Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 54: Hannah Graf

Episode Date: January 31, 2022

Hannah Graf is a transgender campaigner and mum to 21 month old Millie. Hannah came out as a trans woman in 2013, while serving in the British army, and met trangender Jake in 2015. When they married in 2018 they became the highest-profile transgender couple in the UK. I recommend watching the excellent Channel 4 documentary about their journey to parenthood 'Our Baby: A Modern Miracle'Hannah spoke to me about her wonderfully supportive parents, her deep feelings of gratitude to the surrogate mum Laura who made parenthood possible for Hannah and Jake, and the joy of watching her little girl's character emerge. We also talked about her love of watching Wales play rugby, but I'm yet to be convinced!  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Sophia Lispector and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, so I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, but can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates. Hello. I'm feeling a bit secretive as I record this because I'm walking home from dropping the kids at school. And basically, I don't really want people to think I'm walking home from dropping the kids at school and basically I don't really want people to think I'm being a bit of a wally recording something on my own

so I'm trying to look as if I'm just having a phone call rather than talking to I suppose essentially, for the time being, myself. And I'm not sure I'm pulling that off, really. It's, what time is it? 904. And it's actually not that cold today, which is good. And it's one of those mornings where the light is still really sleepy time grey, which always, to me, makes it look like the day hasn't quite woken up yet which is a bit annoying wake up day come on get a move on i'm up you have to be up but anyway um it's not very cold so that's a bonus so i can do this without gloves and so we've had some nice news this week that we've

been able to share which is that last year Richard and I we put together a cookbook now that is something I tried to instigate about five years ago because we've always loved food and cooking and so I approached a few publishers back in 2017 saying hey got an idea here can we do a cookbook and they said no so serendipity being the best friend an idea can have um It took until last year and a publishing house called Octopus were approaching us. Oh, it's a bit noisy here. Oh, Rachel will kill me. She's next to a road.

Don't worry, I'll get quiet again in a minute. Anyway, yeah, Octopus approaching us. And they just got right on board with the way that we'd always seen it happening. So the book is really exciting. I'm really looking forward to seeing what people think of it. We poured a lot of ourselves in there.

It's not just our recipes. It's my sister's recipes and my brother's got a cocktail in there and my mum's got something and Nanny Claire, who was our nanny for 11 years, has got something. Loads of people, basically. It's the way we live and the way we eat and it's been a lovely thing to put together so that news has been able to be shared now which is lovely and what else is going on my three-year-old is obsessed with wizard of oz so it's usually like

a daily game where we're all character in wizard of Oz. And I've realized I have two recurring characters I'm assigned by Mickey. One is the Tin Man. One is the Witch. So I've realized, by the way, he's always Dorothy. So I'm trying not to read too much into the fact that he gives me the characters of someone who doesn't have a heart and then someone who's evil and tries to kill him. Apart from that, it's all good. Anyway, you're thinking, what about this week's podcast, woman? Enough about your cookbook and your yellow brick road. I want to hear about the podcast guests, and rightly so.

So I had the pleasure of meeting and talking to Hannah Graff. Now, I was really excited about meeting Hannah because, as you know, and you're probably, you know, well aware with all the guests I've been having, I am very keen to paint a picture of sort of modern motherhood, really, and the vast spectrum. I mean, I'm not going to be able to finish the painting because it's evolving and, you know, I can't, everybody's got their own tale. But it was really something I felt close to my heart that I loved the idea of having a trans mother, just because they're in

the minority. And in the press, there been a horrible uh trans debate that's gone on i say horrible not because of the necessity of having a debate i totally understand that but because of the vitriol that gets sloshed around against what i see is a very vulnerable group of people i'm not saying they're not strong but they are more likely if you're a trans person you're much more likely to be the victim of crime so and you know be assaulted be abused um and actually maybe not make it to the end of your life but as a result of that abuse. So, you know, a vulnerable group in that regard. So Hannah was just awesome. I felt a little bit of butterflies in my tummy before she arrived because I thought I want to make sure I ask the right questions so that Hannah can put everything out exactly

as she feels comfortable. And I needn't have worried because she's natural speaker very brilliant at putting things across as you're going to hear so as is customary at this point I'm going to shut up why do you need me to tell you everything that's in the chat well I suppose you don't and I'm not trying to do that I just want you to know that it mattered to me and that Hannah was brilliant and she and her husband Jake who is also trans have a little girl called Millie who is about to turn two and I can confirm from pictures I've seen on Instagram she's very cute and I think that's all you really need to know because Hannah will tell you the rest um was in the army now now works in finance. And yeah, we had a great conversation.

So over to us, if that's not too weird a thing to say. Firstly, thank you so much for coming over. And this is actually quite unusual because we're speaking on a Sunday. And it actually feels quite nice. I sort of woke up this morning with a bit of a spring in my step knowing I was going to get some quiet time to chat. So thank you. That doesn't often happen at the weekend. And how is everything?

So your little girl is nearly two. Yeah, she's 21 months. So she is growing ever kind of more willful. And like her character's really coming through, which is both this utter joy of seeing this little girl just come to life, but also like, wow, you're a lot harder to manage nowadays. Definitely. Yeah, it's wonderful. It's really wonderful.

And they're busy at that age as well. Like, what's beyond that door? Where can we go for this? And they start remembering things and wanting to do stuff. Yeah, well, I'm in trouble because I accidentally brought the pram with me here so my husband was about to take it to the park and now he's got to entertain her inside which may be a bit tricky but i'm sure i'll manage yeah yeah they'll find a way we're gonna imagine them happily happily playing um but yeah i think um people talk a bit about kids sort of coming into their own and their character coming out but actually i think what happens as well is that, and I really noticed this with my first,

is that your character as a parent starts to come out. Because when they're small, everything that they need is quite straightforward. You know, right temperature, food, right amount of sleep. But these things could be provided by lots of caregivers. But when they get older, you can really choose, actually, this is the kind of mum I'm sort of merging into does that make sense yeah I play a lot of games with her in the morning I usually do the early mornings and you know she just starts talking these little senses

there's like this little translation challenge every single day when she's starting to say the first day she said to me mummy get milk and I was like wow um I probably should say you need to be a bit more polite but it was just amazing I was like okay I'll get them I'll get the milk um so yeah it's nice I tried to be relaxed as relaxed with her as possible I think Jake and I both want to have this kind of cool calm kind of household but inevitably something happens and everything blows up but you know you try your best yeah yeah yeah I don't know I'm divided on that part of me wishes you a very calm house but seeing as I'm so unable to sustain that in my own home I'm kind of

hoping for more of that more of the chaos it ends up being quite fun really all of that stuff but um I was saying to you earlier before we started recording that I just re-watched your documentary this week all about how you and Jake came to be parents. And in it, there were some times where you expressed some anxieties about your journey into motherhood. But if you could go back in time, would you think there were things that you're worrying about that ended up not being things you needed to worry about? I mean, absolutely, yes. I mean, the root of my anxiety was mainly that I'm a transgender woman. anxiety was mainly that I'm a transgender woman. And so much is made about mothers around the hormones, the pregnancy, the bonding, you know, the innate motherhood. And I just assumed that all through that process that I would be lacking all those things. And therefore,

