Mark Bell's Power Project - Elite Trans Athlete Details Hurdles in Society and the Fitness Industry - Janae Kroc || MBPP Ep. 871

Episode Date: January 18, 2023

In this Podcast Episode, Janae Kroc, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about Janae's journey transitioning from male to female, competing in sport, children and HRT, having to deal with the backlash from coming out to friends and family, and the tragic loss of her son. Follow Janae on IG: https://www.instagram.com/janaemariekroc/ New Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://hostagetape.com/powerproject Free shipping and free bedside tin! ➢https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!! ➢Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes! ➢https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements! ➢https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order! ➢https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori! ➢https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep! ➢https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en  Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

Welcome, Janae. Thank you. Great to have you back on the show. You were just mentioning beforehand feeling super uncomfortable back many, many years ago. Can you explain some of that to us? Because that's interesting, like to look at yourself in the mirror and to not be happy with yourself. But now I also think that you're happier. Much.

Nowadays. Yeah. So it was, I mean, it stems all the way back from being a young child. By the time I was four or five years old, I already knew I had issues with my gender. I didn't know, you know, back then there was no internet. There was no social media. I didn't know that anyone else in the world was like me. And I didn't know exactly what it meant.

That's really interesting to hear because like, I think a lot of little kids think that, like when you're a little kid, you kind of think there's like no one else has my same fears or my same things, but what you were harboring is different. Yeah. Yeah. Like, um, yeah, I felt totally along with it. And I also knew what's interesting is even at that really young age, I already knew it wasn't OK to tell people. I couldn't tell my mom and dad. I knew if I did, they weren't going to react well. And I didn't even really know what it meant.

Did you have siblings also? Yes, two younger brothers. Two younger brothers. Yeah, and the one was only 18 months younger than me. So we were pretty close growing up. And yeah, and then as adults, like it's funny that we've had many conversations he's like gosh why didn't you tell me and i'm like i didn't think you'd understand and i didn't know even know how to explain it and i thought you know if i told you or you found out you would rat me out to mom

and dad and this was going to be really bad i'd end up in shock therapy or who knows what and um but yeah i already knew at that young of age that what was expected of boys and what was expected of girls and that, and the funny thing was, it wasn't like, oh, I want to play with dolls or I want to, you know, do this stuff. But it was just that I was daydreaming about being a little girl. Like I would see myself doing the same things I was already doing, playing baseball, climbing trees, but I would picture myself as this little tomboy with like a ponytail. And I didn't know why. I'm like, why do I keep thinking about this all the time?

And there was a lot of guilt, a lot of shame. But obviously I had a lot of – due to this, I had a lot of body image issues. And I didn't even put two and two together. Due to this, I had a lot of body image issues and I didn't even put two and two together. So like as I moved into my teenage years, like I was explaining to you just a little bit ago, I would look into the mirror and I had accepted that I was very unattractive. I thought I was very ugly. Like I would look at my face and it was mainly like – I didn't realize it,

but it was mainly like the masculine attributes. Like my jaw was getting broader and my big nose turned into a man yeah and um and i in in my mind i'm just like god i'm so ugly like this looks terrible and i just i you know i told myself well hey no one's gonna be interested in dating you just focus on sports and school don't even worry about that like you're gonna bring up a couple pictures uh andrew also i know this but at the time did you want to date women or do you like yes yeah yeah so people that's one thing too people um think that being trans or having gender issues has to do with sexuality and it can i mean there are people that are trans and always interested in guys and a lot of times they

may identify as gay first and then realize it's more than that. But they're actually independent of each other. And for me, I've always been attracted to women. I still am. I would say, you know, to be 100 percent honest, and at this point in my life, like I have no problems talking openly about anything. I have gone on dates with a few guys and it really hasn't worked for me. I just don't find them attractive. Not in the same way I do women. Playing, not playing, but being in the female role in the relationship. I mean, these never got as far as being in a relationship,

but that part of it comes very naturally. So like being on a date with a guy felt very comfortable as far as like, oh wow, I can just be me. And this feels very normal. Whereas like being on a date with a guy felt very comfortable as far as like oh wow I can just be me and this feels very normal whereas like early on dating women actually throughout most of my life trying to play that masculine role like even though I was very attracted to the women I had to I really had to be aware of um what I was doing and try to like, okay, what does she expect now? What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to react to this? And I had a lot of difficulty with that early on.

And especially because athletically I was always hyper-competitive and what people considered very alpha. And I was very aggressive and competitive and trained really hard. And so girls would see this in a competition setting and then think that I'm going to be the same way in a relationship, that I'm going to be this very, you know, alpha male. We're going to get to the bedroom. I'm going to be like this super aggressive person. Yeah. And that's not who I was at all.

And so I would get in those situations and just not even know how to act. Everything felt super uncomfortable and filled me with anxiety and made it really difficult. But yeah, but my orientation has always been much more attracted to women. Okay. And these pictures that we're looking at when you were Matt, were you unhappy at that point or? I mean, I focused on, you know, there on the things that were going well in my life. You were kind of doing a lot. Yeah, I was always.

You were starting a family. You're breaking world records, all kinds of stuff, right? Yeah, so I loved competing. I always loved athletics. And that's where I was able to basically hide growing up was in sports. That's where I was able to basically hide growing up was in sports. That's where I was perceived as normal. And the things I like to do and enjoy doing were accepted by everybody. So that's where I was able to hide and fit in as just a normal kid, a normal boy.

But outside of that, it was very difficult for me. But that's that whole world. So, yeah, but I was able to enjoy it. Like I loved competing no matter what sport it was and lifting. I was always fascinated by strength and muscularity. So I was always drawn to that. So getting bigger and stronger was something I could take pride in. And now that caused, you know, additional issues with my body at certain points in my life, but I could take pride in what I was accomplishing. And I did enjoy those things. It was just, there was always that disconnect with my gender and my identity.

And that was the really difficult part. There's that famous row right there. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's the homemade dumbbell. You did a one-arm dumbbell row with how much weight? That right there is 310. You said you did that for 13 reps. Yeah, 300 for 13 was my PR.

Don't make no sense. Jenea, I'm curious about this because as you were growing up, you always felt that you weren't in the right body, correct? Now, as you continue to develop athletically, you were super competitive. You were gaining muscle. Did a part of masculinizing, did that feel off or wrong because it is, you know, it's masculine? Yeah. Well, I think actually that's a good point. I think that's actually a common misconception, right?

That muscle equals masculine. Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean I'm sure you know a lot of women that love lifting, love strength training and like being muscular too. And a lot of the comments you'll see like especially stupid guys are like, oh, you look like a man. Exactly. Because they're a muscular woman. Yeah.

So does that mean every skinny guy looks like a woman? So yeah. So that's – I mean that's a really good point. And I – honestly, I believe as a society, we've been conditioned to believe that. Like men are supposed to be the strong one, the protector, the provider and all those things. And for some people they are naturally, and that's totally fine, but not everyone is that way. And not every woman obviously needs to be taken care of or even wants those things. And they're very capable of taking care of themselves. And a lot of women love being strong and love being accomplished

and doing all those things. And I think that's not a matter of what's right or wrong. It's what's, what feels comfortable to that person. And I, like I said, there's a lot of women that are passionate about strength training and love gaining muscle. And for me, the first people that I ever talked to that really understood a lot of my struggles was the, were the women in the strength training world. So when I came out, I had known a lot of these girls just from competing in the same competitions and being around them, but I wasn't close to any of them. And then after I came out, a lot of them reached out to me and were very supportive, which I was very thankful for because I was also worried that they were going to see me as like an imposter or somebody encroaching on their territory and feel threatened by that. But it was exactly the opposite. Almost all the girls were very welcoming and were very supportive.

Why did you feel that way, by the way? Why did I feel that way? Yeah. I just – I didn't know. Like I didn't know how – and I just thought they were going to see me. Actually, it was the men that saw me as like this big threat to women's sports and all this stuff even though I've never competed as in a women's division in any type of strength or any competition and have no plans to. And that's probably something we should get into as well,

why I've decided to do that. But, yeah, so I just thought like – and a lot of the men spoke out right away. Oh, God, if you do a competition, that would be so blah, blah, blah and all this. But it was never the women that said that. It was never – actually, I had some of the strongest female powerlifters reach out and said, I would love to compete against you. I really hope you do compete. And I guess like I can explain why I chose not to do that. And it's two main reasons.

One, because I would never want to do anything that would harm the sports or the trans community. I think the people that are anti-trans would love nothing more than for someone like me to compete. Especially if I had success, boy, plaster my photo everywhere and say, this is why trans athletes need to be banned from everything. You have powerlifting records as a male and you are now competing in jujitsu and you're choosing to compete in jujitsu with other men, right? Correct. Yep. In the men's division. Yeah. And that was, it was kind of funny actually, because all my documents have been changed. So my birth certificate says female, my driver's license says female, everything says female. And obviously I feel much better and I feel like that's much more accurate for me.

But when it comes to competition, um, and again, there's multiple reasons, but, um, oh yeah, that's from worlds. And, uh, but, um, but the thing is, I mean, it's a complicated topic, right? It's not as simple as it's fair for everyone or it's unfair for everyone. And with me, so I was number one in the world as a male. So me personally, plus I didn't start female hormones until I was into my 40s. And on top of that, I'd also done extra male hormones for quite a long time. And so I'm an anomaly. I am not like, I'm the exception, not the rule. Keep following along everybody. You're going to find out that Janae was also a pharmacist. Yes. The plot will continue to thicken.

Yeah. I've managed to get my hands in a few things over the years, but, but yeah, so, you know, like I said, I was number one in the world as a male. I didn't begin taking female hormones until late in life. I had used extra androgens for almost two decades. So there are a lot of factors why I don't feel that it's personally fair for me to be competing in the women's division. And then like I said, the other thing is if I did and I had success, I'm going to be the poster child to get all trans athletes out of sports, which obviously I don't think is a good thing. It's not that simple of a discussion. And I think a lot of the effects female hormones have on a body are largely discounted.

So there's a lot to unpackage there. You mean when a man takes female hormones? Yeah. There's a lot to unpackage there. You mean when a man takes female hormones. Yeah. I was telling you guys a little earlier before we were on the air that just me having been exclusively on female hormones for one year, how much that impacted my performance. I mean I lost almost 200 pounds off my bench press. All my lifts went way down.

My muscle mass went way down. I lost explosiveness. That's when you're like, wait a second. How bad do I want this? Yeah. Well, it's, the thing is for me, like not only, you know, obviously being feminine and identifying a woman is a big part of who I am and what makes me feel comfortable in my own skin, but also so is being an athlete. I'm someone who's been an athlete from day one. I very much enjoy it. I love competition. I'm somebody that will be competing probably until the day I die.

And, um, and I've really grown to love jujitsu. And, um, so to give up athletics isn't an option either. And then, and also doing something that hurts my performance so much, um, has been really difficult for me. Um, I mean, it's, I think it's difficult for any athlete as you age and get older. And like we'd mentioned earlier, I just turned 50. So dealing with a little bit of that, but still doing pretty well overall, as far as like my age is concerned. But it's hard for any athlete when you've been at especially at a really high level. At the top. Yeah. I mean, in powerlifting, my biggest goal was to be number one in the world all time in my weight class regardless of federation or anything. And then I finally accomplished that. But, yeah, just not being at that level anymore is difficult, let alone getting to a place where it's difficult to even see yourself as an athlete.

And like I said, like being on exclusively female hormones even for just one year like impacted me so much that I was really struggling with it. And to this day, I'm still trying to find a balance with being able to compete as an athlete, but then also see the changes in my body that will help me feel more comfortable. But yeah, hormones are a crazy thing and have a huge impact on our bodies and how we perform. Power Project family, how's it going? Now, I want to talk to you guys about Within You Supplements. This is Mark's supplement line. And the amazing thing is Mark used to be 330 pounds. He was a fat guy. So obviously this stuff tastes really damn good. But the another cool thing about Within You Supplements is that none of these products are white labeled. Now what a lot of people do when they come out with their own supplement lines is they do something called

white labeling. And white labeling, all that means is there's a supplement that's already out there. They take off the tag of that supplement, they put their name on it, and now it's their supplement line. Quite literally, there's nothing else like within you supplements out there because Mark formulated these supplements with other individuals that he knows within the industry, like Joel Green, who we've had on this podcast. So you guys should check out within you. We have amazing protein, electrolyte supplements. We have fasting gum and many other things on the website andrew how can they check it out yes that's over at markbellslingshot.com and at checkout enter promo code power project 10 to save 10 off your entire order links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes

i'm getting used to this combination of giant traps and boobs over here i find myself occasionally staring at your boobs. I'm like, this is going to be a little different for me. Making you blush. We all know each other for decades, so whatever. Yeah, yeah. I'm just happy that I finally have some, even as small as they are. So that's been, honestly, for me, that's something that feels feels normal and something like when I see my body and see that changing, it's something that finally feels right to me.

