The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss - Jennifer Finney Boylan

Episode Date: June 18, 2019

In this episode, Lawrence sits down in the offices of the New York Times with author and columnist Jennifer Finney Boylan. They discuss her life, novels, writing style, and the challenges facing transgender people in the world today. See the exclusive, full HD videos of all episodes at www.patreon.com/originspodcast immediately upon their release. Twitter: @TheOriginsPod Instagram: @TheOriginsPod Facebook: @TheOriginsPod Website: https://theoriginspodcast.com     Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribe

Hello, and welcome to the Origins Podcast. I'm your host Lawrence Krauss. Jenny Boylan is a skilled and witty author, and university professor of English who provides an important and unique perspective on the world. She's a trans woman who transitioned in 2000, and has described her experiences in several brilliant memoirs, the most famous of which is she's not there,

which generated a host of questions I wanted to ask her about. I was privileged to first person, meet both Jenny and her wife, Dede, about four years ago in Aspen, when we were both speaking in an event, and I was so taken with our discussion that I invited her to participate in an Origins Project event on sex, gender, and reproductive rights a few years ago. While Jenny is one of the most eloquent national spokespeople on transgender issues, I wanted to have a personal discussion with her about how her own transition impacted on her writing and her views of the world and also the views of others about her.

Her reflections are particularly important and relevant now as transgender individuals are once again under attack. We discussed all of this as well as issues of religion where we have slightly different perspectives. Our discussion was warm, personal, and eloquent, and I found it to be one of the most enjoyable we've recorded to date. Patreon subscribers can find the full video of this program and all our programs the day they are released at patreon.com slash origins podcast. I hope you enjoy the show. Jenny, it's great to be with you again. Hi, Lawrence. What's happening? Last time I was in Arizona, and now it's in New York, a totally different world.

A sea change. Yeah, it's, yeah, a sea change. I was in the Protestant cemetery in Rome standing by the grave of Shelley. And on the slab where Shelley is buried is a quote from The Tempest, nothing of him doth remain he has but he hath endureth a sea change into something

rich and strange and but standing there I didn't think it said sea change I thought it said sex change so and I was like really Shelley? Shelly? Who knew? Shelley's kind of a female name so it's except it was the last one but it's

okay nice name for her off It's hard to, there you go it's been prevalent far longer than people ever imagined. Indeed. going back to Lord Cornbury, Lord Cornbury, one of the first governors of the territory, the province of New York in, I believe 1705 or so, his portrait in drag hangs in the New York City Historical Museum.

And so, actually, he was governor of New York and New Jersey. And so, yeah, we've been here a long, freaking time. Yeah, and it goes both ways. and sometimes out of necessity, many, a few, at least one female pope who had to pretend for a long time. Right, yeah, I love that story. Well, you know, happily, hopefully,

and we'll talk about this, we're not in times where you have to pretend one way or another. It would be wonderful, actually, we all pretend, I suppose, in some way or another. We make it through the world pretending. Put on the faces to meet the faces that we meet. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And that's the stuff of literature, which we'll talk about. I've learned a tremendous amount from you and enjoy your writing and our conversations. Let's start with your story a little bit. I mean, it's well known because you've written a trilogy of memoirs in a way, but the one that I know best is what she's not there. But for people who haven't read it, the context of your own decision to be, or the transition to transgender,

a little summary, maybe. Well, let's see. I was born in 1958, and my earliest memory is of my mother ironing my father's shirts. She had a blue plastic bottle that she used as a steamer, I guess. And as she was ironing the shirts, she said to me, someday you'll wear shirts like this. And I remember thinking, what? Why would I wear shirts like my father's? And so for me, I had a sense of being trans from a very, very early age.