I had a lot to worry about. So I really worried about will I bond with my child? Will I be a natural mother? Will I be able to do all the things that other women do with their children and you know and that's what really drove me through the documentary to want to be as much involved as possible so when we couldn't be there at the birth because of you know the COVID pandemic I felt at the time that was a really big deal because I thought I'm missing a moment to bond with my child when they first out into the universe and and so I thought I was really missing something fast forward just literally a few days and you know Jake's catching some well-needed sleep I've got you know a newborn baby on my lap and I'm feeding her it's about three o'clock in the morning and I realized that

you know I'm everything to that child in that moment you know without me that child is you know cannot survive and I also knew that I would do anything for her you know in that moment you know without me that child is you know cannot survive and I also knew that I would do anything for her you know in that moment to make sure that she was okay and I thought that's what being a mother is yeah and you know everyone's experience of motherhood is very different and that one for me was realizing that I didn't have to be inverted commas born a woman to be a mother to my child and so all of a sudden there's anxieties there's things that I built up over months and months and months started to you know fizzle away and I realized that I could just get on with being the best mother I could be

yeah and so much of what you just said resonates and also I think slightly maybe makes me think a little bit about why I wanted to start this podcast in the first place because I feel like there's certain things you spoke about just then that actually really sound like how I felt as well because I had quite a medicalized start to motherhood in that my firstborn was born two months early so before I'd even held him or actually really seen him he was off in another room receiving medical care and I felt really redundant actually I didn't really know what my role was in all of that. And I think, I don't know, I think it's probably pretty impossible to glide through preparing to have a baby

without wondering if you're going to be able to born with that baby anyway, even if it's a baby you've carried. And I remember when I first found out I was pregnant and I said to my mum, I keep seeing all these babies everywhere, but they're not very cute. And she was like, that they're not very cute.

She was like, that's not a great sign. But I think you sort of worry about all of that. And obviously, we've covered some of these things already with previous conversations, actually, with the podcast, but there's so many journeys into becoming a mother. And once you slip outside of that first, you know, the sort of typical of typical you know there's so many ways you know you could be adoption or surrogacy and donors there's lots of different ways to start that that whole process off but it's very powerful yeah I mean I remember when the documentary went out and you know looking at our social media that night and you know it blew up and there was a huge amount of messages it got a lot of views at that time I think it was just at the end of the pandemic when people were still very glued to their TVs and so we're very lucky to get a good audience and

I was just overwhelmed by mainly women just coming on and telling how much they related to my journey and that was I mean it's very empowering for me as a transgender woman to to know that I had that kind of universal connection with cis women and their experiences of becoming a mother but also reminded me that there is, you know, so much more to talk about and why this podcast is so brilliant because, you know, there are so many women who struggle to, you know, either bond with their children or worry about not being able to give mother

because they can't carry or they can't breastfeed or they can't do something other than the societal norm that people kind of like hold up as their perfect motherhood. And so actually it was a really important thing to talk about. And I'm really, really glad that it had that reaction because it just, you know, I spent a lot of time responding to as many people as I could. And it was just lovely to know that not only were they helping me, but I could potentially help them as well. It was a really empowering thing to do.

Yeah, massively. And I think actually you've really hit the nail on the head there with something I was thinking about just this morning actually and about how you know when you think of motherhood in modern Britain it's such there's such scope there but we still have this quite almost quite fetishized version of what motherhood is and I don't it's almost an impossible thing to live up to or be part of and I think as say, so many ways to feel like you're not getting it right. But actually, in that moment when it was you and your baby Millie, and it's that calm in the middle of the night thing, you realise that there's all this peripheral vision of parenthood,

but in that moment it's just you and that baby, and it's actually an incredibly personal thing it's like all the other stuff melts away a little bit just there's only that one baby and there's only that yeah you that's the mum and that's like an incredible honestly it's beautiful it's just that i've never i that will be my one memory for me that will always you know when i think back about millie as a newborn baby that's the one that i remember it's just that kind of sense of closeness in the dark of a you know Airbnb in Northern Ireland um just just me and her that is really beautiful and and

obviously not only are you and your husband the first transgender parents in the UK but also you had your baby in the midst of this massive pandemic situation the first lockdown so you had to kind of get across to B belfast is it yeah i mean we'll just go back slightly because we we are when people say we're the first transgender parents in the uk i don't think that's fair to say at all i think there are lots of transgender people who are parents i think we're the first transgender parents to have gone through a surrogacy process you know where both of us are transgender and a surrogate so okay um i think no that's really important yeah the media is really bad sometimes

it just like taking snippets of conversations and then like really making it out to be you know wow big clickbait type thing and I sometimes I worry that in those conversations all those people who've gone like hey I'm transgender and I've been a parent for 20 years like you know that their stories get lost a little bit so I'm trying to clarify but I do think it's important Hannah it's really important actually one of the things I was going to ask you is actually if you found if you firstly if you had any role models in your mind before um you know with your journey into you know being the person you are today if there was someone that you could think of that was someone you saw yourself reflected in I mean I found it very hard to find those role models when I was growing

up you know when I was growing up so I grew up in the kind of 90s and there just there was hardly any transgender representation anywhere at all and whatever it was it was really negative so the the most common one I can think of the one that most people would have seen in the UK is a Ace Ventura pet detective you know family, family film that people took their kids to in the cinema and everyone laughs and jokes. In that, the antagonist is a transgender woman and Jim Carrey, who's the lead, kisses her and then finds out that she's transgender.

And when he finds out that she's transgender, he throws up, he burns his clothes, he goes for a shower to clean himself. And at the very end of the film, like literally the culmination of the film is him stripping this transgender woman naked to prove to the world that she's transgender, surrounded by a load of cops who all throw up.

What? I haven't actually seen that movie. That is astonishingly shocking. Yeah, I mean, it's still shown on, you know, on terrestrial TV to this day. And, but the thing was, that's a family film. That's actually horrific. People all... It's completely horrific. Yeah, but people watch it and laugh along to it. to this day and but the thing was that's a family film actually horrific people all completely

horrific yeah but people watch it and laugh along to it and I grew up to all my friends and family laughing to that film and so my kind of sense of being transgender I learned from a very young age don't attack anyone because that's a reaction you're going to get and so I really didn't have many strong transgender role models I had role models in my life for other aspects but as a transgender woman there wasn't anyone and then you know I joined the army and um I you know I grew up knowing that this was who I was but learning to hide it so I lived a very double life because I thought if you tell someone that's a reaction gonna get and when I was out in the army um my first appointment out to uh Afghanistan it's a very, you know, Afghanistan's a very strange place because high moments of, you know, of high adrenaline, but they're very short.

And then these long moments of sitting and waiting around, not a lot's happening, but you don't have access to the internet, you don't have access to TV. And so it's kind of a lot quiet, a lot of time for introspection. And I just, in that moment, I felt very isolated and very away from my true self. And so I kind of told myself that when I came back, I would never put myself in that position again. And I went to an army psychiatrist to talk about, you know, my identity and potentially transitioning, still terrified to do it. And he said, well, I know someone who I've helped before. They're a RAF officer. Would you like to talk to them?