It feels like something that always should have been and it has never been. Take a long time to like grow them? Yeah. or hormone replacement therapy where either they're suppressing the testosterone production or removing it by usually an orchiectomy, which is removal of the testes. By doing that and then adding estrogen, you basically go through a female puberty. So they take just as long to grow as like a girl when she goes through puberty. So typically several years. I mean everyone's a little different.

Some people respond quickly. Some take longer. And again, a lot depends on genetics. If the women in your family are big-breasted, likely's a little different. Some people respond quickly. Some take longer. And again, a lot depends on genetics. If the women in your family are big-breasted, likely you will be too. And if they're not, which mine mostly aren't, so I'm going to have to work a little harder. But it's something that definitely feels really nice and just feels like right. I mean, that's probably the best way to describe it. It feels like that's how it was always supposed to be.

And now that that's happening, it's something that makes me really happy. I think some girls get a little weird about training their chest. Have you gone through that yet? You know, there's, the funny thing is it's like, it's more like, it's funny, like things like jujitsu rolling and they're just getting enough where, um, some of my friends and we're really close and very open with each other and there's pretty much nothing that's like TMI or nothing that's off limits. And yeah, a couple of times now, a couple of my friends have been rolling and they'll grab my chest or post on me or whatever. And afterwards they'll be like, sorry for grabbing your boobs.

And they're like, yeah, they feel like boobs now i'm like yeah and i'm like that's yeah so that to me that's like okay great and but yeah it's also a little awkward and uh but the my pecs are still large so they kind of blend in it's not as obvious they feel i think more like boobs and they look like boobs but but they're getting there yeah you know quickly rewinding to what you were mentioning because like you obviously when it comes to jjitsu, you want to compete. So it's not like you just want to do jujitsu casually. You want to compete. So for you, having been an athlete and you're still an athlete, you want to really push your athletic prowess and what your body can do. But then there's also the side of things where you also want to take these hormones so that you can pass better over time. How are you currently trying to deal with that? That's been an ongoing challenge. So yeah, unfortunately, people, the easiest way to, from an athlete's perspective, the easiest way to think about estrogen therapy is basically anti-steroids. So everything that androgens do,

as far as gaining muscle mass, increasing strength, increasing performance, lowering body fat, estrogen does exactly the opposite. It drives nutrients towards storing more body fat, decreasing muscle mass, and generally decreases performance in just about every metric. So as an athlete, that's been very difficult. And for me, especially someone like for jiu-jitsu, I mean, there's lots of hobbyists,

right? That just enjoy the sport for the sport, love to practice. That's all they want to do. They have no interest in competing and that's totally fine. Whatever makes you happy. But for someone like me, the whole reason I enjoy it is competition. And the whole point of competition is to win. And no granted, like I lost plenty of matches and I'm sure I'll lose plenty more. And, um, and that's totally fine. It's all part of the process. But for me, it's about getting better. It's about evolving. It's about a changing and being a better competitor. And that's what I find satisfying that challenge and that growth and constantly striving to do better and better. And without competition, that would really take away all the enjoyment for me

in, in doing jujitsu at all. What are some of your thoughts on trans athletes, you know, in your position competing, I guess, against females, especially in something like contact sports? Yeah. So it's a very, it's a very complicated topic. There's not, there's not a one answer fits all. I think it's something we still need a lot more research on. I've actually spoken at length with Joanna Harper, who is one of the researchers that has consulted with the IOC based on their rulings with trans athletes. And we have a few small studies, but we don't have any large long-term studies on trans athletes. Up until recently, there hadn't been any trans athletes that had really had much of any success,

and now we've had a couple. We've had the swimmer Leah Thomas, and we've had CeCe Telfer, who won the 400-meter hurdles in Division II in college. Part of the problem that makes this all really murky is trans people have become so politicized and that conservatives generally take the viewky is trans people have become so politicized and that conservatives generally take the view that everything trans is bad and liberals, everything trans is good. And I don't like to generalize, but that's kind of where we're at and how everything in our culture has polarized so much. And I hate to see that a group of people have been drug into this and

turned as a weapon for sides to use against each other. The reality is, is most trans athletes have had very little success and typically their performance does decrease enough to where they're on an equal playing field with most other women. The success trans athletes have had has been greatly exaggerated and distorted. And I'll just give you a couple of quick examples. The Olympic weightlifter, Laurel Hubbard, I don't know if you're familiar with her. So if you were to listen to a lot of people, they'll tell you about how Laurel, you know, won world championships and smashed all this, you know, records and that just was dominating women. And that had she not bombed

out of the Olympics, she would have crushed everybody. Well, none of that's true. The only, the only championship she's won, she did win Women's Master Worlds, which obviously is older athletes and not as – you don't have the best competitors there. And then she won the Pacific Games, which is not a real high-level competition. The strongest countries aren't represented there. The best that she has ever placed at the Open World Championships against the best women was sixth. And she hit PRs across the board there and had by far her best competition ever.

And she was still sixth place and that was much higher than she was projected to finish. So the reality is, I mean, has she done well? Yes. Is she a threat to any of the top women? Not at all. Like any people in the sport that really know, know the sport will tell you she

had no chance at meddling at all at the world championships. She was, I want to say like 200 pounds out of first place and over a hundred pounds out of the medals. Um, so even on her best day on her best performances, if, if all the other best women are there and lift to their capabilities, she has no chance of meddling. The only way she could meddle is if the other women were absent, they bombed out or got injured, and she just happened to be and had her best day ever and basically got lucky. But against all the best women in the world, she's not a top three placer, and she's nowhere near the world records. placer and she's nowhere near the world records yeah it's really interesting when you get to you know thinking about like who would win and uh like maybe this person potentially took a spot away yeah that's what people will kind of whine about in some some degree um one of the things i just find interesting and i don't know what's i don't have any idea what's right or wrong

uh but just imagine if an athlete was in a race and they were like really fucking good and they uh almost made you run a much faster race than normal you know let's say it let's say it was a female versus a guy but let's say the female uh got her best time ever it's like does she no longer care about that because she kind of came in second or, or are we after those PRS? You know what I mean? You raise a good point too with that. Like it,

let's say there were no gender divisions at all. I'm like going to jump on a different track here for a second. I have a feeling we would see women's performances increased substantially, just being forced to compete at a higher level of competition. And that generally happens wherever we see it. It's like with world records. I feel like so much of this is psychological as much as it is physiological. Look at how strong women have gotten in powerlifting.

Exactly. Because they started to be more – there was more women in powerlifting gyms and they just thought it was normal. They saw their buddies squat in 315 and 405 and so they started squatting that way. Changed their whole perspective on what was strong for a woman or what was strong period and it's like i'd tell competitors in the same way like people if you're the strongest person in your gym go to a different gym if you know go go to a high level competition go to nationals go to worlds watch people move these weights it changes your perspective and it's just like when records are broken the thousand pound

deadlift didn't get broken forever but then once once it did, boom, you had several other people that broke it right away. The same thing with the four-minute mile. The four-minute mile was deemed impossible for the longest time. Rochester Bannister breaks it. Boom, then there's a handful of other people running sub-four-minute miles. Now we have high school kids doing it. with female athletes, part of the problem was low expectations. There was also a lot of pressure on women, especially you'd see it in high school where girls purposely aren't trying hard because of negative social consequences. Like guys, you know, some of the guys, maybe they're interested and don't want to date a girl who's faster than they are, or, you know, is successful in athletics. You'll see girls downplaying their own ability because of these social pressures. I think that's happening less and less as it's more normal for girls to be lifting weights now at a young age. see girls downplaying their own ability because of these social pressures. I think that's happening less and less as it's more normal for girls to be lifting weights now at a young age. It's more accepted for women to strive harder and work harder and be competitive, where in the past

that was more frowned upon. And now I'm not saying that, going back to trans athletes, I don't want to say that it's all, you know, there's not a physiological basis because there absolutely is. And I don't want to say I'm not someone who believes that testosterone levels don't matter because they absolutely do. And anyone who's been in powerlifting or any sports where androgens are used, they obviously make a difference. And that's not deniable. But what we don't know is we do know that taking away androgens and replacing them in a body with estrogens, no matter who that is, is going to substantially affect performance and it's going to substantially decrease it. Now, the question, of course, is does it decrease it to a level low enough where that now they're

on an even playing field with other women? Now, it does appear that if this is done during puberty or before someone actually goes through a male puberty, most likely, yes, they're never going to have those advantages. And so that's, they're never going to have those advantages. And so that's something that's never going to have to be addressed later on. And their performance isn't going to be at that much of a higher level. Now with people that have fully matured as a male and especially someone in my case that has taken additional androgens and years and years of that, then taking all that away and going on estrogen, is that going to decrease their performance enough?

I mean, it decreased my performance substantially, you know, a huge amount. And like to the point where I bailed on it because as an athlete, it was hurting my performance too much. And I was still, I'm currently, I'm still, for the people who don't know, I'm still on an estrogen implant and my estrogen levels are actually above a typical females. But then we've been experimenting with like SARMs and a few other very low androgenic androgens trying to balance out some of my performance losses and fat gain. You also didn't have any gender surgeries except for vocal cords or something like that? No. Well, I've had actually a handful.

I've had vocal feminization surgery, which has helped, but I'd still like my voice to be higher in pitch. But I've had vocal feminization surgery. I've had two facial feminization surgeries, which have made a huge difference for me. And to be honest, I was kind of nervous about those. know it's your face and I'm like oh how am I gonna look I don't and you see like bad results and bad plastic surgeries and you're like oh my gosh what if that happened um but I honestly I'm ecstatic with those surgeries they more than anything they've helped me feel comfortable in my own skin so that's been a huge thing me feel comfortable in my own skin. So that's been a huge thing. I've also had, well, obviously laser hair removal. I had a hair transplant early on to try to combat my hair thinning,

but it didn't do enough where I can grow my own hair out. So now I still have to wear wigs. I've also had, what else? Vocal feminization, facial feminization. Oh, I had an orchiectomy as well. So I lost one testicle to cancer early on in the way back in 2004 and then I had the other one removed, which is referred to as an orchiectomy. So my body no longer produces, the only androgens my body produces is a small amount we produce from the adrenal glands. So I actually make less testosterone than most other women. Um, but, uh, and that's been a really good thing for me. But, um, but yeah, like I said, with the balancing the feminization and performance as an athlete

has been the trickiest thing for me. But you still have the main male part. I do for now. And, um, what, what does that mean to you? Does that, like, do you, do you feel, uh, like you're female female by all means or because you still have – The thing is I'll say this is very individualized. The majority of trans women do want to have bottom surgery but not everybody. There are a lot of risks with the surgery. It is very, very complicated surgery that often has complications are fairly typical. There's the chance of losing sensation.

There's a chance of like I know like when you're creating the neo vagina, there's one of the risks is that they accidentally nick the colon. And that's obviously can cause um you know serious infections and i do know of some girls that end up with colostomy bags after that and some and some life-threatening infections that were really um really really serious and then like for me if i could snap my fingers and if you said hey you can trade that in for a vagina tomorrow and everything's gonna be perfect boom it's done like i don't have to think about it like absolutely 100 can trade that in for a vagina tomorrow and everything is going to be perfect, boom, it's done. Like I don't even have to think about it. Like absolutely, 100 percent. You can trade that in for a vagina.