It's worth saying not every trans person does, but I did. And it was pretty well, you know, it was pretty much part of my wiring and a fundamental sense of self. But I also knew pretty early on it was something I better keep quiet and keep to myself because I had a, somehow I knew intuitively that this was a thing that would get me in trouble and that would be a source of conflict for me. me in the world. So I kept secret for most of my life until, it's funny, on the one hand, I mean, I had two prayers. One prayer was, please let me wake up female like I feel like I've always felt. And on the other hand, I had the sense of please make it go away. And to make a long story short, I think I always felt that if I were loved deeply enough, that it would be okay to stay a boy, that that would be my second best life. And, but my, you know, my first, my, my,

best life seemed like it would ensure violence and lovelessness and that I would be alone and marginalized the rest of my life. Anyway, finally, I did fall in love with my wife, whose name is Dirdre. In the books, I call her Grace, but her real name is Dirdre. And that seemed to address my dilemma for a while. And yet then the feeling eventually emerged. And then I had two problems, one of which was that I was trans, and the other was that I had a secret. So eventually I came out to my wife and after a complex process, which the book describes, we decided to stay together. And we have now been married for 30 years, 12 as husband and wife, and 18 as wife and wife. And the, I mean, the ironic thing is that love in a way did cure me

in the end, but not in the way that I expected. And that my prayer was answered ironically, which I think is the fate of many prayers, actually, because we don't know what to ask for or how to ask for it. And so in a way, the thing that I was hoping for was to be loved, which I am. But it's worth saying that a lot of transgender people aren't loved, and the good fortune that I found is, I don't know if it's a rarity, but it ought to be the rule.

Well, we ought to be the rule for everyone. Well, yeah. Is there anything better than that? This is what we know why we are here. I mean, I don't know. As a scientist, maybe you disagree, but I bet not. That this is why we're on this planet. Well, you talk about purpose.

I never talk about purpose, but we need to be loved. We're here to love each other and we're here to be loved. And is that a purpose? Or is that just a good way of passing the time? Well, it's just happening. Well, we may debate about that later, in fact, But it's funny because I met, the first time I met you, we were both at an event in Aspen. And I was sitting in the audience, but I was sitting in the audience next to Dedi.

And it was really interesting because I got to know her before I got to know you. Oh, that's funny. While you were talking, she was making side comments to me. And it was fascinating. And you know, you're a lucky woman. I am. And you were a lucky man. I have both of those.

I was both of those. And not everyone gets to be there. But there are all sorts of questions I've never gotten to ask you that I want to ask. I see it. But first, there was a period, interestingly enough. So it was self-image is incredibly important. And there was a long period when you, when before you transitioned, when first privately and then publicly you dressed as a woman.

First privately, right? Yeah. Right? In the privacy of your own room, right? Yeah. And then I remember you talked about with great passion or at least great fear, maybe because an important moment the first time you walked outside as a woman, at least don't hear with the appearance of a woman. Yeah, the cold air on my bare legs. Yeah. It was nothing like that in a man's

experience. Well, I've had a kilt and I guess. Well, I just felt I felt very exposed and very vulnerable, both in in in in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, suddenly, I knew, um, how thin the ice was that I was walking, walking, walking upon. Yeah, I did, I did, I did all that, it's important to say clothes have never been that important to me and in fact, to some degree, being pretty, being feminine is not that important

to me and I think when people think about trans issues it's important to separate one way of thinking about it is the difference between femininity and femalness. So the thing that I always yearned for was the body that

I'm now in and which I'm fairly certain there's a neurological basis in the way I was wired to be shaped like this and to live here. But femininity, you know, makeup and stilettos, I don't know, I can't say it's not any fun because sometimes it really is. It's a gas. But as a way of life, you know, the truth of my heart is better expressed in, the truth is better expressed in my heart than in a little button nose. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, speaking of that, I think it just reminded me of a funny, again, a funny episode,

which I think is after you, around the time you're transitioning, I think D.D. made a big point saying, I'm not going to do your makeup. I'm not going to go girl shopping with you. And she made her a big point like, okay, I'm going to live through this experience with you, but don't expect me to sort of train you. Yeah, I don't know if she regrets that now. She didn't want to make it any easier for me back in the day. And all I can say is that I understand that she, at the time, I think she felt very much like she was being asked to participate in something that felt like a loss to her. And it turns out it was not a loss.

at least not in those terms. In many ways, I think it's strengthened our relationship. But at the time, you know, she was, what's the phrase in soccer? She was playing the match under protest. Yeah, you can certainly get that, and you can certainly understand it. And I find that your relationship fascinating will come back to it in a sense. at some point. But you also point out

that your experience is different because you're a woman who wasn't a girl. And that as a result, you didn't... For example, I was just thinking simple things like putting on makeup and how you had to learn. Yeah, I didn't know any of that stuff. And it didn't come naturally. No one showed me how to do it.