I said, yes, please. And it was this woman called Isla Holden. She'd actually been splashed across the newspapers herself as the transgender woman in the RAF. And she was my role model because she was just happy serving, living her life, had a partner, was just a happy human being. And she was so giving with her time and her advice.

And I was like, wow, I can do this. And that was the impetus I needed to come and, you know, take my first step on my journey. And that first step's always the hardest. And after that, it gets, you know, bigger and bigger and bigger. And before you know it, you're kind of 10 years down the line and you're married with a kid. But yeah, she was my role model, that's for sure.

So a bit of a long-winded answer. But yeah, that was who I found I found no but I am always fascinated um when people have had their own personal challenges whatever it may be I've always fascinated if they've ever felt they have seen people out there that help them because I think that's what's so powerful about um what you've been doing is you have because of that experience you had you've made it part of what you do to make sure that you're visible and you're vocal and so articulate Hannah honestly you're absolutely brilliant and some of the things that you've said um that are very very simple things but I think that in a time where from the outside looking in it's been a really tricky time for

trans community and I don't know what's prompted it. It feels like the last couple of years, everything's got really heightened. And I think that's why it's so important to have the conversations, because there will be people, you know, for all the happiness of finding yourself, as you say, 10 years down the line, happily married with a kid. We have to acknowledge that for a lot of trans people they're incredibly vulnerable and the statistics are really scary yeah absolutely and you're not wrong I think you know if you look back about six years there was a time where the global transgender community or certainly the western world was feeling very positive we had Laverne Cox on the front cover of Time magazine the UK was labeled as the you know the best place in Europe to be you know LGBT and a community, we started to see more people come out and

tell their stories. And we all felt very positive. And I think what is natural when you fight for any level of equality, there always becomes a bit of a pendulum swing back and people go, well, you've gone too far. We don't want you to have that much stuff. And then in the UK, the catalyst was the government did a reform or proposed reform on the Gender Recognition Act, which is the piece of legislation that allows transgender people to legally change their gender. And for whatever reason, that became the catalyst

for people who thought we'd come too far to really organise and come together and try and prevent us from our happiness and our future lives despite the fact that this legislation that's being proposed has been successfully implemented in many countries such as including Ireland for one thing with absolutely no issues whatsoever and what really started that point was a campaign of misinformation and I think that's the thing that as transgender people in this community, we really struggle with because, you know, there are some very, very simple answers to the, you know, inverted commas issues that are being put out there. This whole idea that we are divided with the, you know, with the feminist movement. I can't think it'd be more further than the further from the truth. is that we as a small community with very little platform to talk about it have to go up against huge, huge people with massive followings

and against the entire of the press. And we're not just talking your traditional right-wing press. Even the left-wing press quite often will spread very, very damaging, BBC included, very damaging stories about the transgender community yeah very irresponsibly i believe and you know with very very little balance very very little understanding of the you know the impact to what they're saying and you know that's our challenge that's the challenge of the transgender transgender community community today is how do we get across to all those people in the middle you know you've got the people on the left you think

one thing the people on the right you know but all those other people who are just observing this conversation how do we communicate to those people that we are just human beings absolutely we want to be happy we want to live and we want to be part of society the same as anybody else we don't want to take anyone's rights we don't want to impact on anyone's happiness we just want to be us yeah i know i find it all uh it makes me feel really emotional. And I don't know if it's because, you know, you can't help but empathise so much. We're talking about a community that's around sort of 1% of the population. But the only time the statistics flip so dramatically is when you go to, you know, the susceptibility to crime, suicide, you know, where it all gets really really big and scary I think I was reading yesterday that um someone who's trans might have considered suicide that up to 90 of that community would have thought about it that's huge you know and um and a lot of these people as well you know there's some really young people now all starting that because the conversation is so much more visible and you know I think for as soon as kids reach their double figures they're being asked lots

of questions about how do you see yourself and so much that's really positive in terms of getting you know gender conversation out there I think that's always a good thing but you know the vulnerability is there too and it's like you said that's so clever when you're saying about the the way the conversation is and actually I think it goes back to something you said before about clickbait as well because it's it's sort of juicy as a topic and and divisive and you know you can get some really um really smart people not really knowing how they what they feel about it and how to articulate it and probably jumping straight into something and i think I get frustrated by that when things are intellectualized and you can talk about things in a really clever eloquent way but then for a lot

of those people they can walk away from that conversation and live their life live their happy life go home and do the other things but you haven't helped the people that really need help in living a happy life yeah I mean I think are, you know, generally do it out of misunderstanding. I think, you know, I choose to believe that the world is a more positive place than it is negative and that people are generally good and want to be nice to people. But when things are framed in a certain way, then they get these biases built up in them

and then they base their conversations and their thoughts and their feelings on those biases. And this conversation we're having about transgender people like the most classic example is the bathroom debate about whether transgender women like myself belong in a women's bathroom because and the argument goes because we're inherently dangerous and we you know we we are essentially just men in dresses that want to rape women i mean it's it's plaintively ridiculous. And by the way, transgender women have been using the women's bathroom, you know, for as long as anyone listening to this has been alive.

And, you know, it's all been okay. But this is exactly the same debate that was used against gay men, you know, in the 80s under Section 8 of Margaret Thatcher. This is the same thing of, you know, gay men, they want to come in and they want to hurt, you know, again, inverted commas, normal men. and it's the same argument that's been used against you know black people you know in the civil rights movements again you know race equality and saying that we don't want

you know black men in the same name losers the white men it's never been about bathrooms it's about power and it's about control and when people people realise that, that actually, again, transgender women, we just want to pee like anyone else. Yeah, no, absolutely right. And it builds on fear. And, you know, people have all sorts of reasons to, you know, as you say, their bias that might be ignited by things that make them feel that they might not,

they might be more at risk. So a lot of it is incredibly divisive. And I think that's one of the reasons I was so keen to have a conversation about it because I think I totally agree with you, by the way, that most people are good and I'm up there with that too. But I think it's just about, you know, making sure that these conversations are kept open because cancel culture that can happen, I don't think is a good idea either. I really feel very

passionately about everybody listening to everybody and from there you can you can actually start to build those bridges yeah a cancel culture I find is a funny one I know I don't know where I sit on it because sometimes I do think that it's a it's a phrase that is used to kind of demonize people just saying I'm not interested in listening to you anymore. Like, you know, it's one thing to say, you can say whatever you want, but I have no obligation to listen to you. And so if I choose not to listen to you now because, you know, I don't like what you're saying,

then that also feels like part of my freedom. And I think when you hear about terms like woke and cancel culture, I do just, I worry that they just become kind of these terms that people use to kind of demonize just people saying, actually, no, I've had enough of your bullshit. You know what I mean? Is that kind of like, no, I don't want to listen to you anymore. But I don't agree with huge pylons, abuse and making people feel bad for honest mistakes. As I said, I think people are good.