Yeah. Like a lot of things I'd trade in. Yeah. But of course it's not that simple and it's not that easy. And my biggest concern is – I mean I've been researching this for a couple of decades and all the surgeons and who has the best results. And it's not an easy thing to figure out. And, you know, you talk to all these other girls that have already gone through it and hear all their experiences. And while most of them are really positive, there are some that have had a really rough time and things haven't gone the way they

wanted them to. And of course, every time you have a surgery, every time you go under anesthesia, there's a risk. Um, I've had nine surgeries at this point in my life and I don't really want to jump back in to sign up for more. Plus the recovery process is difficult. Like I would have to take probably, I know they'd recommend I probably take like six months off jujitsu. I don't know that I would be able to do that. I'm, you know, someone I'm, I'm the type of person, like after I torn off both biceps and had them reattached, um, after the, yeah, after the first one, I was back in the gym two days after surgery training with one arm. And I think if anybody followed my career, I think they'll remember me posting some videos and some people, some people thought it was awesome. Some

people thought I was an idiot. And, uh, and then my second bicep surgery, I literally cut the cast off after five days and started working it. I mean, I don't recommend anyone else does those things, but for me, it did help me recover a lot faster and in the end worked out really well. But yeah, part of it, like basically putting all the things I enjoy on hold for a long period of time, the risk with the surgery, one of my biggest fears is that I am someone who has a strong sex drive and there is a small risk of losing sensation down there and not being able to achieve orgasm. For me, that would be a huge impact on the quality of my life. Yeah. So that's a concern for me. And like I said, if magically we could swap it out and just snap your fingers, it'd

be a done deal. Um, and I do plan to have it done at some point. Um, I think I'm, I want to get my body, my body further towards the feminine end of the spectrum before I do that, but probably within the next couple of years. Um, I mean, it's something I absolutely want, but it's just trying to minimize the risk as much as possible. And you're always kind of holding out like, is there going to be a new surgery coming out? Is there a better technique that someone's going to discover? But I don't see anything on the horizon that looks substantially different than what they're doing now.

But it's also very expensive. I mean, just on the surgeries I've had, I've spent over a hundred thousand dollars out of my own pocket. Almost none of it's covered by insurance. Now we're starting to see a lot more insurances that do cover the gender confirmation, the bottom surgery. But like most things like breast implants or even laser hair removal or any other steps most of the girls have to go through almost none of that's covered there's a few rare insurances out there that do but most do not now real quick um because there's there's so many things for us to talk about but we when we if we can go back to the athletics side of things um it seems that one of the big points

of contention doesn't seem to be when a woman transitions to man for male sports because and i don't know if this can necessarily be argued that when you look at um male sex versus female sex there are developmental differences which is why you mentioned um some of those changes happening before puberty or not letting someone hit puberty and that's a discussion in and of itself for sure but you know there have been people that have mentioned, okay, well, you know, when we're looking at peewee baseball or kids in elementary school competing, or even sometimes kids in high school competing may not be a big deal, but we kind of touched on when it comes to college sports, potentially you're not going to see guys on the basketball team, right, at the highest level of basketball in the NCAA, Division I or Division II, or even professional, worrying about a man or a woman transitioning into a man to take one of their spots.

Men generally aren't worried. The main group of people that are worried are female athletes and primarily because there are physical differences and we can probably talk more about that. But – and yeah, we haven't – we've only seen a few instances with Leah Thomas and – C.C. Telfer. C.C. Telfer. CeCe Telfer. But when you think of like, for example, let's think of a, an athlete that is a high level man at the time who was lifted weights, developed, transitioning into becoming a female. I can understand, and I can totally understand why women would not be happy with somebody taking that, taking their spot. And I know you guys were mentioning how, um, you know, you see female athletes, female powerlifters becoming extremely strong because they see more numbers and like you'll see them pushing themselves more with

another athlete. But we're thinking now only within the context of the woman has to push herself to be as good as a guy or to get there. But that's okay. So that you bring up a very good point and it's a valid point. And here, here's a couple, there's a couple of things with the arguments going on currently that skew everything.

Okay. And, and you mentioned it right there at the end when you said to be as good as a guy. So number one, we have the assumption that a trans woman is no different than a guy throwing on a dress and then competing. Right. So that's kind of what like people when they, when they're making the argument, that's what they're doing. Good point. I think a lot of

people do think that. Yeah, they do think that. And they think that, yeah, just, you know, you're picturing, um, you know, some Jack dude and actually somebody probably like me that is transitioning, um, that is transitioning as an athlete. But it's just, oh, you throw on some makeup, grow your hair out, wear some women's clothes. And they're picturing that same person with those same capabilities competing in women's sport. And that is not the case at all. Like we have talked about thus far is taking away all the androgens, replacing them with estrogens has a huge impact on performance. Now, the question boils down to, right, how much impact?

Does it balance everything out? Is that if you have a high-level athlete as a male that transitions, are they going to have an unfair advantage? Or maybe they even aren't a high-level athlete. So the things that, and I'm the first, like I said, this is a complicated issue and I'm the first person that will acknowledge that we don't have enough research. We don't really have the numbers to support and answer one way or the other. But I understand the arguments and they're valid arguments. Well, I guess we would – we could say logically that we would know that if Francis Ng and ghanu was to like fight against females like

he's going to destroy them yeah he's going to have a distinct advantage right um now if it was like a year from now and he was taking particular hormones it might change things slightly but we still need more time for it to have a bigger impact i think even that example though like that example like you okay so this is worth throwing out a crazy example. Exactly. We're talking about the extreme end of it, right? But even I've heard people say, you know, LeBron James. This is different because these are people who have had all this time to develop their capabilities.

And then in this alternate universe, they choose to transition. And like that, that, that. Ain't going to happen probably. It's not going to happen. And it doesn't necessarily make sense you did mention something which a lot of people are like they probably heard and they're like what the fuck is you mentioned before a child hits puberty and they let's say that they then they don't have all of that development but that whole conversation in and of itself that's a whole another can of worms but that where, as far as when it comes into the sports context, it could make some sense.

Because puberty and developing as a man and lifting weights, let's just focus on this. Let's say that somebody transitions in their 20s or something, right? After puberty. You already mentioned like we don't know how much of a difference it would make and if it would make enough difference for it to be fair for that individual to compete against women. Um, and that, that's just tough. Like we don't know, and we're just waiting to see more athletes. Yeah. The research we do have, the research we do have and the athletes we do have to look at, it does appear to be fair. Um, the smallest number of studies we have and the athletes we do have to look at, it does appear to be fair. The small

number of studies we have and the small number of athletes that have been looked at, there was one particular study that was done on endurance athletes, middle distance runners. Now what we saw was that, and I'm grabbing these numbers out of the air, so don't quote me on this part, but let's say that the women in general were 80th percentile of where like the top females were. It was like 80th percentile where the males were at. And what we saw with those runners was that after a year on female hormones and the removal of androgens, that's an important part too. That has to be removed. Just taking estrogen by itself isn't enough.

That their performance fell. So like let's say they were 80th percentile as a male, they ended up 80th percentile as a female. I actually read an article a long time ago. It was funny. I was in an office to get an MRI for one of my powerlifting injuries and stumbled across an article in a runner's magazine about a runner who was a good male runner. Wasn't like at top of the world, but thought it was transitioning and thought I'm going to go in and crush all the women. Like. And then it didn't happen. What happened was they found out they were just as good as a female as they were as a male.

And this study backed that up. And what we largely saw was that for these middle and middle distance runners, that their performance decreased accordingly. And that's some of the research that was used to base the ruling for the IOC and the NCAA. But it was a very small study. We don't have any good studies with strength athletes, with speed athletes, where males tend to enjoy larger advantages over their female counterparts. And so that's definitely, like I said, I'll be the first person to say we need more research and we need more studies. But the information we do have and the athletes that have competed, we have yet to see a single trans athlete like truly dominate.

Now, Leah Thomas and CeCe Telfer are the closest. But let's look at CeCe Telfer. So CeCe Telfer won the 400-meter hurdles in Division II. If she was competing in Division I, she would have placed seventh. in Division II. If she was competing in Division I, she would have placed seventh. So she was still a long ways from being one of the best girls just in college, let alone the world, let alone an all-time great.

Now, Leah is still competing. We don't know what's going to happen with that. I believe there's been some rule changes that are going to prevent her from competing at a professional level. I'm not sure if that's all still up in the air and where we're at with that. But the interesting thing about these two, and this is what a lot of people point to, is that, like I said, like with myself or any other athletes we've seen that are transitioning, get on estrogen, their performance takes a sharp decrease. Leah and Cece, their performances haven't done that, at least not to the level that other trans women have. Now, is this something

that, are they a genetic anomalies? Are they someone where their performance just isn't going to be affected that much by hormones? Have they not been on the hormones long enough? Where are their hormone levels at? How high are their estrogen levels? Have their testosterone levels been sufficiently suppressed? I don't know any of these things. I don't know if they know. I don't know if anyone's been testing and monitoring their blood work as the NCAA looked at these athletes. So, I mean, as part of this, maybe their hormone levels weren't where they needed to be as an athlete, but maybe they are. Maybe they're anomalies. I don't have those answers, but that's something we don't know yet. But typically what we see is a substantial reduction in strength, muscle mass, speed,

all of those things. So that's something we need to study and we need to know going forward. But like I said, part of the big problem is that this has become politicized, right? So it's a very heated topic. People get mad. People get really mad. I hope that people are listening right now. I hope you're listening with an open mind and just trying to hear both sides of it because we're not pretending to have any real answers for you. And for me, even though I'm a trans athlete myself and even though like obviously I support trans athletes, I'm somebody who looks for the truth, looks for the facts. Like now if every person transitioning was going out and crushing it in every sport and they were going out there and breaking world records, I'd be the first to say, hey, we need to take a look at this and this is something. People getting hurt, concussions and so forth. Yeah, things like that. But so far at least, we haven't seen that. But the other thing we haven't

seen a ton of is a lot of trans athletes competing openly. There's been rumors about trans athletes at the Olympic level for some time that some have competed. The rumors I've also heard is that they haven't – none of them have been good enough to actually medal. But there were rumors about some runners and I don't want to narrow it down too much because I would never want to out anyone. But there's been some rumors about athletes that before were afraid to come out because of the backlash or possible violence and things like that. Yeah. I want to say,

just interrupt for a moment and say that sports in general are just complicated. This whole issue, like a side trying to make sports a level playing field is very complicated. We were talking briefly about like mountain biking and you're like a mountain bike and costs like seven, seven grand or 10 grand. And that this point has been brought up um in like tour de france where the bikes can be you know x amount of money versus the other guy's bike who's new um salary caps and football you

know one team having x amount of money to pay for their players um a long time for baseball they didn't even have a salary cap so the new y York Yankees would just spend crazy amounts of money. Meanwhile, the Milwaukee Brewers would have like half the amount of money. So sports, it's always a facade. They, they,

they are very rarely, I mean, where you grow up, your parents, I mean, like you just go down a list of things that's fair and not fair and even playing field. And you end up with,

you can make there can an argument can to be made that sports are inherently unfair and will never be fair and like i mean what i'm trying to make it as fair as possible with the rules that you have for the sport right yeah and trying to balance it out so everyone can compete and everyone can enjoy those things and enjoy all the things you learn from sports and you know like camaraderie teamwork. I beat you with this set of rules. You played by this set of rules. I played by this set of rules and you were able to win. Yeah. But, but obviously genetics are a huge part of that, right?

There's a reason why the, what the average height in the NBA is. There's a reason why like sprinters have certain attributes. There's a reason why strength athletes, you know, have certain, there's a reason why strong men tend to come from – a lot of them from small – like how many strong men champions have we had from Iceland? A tiny little country with 400,000 people. But yet several of the – That's unfair advantage. Yeah.

You're Icelandic band. But yeah. So I mean there are arguments that can be made that inherently sports are unfair and there are sort of valid points to that. But I'm definitely someone who – I want to see things as fair as possible. And if there does appear to be a significant unfair advantage, then I think that's something that needs to be addressed. I think we don't have the data we need to really say that. The data we do have actually lends itself to saying it is fair, at least as far as we can tell. Like I said, CeCe and Leah Thomas are the lone exceptions.

I mean people point to people like – are both of you familiar with Fallon Fox? I've heard the name. So she was one of the early ones. Fallon was actually outed. She was fighting in women's MMA and this is the one, whenever you hear about, you know, trans female fighter, you know, breaks another woman's skull and like all these things. So Fallon Fox is the person they're talking about. Now there's some things with that. So Fallon was five and one as a pro and which sounds pretty darn good. Right. And then it got to the point where after she was outed, um, like she was threatened a lot. Um,

most everyone refused to fight her and it was a lot of problems and she just ended up retiring. But so people will point, well, she was five and one as a pro. She fractured this woman's skull, like all this stuff. She's out there just murdering women. If you dig a little deeper, like most things that have, you know, a political nature to them, there's a lot of exaggerations and a lot of truths that have been stretched along a long ways. So I believe the combined record of the women that she beat was like eight and 22. Two of these women had no victories whatsoever. Um, and one of, and the, the big one, the skull fracture was actually an orbital fracture of the bone that goes around the eye, which is a very common injury in MMA.

