 30 birthday, and I oftentimes, will just be in prayer as I go about my life. So this is the part where it gets religious. So if anyone listening finds that really triggering triggering, just skip forward, like, two minutes. And I was just in prayer, and I'm pushing a stroller.
Theo:And, you know, I had been thinking about, vocabulary and had come across the word pansexual recently. And it's so funny. I know that this wasn't that many years ago, but the word pansexual has really exploded and everyone certainly in this area of the world knows it. But, like, people weren't using that phrase.
Angie:Why don't you educate our audience? Yeah. Don't know what
Theo:Pan meaning across, like you do like, you go to like, might study pan African or pan Asian studies, for instance, as a major at university. Pan meaning across. So pansexuals, we tend to identify that way because we tend to sort of, like, really reject all sort of binary language is one of the reasons, because we tend to really wanna use language that really includes nonbinary people. And so, basically, if if you want sort of a primer to not be confused, bisexual means you're attracted to two or more genders. And we used to say bisexual because we used to have a very binary view.
Theo:So even today, and I'm not saying this to this is not a criticism of bisexual people or language, but when people come out to me and say they're bi or talk about being bi, the language tend to be they'll say, I like both men and women. You hear that a lot.
Angie:Right.
Theo:For pansexual people, we tend to find that to be very binary language. Is it equivalent? Sure. But, using the language we use is also changing society. So I think I think there's room for both for everything.
Theo:It's all fine. Sometimes there has been some drama between the two communities that I sometimes wonder if that's just formative, fomented a little bit by, straight people online causing issues, getting involved in conversations they don't need to be a part of. But, yeah, pansexual people tend to be like you identify as like, I'm just sort attracted to humans regardless of gender. And I think we oftentimes don't talk about how that also affects platonic relationships, which means, you know, I'm very, very deeply capable of having a platonic relationship with anyone, which people don't really talk about too much. They tend to look at queerness and think it's all about, you know, who we're having sex with.
Theo:But, you know, asexuality is part of queerness and that oftentimes means not having sex with anyone. But, you know, there's this whole thing in straight society where a lot of people really think that, like, a man and a woman can't have a platonic relationship. I think that queer society is where we sort of break that down and it's like, yes, you can. And and we as a society need that. And, so that's a part of for me, that's also a part of being pansexual.
Theo:Know, I don't your gender doesn't mean it isn't gonna block me from having a platonic relationship with you, just like it's not gonna block me from falling in love with you kind
Angie:So you could fall in love with someone who is a transgender person or someone who is assigned female or assigned male.
Theo:Non binary people,
Angie:genderfluid people, agender people.
Theo:Just a lie. Yeah. People will say like hearts not parts, which I think is cheesy, but it's true, guess. For me, I would say I just love all the different ways that humanity expresses gender. Think it's I think it's neat.
Theo:I think it's a cool thing about human beings. I value that in everyone and I don't I don't honestly, for me, being like, well, I'm just not attracted to men or I'm just not attracted to women makes as much sense as if you were said, I'm just not attracted to Filipinos. I understand that it's a different thing. I understand that one is an issue where you're just being racist, whereas the other one is an issue where I can't help it. That's my sexuality.
Theo:I understand that on an intellectual level but on an internal level it doesn't make more sense
Angie:to Yeah.
Theo:Like I, I almost for me if I was going to talk about how it really feels at my core, having a person's gender affect how you might feel about them almost feels like a disability or something. And I like to say that I feel like it's probably a provocative thing to say but I think it's the sort of thing that needs to be said because we need to understand that like, wow, in our core selves we can have very different ways of being on this level and that's actually really cool. You know,
Angie:I think that the way the society is, is that, you know, we're putting these boxes where, you know, you have to, you're, you're this and you're supposed to like this. And so the way you're talking, so let's go back to, you were talking about, you're pushing your precious little baby down the sidewalk, in the stroller and you were in prayer. Tell us about that. Was that kind of the first initial steps towards you saying I need to make a change? I need to be more myself.
Angie:Tell us about what was going on.
Theo:Yeah. But yeah, I'm pushing my kid in the stroller and I was praying and I just said, you know, God, I'm pansexual. And God was like, yeah. Like, die, made you. You know?
Theo:But what happened that was really cool was I I really you know, we talk about feeling a burden fall from your shoulders. And in that moment I felt like I felt a huge burden that had been on my shoulders actually almost like it was like it leapt off my shoulders. It was like it went boing like it sprung from me and I I felt God's joy in that moment in a very strong way. Like this is it, this is it. That's amazing.
Theo:Yeah. It was really, really cool experience. And I'm very grateful for it. And yeah, I mean, you know, it's really interesting. One thing that I'm really passionate about is making sure that we as a society are always making room for a lot of different a lot of different narratives around what it's like to be queer.