And when people make mistakes, trying to do the the right thing then I think then it's absolutely wrong to to be rude I mean it's always wrong to be rude and abusive I think there's always a polite and calm way to approach any debate but to say I'm no longer going to engage with your art because I find what you represent as an artist is in line with my personal kind of you know feelings and how I want to approach the world I don't think that's cancer culture that's me just making a decision not to engage with you anymore I think yeah no that's true I suppose I think of it when I say I'm thinking of the sort of media thing of sort of going you know and in the red corner and in the blue yeah and that's when people put forward you know a nuanced um expression of how they feel and then it's kind

of made into a it's everything's immediately weaponized just to be divisive about making sure that there's conflict it's that messy middle like it's the bit in the middle where the fun conversation conversation should be had like that's why i really don't engage on twitter anymore because it is just that red and blue corner. But say in the middle, there's a lot of people who just don't have the information or want to understand or want to learn. And they're the people that I want to be able to try and talk to and approach. And it's really hard to do that with the current setup of both the social and mainstream media. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, just to sort of also, I do understand that being a trans woman is not your job, by the way. I do get that. I do know that. a trans woman is not your job by the way I do get that I do know that it is a little bit but that's okay well I was thinking but you kind of brought

it into your life in that way because um of the the charities that you work with and yeah because um alongside me even in the army you were the trans representative is that right yeah that's right yeah so I guess there is a kind of let's stand on that bit a bit for talking about work and this I think it's definitely it's part of my job just like it's part of my life so being a trans woman or being transgender is part of me it was it is in form my childhood it's in form my adult life you know it is a huge part of who I am because it you know has determined my experiences as I've grown up but it isn't who I am like I am so much more than that like I say I am a mother I am an you know an army veteran I you know I I'm a and a wife these are all things which are also part of me so yeah um and as you said because I've been very fortunate to have a

platform and a platform that so many trans people don't have I do feel a sense of responsibility and an obligation to try and use that to help inform people who want to understand a little bit more about the real true transgender experience not what you read in the headlines so um I don't mind doing it because I say I feel like I'm very lucky to have such a positive experience and have a positive life that I can talk about but just it's just not who I am in my entirety no of course not I do understand that and I think actually you mentioned the army. You only left the army in 2019, is that right? Yeah, yeah, 2019. And what's it like when you leave something like that?

Because that must be such a huge part of how your life is all the time. Yeah, it's difficult because, you know, the culture in the army is almost indescribable to no one who's ever been in the armed forces, I don't think. There's a sense of camaraderie and banter and kind of hard-working, get-it-done attitude that you tend not to find, you know, in civilian life, maybe outside of certain sort of sports teams, but generally speaking, I find it very hard to replicate.

But, you know, the army is still only a job, and something I think that we all need to know in our work lives is that you work to live, not live to work. And I learned so much in the army. The transferable skills that I got from the army have helped me out in my personal professional life since then. What kind of thing? Can you tell me a bit more about that? It sounds interesting. Well, I think there's a real level of sort of teamwork that you have to have to be in the armed force. It's one thing to be in an office space and need to work as a team, but it's another thing to be lying in a puddle when you haven't slept for 48 hours

and you know you've got a 10-mile run ahead of you carrying your mates or something like that. That's a real different level of teamwork that just you find an inner strength to get on because of the other people around you that really need you and that's part of the training you do in the army that you just I don't think it's hard to it's hard to generate that it's getting outside of that um so the teamwork is definitely one I think the the ability to speak um and speak to people of seniority that's something that is very natural in the army like you as you know as a private soldier you know you can be expected at some point for a general to turn up and ask you about how your day is going and and tell him what you

think about something and it is you you get used to dealing with those kind of very senior people which again when you come out of that and go to a civilian job all of a sudden like you see people struggling to talk to people who are sort of two layers above them you think yeah they're just human beings they use the loo the same as anyone else so you know you just need to there are things like that but um yeah it's it's very very hard to describe but it's certainly i think i love for the wider public to know how many skills the army and you know armed forces people have when they leave that they find really hard to articulate on a cv because when people get given an opportunity and a chance after they left the armed forces often they are really really successful because of all

their skills and they learn yeah i mean is it something do you do you miss all that then if it's i miss the people like the people are just so i remember some my best friends are all the ones who are still in the army people tend to stay for the duration does it tend to be something you do I mean speaking as an army officer that's probably different from people who maybe join as an enlisted soldier

as a private for example but there tends to be a bit of a 5-10 year period where you come in, people achieve what they want to achieve, and then they leave, or they stay on for like the rest of their careers. There tends to be that kind of like, yeah. But, you know, again, it's only a job. And sometimes your life changes. Like when I joined the army, I thought I was joining for an entire career. I thought I'd be there till, you know, for 22 year career. But then I met Jake out of the blue and he was, you know, based in London,

you know, jobs in the army in London aren't that easy to come by. We wanted to start a family. And so I thought, actually, my priorities have shifted and no longer do I want to have that life where I'm happy to travel the world. I mean, one thing that used to really attract me to the army was the moving jobs every two years, different location, new people, different challenges. people different challenges and I'm like actually if I want to start a family I might want to be a bit more stable and there are plenty of families in the army that are quite happy to move friend but that wasn't us and so yeah priority shifted and I thought okay time to

time for the next chapter yeah I'm thinking when you said about that I know you were meaning it literally and saying about lying in a puddle with the big run ahead but all i could think of is the best similar to how i feel when i'm doing school runs i have that metaphor in my head now i picture myself like hauling these backpacks like come on yeah um i always have this recurring feeling actually when i'm feeling really spread thin i was as we can think like i what am i I always picture myself just sort of suddenly like just collapsing like spread eagle in the middle of the park opposite it's like this recurring feeling but yeah I'm done I think you've been well prepped to motherhood you should have another four I mean by the way being a mother is much harder than being on excise of the army definitely

well yeah you talked about you know you're still talking to someone who's in a position of seniority with your small person they can really give orders like no others it's um it's astonishing um well did you have an idea of what kind of mother you wanted to be then when you started thinking about being a mum i mean i think i just fell back on the way that I was brought up by my mum and dad and what amazing parents they were. As soon as I said that sentence, I felt the emotion rise in me. Yeah, me too. But, you know, I have wonderful parents who've stuck with me through all the ups and the downs

and some really challenging moments for all of us. And my mum was a primary school school teacher my dad was a project manager um but they were both very very present um I you know you hear about you know some you know slightly older you know parents who maybe it was more the mother that was present for certain times I didn't feel that at all my my family my mum and dad were equally present throughout my childhood when you say present do you mean they were around a lot or literally they were really good at really sort of checking in with you and I mean both I mean they were you know my dad actually traveled a lot for work when I was very young would spend a few days away I used to find it difficult but what I meant really was more that emotionally

present which is my they were I always thought they were engaged in my childhood so whatever I was doing it was the days were planned around me and my brother wow and that's lovely if I decided that I liked rugby there'd be a rugby ball bought and it would be kicking around in the park you know that the very next weekend you know my dad or my mum would constantly teach me how to make cakes or you know you know play leg or whatever it was I was wanting to do yeah they were really there for me and that's what I really carried forward in how I want to be with Millie, which is just be there and let her be her own self. I just want to, you know, see, I just want to see the true Millie flourish and whichever direction that goes in, I just want to be there. So if she decides that she wants to be a world class gymnast, you know, I'll be, I'll be there at gymnastics every, you know, every weekend.