And she's not the only woman that has done that or another woman has suffered it. That's happened multiple times in women's MMA. And I'm not saying this to say that there were no issues there and nothing ever needed to be addressed, but just that to say that this is a good example of how things get exaggerated. Yeah, yeah. And something where, yeah, this is Fallon here. And to where things get blown out of proportion and not looked at, not assessed fairly.

And like I said, it didn't make it sound like she split someone's head in half when it was an orbital fracture, which is one of the most common injuries in MMA. Yeah. And I think the interesting thing about this, what we're talking about right now is we're still talking about how these individuals have transitioned from male to female and it's affecting women's sports, like high level women's sports. But there isn't an effect. I don't think that male athletes at a high level feel remotely threatened or even care about this battle for a person who's transitioning from female to male. I think that seems to be one of the biggest things because top male sports like top male powerlifters, top male NBA players. Are they worried about some woman transitioning and taking their gold? Even Serena Williams has mentioned in an interview that she wouldn't even want to be in the top. She wouldn't ever want to compete against the top males, let alone she wouldn't be in the top 100 when competing against male athletes.

And she's the best female tennis player ever. That's a very good point. And the funny thing is that – so the assumption is right that a trans man, someone who's transitioned from female to male, would never have a chance against male athletes. So there's no one's worried about that, right? Currently, that seems to be the logic. So we've had one trans athlete that's qualified for the U.S. Olympic team. You know who that is? I don't know who that is.

Chris Mosier, a trans man. OK. So the only – no trans women have qualified to make the team. And Chris didn't compete in the Olympics but qualified to be on the U.S. Okay. Um, so the only, no trans women have qualified to make the team and Chris didn't compete in the Olympics, but qualified to be on the U S team and competes in, I believe the doathlon. He's a triathlete that for the U S team was in the doathlon.

And, um, and I believe qualified in another event, like one of the, I forget the exact actual name of it. It's like the speed walking event, but like these endurance events. That shit's crazy. Yeah.

Oh, it's pretty crazy. They go fucking fast. Yeah. But it's funny. Yeah, the assumption is nobody cares what the trans men are doing, right? Because that's not a threat to the men based on the fact that, oh, how could – you said Serena, said she would never be close to being competitive with the top males. So that's that assumption, right?

But then with very few trans men. Well, that's what she said. Yeah, that's what she said, right? And that's her assumption. But then again, give, you know, some of those women androgens, their performance is going to increase, which we know from women in sports that do partake in that. It does have a significant impact on performance and it does with males as well. I mean, all steroids are based on testosterone.

You give more of that, more strength, more muscle mass and often speed and explosiveness and things like that. So we know these things have a large impact. But yeah, the assumption that trans men have no chance competing at a high level. Well, Chris Mosier, like I said, is the lone trans athlete to make a U.S. team. And then we've also had, I don't know if you're familiar with Mac Beggs. So Mac is an interesting case. So Mac was a wrestler in Texas, trans man, So it was cis female and transitioning to male.

And so in high school, Mack wrestled as a freshman and sophomore in the girls division. And Texas has separate divisions. A lot of states don't. A lot of states, boys and girls still wrestle together. But Texas has separate divisions. So then Mack, after his sophomore year, started testosterone and wanted to compete in the men's division, in the boys' division, but was not allowed to because Texas had passed a law and this was aimed at targeting trans girls, preventing trans girls from competing with

cis women. But inadvertently it backfired on them and it forced Mac to have to stay in the girls division so then his yeah so his junior and senior year he competed in the girls division and won two state championships back to back now granted Mac was already really good but hadn't won a state championship yet but by his junior and senior year and being on testosterone won two state championships was severely harassed booed at all the, and caught a lot of flack for this. Even though this isn't what he wanted, it was what he was forced to do. And he was wrestling, a lot of people don't know, he was wrestling in USA Wrestling because they follow IOC protocol, allowed him to compete in the boys division. And he did quite well at the national level wrestling against boys in high school in these international style tournaments.

And then he went on to make a college wrestling team, but he had some injuries and there were some other issues. I actually met him in person recently and we talked about it. And I believe at this point right now, he's not wrestling for the college, but there were some other things that happened. But here's someone, he was having good success as a wrestler in the men's division

and wanted to compete that way. But some of these new laws that are aimed at preventing trans women from competing actually backfired, forced him to stay in the girls division. And he had a very, very difficult time because of that. But yeah, have we – will we see a trans man that threatens some of the top males? I don't know. Yeah. Now, I'm curious, what do you, because obviously there is a lot of unknowns within this, but since you have like far more

experience looking into this and understanding this, if you were to think of a solution, like what do you think is like, if you saw everything go ideally and you were like, this is what I would like to see happen, what would that look like? That's a great question. And honestly, I don't have a perfect solution. I don't think there is one right now. I think the most important thing is to keep studying everything in greater numbers, everything we can. And now that we're seeing more trans athletes competing openly, we'll be able to do this in greater numbers.

So I think number one is more research, continue to follow everything, adjust the rules as we go. If we start seeing trans women having more success, we need to look at like, why is it, is this just how it is? And maybe this is something we need to modify the rules for. Then we need to do that. Or is it because where are their hormone levels? How long have they been on hormones? Do we need to go back to having more time before they're allowed to compete? Is the testosterone levels not suppressed enough? Do we need higher estrogen levels? And that's one thing. Actually, Johanna Harper, the woman I mentioned earlier, was in favor of further reducing the testosterone levels that trans women are allowed to have for

Olympic competition. And, and actually I think she wanted to cut it in half, but it was actually. The levels were, I think 200. Well, they were looking at a different,

it was a different scale where I think they were currently at 10 and they were looking at reducing them to five. I believe that's what she was proposing. And don't quote me on this. I believe that's what she was proposing. And don't quote me on this. I'm reciting all this from memory and stuff I've looked at a couple of years ago. But what I do absolutely know for a hundred percent sure is that she was recommending that they be reduced. And Joanna is trans as well. But she's a researcher and I think like her and I have very similar views as far as like fairness in sports and not having a specific angle that this is the result we want regardless of what the research says. We're more looking at it from what does the research say.

And – but actually that was chosen at that time by the entire committee not to reduce it. And there's people – some people arguing that the testosterone levels don't matter. I do not believe that. I think testosterone levels absolutely do matter. And that's something that does need to be looked at closely as far as athletes are concerned. I mean it's as simple as to – if that was the case, then why are steroids banned? I mean if androgen levels don't matter, then it's clear I think that they do. If we're looking at this from a realistic perspective, androgen levels do matter.

Estrogen levels do matter. The question is where do those levels need to be? How long do they need to be there? And is that – when are we going to see enough numbers to say, OK, this does – this absolutely does make it fair or this is – there's some things we're going to have to look at here and try to figure out the best way we can. But I honestly – yeah, as far as like a perfect solution right now, I don't know that there is one. I think that at this point, like if we look at the IOC, so trans athletes have been able to compete. People don't realize this either. They think this is all really new and think this has all just come apart about in the last few years.

But actually trans athletes have been able to compete at the Olympics since 2004. So we're going on like two decades. Wow. Yeah. People don't realize that. And so if we look at that and we say, okay, this has been able to be done for two decades. Now, granted, do we know how many trans athletes have tried to make the teams? We don't. Some may have done it more in secret.

Some have been open about it. I do know of a number of trans women that have tried and failed to make any of the teams for any of their countries. There was a Canadian cyclist. Oh, gosh, it's been years since I've looked through some of this stuff. But there's been a number of trans athletes that have tried to make teams and didn't even make the teams for any of their countries. There was a Canadian cyclist. Oh gosh, it's been years since I've looked through some of this stuff, but there's been a number of trans athletes that have tried to make teams and didn't even make the teams. And, but so in, in almost two decades of them being able to compete, there has been zero Olympic medals, zero world records, zero, you know, success at the Olympic level of any kind by any of these trans women.

So if this was the advantage that a lot of people think it is, if it was as simple as a guy throwing on a dress and their performance was exactly the same, why haven't we seen more success? The same thing in the NCAA. Like I said, we've seen a couple girls now, but why haven't they come in and dominated? I mean, if you look at a lot of sports, there are high school males that can beat the best women in the world, right? In a lot of different events. So why haven't some trans women come along and just crushed everybody? And I think the answer is the hormones have much more of an

impact than a lot of people want to admit. And it's not as easy as it sounds. And plus the level of female sports is increasing and, you know, we're seeing, and that's both due to, we're seeing a greater number of females, you know, entering competition. It's becoming much more socially acceptable. And we're seeing, you know, girls get into things like athletic training, lifting, and all those things at an earlier age. So that's, you know, women's sports are advancing at a much quicker rate. Like in powerlifting, the women are, the records and their success is increasing exponentially.

But really it's not fair and that we just need to pull all the – that no trans woman should be allowed to compete in any sport. I don't think that's the right answer. Testing, just using blood work would be interesting. But then I don't even understand – I don't even know where to begin with that because somebody's levels could be so crazy. And I believe there was a woman at the Olympics this year or maybe like whatever the last Olympics were who dominated. But she had like a particular condition. Castor Simania. She has intersex.

She has testicles or something, right? Well, so she has an intersex condition of which there's a great number of intersex conditions. There's things like Klinefelter syndrome, which people have a Y chromosome but have multiple X chromosomes. I actually know a couple of people that have this. So are you guys familiar with like phenotype and genotype? So genotype is like your XY chromosomes, what your chromosomes say. Phenotype is how you present physically. And so there'll be people that are genotypically, and here's another thing, and this kind of shows the bias of the researchers,

but so anyone that has a Y chromosome, regardless of how many X they have or whatever else is going on is automatically deemed genotypically male. So you could have Klinefelter syndrome and have four X chromosomes but have one Y. They're still going to say you're genetically male even if you present phenotypically female. And so a lot of these intersex conditions, they are people that phenotypically present female. So they're born with a vagina. Most people would identify them as a woman. Um, when, as they get older, they often develop breasts and, um, but definitely phenotypically more, more female present female, but genotypically they'll have a Y chromosome they never knew they had. And no one knows until

often it's when they get to the age of menstruation and they're not menstruating after they're, you know, they might be 16, 17 years old and still never had a period. Then they find out, oh, you have this intersex condition. You have, you know, underdeveloped female reproductive parts. Maybe they have some gonadal tissue that they never knew of. Sometimes they'll enter puberty and that small amount of gonadal tissue will start producing testosterone and then they'll start to masculinize at that point. There's a whole bunch of different conditions. There's, I mean, Turner syndrome, Klinefelter syndrome, 5-alpha reductase deficiency.

There's a whole bunch of conditions that fall underneath this intersex spectrum that lead to these things happening. In sports, we've seen this. There's a book called Sporting Gender that actually goes back and looks at a lot of this. And intersexed women competing in the Olympics has been something that's happened from day one. Because of some of these conditions, it's likely that they had higher testosterone levels, which made them better athletes or at least had some effect in that. But this has been like since the early days of women competing in the Olympics, this has been an issue. And often these people have no idea they have these conditions.

Yeah. Apparently Castor didn't know. Yeah, no. Castor didn't know until this happened. And so the big controversy is, so some people are saying, well, that's not fair and that she should have to suppress her testosterone levels. But the other argument on the other side of the coin is, but this is her natural body. This is what her body does.

So now we're saying, so like are you going to – what if we find out some male has natural testosterone levels of 3,000? Are we going to say now you've got to suppress your testosterone levels because you make too much? So isn't that – but isn't that just part of genetic variation as humans too? We're all different. it's extremely complex yeah some people are you know faster than others some people can automatically jump better some people have you know much better natural endurance some people you know hearts are more efficient pump more blood and something as simple as like the size of michael phelps's feet yeah you know it's like you're gonna have you're gonna let everyone else in the uh event swim with flippers to equal out the same length of his foot or whatever. Yeah, it's where do you draw that line at?

What is part of sport? I know I'm mentioning some ridiculous stuff, but it's on purpose just to kind of give visuals of what we're talking about. Yeah, but it all goes back to what's fair, what isn't fair, and what is just genetic human variation. And, you know, because obviously the top athletes in any sport at the very highest level have genetic traits that lend them to being more successful. So a quick, quick question. Do you think, because like, it seems that the line has currently just been drawn at sex, male, female, that like that, that, that single binary. But now it seems like But now it seems like we – do you believe it's necessary to kind of open that spectrum up a bit?