Theo:And I think that we can I think I think what happens is in the end, it's really hard because you see film and television, etcetera, and they're only green lighting certain stories? And the there's a very little nuance around the interaction between, like, queerness and and religion and queerness within different religions and and queer practices within religions. And so, you know, I try to be sort of open because I don't want to let again, it does feel like it's like what are what are straight people allowing us to tell? Which stories are straight people allowing us to tell? Which ones are they paying for?
Theo:Which ones make it to Netflix? Which ones make it, you know, here and there? So I I think it's important to, you know, like, I don't I don't wanna trigger anyone because there's a lot of religious trauma out there. I have my own, but I also don't wanna lie about my own experience and how how within my own religion I feel like I found the liberation from my own religion in a way. Yeah.
Theo:You know what I mean? I went back to sort of the core of it and the core being love and in my own personal life and my own personal experiences. That was that was a huge part of
Angie:that for you feel God accepting you because I hear a lot of people who, you know, may be outside of our box where they feel like God hates them or, you know, and they shouldn't even live. And so it was wonderful that you were like, yeah, God loves me. I made you like you were saying, I'm pansexual and God said, of course I made you. So it's just acceptance that you have of God. It's beautiful.
Angie:So I'm just wanting to find out so when you had that revelation, that day that you said you were pansexual, how long was it after that time before you started talking to people about this new revelation?
Theo:Yeah, I mean, It was right away. Right away. Yeah. So, you know, I had been, I was in like a because I was living in a very, very small town in, in the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina at that time, which is its own story. And I was a few towns over.
Theo:And so, you know, I get my son home and doing I'm just doing my regular stuff. You know, you're a parent. It's And, and my son's father came home and we were still together at that time and, you know, I was like, so you know I'm pansexual? And he goes like, I mean, yeah. And I was like, no.
Theo:And I was like, okay, no, no, sit down. I was like, okay, first off, respecting me in that way because I think from the ways that we had discussed it when we were sort of dating before, before we started family together, I, it was something that he could have easily chosen to ignore and, and he has always, bless his heart, been an absolute he has just come on this journey with our family which is really good because it's not like I make straight babies. It's really cool. I used to joke that he was our straight man but, obviously as transitioned on a gender level, he had his own little sexual awakening realizing like, oh, you know, I'm not 100% straight myself because I'm down with everything that's going on here. Know, surgeries, etcetera.
Theo:So, he's just always, that's a place where we've always been very in sort of in, in harmony together. So I, I, that was really cool. And then I was like, okay, no, sit down. When I, I'm going to come out now. Was like, I will be coming out to everyone.
Theo:And, we had, we were living in small town North Carolina, kind of give my parents some time with because at that time they had one grandchild. Now they only have one other grandchild because my generation isn't making a ton of babies, I guess. And so we were the I'm the only person who ever gave them like a lot of time with a grandkid and I feel especially grateful for that because our relationship fell apart later. So I was kind of like, I was telling my aunts, I have a lot of family in this, this little area. I told my granny, I told my aunts, they were all down, they were all very chill.
Theo:That was part of when and That was part of when I really started to realize like how much of my family is not actually not 100% straight, we'll say. And in their generation you kind of just didn't really, you didn't make a big deal about it. You didn't really come out about it. My, my granddaddy, everyone knew that he was bi, and we lost him in the early nineties. He died due to complications due to AIDS.
Theo:So that was my first one of my first experiences with queerness was my maternal grandfather's death. But, yeah, my granny was chill about it. My aunts were chill about it. And we had we had some in-depth discussions about whether or not I should come out to my parents at all, because they were sort of afraid that some of the other things would that, you know, my father would my mother would be punished. He'd find a way to take out his displeasure on her.
Theo:And so because we had a lot of there were lot of bad dynamics at home, that I don't I don't wanna go into too deeply. But, you know, it's one of those things. I think sometimes people don't fully acknowledge and understand that we can have really good reasons to remain closeted and sometimes we're protecting people. There's it's very complex. You know, it's not always like a family that isn't gonna accept kids because of their sexuality is oftentimes a family that's sort of broken in other ways too.
Theo:Right. Yes. So so that was an interesting time. And then, know, we were trying to leave North Carolina because there are no workers' rights there. And we ended up out here.
Theo:And so I pretty promptly I did end up choosing to come out to my parents and I emailed them and it seemed like things were gonna be okay. And then, one of my brothers had a wedding, and there was just a lot of drama created around that, that I think was probably my parents were sort of at the center of it. It was very confusing, for me. I sometimes really struggle when things get a little too complex, especially when people are misbehaving, and doing complex relational stuff in order to have power over one thing or another because I'm autistic. So I'm just like, I don't know.
Theo:Why don't we just all tell the truth all the time and be clear? So, when all that was sort of happening, it just felt like this I was just recognizing all these just the abusive tactics of my childhood and I sort of I just sort of set myself down and I was like, okay. So the permission part is in order to be the partner I want to be to my partner and the parent I want to be to my son, I really can't keep trying with with my parents. But the under level of that, the part that is asking for permission, is the part of me that just doesn't want to keep trying ...
notation::(part two coming soon)