Or if she wants to swim and I'll get up at four o'clock in the morning and take her to the swimming lessons before school you know or you know she wants to play football or rugby or be a creative like a dad whatever it is you know I just want to her to be herself and that's what I felt for my parents that sense of just really allowing me to grow and be whoever I was and that I think has made me who I am today I think in a way you sort of summed up what I think is the best quality to have as a parent actually I think being's made me who I am today. I think in a way you sort of summed up what I think is the best quality to have as a parent, actually. I think being present like that is sort of everything, actually, because, you know, there's so many life skills, but if someone is really allowing you just to explore who you are,

I mean, that's what you're doing, you're growing a person and letting them really sort of push and pull on all the sides of themselves and work it all out. So do you think when you did start to be more open about the challenges you're having how you're feeling about yourself did your mum and dad did it just go did that just make complete sense to them I mean no actually quite the opposite because I because of those really early moments of my life where I learned that being transgender was a negative thing I hid it and I hid it so well. Um, even to myself, to a certain degree, you know, I, you know, I did a really stereotypically masculine thing and I went and joined the army, you know, and I,

I'm very sporty. I love rugby and I go to the Millennium Stadium and cheer on whales like, you know, it's going out of fashion. These are very, you know, stereotypically masculine things. And so I don't think people really realised that I'd buried so much of my femininity inside. And also because we all think of, you know, these are boys' activities and girls' activities, that they didn't realise that some of the things I loved could be inherently feminine as well.

You know, like being sporty isn't necessarily a masculine trait. But no, when I told them I was transgender it was a complete and utter shock and no they went through a sort of grieving process where they you know for that I think in their mind they grieved the son they lost even though you know I was still exactly the same person yeah and but they had to go through that process to realize that and realize that you know they hadn't lost anyone at all I was just just choosing to engage in the world in a different way and present in a different way. But it was tough.

It was really tough for them. There was a lot of tears and there was a lot of awkward family meetings and having to kind of them get used to seeing me in a way that they probably didn't want for me because it was outside of their expectations of what they wanted their child to be um but through the entire process even though it was very difficult and very challenging I never ever once felt like I wasn't loved or supported you know they constantly were on that journey with me from start to finish

and they engaged with that journey from start to finish as much as it caused them pain so yeah again I I think my parents are absolutely inspirational I think that um I couldn't possibly be here as a you know functioning transgender woman you know happy productive in society in my personal life you know without that love and support and I think you know you mentioned some of the some of the negative statistics around transgender people and those negative statistics are in almost entirely based on society's reactions to them both people's family friends and you know people around that they have to engage in public life yeah you know as you say i work with um charities

that support transgender people and i've seen the good and the bad the the people who have their support from their families and their friends and you know schools etc they just live happy lives and they're just happy yes they have challenges but every kid has challenges but they get on with it the ones that have a parent or parents a family member or a school that aren't supportive and and introduce that negativity in their lives they're the ones that really struggle and they're the ones that you know feed into those negative statistics yeah I just wish wish wish wish all people in society would just realize that if you could just be open-minded and let people be who they naturally are we'd all be much much happier yeah across the board definitely and I

think you know as you say if um if families and friends are just open to having those conversations and being on that journey with someone, you all end up in the right spot because the person you care about in the centre of it all is able to be... I think the thing I'd struggle with the most is just the idea that my child had been not liking aspects of themselves I think that would be the only thing I'd really feel like sad for

because that's a lonely feeling and actually I do know that you can be in the happiest of families and feel very lonely within that so I think you know I think that's the only thing that I'd feel sad for and be really relieved that we were able to then move into the new chapter

but it's all powerful I mean it's interesting because I remember there was a comment I can't remember if you put it on your Instagram or if it was in the documentary where you said you know I am a woman I've always been a woman I just happened to have been born a man and I think that's the simplicity of that really gets across a lot of what's at the core of that journey really and all the stuff you're talking about about masculine and feminine choices I don't even think that that's hugely relevant if it's just about being who you're supposed to be yeah I mean yeah absolutely I mean that I when I transitioned I went through an initial stage of almost like going to hyper

femininity because I thought you know if I've transitioned I've now got to be the woman that society says that a woman should be and I just fell into exactly the same trap I'd fallen into for the first 20 years of my life but just for a woman instead of a man and it was um a while after that I thought oh hang on a second like I'm never going to be the sort of person that's going to have huge long painted nails walk around in huge high heels um you know and go for you know like little tea brunches it's just not who I am I mean for the people to enjoy it great not just I have a great time but I'm very happy going sitting in the stands millennium stadium cheering on whales at rugby it makes me very happy and I thought that is neither male or

feminine that is me and I am a woman that's who I am and so for me that's feminine it'll be someone else that'd be masculine and you know for someone going to a tea party that'll be masculine too it's just yeah we just we we get so hooked up on the society like assigning labels to stuff again it's just about individuality and just being who you are and trying to be happy yeah and I think every woman um cis woman or otherwise everybody goes on that journey that is exactly it because the idea that things are one thing or the other actually is exhausting and actually completely ridiculous if you think about it's completely absurd the only difference is that a transgender woman we tend to do it in like our later in life and

most people do it as teenagers which is why we always felt like our friends around us like looking at us going gosh i was like that when i was like 17 and you're like 25 um yeah and I guess also you're yeah and I guess also you're kind of like analyzing those things in a different way um because it's more more of a visible transition you had to make in terms of realizing you know yourself but really I think you don't really get hooked up on the physical stuff when you transition. And so does everyone else around you. So it's really hard not to. People always talk about transitions

and physical training. It's like, oh, I can't believe you look like this. Oh, I'd never have told that you... I could never have told that, you know, you were a man. All these types of things that are based around your looks and your physicality. When actually transition is much more about

what's inside, how you feel, how you talk, how you engage with the world and how the world engages with you. Which is why, again, like I say, you have that real moment when you first transition and your body's changing. It's all about the body. I'm looking great. I'm looking like this. I'm obsessed with my pictures. And then you think, actually, a couple of years down the line, you go, okay, right, I get it now.

It's not about how I look. If I don't wear makeup today, it's not a big issue. Actually, people see me as a woman my parents call me Hannah not my old name that's the thing that makes a difference not whether or not your eyebrows are plugged oh yeah definitely

and how you feel on yourself putting one foot in front of the other when you go out just feeling free really to be yourself however that comes I think for kids there's so much i said to sunny only my this is my 17 year old and the other day i really wish a lot of these conversations had been around when i was growing up i think it would have been really great to be

able to just explore what what what gender meant to me actually it wasn't a conversation at all i remember from so i'm a bit older than you so i'm 42 but yeah growing up in the 90s and that was when I was a teenager I just don't remember it being a conversation that was being had and I think it would have been really really brilliant to be able to have those conversations and so if anyone listening is you know maybe they've got a child that they think is having, you know, in a dialogue about their own gender. So your advice would just be just to keep the conversations open, I suppose. Yeah, I would just don't see it as a negative thing. Just see it as this is something that my child happens to be going through. Other people's children will be going through other

challenges. This happens to be the challenge that you're looking at. And the main thing is just to make them feel like they're loved no matter what and you'll be along that journey that's the key thing of course there are you know you it is it's okay to ask for help and need support in those situations because it can be scary it's challenging it's out of the ordinary you don't know how to react to it so there are multiple ways places you can get support um i'm i am patron of a charity called Mermaids, which supports gender non-conforming in their children. They do incredible work.