That's an interesting question. Is it necessary? There is an argument to be made that if there were no gender divisions, I think females as a whole would see their performance levels increase. I think if we look at – let's just look at CrossFit. There are some events in CrossFit where the women outperform the men. The run-swim runs. There's a couple of times where the women – the first overall finisher was a woman. I'm sorry to interrupt.

One thing we do notice and this is something that we notice within endurance running and endurance sports in general, women do tend, women do tend to be able to better tolerate long-term endurance than men. And that's just across the board. Right. sport, yes. But then if you were to think of a pure power sport or a sport that needs like jumping ability, like basketball, that's where things can get a little muddier. The gap gets much wider. The gap gets much wider. For sure. Yeah. If we look at things like pure strength-based sports or pure speed sports, the gap between males and females is much larger. And that's going to go back to do with testosterone and other genetic advantages that males enjoy.

Yeah, so that becomes really tricky. Yeah, if we just abolish divisions, how many women would they be able to compete? And I mean, the most likely answer is probably not, or at least not very well in any of the sports except maybe the sports that favor ultra endurance, right? Like I believe the only sport I'm aware of where the overall world record holder is a woman is long distance swimming. And the number one person in the world is a female. But yeah, but like I said too, like if we look at, we're just looking at statistics and take this from a purely clinical perspective, there are a handful of sports where there's

high school males that can beat the best women in the world currently. So yeah, would that be fair to just say, let's get rid of gendered sports altogether? I think prior to puberty, that's probably fair. I think prior to puberty, there's no, I think we all remember there was a girl in school who was faster than the boys or bigger, tougher, whatever. So until puberty, there is probably no need for gendered sports. But after that, I think it's also not reasonable to pretend that like with the hormones and puberty that that doesn't have an impact on performance. We know it does.

Andrew, maybe you can look up – I think it's like Billie Jean King, the tennis player. I believe she, there's a documentary on it. I think she played against a male tennis player, but I don't remember. Yeah, and she won. But it was like the 17th ranked guy. But that's still very substantial. It was something like that. Yeah, she beat Bobby Riggs in 1973 in the Battle of the Sexes tennis match.

I think we need to see more stuff like that. I think it would be interesting. I think – I think it would be fun as long as it's not a sport where people are going to get injured. I think women would have more success than people would expect they would. And I think, too, it's like anything else. When you're pushed to compete at a higher level, a lot of people will rise to that. True.

And I also think in skill sports, like sports that are primarily skill-based versus pure strength, speed, and endurance, that the gap would be much smaller. Switching gears here for a minute, and we can come back to this if we need to, but what some of your thoughts on uh jordan peterson um some of the statements he's made over the years i know like he's um i don't exactly recall all the different things that have happened with him but i believe he was under some fire with the trans community because he he he wouldn't address a certain i'm getting it all mixed up but maybe you know better than me. I know a little better than you, but honestly, I don't know exactly what happened in both sides of it to give a good opinion on whether I think he was right or wrong. I will say in general, I have heard some things he said that I strongly disagree with. I've heard other things he said that are logical arguments, and i am not in favor of legislating

anything into law as far as like forcing someone i think that's what he was so i think that was his big point early on i'm not sure how convoluted messy things have got since then yeah um but i i am not someone who's in favor of making it a law that you have to refer to someone the way they want to be addressed even though i think that should be done just out of respect and kindness. But I would not want to see where we're – legislating language is a very dangerous thing and it's a slippery slope. And once you start doing that with one thing, it opens the door to a lot of other things. So I'm not someone who's in favor of more government legislation in that way. Although, yes, do – would I prefer someone refer to me as Janae and not my previous

name? Absolutely. And do I prefer female pronouns? Yes. And if you choose to, if you know that and still choose to do the opposite, does that feel insulting? Absolutely. But not when I want to see a law. Well, no, that's totally different for me, for me and everyone's different. And some people, it may feel a lot more hurtful or – and feelings aren't right or wrong. They just are and everybody feels different about certain things and I don't think that – it's a slippery slope trying to legislate things like language and stuff like that. And I don't agree with that. I don't think that should be done. I think we should try to treat each other with kindness and love and mutual respect. To me, it's no different. So if someone, like if someone

met me and let's say they were kind of confused and weren't sure how to address me. And then I told them, well, Hey, my name's now Janae. I've legally, even regardless of whether I've legally changed it or not, but I prefer to go to buy Janae and my female and my, and I prefer female pronouns, she, her. And then they said – made the argument. Well, you were born with a Y chromosome. You're always going to be a male, blah, blah, blah. And I'm going to call you him and he and I'll call you by Matt because that's what your parents gave you when you were born.

Now, I would be insulted by that. But do I think there should be a law where this person should be arrested and thrown in jail for doing that? No, I don't. I don't think that helps the problem. To me, it's no different than, let's say you had a friend and his name was, no offense to any Francis's out there, but let's say his name was Francis and he didn't like Francis and he went by Bob. And he said, hey, you know, first day of class or whatever, teacher calls his name Francis. And can you call me Bob?

I mean, what's going to happen? They're going to say, okay, Bob, you know, sorry. Okay, Bob. I don't, that's just mutual respect, right? Like, why wouldn't you do that? I don't think anyone's going to have a problem with that if they just say, Hey, like Bob's not my actual name, but that's, you know, nickname from when I was a kid or whatever. And that's how I prefer to be addressed. I think it's the same way with pronouns or names or anything.

If somebody asks you, it's just mutual respect. Why not? Yeah. You know, it seems to be such a wild thing because like, I mean, as I started to learn more about this stuff a few years ago, there are aspects of it that I couldn't understand, but I was having a conversation with somebody and they literally said like, well, imagine that you have your body, but your brain is telling you that your body isn't right. Like that's, that's just your experience. Your brain says this body doesn't, isn't right. Like that's, that's just your experience. Your brain says this body doesn't, isn't corrected.

You go through life that way. And then you tell people, Hey, this is my mental model. I am a woman. This is, but we seem to understand it when somebody wants to shed weight, when they look at themselves in the mirror and they just want to be skinny.

Right. We can see that and we can understand that a little easier. Yes. But when somebody wants to, you know, change sexes or something, it's harder for us to imagine I guess maybe because maybe not everybody experiences that. Right, right. And the thing is – and there's actually a number of studies that actually back this up as being a physiological thing and not just a psychological thing.

There's differences in the brains. There's been a number of studies that have pointed to things like the androgen receptor density area and the hypothalamus. studies that have pointed to things like the androgen receptor density area in the hypothalamus. They've identified that there were trans women that – there was a small study that looked at brains post-mortemly. Obviously, we can't chop people's brains up while they're alive. But – and they found that the androgen receptor density in the one particular area of the hypothalamus was less in trans women than in males and was very much on level with cis females. And then there's been some other studies where they've done MRIs and they look at reactions to different things and found that trans kids, there was a high correlation with how their brains responded to certain things with their target gender versus their birth gender.

And so there's been a number of studies that have now, there hasn't been anything like conclusively, oh, well, every trans person, we can do this test on them and tell them whether they're trans or not. Nothing like that that exists. But there is a lot of evidence to suggest this is a physiological issue and not just a psychological. It's not that all trans people are crazy and we're delusional. It's that.

And I'm not implying that at all. I know you weren't going there. But some people obviously's that. And I'm not implying – That's not what I was trying to say, by the way. I'm not implying that at all. I know you weren't going there. But some people obviously believe that. Yes. And – Is there a mental health concern wrapped in there or is it only sometimes or – Well, I think it's like with mental health or anything else. It can be a comorbidity, right?

Like it could be part of it. I mean some people that are trans are also mentally ill in other ways. Some people – a lot of people aren't. And so it's something that may be an additional factor and maybe something – like if they have something like schizophrenia where there's other aspects that their reality is altered, that's something that may be considered with their choices that are going to affect how happy they are in their body. how happy they are in their body. But in and of itself, being trans is not something I would define as a mental illness, even though it's currently still included in the DSM, but so was homosexuality up until a few years ago.

It was, yeah. And I think that's more of a reflection of how society views gender versus the reality of the science behind it. What do we do with our bathrooms? It seems like parents are really upset about bathrooms, especially like in college. You're trying to cover them all up. I'm trying to learn as much as I can. I'm hoping I'm not going to get assaulted when I walk out of the thing.

Double-legged. I'll go down easy. Straight to the smother tap. But yeah, so the bathroom issue, that's another complicated one. But really, so here's the thing. That's largely has been way blown out of proportion, all right? Like as statistically speaking, trans women are not a threat to assault anyone in a women's restroom. That just hasn't happened.

I mean I've seen statistics many times over. There's been way more sexual assaults by US congressmen and senators in restrooms than trans women have ever committed. It's just, it's really a non-issue as far as this idea that there are trans women predators that are preying on young girls in restrooms and locker rooms and things like that. That is not a thing. It has not happened. It's not been a problem. That was something I think that people thought of or came up with maybe intentionally because of other views on trans people, but that's not a thing. If we look at where our children are most vulnerable, it's going to be in areas, especially it generally happens more often with little boys, and it's usually conducted by adult males and usually straight identifying males,

and it's usually by coaches, teachers, the areas where these males have lots of unsupervised access to young children. I mean, obviously there's been a problem in the Catholic churches for a long time, and that's one thing, too, and I don't want to get into this too much. But here's the thing too. Like, okay, so let's imagine that we had a handful of trans people who had molested young boys. I mean I think you – I think we can all probably agree that there would be a lot of people coming before Congress wanting laws changed, wanting prosecution, wanting all this stuff done to stop this. Even if it was only a small handful.

Literally with the Catholic Church, there are thousands of documented cases. And what has happened? They just switched churches. They switched them somewhere else. They're molesting different kids. Why is not more of an effort being made to stop this? I mean I think all of us agree that this is one of the most horrible things that can be done to another human being is to be

molested as a child. And we have all these known cases going on and nothing's being done about it. And I think as a society, we need to look at, well, why is this population immune to this? Why is this hardly being talked about when we've got other very small populations and there's one thing that happens and it's a huge deal and everybody's talking about it? So as a society, we need to look at why are real threats not being addressed and other very exaggerated threats or fake threats being addressed over and over and over again. So I think there's a lot of – and this is a messy topic, right? Because politics come into this, personal beliefs, religion, all these things are rolled into this and things that people hold very dear and important and also they identify with. And it's when, as we know, like when you identify with a particular group, our instincts are to defend that group no matter what, even if they're in the wrong. And so it's just a very messy topic with a lot of problems and a lot of, I don't think, easy solutions.

But I think it's something we really need to look at more. Yeah, it is tough because especially when religion gets baked into this, Yeah, it is tough because especially when religion gets baked into this, you know, when I've been reading about like people's experiences and I grew up Christian, but there's say that they were attracted to the same sex. But, you know, biblically, that is a sin. So they go through life with this level of confusion and thinking, I am a sinner for this and I am a sinner for that. And then they cannot express that. And then mentally that fucks with them because they're like, oh, God, God doesn't love me anymore. Right. I'm a terrible person. I'm a sinner. I'm horrible. I'm a terrible person. I'm a sinner. I'm horrible. And then now let's like children who grew up in that type of environment. But let's say that they don't feel that they're in the correct body.

You know, it becomes tough when religion gets weaved into a lot of this. And I know the people who are religious in the audience are going to flame me for this. But it's just like it's almost as if that just needs to be removed from some of these situations. I would agree. And I'm sure there's religious people that are needs to be removed from some of these situations. I would agree. And I'm sure there's religious people that are going to have very strong opinions about this. But here's the thing, too. I think whenever we talk about religion, we need to understand there's not one religion in the world. And I think everybody thinks that their religion is the right one.

But there are literally hundreds of religions. Yes. And every single person that practices every one of those religions thinks theirs is the right one and thinks everybody else is crazy and wrong. My ancestors worshipped at like nature and like they would pray to their ancestors. My ancestors in Nigeria, right? But that ended up being wiped out by the British who came with Christianity. And then Christianity became the religion of my great-grandfather and my – you know what I mean? So it's just like –

That's what they were taught. That's what you end up being taught and that ends up what's being – what's right. And again, to the people who are Christians in the audience, sorry. That's just how shit goes. Yeah. And the thing is – and I want to say just to be clear on this. I am fully in support of anyone being able to practice any religion they want to and having that right as long as they're not harming anyone else in the process. And the same thing and having the right to not practice any religion if they don't want to.