And one of the main things they do is they connect families with other families going through the same challenges so you don't feel like you're alone. And that's one of the biggest things. I've gone to events with the Mermaids where you see all these young gender non-conforming children all playing together. And the thing at that moment, they're just being children.

No one's talking about being trans or anything like that because they, for them, they don't want to think about it. They just want to be themselves. And because they're amongst a group of children who are all going through the same thing, they can relax and just be and just play. And then you've got the parents who can get together, have a cup of tea, have a cry, you know, have a conversation.

But everyone comes away from those moments thinking, okay, I'm not alone. You know, my child is not a freak. My child is not going to, you know, turn into a different person. No one's pushing my child into this. Actually, they can just be who they are and I can just support them. But never feel like you have to be alone. But the main thing is, is that, you you know when your child is growing up you've got to ask yourself what do you want them to say about you do you want them to say that you were the parents that tried to deny what they were saying who didn't trust them who didn't listen to them who weren't there for them and they had to struggle against to be wherever they end up or do you want

to be like me and say, my parents were honest with me when they said they found it difficult, they had tears, but they always made me feel like I was loved, I was cared and they'd be with me on that journey. And for me, any parent facing that question, I think it should be a really simple choice. Yeah, I think it is actually.

I think, yeah, that's beautifully put and i mean is is there anything that this might be a really big question actually but is there anything in that would really help in the here and now in terms of the trans community that you can see that would just be something that would really help get make things in a more positive place for the here and now i mean if i've got a magic bullet you know yeah let's imagine that i'm giving you a magic bullet okay i mean the first one i might just fire it at twitter and just delete twitter okay cool um i think that would help a lot of people actually good aim i'm giving you another bullet okay cool um i think i'd love to see i'd love to see some people held accountable

for their journalism I've actually been in a room where I've seen people be given awards for their journalism that really spreads misinformation against transgender people and I find that really difficult you know because apparently it's this challenging conversation

and people are opening up the conversation but all they're really doing is spreading misinformation and lies and if we could start to hold people account for you know their actions you know we do it in so many other places you know it's in so many other you know in inverted commas debates you know we people say what you've said has had a damaging impact on a community or a person therefore we hold them account but for some reason because transgender it seems still seem like a subject of debate, it's okay to have that debate. Like I said, I brought back the parallels

with the gay community in the 80s or the people of colour before that. And we all know that you can't say those things now. You can't say that. You couldn't put in a newspaper, I don't think that black people should be allowed in the same bathroom as white people. People would be held to account for that massively.

Yet people can say that about transgender people. We aren't an inherently dangerous group of people. We just want to use the loo. And so if we can start to hold people to account, that would make a huge difference. Because then people would start to see us for our authentic selves. But it's really challenging. Very, very challenging thing to do.

Yeah, actually, I've heard that conversation about loos or prisons or whatever it may be from some surprising people in my life. And I'm always like, well, if someone does a criminal activity, then it doesn't matter how they're presenting. You know, you don't sort of damn everybody with... We have plenty of laws that say that you're not allowed to let people in bathrooms. Exactly, exactly.

We don't need another one that's targeted a community that should pose no specific risk to that. Exactly. But it's weird. It's like, I don't know, it just sort of plays into a sort of... It's like an easily stoked fear in people or something. And in my own limited experience with those conversations often at the root the person speaking about has at some point in their life been in a situation where they felt very unsafe

from you know where there's where the um perpetrator is a straight man. And that's their fear. It's like it's going to come and find them in another way when they're vulnerable. And it's, you know... And I think it's important to say that, like, I do understand where people's views come from. I understand their fears. I understand where they originate from.

And it's not their fault, you know. They have consumed a media that has built on that whole premise for decades. And so I understand why people are fearful. I can understand why people think that transgender women in bathrooms may pose them a risk. Again, if you want to give me a magic bullet is to aim at all those people and say, have a critical mind for a second. Think, where does that fear come from? What is it based on? Because if you look at the institutions that we use to guide our social activity, things like the World Health Organization, the NHS, the legal framework, all of those things say that we pose no risk and that transgender people are

real people, they're real conditions, they're not not we're not psychologically ill they are just who we are innately born as and all we need is some support medically and socially to have the most fulfilling and happy lives when you look at that you go actually there's nothing wrong here so again I I really understand and sympathize with the people in that middle group who just think a certain way because that's what they've been told all their lives but if I could say anything just think for a second be critical and think is everything I can consume in the media accurate and right and if not where could it be wrong and then if you start to engage with some people who tell their authentic stories about who they are then you go oh maybe they're just not as scary as I thought they were. Yeah, absolutely. I think everything you said is exactly right. I'm doing lots and lots of nodding over here. Yeah, absolutely. Well, going back to you and after you left the army, is that when you started working in the financial

sector? Is that where you are now? Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah. And how did you find that transition then going from army into that? I was very lucky. I worked for a team that was led by an ex-military officer as well. So that was a bit of a smooth transition. But it was, you know, it's been different. I had to get a different routine. The army really builds in things like, you know, fitness into your day. Whereas, you know, when you're... Yeah, of course, you're not doing nearly as much physical stuff when you're...

Yeah, so, you know, all of a sudden you've got to fit more into kind of your your downtime outside of your work life but with all that free time you now have with your nearly two-year-old daughter well really I've just joined the gym again for the first time in two years since Millie was born um between Millie and the pandemic um it just felt weird to go to the gym and um basically you know did the good old you know new year's resolution thing at the start of this year and thought enough's enough i need to start to get some personal routine away from millie back to and it's amazing how much better i feel for going nope i'm going to drop you off at nursery in the morning and then i'm going to go to the gym i'm going to do my 5k run and then i come back and eat a healthy breakfast before i start the day and just that one little routine change of just

fitting that gym in the morning has made me feel much more kind of centered and relaxed around everything I do both work and with me so yeah I think it's been really helpful actually yeah it's really good for up here isn't it having that space definitely and so is that the the job that you were in when you became a mum is that same same work environment yeah and did you always intend on going back to work after you had your baby yeah i mean i think we were kind of financially in that position um you know jake's a filmmaker an incredible filmmaker who makes amazing amazing films um as well as doing speaking and all those all other sorts of things but his income is sporadic so you know project comes along great income you know put

it in the bank amazing but then you know he'll be in downtime as he's developing his next project and then there won't be income over those months and so I was the one that had the kind of more steady day-to-day job with us you know with a salary and so I kind of it was something that you know with our lives I just needed to go back to work so I took the maximum amount of maternity leave that I could um that was full paid and as soon as that happened the mortgage needed paying and so I went back to full paid and as soon as that happened the mortgage needed paying and so I went back to work and we had to find that balance between paying for child care and you know also making sure that when Millie's not in nursery that Jake isn't doing so much child care that his career is stopping so it's been a real balancing act which shifts because

you know to begin with you know newborns are fairly easy they sleep a lot big naps so you can get a lot done and then all of a sudden you get to the point thinking why isn't she sleeping at night oh crap you know her nap is too long yeah and then all of a sudden another hour of your day's gone you know ah and so it's kind of a constant like tweaking of kind of parameters that jake and i do to make sure that you know we have the steady income he can put all the energy he needs into into his career but we can also you know look after Millie and be present as much as possible so it's a it's a fine balancing act that's always changing yeah absolutely and it's such a thing when the nap goes oh you feel that one yeah um yeah those days are gone just about for me now

and actually now it's got that point where if he does have a nap during the day my youngest then it's like no he won't go to sleep on time and oh yeah it's just that ever just sort of shifting sounds basically and am I right in thinking you're thinking about going for another as well we'd like to yeah yeah maybe both Jake and I are one of two and we think the sibling I think the idea of having a sibling is lovely I don't like the idea of really not having a sibling if I'm honest I think it's idea of Millie not having a sibling, if I'm honest. I think it's just both as a young kid, but also when you're an adult, I think it's so nice to have that kind of family connection of your own kind of generation.

And Millie's got lots of cousins, but I don't think it's quite the same. Oh, nice though, having cousins. Lovely. We've got some cousins that are really close as well. So she constantly says their names over and over every morning. know like you know just it's just like the roll call of all of her friends from nursery all of her like you know mummy daddy you know all her friends from nursery all her cousins you know grandparents yeah yes yes those are all the people you love I know many that's lovely um but no we would like to have another one but it's complicated so it's not this would be potentially with the same surrogate yes it would

be yeah uh laura laura yeah she's i mean wow she's an incredible woman um i am constantly in awe of her and you know quite often when i look at millie i think of laura and just think you know what an amazing gift to give and you know it takes a special kind of woman to to be a surrogate i think yeah um amazing she just took it all in a stride. You know, for her, her family was complete. And, you know, I'm pretty sure she'd be fine with me telling you this, but she had a personal reason. She wanted to be a surrogate for a family member who was struggling

when she was younger. Then her family member managed to get pregnant by herself. But that kind of lodged a seed in her brain of what a wonderful thing it would do to be able to help someone who wants to have a kid to have a kid and then you know we were very lucky to connect um you know in the world of surrogacy intended parents looking for someone to help you and we went and met her and she was just wonderful and she said I'll do it and you know then we had Millie and you know we you know we still talk to her now you know we have you know regular she's in Northern Ireland so we have sort of

regular like zoom calls to to catch up um we we intended to spend a bit more time with her since Millie's born but then obviously pandemic and everything changed so it's a bit more um via the video now but yeah we talk to her and her kids on a regular basis and she has offered to go again for us so when the stars align I think when we're ready, you know, financially, personally, then that'll be something that we look to do. Yeah, I was thinking, because I mean, obviously, everybody's, you know, experience with using a surrogate

must be quite a personal thing. But I kind of imagine that if it was something I was going through, then I'd have the same thing of kind of wanting them to be part of, you know, my baby's life afterwards. So it would feel quite a natural yeah I think I mean to continue that it is I just say it's very personal so some people actually on both you know it's you know finding a surrogate's like dating you know there's so much that you've got to match on you know in terms of what your expectations are for the future how you want the process to go things you like things you don't like these are all things that you've got to kind

of match on and pair on so there are some people who really want that separation on both sides of the party do you mean when you say there's so many things you got to pair on do you mean like a sort of almost emotional things or or more practical it's a bit of everything so for so for example like we wanted to we knew that we wanted you know our surrogate to be in our life going forward because I don't think I can't fathom a world where someone gives you that amazing gift and then you just you know say cheerio never speak to them again so we knew we wanted them to be in our lives so that wasn't for us but then logically if someone's going to be in your life in the rest

of your life in your child's life yeah you need to like them to get on with them you need to be able to have chats with them you need to be able to spend time with them so you've got to be in your life in the rest of your life in your child's life yeah you need to like them to get on with them you need to be able to have chats with them you need to be able to spend time with them so you've got to be able to have that kind of personal relationship and then there's some more the practical things because obviously and these are things that when people I think who don't go through surrogacy or maybe have slightly easier pregnancies don't think about are all the things that you have to consider all things that can go wrong and all the things that may not go against or may be against your expectations and there are times where you have to have some very difficult conversations about what would we do in this situation yeah

and you and the surrogate have got to align because it's your child but her body yeah and you've got to respect them both so you know you've got to make sure that your expectations are in line with what she's prepared to do with her body yeah and luckily for us with millie none of that happened and we had a very positive journey but you know you need to kind of really match up on those things and um so it's very you know it's a very it's a very scary thing to embark on and we feel incredibly lucky that we found laura and was there quite a lot of support out there for the parents starting the journey as surrogate like using a surrogate is that quite I mean there's a there's a real strong community and there's a very strong surrogate community where there's

where lots of surrogates all talk to each other um intended parents it's less so and there are it's a real difficult thing to find your way into because you've got some traditional kind of agencies which are kind of businesses set up to support you through that process and they do lots of things for you they do lots of checks and lots of pre-screening and help you with that matching process but you pay a lot of money for that service um or you can go to kind of the other end of the scale where there's like facebook groups and you know you know a surrogate started one many years ago and now surrogates and intended parents go on there and you start chatting know a surrogate started one many years ago and now surrogates and intended

parents go on there and you start chatting online again a bit like online dating and you connect with someone there but again it's there there's very limited support so once you've matched there are so many kind of legal things you need to go through paperwork and all that kind of stuff which you then have to do by yourself which again is cheaper but again it's you know a lot of surrogacy is expensive anyway and then when you start piling on like legal expenses and agency expenses sometimes it prices people out of the market and so people who really want to engage in surrogacy they're not able to and then you've got the more um much the same with IVF as well actually yeah absolutely people are sort of ruled by their budget unfortunately with how many goes they can give themselves and then you've got the abroad one so they're you

know their their legal framework for surrogacy is a lot stronger in places like America for example so um some people go out there but then again the expense is is much greater and there are some people who go to places like uh Ukraine which has a thriving um surrogacy uh setup which is it's an interesting setup because there are some questions of the ethics of it there um and you know surrogacy is a is a very fine line ethically when it's done right I think it's a beautiful thing between two very consenting and understanding you know groups of people who come to do something amazing together and both leave very, very happily, but under the wrong circumstances with the wrong people, then I think they can cross over that ethical line very quickly. And so, but then that is the, but it's a much cheaper option. So people are faced