Nothing should be forced upon them. Absolutely. But I also do think there needs to be a separation of church and state. And I think that's been something that right from the start that was never meant to be. But people argue that, but it becomes very convoluted, right? Because not everybody believes in the same religion. So if we were all agreeing on the same rule set,

that would be a totally different case altogether. But the reality is we don't as a people and everyone should have that right to practice their beliefs and live, like I said, as long as they're not harming anyone else, do what is right to you and what you believe in. Absolutely. But you, at the same time, you shouldn't be allowed to affect other people's lives by forcing your beliefs upon them. Exactly. And I think that's, that's the main difference. And then when it comes to you and

like that point you hit on, that's exactly how I grew up. I was raised Catholic and I came, my mom's side of the family, especially was old school Catholics. And when my grandma found out about me being trans, when I got outed on social media, she disowned me. I never spoke to her again. Is she still around? No, she passed away a couple years ago in her early 90s. She was a feisty, feisty old woman right to the last day. And I thought about going to try to visit her and explain things. But she was a stubborn old woman.

I don't see that would have made any difference. I probably would have stressed her out. I might have sent her to her grave a bit early. So I decided just to stay away. And I understood. What about other family members? That's interesting. So family was pretty much split 50-50.

And the funny thing was some of the aunts and uncles – so my mom comes from a big family. She was one of seven brothers and sisters. There were 23 grandchildren, of which I was the oldest, and almost all of us were born within a 10-year span. So growing up, everything happened to grandma and grandpa. We called them granny and pa. And at their house, like all the birthdays, holidays, Christmas Eve every year was over their house and all of us cousins grew up very close. And the funny thing is after I fully came out, some of the aunts and uncles that I was closest to no longer speak to me. And some of the people that I wasn't as close to reached out and were very supportive.

And I think that's one thing for people if there's anyone out there listening that is contemplating coming out right now, whether that's about their sexuality, gender identity, or whatever it is. The one thing I can say is you never know how people are going to react. You can be really close to people and think that, wow, this person, I know this person's going to be supportive and they might not be. And you can think this person's never going to understand and they will shock you and be very supportive. You just never know how people are going to react. It's such an unpredictable thing. But yeah, like one of my uncles who was a weightlifter himself and I was the greatest nephew in the world, winning the world championships, breaking the world record.

And growing up, he would tell me things like he wished I was his son and all this stuff. And then now I haven't seen him since. And we've talked a little bit on the phone and talked about getting together in person, but it hasn't happened. So family was pretty much split like 50-50. I mean I haven't – I wasn't invited to Christmas for a number of years. I was invited then. That's a good way to not get invited to Christmas because you're always trying to figure your way out anyway. Yeah, you want to get out of things. Hey, just come out as trans right before Christmas. I don't trying to figure your weight out anyway. Yeah. If you want to get out of things, Hey, just come out as trans right before Christmas.

I don't want to go to that shit anyway. And, uh, but things like weddings and stuff, I would get invited and then uninvited when they realized that I was going to be presenting like this. Did that hurt? Um, yes and no. Um, at times it did like not getting invited to my own family's Christmas. Um, it was definitely hurtful. Um, and then, it was like, hey, if that's how you feel, then fine. But sometimes it was surprising, sometimes not so much. I mean, for me, it's not like, I think I've been much different had I transitioned when

I was, I can't imagine teenagers going through this. As difficult as it is to be a teenager with everything you're already dealing with and then to have that rejection by your families and especially by your own parents. I mean, I can't tell you how many trans kids have reached out to me and talked about, I know if I come out, my parents are going to disown me. And literally, you're talking about a 14, 15-year-old that will be kicked out of their home and basically thrown into the streets or to live with whoever if they acknowledge that they're transgender. There was a young Marine that reached out to me a number of years ago and said that they had basically hinted around. And I think their parents had some idea because of certain things about them. And they kind of hinted around about it.

And their parents, who were very religious, said to them, don't – like if you're going to tell us that – I forget how they phrased it. But basically if you're going to tell us you're trans or gay or something like that, don't because we will disown you. And basically said, don't say it. We don't want to hear it. And if we do, we will never speak to you again. And it's surprising. I can't – as a parent myself, I can't imagine ever saying that to my children about anything, no matter what it was. Yeah. Even if they did, even if they did something terrible, I couldn't disown them.

You know, Janae, I'm very curious about this because this is a, this is a topic that will get people up in arms and it's extremely divisive. It's either one or the other for most. But you knew you were trans since you said you were five years old. Yeah. Right? You knew. And you mentioned that you have trans kids that are reaching out to you.

Yeah. Now, this is a complicated issue because it's like people, kids especially, your long-term decision-making, it's not fully formed until you're 25 years old. And there are teenagers and kids who have felt that they weren't in – that they were trans. But later on, maybe that gender dysphoria, correct? That's true.

That tends to dissipate as they get older. For some. For some people, it does. And for some people, they're correct. And maybe they chose to see a psychiatrist because typically if you want to get any hormone blockers or anything, you need to get medical consultant first before you go through that. And they've been correct. But one thing that people are starting to see some a bit more of is like people that maybe they're detransitioning because they realize that they made the wrong decision when they were younger. If you know, you're good. But if you think you know, and then you end up regretting it later, it's like, then what, is that wrong that that person made that decision?

Because I've seen a few people get interviewed about their detransitions and it seems as if like they tend to get flamed by some people in the trans community because they're like, well, you know, like you made that decision. It doesn't need to wreak havoc on everybody else. It's a very complicated issue. And I'm glad you brought this up. I mean, we're hitting all the hard topics today, but this is an important thing. So that's a huge topic right now, right? About kids transitioning young. So I think there's a couple of things we need to get out first, and then we can talk about this as a whole. Okay.

So, yeah, with detransition, I think it's one important thing to note. It's actually extremely rare in that, like, if you do – so, like, the latest studies, and I think this was a meta-analysis of a whole bunch of studies, But it's something in the neighborhood of 97, 98 percent of all people that transition are extremely happy that they did. And then there's a small percentage that have detransitioned and regret it but not because they felt it was the wrong choice but because of how their life became. That they were discriminated against. That they're disowned by their families, that it caused a lot of difficulty in their life. And they're just like, this isn't worth it. It's not because I'm not trans, but it's just not worth how difficult this is and what it did for my life.

And then there is a small number of people who transition and was like, this was absolutely a mistake. I never should have done it and it's ruined, you know, ruined my life or, or caused me a lot of, a lot of stress. The actual percentage for that is, is very small. And if we go onto YouTube and I'm sure if you look up, if you Google detransition videos, you'll find a few right away and they're going to be very popular. They're gonna have hundreds of thousands of views. What I tended to do was like when I was, cause Reddit is a wild place, but like there's obviously there's the Reddit for individuals who are trans and there's great discussion with people who are trans within there. But then there's also a Reddit for people who have chosen to detransition for

support. And there's a lot of individuals in there who have gone through that and they're getting support there for that. So it's, I mean, any video, right. Especially when it comes to something like this is going to get a lot of people, especially conservatives, like, yeah, you see, you know what I get that. Um, but there does seem to be quite a few people who are struggling with that or they're currently in that and they don't know what's going on. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Give me, I'm getting there. Give me, give me one second.

So I guess my first point was that I think currently it's, it's appearing to a lot of people that detransition is a, is a, is a much larger percent of the community than it actually is. Now for those people, was this devastating in a, in a, in a decision that superior impacted their life in a negative way? Absolutely. But it just, my point is that where I was going, I'm sorry, keep bumping this thing.

Sorry I interrupted. No, no, no, you're totally fine and I just want to let you know where I was going. So that the percentage of people that actually do detransition percentage-wise is very small. Are there some? Absolutely. Were these people a big mistake for them and did they make a mistake?

Absolutely. But it's a very small percentage of the total population. Now, I do think there is a trend we're starting to see more and I think there's a couple reasons for that. And one, I think two, is that traditionally transition – and I even experienced this myself. So even the doctors that are treating this have been taught that it's all framed in a very binary way, right? You're male, you're female, and you have to pick one. And I even ran into this when I first started transitioning. And even though I totally identify as female and would feel much more comfortable in a body with breasts and a vagina, that's not a question for me at all.

I still, I blur those lines of gender. If we're talking gender stereotypes or what's considered masculine, what's considered feminine. And one of the initial ideas that I was proposed with by the first psychologist that I saw was that me getting, joining the Marines, competing in powerlifting, getting big and muscular, all these things was my attempt. And it may be this way for some people, but certainly not was for me, but this was my attempt to suppress my femininity and to fight against who I really was. So the idea was these other things that I was doing were solely as a means to compensate for who I really was. And that actually confused me a lot and caused me a lot of problems because

then, so I'm like, okay, that sort of makes sense. Maybe I am overcompensating. Maybe I'm doing these things. And in some ways I certainly did, but it wasn't with the competing. It wasn't with the weightlifting and it wasn't with the athletics. It was more with how I presented physically. Like I was, I was presenting hyper masculine all the time in an attempt to basically hide who I was from people being afraid that they would discover Like I was, I was presenting hyper-masculine all the time in an attempt to

basically hide who I was from people being afraid that they would discover that I was trans. But there's this idea with transition that you pick a team, one or the other, and that's all there is. And if you're not a male, well, then you have to be female. And if you're not a female, you have to be male. So then there's almost an encouragement that, well, here's the path to that. Here's the hormones. Here's what you do. You change these things and you adopt. And for a lot of people, it's a lot blurrier than that.

And we're starting to see people identify, and this is controversial to a degree as well, but as non-binary, gender fluid and things like that, which I also identify as and which confuses people sometimes. Well, wait a minute. You're trans or you're non-binary or you're gender fluid. Those are three different things. You can't be all three. And my answer to that is these are all simply terms that we're using to describe ourselves.

And us as humans, we're very complex and very complicated. And for me, all those terms apply. I'm trans in that I have a gender identity that is not congruent with the body I was born in. I feel much more comfortable as a female. There's no question for me in that whatsoever. But also I don't fit into identify as non-binary because I don't fit into this neat box of masculine, feminine, and there's no crossing over. I blur those a lot.

And that's parts of my – it doesn't change my identity as far as who I am. But it does change how I interact in the world, how I present on a daily basis some days. And then there's a degree of fluidity to my gender as well. Some days I do feel more masculine. It doesn't mean I feel like I'm not trans anymore. That never happens. No, I still identify the same way every day. But some days I do feel more masculine in certain situations.

If you come watch me compete in a jujitsu competition or when I competed in powerlifting, and again, this is very nebulous because what exactly is masculine? What exactly is feminine? How much of that have we been conditioned to believe this is a certain way males behave and a certain way females behave? And you can almost break down every one of those arguments. So it's a very complicated thing. You can almost break down every one of those arguments.

So it's a very complicated thing. But stereotypically speaking, I blur masculinity and femininity quite a bit. And there is also a degree of fluidity. Some days the way I present and maybe carry myself is much more feminine or people would see that as much more feminine and other days more masculine. I'm like if I come roll with you tonight in jujitsu, I'm probably going to appear less feminine than I do right now, even in my behavior and mannerisms. Um, but, uh, but so I think, but what I was getting back to the original point with transition is that it's not that simple for everybody. I think there are different degrees of it there.

You, you are going to have your children at three or four years old. There have been little trans girls that are grabbing scissors and trying to cut their penises off when they're three and four years old because they're like, mommy, daddy, this is wrong. Something's wrong with me. That's not supposed to be there. And forcing this child to go through a male puberty would be absolutely devastating to them. And there's a high, you're greatly increasing the risk of them committing suicide at that point. So there are some children that do need to be allowed to transition at a younger age. And the thing is before puberty, all that means is letting them present more like their target gender, wearing different clothes, maybe growing their hair out

or getting their hair cut short, whichever, and things like that. And then give it time and see, haircut short, whichever, and things like that. And then give it time and see, now is this something that's persistent and significant? Or is it something that maybe they were going through a stage, maybe they were experimenting with things or trying to figure things out, and some people are going to be like, no, that's not for me. Or is it a case where someone, gender is just a really blurry thing to them. Some people feel much more comfortable being more androgynous. Some people don't feel like they're any gender and there's nothing wrong with that either. And those people should be allowed to live any way they want to live, but they shouldn't necessarily. The problem is, is when they go into therapy or go see a doctor and say, Hey, I'm having these issues with my gender. And then the only option presented is, well, here's how you fix that.

Okay. You need to take the opposite hormones. We need to block yours. And this is where you're going. And this is the only path to solution. And so I think that is part of the problem is, is we're getting some people as children that are, they're blunt, maybe their gender is a little more blurry, or maybe that they're not a hundred percent certain they're trans. And if they transition at that point, yeah, that's going to be a serious problem for them later down the road. But also I don't think we need to enact laws. Absolutely, I know we don't,

that prevent all these trans kids from getting the care they absolutely need. People point to statistics like the fact that like 43% of all trans people have attempted suicide. And then some people will say, yeah, that's because they're all crazy and they're all nuts and this is just part of that. No, the reality is imagine for a minute like either of you being put in a female body and just saying deal with it and there's nothing you can do about it. It's going to be extremely traumatic. It's going to be extremely difficult and it's going to drive a lot of people to consider ending their lives.

And if we take away these options for them to have a path to fix these things and imagine like, so here's a perfect example. A lot of, a lot of boys when they hit puberty, hormones get out of whack and they develop gyno, gynecomastia and start to develop breasts. And, um, and then no one thinks anything of them being given hormones to suppress that or having surgery to remove that. And I do personally know some boys who had double mastectomies because when they started going through puberty, they developed enough breast tissue where the only way to treat it was to remove it. And no one said, hey, that's the body that God gave you. That's how you're meant to be. You shouldn't be doing those things.

But then you hear that same argument made with trans kids and that's the reality. People need to be able to be comfortable in their own skin and if it is something that's that serious in nature, taking away that ability is going to increase suicide, is going to increase depression and is going to cause these people a lot of suffering. these people a lot of suffering. So we need to have those options available for people, but at the same time, not pushing people in one direction or the other and letting them give them time to figure things out and, um, and not presenting here's the only option you have. Okay. If you're not comfortable with that gender, boom, you need to be the other one then. And I think that's a big problem with, um, people who get into this with good intentions or practitioners that have good intentions and want to help these people, but still have a very binary view of gender themselves and inadvertently

push these people to take a path that may not be right for them. So I think that may be something that a lot of people, when they're looking at this from, let's say they're watching Fox News or they're watching a Jordan Peterson interview, people think that like, oh, if a kid, you know, if they're having these thoughts, someone's just going to give them some medication. But there's a lot of steps that people take before prescribing anything or going through with anything. Yeah, and that's another big problem that isn't being properly addressed is that it's this idea that kids are just being jabbed left and right with different hormones and we put on blockers instantly. It's actually a very difficult process. And for adults, in my opinion, there's way too much gatekeeping. I mean,

you can do pretty much anything else you want to your body. You can tattoo yourself head to toe, all over your face, whatever you like, pierce everything. I know there's a couple of people who tried to turn themselves into lizards and all other kinds of stuff. And we don't have a problem with needing laws to stop any of that. But oh my gosh, somebody wants to change their gender. Boom, there better be laws in place. There better be restrictions. Doctors shouldn't be allowed to help them, yada, yada, yada. But the reality is there is a lot of gatekeeping. And the problem is that it forces you to play the game. So for me, I had no doubt that I needed female hormones to feel. So like for me, I had no doubt that I wanted, I needed female hormones to feel more comfortable in my body.

I had no doubt I needed these medical procedures. But I also knew that gender, like I said before, why identify also as non-binary and gender fluid, that it wasn't that simple for me. It wasn't like, okay, I'm not going to, I have no intention of becoming this stereotypical like a Victoria's Secrets model girly girl. That's not me either. But I had to at times like tell my therapists what I knew they needed to hear in order to get access to the things I needed. So it forced me

to present something that wasn't 100% accurate because I knew if I said anything about, like if I said, well, I really do like lifting weights. I really do like being big and muscular, that there was a good chance they were going to say, you're not trans, timeout, you're not getting hormones. It's not right for you. So that call is all in their power. And so for me to get access to hormones, I had to downplay those things and give them, present a picture that was more stereotypically feminine or I would have been denied. Can I ask you a question? This question is probably something that doesn't even have an answer because when it comes to anybody who's having any of these experiences, they're so individual that doctor does need to help each person on their own.

But what if like what you think that, you know, if there's a child or a kid, 14, 15, whatever. I was watching this interview of this girl. She transitioned from male to female and she doesn't want to detransition. She doesn't want to. But as an adult, her name is Taftaj, T-A-F-T-A-J. She feels as if, because when she transitioned and even when I looked at her, I was like, wait, I didn't even know until halfway through the interview that she was formerly a man. But what happened was she was mentioning how when she transitioned, what happened with her was a doctor gave her puberty blockers she took she took medications um and she wishes she waited a little bit longer because what happened when she was younger was she ended up losing a lot of

friendships her mental health kind of spiraled and she doesn't think that now even though 99% of people are she's passing to 99% of people, that doesn't necessarily make her, it didn't, let's say, cure the issues that she still continues to have. What I'm wondering here, though, is this. If, you know, you knew that with your doctor what to say to get what you needed. Now, teenagers are savvy. If they feel the answer for me is to transition. I know if I transition and I can just pass that I will feel better. So if I answer these questions in this way because there's probably ways to answer certain questions so you can get that done, isn't that really muddy? Yes.

Oh, a hundred percent. Um, and I think that's part of the problem is the standards for care for transgender people were developed in the 1980s and haven't been updated since. And there are a few practitioners out there that, um, are willing to, um, be more flexible with those standards and rules. And, but then there's other physicians that think these, these physicians are very dangerous and going outside the established protocol. But, but yeah, I think, I think the biggest point here is that again, just like with sports and just like with some of these other issues, it's not, it's not a yes, no answer. It's not a one size fits all. We just got to go back to the fact that humans are very complex.

We're very complicated. No two of us are exactly alike. And there's a different path for a lot of people that's right for them that might not be right for anybody else. And I think trying to establish anything that's a one-size-fits-all is inherently going to cause a lot of problems. And so with kids, and I think we absolutely need to have the ability for some of these kids that they can start transition when puberty starts, or you're putting them at serious risks of extreme depression and suicide, but then also not having it in a way that's pushing anybody into anything that they're not ready for and also encouraging some degree of caution.

I mean, like I said, there's going to be some kids that from day one, there's going to be no question. Like this kid's trans and the longer we prolong it, the harder their life's going to be. And especially if you force them to go through a puberty that doesn't feel comfortable, it'd be no difference than giving a boy who's not trans, giving him hormones, making him grow boobs and everything and say, well, let's make sure. Try those out for six more years. And then when you're sure, then you can have them removed later on. So there's definitely – we need to be able to treat those people and we need to be able to also not force people into, well, hey, here's your only two options.

And if you are who you say you are, this is what you need to do. And that's the only way you're going to be happy. I've met a lot of people through my talking. And for those people who don't know, I do a lot of speaking at colleges, high schools and businesses and things like that about all these different topics. And it's always great to meet all these different people and have these conversations afterwards. And I meet so many people now that do you know, do feel like it's gender is very blurry for them in that, like, Hey, I know, I know I don't feel comfortable in the body I was born in, but I don't, I'm not sure I want to go all the other way either. Like I'm more happy being in the middle and there's a lot

of people that fall in there. And I know a number of people who take low doses of testosterone and are happy with a little bit of masculinization. I know some people that are happy just blocking their own testosterone, lowering their levels and maybe just a tiny bit of estrogen. And transition can look like a lot of different things to a lot of different people. There isn't a one-size-fits-all. a one size fits all. And just because you even see this within the community, you would see people pressuring other people or sometimes arguing, or like I've been told by other trans people that I'm not really trans because if I was, I wouldn't still be so muscular and that I would get slimmer and do all these things and more conform to society standards of what a quote unquote woman

is supposed to be. And so we do see some of that as well. And I, and like you mentioned, like I can see where, you know, some of these people de-transitioning are being attacked and where people feel threatened and you're going to take away our ability to be trans. You're going to make our life harder because we are trans because you're

de-transitioning. And I think it's important to have those stories told as well. And, but I think like I said, the, um, we need to look at the big picture. There is no, and I'm probably sounding like I'm repeating myself a lot here, but humans are extremely complex and very complicated. There's no one size fits all. And that also goes along with like hormone therapies and, and what's appropriate to start one person

at an age isn't appropriate for another person. Yeah. And it's just – we want a simple answer and unfortunately I don't think there is one. And this is where, again, with sports, with transition, with kids and hormones, with a lot of these issues, people aren't that simple. Is your documentary still available for people to check out? It was called Transformer, right? Transformer, yeah. It's no longer on Netflix. I think they've had a certain length contract for several years. It's on there, but I believe it is on YouTube now and I think it's free on YouTube. And I know like Amazon Prime and some of the other services that can be purchased on there,

like a lot of the downloadable. Yeah. And that, and that for people who aren't familiar, that covers my life for a two year period from when I was first outed publicly and beginning the first stages of transition. And how did that impact your family, like your mom, your dad, your kids, stuff like that? My sons, now my sons knew their entire life. I told them they were very young, two, four, and six. And so, and we were concerned, like me being outed publicly and having all this, that there would be, um, they may have to deal with difficulty at school from maybe coaches, teachers, peers, things like that. That didn't really happen with my sons. Fortunately, um, things went pretty well

that way. I mean, there were, I mentioned, I think off the air that, um, you know, there were some families on the wrestling team that said some nasty things behind our back and stuff like that. But aside from that, that went pretty smooth. Um, it was hard on my parents. Um, I'm from a very small town and, um, it, I felt bad that it forced them to have to confront some of this. And, um, and I would say they both, my, my father passed away father passed away about a year ago now. And he loved me and wanted me in his life no matter what.

But he also wasn't overly supportive about me being trans. He certainly wasn't thrilled about it. Do you kind of understand that or not really? Yes and no. I understand his difficulty in understanding it and especially with where he grew up at and the amount of education. His own life experiences. His own life experiences and all those things. And the world he grew up in and the world that surrounded him still to the day he died was a world that didn't understand trans people and was not very accepting of it.

So I understand why he struggled with it. I think the only thing that I would have maybe asked would have been that maybe he made a little more effort to understand, asked a few more questions, maybe did a little research on his own and allowed us to talk about it more. It was just something he was very uncomfortable with. It's easy just to say stuff's weird. It's weird or it's difficult. I don't want to talk about it. It's like, well, then it's always going to be in that category if we don't talk about it. Right. And it's easy to say, I don't understand that, so I don't want to deal with it. Boom.

Set it aside. And the hard part is to be like, okay, I don't get this. And I can understand from an outside perspective, if you've never had feelings like that, if you're perfectly comfortable in your body, yeah, the idea of, yeah, me saying I want a vagina and bye-bye penis, I'm sure a lot of people will be like, what in the heck? They can't understand. Yeah, they can't understand it. And I get that.

But the idea is, is like, have these conversations, speak to some people. Most of the people that what you'll find is most of the people that really hate trans people or have a really issue with it have never had a conversation with a trans person, probably don't know any and don't understand that perspective. Or sometimes maybe the only interaction they've had was a very negative one. Well, the thing is too, and I always tell people too, trans people, we're like everybody else. Some of us are great, loving, kind people. Some of us are jerks. I mean, there's some trans people that are just as big a, you know, idiots as anybody else. Just the fact they're

trans doesn't prevent that. And so, but yeah, like reach out to people you don't understand, you know, and those aren't always easy conversations to have. And not every trans person is willing to have those either. I'm someone who's very open and very comfortable talking about everything. Other people, it's very difficult. It's a very personal thing. And especially when people go right to, you know, are you going to have the bottom surgery? They make it all about the body and all about surgery. That's something that feels it's very like objectifying and very much reduces you to

a set of genitalia. So that is definitely not the best way to approach things and start asking about that right away. And some people are comfortable talking about those things. Some people aren't. And just like with other, lots of other issues. But yeah, I think for all of us and even myself, like when I come across people who are very, you know, think that I'm some crazy nut that should be silenced. And I mean I've had people tell me that they think every trans person should be erased from this earth, that we should all be killed, rounded up, executed and gotten rid of because we're nothing more than a plague. And honestly with those people, I want to have those conversations. I want to be able to talk to them. And it's easy to hate something you don't understand or have had no exposure to. It's much more difficult to hate something when you've had a personal connection

to it. And that's why I think it's so important to be visible and to be open and be willing to talk about these things, even though they're not easy. Power Project Family, how's it going? So no matter what diet you're on or no matter what supplements you take, it's necessary as you get older to know what's going on under the hood. That's why I've partnered with Merrick Health. They're the Pimentel Health Clinic owned by Derek from More Plates, More Dates. And we have a panel that will allow you to get all of your labs done and checked in a super easy fashion. Andrew, how can they get it? Yeah, you guys got to head over to merrickhealth..com slash PowerProject. That's M-A-R-E-K Health.com slash PowerProject. And at checkout, enter promo code PowerProject to save $101 off of this comprehensive panel.

Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. I appreciate you talking about the hard stuff, and this will be the hardest of all. Yeah. What happened to your son? I think it's Garrett, right? Yeah. I'm going to apologize now for getting emotional. But my middle son Garrett passed away on August 1st.

Yeah, I remember seeing that on Instagram. I was like, what the fuck? Yeah. And, um, anyone that knows me, I mean, for any parent losing a child, um, is extremely traumatic and probably the worst thing we can go through in life. Um, and for me, I mean, my boys and I are very close and, um, this has been by far, um, the most difficult thing I've ever experienced. It's just, you know, it's one of those things. And I used to say this all the time, like when people would ask about having kids or were at a point in their life, they were considering it and, you know, didn't know if it maybe was right for them or just, you know, wanted to hear about my thoughts. And I'm someone that always knew I wanted to be a parent and it was very easy decision for me and nothing in life has come close to being rewarding as rewarding.

And so like losing one of my children was the one thing I would always say that the only downside to having children ever was worrying about something happening to them. And then actually having been through it now, it's – I'll say there are some things that are just as bad as I expected. It's every bit as horrible as any parent would think it would be. But it's also been different in some ways I didn't expect. It's been – I want to say it's still – so it was August 1st and now it's January 16th or 17th. And it still feels surreal. It's still like logically I know this happened.

Logically I know he's gone. But I think psychologically it's hard to grasp that. And, you know, every day I walk past his room and I think about all the things, you know, we shared and did together and things I still wanted to do. And those things that you did do together, those still exist. Yeah, 100 percent. Powerful. And that's the best part of it. But yeah, it's been every bit as horrible as you would think it would be.

And it's not something, I think it's one of the only things in life. There is no, you don't get over it. It doesn't get better. You just learn how to cope with it. And for me, fortunately, I've been able to still find pleasure in the things that I normally enjoy. I still find pleasure in competing in jujitsu and spending time with my other two boys and doing all of those things. But not a day goes by where I don't think, and I literally, honestly, I think about him all day long every day and I think that'll probably be the case for the rest of our lives um it's just you know there's

so many reminders constantly of him every time like with jiu-jitsu Garrett was a wrestler and uh we talked about that stuff a lot so like when I won he was pretty fucking good huh yeah yeah he was he was a division one all- wrestler. Could he beat up Dad or not really? Sometimes. And yeah, he got the best of me sometimes. He was pretty— When he snuck up on you, probably. Yeah.

But he was tough. Very tough kid. But I think it's like—I think if there's any messages I want to get across to people that either are going through this or may unfortunately have to deal with this in the future, it's that suppressing grief is not a good option. Especially you see a lot of men that have been taught not to deal with their feelings and not to show emotion. with their feelings and not to show emotion. And I don't think that's a good thing regardless of the situation, but especially with something like this. You can't process things if you don't allow yourself to grieve.

You have to confront it. You have to feel those feelings, and you're not able to move forward until you do. Andrew, can you grab some tissues? I was trying to get someone else to run something over here. I mean, all we have is paper towels, okay? Yeah, that's fine. Thank you. Tissue or bathroom toilet paper or whatever.

But yeah, if there's anything I've learned thus far, it's been that you need to experience those feelings and deal with it as hard as it is. And it's been crushing. And I think that with my life, I've been known for being able to overcome adversity with all the injuries I had in powerlifting. I've been through cancer. Just being trans alone has been an extremely difficult thing to deal with all these years. But nothing has prepared me for how difficult this is. And like I said, I think it's unfortunately one of the only things

that doesn't get better or time doesn't heal quite all wounds, but you do learn how to keep living life in spite of it. Thank you. Has it brought you closer to your other children? I know that you're already close already Yeah, I don't Honestly, I don't know that it was possible to be any closer It does

I'm someone who's always been very conscious of Trying to maximize every minute I have with my boys So that's something One thing I can have some peace with Is that I know I made as much effort as I could to spend all the time I could with Garrett and to make those moments count. And so I can feel good about that. Like I know – like I don't have any regrets that like – of course I wish I could do more things with him.

Absolutely. But I don't have regrets like, oh, I blew him off when he needed me or I should have been there for him. Fortunately, I know like I don't have any thoughts like that. Like I was there as much as I could be and did everything that I thought I should. But yeah, it's just extremely difficult, extremely hard. There's no solution. There's no everybody deals with grief in different ways. You know, you get and then some days you'll feel I'll go through periods where I can think about him and talk about him without breaking down.

And then out of nowhere, it'll hit you all over again. And I'm definitely it's getting easier to talk about it. them without breaking down. And then out of nowhere, it'll hit you all over again. And, um, I'm definitely, it's getting easier to talk about it, but as you can see, it's still a long ways from being easy. Um, but I'm, I'm glad you brought it up and I'm happy to talk about it because I think difficult things like this, not very many people are comfortable, but I think it's an important conversation to have. Um, but yeah, grief like this is extremely difficult. And like I said, if there's anything I've learned is that you have to face it and you have to deal with it. And by burying down, and actually, I'm actually concerned about my youngest son a little bit as far as him dealing with all of this. He's had much less of a reaction than we expected. And he's been seemingly very okay. And it concerns us a bit just because him and Garrett were very close and he seems to be downplaying it.

You know, his comments right afterwards were that, you know, Garrett wasn't that big a part of my life. It won't affect me that much. And we're concerned. And everybody's different. In general, his attitude is probably different than a lot of people's would be. But his mom and I are both concerned that he's maybe not dealing with those feelings and he's pushing them off. And then sooner or later, they're going to come and they're going to be very difficult when they do so we're trying to keep a close eye on him and and uh you know see

how all this works out for him you can get really numb yeah people get really numb i was like i had no i mean i i'm uh kind of stoic a bit anyway or practice it or try to practice it um under certain conditions obviously you can't always be that way. But when my mom passed, it was like eight months, like eight months straight of just nothing, you know? And I broke down a bunch in front of my wife and I'm like, I don't, like, I don't know what's wrong, but like, I'm just, I'm not like necessarily doing bad, but I need to tell you that I just don't care that much about stuff. And I don't know what this is, but I'm just like, no, I'm not mad at you.

I'm not mad at myself. I'm not unhappy. I'm not depressed. I'm just like nothing, which was the worst thing because I didn't know what to do about it. I didn't even know what that meant. But it passed luckily. That's good. I'm glad you've gotten through that.

Yeah, it's different for everyone. That might be part of it. And Max, that is more of his disposition is he doesn't have a lot of reaction to a lot of things and things that would typically upset a lot of people. He's like, meh. So this might be – it's definitely part of that. But it does worry me that as close as they were and that there's still some stuff to deal with yet. And my oldest son has acknowledged that, yeah, he thinks about Garrett a lot and it makes him sad. And he tends to, I think, grieve more in private.

But he, we have talked about it quite a bit. And it's definitely not like an off limits topic. Like we talk about it frequently and, and we're not hesitant to bring Garrett up. Like if we're all bowling or doing the things we normally do, we, you know, we still mention him frequently and, you know, talk about funny things that happened with him and stuff like that. And, um, and then his mom is having a really, really hard time though. I mean, I'm, I'm having a rough time, but, um, much, I think much more able to keep enjoying the other things in life. And I know, um, as it's really hard for any parent,

but it's been really, really devastating for her. And, uh, yeah, it's, it is, it's, it's brutal. it is, it's, it's brutal. It's, I think the other thing too, is it's really changed my perspective on like life and the value of it and our significance. I'm someone who's been very conscious of these things for a long time. I've always thought about, you know, it's always been very apparent to me, like, like our significance in the scope of the universe, like what a tiny speck we are on a tiny speck in the universe. And that no matter who we are, all of us, you know, when you're gone, the people close to you are going to mourn you and be affected. But in time, you know, the world's going to go on without you. And none of us are really that important in the grand scheme of things. And I think that this has reinforced that. And in a weird way for me, at least,

at least this is how I feel now. And I think people would be surprised to think that it might have been the opposite, that realizing, you know, that reminder of how fragile life is and how any of us can be gone tomorrow would make me see life as that much more valuable. And I've always seen life as very valuable. But for me, it makes me feel like everything, it's so fickle. And so the universe is so uncaring. And I think it actually has like made me feel like life is less valuable. Like we matter less in the big scope of things.

But yeah, it's a weird experience to go through for sure. And it's been a rough year. I lost my dad and my stepdad as well. But those were very different situations. Both of them were sick for a period of time. My stepdad had cancer for five years that he'd been battling. And my dad had long-term COPD and lung cancer. So we knew those were coming and they were older in age. So it was a very different thing. Um, but yeah, it's a, it is a reminder though, to,

you know, make the most, I mean, as cliche as it sounds, but make the most of the time we have spend, spend the time with the people you love, you know, do the things you love to do. Don't waste time doing the things that don't matter that so many of us, society pushes us to believe do matter. So yeah, as cliche as it sounds, if anything, just focus on your loved ones and the things that make you happy because all of our time here is limited. Well said. Andrew, you got anything over there? Because we didn't let you butt in. No, that's okay.

I'm learning a lot. And I mean, I'm just thinking about my son. So it's hard for me to even speak right now. Because when my wife and him are just going to go to the grocery store, I'm pretty panicked. I'm like, head on a swivel. Make sure nothing happens to our boy. I think sometimes you get so comfortable in life and so many things happen all the time. And like Garrett.

Garrett had been – all three of my boys were lucky that all three of them had been in serious car accidents and come out with hardly a scratch. Garrett had totaled a car early on racing and went off the road and hit a telephone pole and came out of it with just some minor scratches. And Max's totaled two cars, flipped one over and got T-boned. And then Logan had somebody run a light in the rain and hit him and knocked him into a pole. And he got a pretty good gash on his head and a lot of blood. Was he on a bike or in a car? In a car.

He was in a car. OK. Yeah. Fortunately, yeah. On a bike, it would have ended probably very differently. But so things like that happen. And we go about our lives every day thinking that – not that we're indestructible but maybe that our lives are not as fragile as they actually are. And how – until you have that loss that's close to you, I think sometimes we just – we don't realize like how easily everything can end and how quick.

And I mean – and I've been someone that's always worried about my boys a lot. Like we go hiking out in like Red Rock and Vegas and stuff. And my boys, unfortunately, are a lot like me in that little bit reckless. And definitely. Like let's go cliff diving. Yeah, yeah. Cliff diving. And we'd climb these rocks and literally be climbing over these like several hundred

foot drops where you slip and it's bye-bye. And the parent side of me is like, be careful, be careful, be careful. Oh my gosh. But then the other side of me, that's me also that says, well, what meaning is there in life if we don't do the things that really make us happy inside? And so like I'm trying to juggle these things. And like, even now it's like, please be safe guys. But I also want you to enjoy life.

And, and I know that's one thing their mom's really struggling with now. Like Logan was coming to my house and the weather started to get a little bit bad and she was terrified. Terrified that, oh my gosh, what if something happens to one of the other two? But yeah, I mean, by all rights, I should be dead 50 times over. And there's no answers. There's no reason for why one person does a bunch of crazy things and survives. My dad, my dad was a bad alcoholic and drove drunk. Oh my gosh. Like countless times crashed every car we ever owned. He hit a train and, um, yeah,

he hit a train and survived. And then, you know, goes through all of that and lives an entire life and never has anything significant happen. And then, you know, and then my son gone one day just like that at 22. And, uh, but,

um, so yeah, it's, life's a crazy thing and none of us have the answers. Take us on out of here, Andrew. Alrighty. Thank you everybody for checking out today's episode.

I think after that, cause normally I ask everybody to drop comments, let us know what they think about that conversation. But after hearing that, uh, reach out, text or call a loved one because tomorrow's not promised today. Uh, and with that in mind, also follow the podcast at MB power project on Instagram, Tik TOK and Twitter. Uh, my Instagram Tik TOK and Twitter's at I am Andrew Z and a power project dot live for everything podcast related in SEMA. where are you at? Discord's down below. At Insima ending on Instagram and YouTube. At Insima yin yang on TikTok and Twitter.

Janae, where can people find you? At Janae Marie Kroc on Instagram. Janae Kroc on Facebook. And my website is JanaeMarieKroc.com. Always amazing to have you here. Always a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for bringing me on and allowing us to talk about all these really controversial topics. I can only imagine the reactions we're going to get.

But I think it's important to have these hard conversations and I really appreciate you having me on and allowing us to discuss these things. Yeah, hopefully people learn something and didn't just get mad. I'm at Mark Smiley Bell. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later.