with some very difficult moral dilemmas. And as you said, some people have a very strong drive to have a child through surrogacy who don't have the finances to do it a certain way so it's a very complicated world but when it's done right it is a beautiful beautiful thing um but there are some times when it goes wrong unfortunately yeah it makes you think that you know you know you're doing it now when there's been all this history to it and legal frameworks and working out where they need to be. But think about people that were doing it, you know, way back and all the stuff they were... They were being sort of guinea pigs for things going wrong

and how to make sure that legally they're a bit more protected next time around. It is fascinating. I was thinking as well, because we were talking before we started recording about the documentary you made about that whole process of becoming parents, but it must have been quite unique for you that about that whole process of becoming parents but it must have been quite unique for you that through that documentary you could actually see because obviously when you get handed your baby all you and jake are doing and looking at your baby but because of the documentary you could see more laura's you know what how she was responding and that's something you wouldn't

normally yeah in that way it was yeah it was interesting and it was we actually watched the documentary a couple of weeks ago because you know we're lying in bed and it was a nice thing to look at i'm so glad we've got that to show you in the future um but it the thing about obviously about any documentary is that it's edited and so you know and it's scored and it's like really it's designed to pull you in certain ways and we think the documentary is beautiful and almost perfect apart from one reaction shot at the end where at the very end we're holding Millie you know you know against her skin skin contact and this beautiful moment and at this point Laura has you know she had a c-section she was back in recovery at this point

but the editor chose to put in another shot of Laura looking at us, you know, looking kind of sad and crying, which was actually just as she handed this baby over to us. Yeah. And it makes it look like, you know, she's feeling sad, and I think the documentary makers wanted it to make it look like, oh, there was some doubt in her mind about giving up this child, which has never crossed her mind. I didn't actually think she did look sad i thought she looked

really peaceful honestly i thought she looked really calm that's interesting but that's i suppose that's and of course yeah telly like they've got got their own like scope to it but honestly i i um as a you know impartial viewer i didn't actually think oh good i'm glad that you didn't see that maybe it's just me you're the very critical yeah does she look that sad there she didn't look sad there yeah we're just we're just so conscious of yeah i suppose yeah because we're doing something in the public eye we know that we are opening ourselves up for people to give us their opinions and we just want to make sure that people know that you know we really respect laura and this was a a journey that we went on together and we've all

come out of it as very happy parties and I don't I hate the idea of anyone suggesting that we've even somehow taken advantage of Laura when Laura's means a lot to us I don't think that even that really from my point of view anyway that's not definitely I think it's very clear that that's not the case actually I think from my point of of view, I only got the beauty of it, actually. I really did. That's good. I think it's so powerful. I think it's so powerful, the idea of that.

And the thing is, there's nothing more pure than a wanted love baby being with the people that love them. It's just completely gorgeous. Well, that's it. being being with the people that love them you know it's just like it's completely gorgeous people said to me that um you know how are you gonna what you're gonna tell Millie when she's older and I was like I'm gonna tell her the truth like we went through hell and high water huge amounts of money huge amounts of stress and anxiety to bring her into the world because we wanted her that much you know that's that's the story of surrogacy for me. People who are desperate to be parents going above and beyond prioritising that process

above many other things, including, you know, buying houses and all that kind of stuff that other people are doing. Like, we put all our energy into having Millie. And for me, that's just a sign of how much we want her, how much we love her and how important she is to us. And that's what I'll tell her. Yeah, she's going to know that um i think the future's bright and there's also another bit

in the documentary that did make me laugh um when you're going to meet laura for the first time and jake said i don't think we should drink at the lunch because we want to look you know like parent people and you were like how many parents do you know that don't drink it made me laugh i love that bit i thought it's brilliant but no I just think it's lovely to speak to you because you it's always lovely to speak when there's a happy ending at the beginning of the tale and you know I'm not I'm not saying that in a sort of trite way just from looking at Instagram you know I can hear it in your voice and in the stories you tell so I think that's it's it's an amazing thing

you're doing with keeping your conversations open because I as you said at the beginning I know there will be many trans parents out there but my words for if there'll be there'll be people you know in their teens and 20s just just starting to you know really emerge and for them knowing that all of those things are out there that's that's a really big deal like you if you could go back in time and tell that to yourself at like 17 18 yeah of course and it's one thing if one thing that people take away from jake and i being sort of public about our journey i love for not just the you know those people who are potentially going through that journey of transition, but also the family and their friends just know that being trans doesn't mean you can't have all the things

that you expected from, you know, life. Because, you know, parents want to have grandkids. They want, they, and when people come out as trans, they think, oh, that's it. They're going to be alone or they can't have kids. It's rubbish. You know, I want people to know that just because you're transgender, transgender doesn't mean that you can't have life, you can't have love, you can't have happiness, you can't have a family, you can't have everything you otherwise dreamed of. I think we can just turn the table slightly and stop thinking about it as such a negative thing and just thinking it's just a thing that happens. Just like people have challenges all the time, it just happens to be ours

and we'll overcome it and be happy the same as everyone else so that was my chat with hannah how brilliant is she and so much that conversation has stayed with me and my quote every week with the podcast guests i put a little quote up an audio clip of a sort of special quote from our chat. And the one that Hannah said this week, I think is one of my favorites out of all my guests, because it can pertain to so many things. It was the bit where she said, you know, if your child comes to you with something, you have to think, do I want to be the reason that they couldn't be who they wanted to be? Or do I want to be the person who's in their corner, loving them and supporting them? Mama! Mama!

Mickey, I'm in your corner and I support you, but I'm also trying to record something. Where are you? Mama. He's run away. He called me and ran away. Hello. What are you doing? Oh, Ant-Man. Do you want to come play? Mandalorian? Mandalorian?

Mandalorian? I don't know where he is. Should we find him in the box? Big fans of Mandalorian in this house. In fact, in my mind, because Mickey was born around the time the Mandalorian series started and my older boys used to watch it

and Mickey would often be on the sofa watching it with his dad and his big brothers, in my head, he kind of is Baby Yoda. Mickey, are you Baby Yoda? He's shaking his head. I thought you were Baby Yoda. Do you have the Force, Mickey? Oh, he's using the Force.

Things are lifting. He's shaking his hands. It's all happening. Mickey, I knew it. You are all happening. Mickey, I knew it. You are, baby Yoda. No, I'm not. Oh, okay. Fair enough.

Anyway, let's find him. There we are. I want to be in that corner. That's all I have to say on that subject. And I love that message that Hannah sent out. I am Timberland. Yes. I am Timberland and you are Dorothy.

I get to be Dorothy? Yes, Toto's there. Oh, hi there, Toto. I think you can tell, guys, that my attention is elsewhere. I've got to go and wheel a Tin Man. You're being too animated oh wow i'm sorry if you've got like bud earphones in i'm sorry if that hurt your ears i'm gonna go away now i will see you next week i have had not much sleep yesterday i was up for 23

hours i had a gig this morning at um let's find the scarecrow. Who cares about me and my gig last night in Butlin's Bognor Regis before me at 1am going to bed at half past four. See that? I'm off to see the wizard. See you next week. Lots of love. Take care of yourselves. Bye. Bye. Thank you.