I had to figure it out myself. and by trial and error. Also, there are a lot of aspects of, I mean, the question is, who was I going to be now that I was a woman? Because to be a woman means so many different things. And I think at first I really wanted to express the thing that I hadn't been able to express before. So when I first popped out of the box, I think I was very feminine. I kind of went through a second adolescence in a way. And, you know, there were a lot of stretchy T-shirts and, you know, there were a lot of stretchy t-shirts.

and I never quite got up to naval rings, but it was a close call. But as time this has gone on, and it's as I've gotten more used to being in this body, but it's also about getting older. It's a good thing that beauty is less important to me now because it's something that's, as the years go by, is getting farther from my fingertips. I mean, it's really funny when I first came out, and, you know, I walked down the streets of New York City and about, and, you know, literally construction workers would whistle, like literally that would happen. And part of me was like,

how dare they, how dare they do that? And the other part of me was like, well, looking good, Janie Boyle. Yeah, exactly. Now, interesting when you say New York City, because of course, you live in Maine. I assume was it much easier to do it in New York City than it was it. No, no, it wasn't easier in New York. There were more people to be to be seen by, But, you know, I had a community of people who loved me mostly in Maine. And so even though I was more awkward and maybe people in a rural state were less sophisticated around the issues, supposedly. I still was protected by my community. People wanted it to go well for me as best they could.

Yeah, that's nice. They're rooting for you. That makes a big difference. It was the thing that people assumed. that Didi and I would divorce and that I would move to someplace like New York, where there'd be a lot of other transsexuals I could hang out with. And I love my sisters, but other transgender people isn't exactly my cohort. I mean, sometimes it is, but my coders, my natural cohort is other writers, other musicians,

and other shit kickers. Yeah, yeah, no. Okay, now let me, I want to get there actually because, but first of you was thinking, when in terms of training yourself to do simple things from simple female things, many people think, at least I, of course, I'm not a woman, so, but I think that daughters, not yet, but give me time. I try to have a female side, but anyway, but daughters learn from mothers, right? Your mother, of course, didn't train, quote unquote trans.

You point out, she said one day you're going to wear this shirt. She was training you, if anything, to be a man. Yeah. And did that... A question I have is, do you think in some ways some aspects of the woman you decided to be was looking at your mother? I don't know.

There are things I got from my mother, but I suspect that what I got more from her was a sense of generosity, a sense of love, a sense of kindness, a sense of reserve, maybe. And those are the things I learned from her. I mean, let me flip it on you. Did you think, do you think that your father trained you to be a man? I mean, it was all.

No, no, no. And I often think that's maybe a shame in a way. I didn't, I was kind of distant from my parents. I used them as foils, actually. I would look at, particularly my mother, who was more dominant than my father, that I would often look at her behavior and say, good, that's an example of what I don't want to do. Well, so this is the question is how do we become ourselves? And we, it's a cliche to say, well, we learn how to be a man or woman from that same-sex parent. But, you know, I mean, I had two children. And what did they learn from me? Did they learn about being a man? Did they learn about being a woman?

Yeah. I think what my children learned from me, I hope, was a sense of, you know, rooting for the underdog, a sense of kindness to people who are different, a sense of the importance of family. So those are things that I'm aware of teaching my children. I don't know how to throw a football, so I never taught them that. I tried to teach them how to make a nice tomato sauce. That's useful for everyone.

Gravy. Yeah, we're a female, right? Italian gravy is a lot. It's going to get you through life. And one thing I don't remember if it's in, of course, the reaction, your mother was alive when you transitioned. Yeah. Yeah, that's the whole story. Yeah, exactly.

That's right. And I think acceptance is a key thing, right? I mean, from your, or is it? Well, of course it is. And so, transgender people are generally understood to have, to struggle and to have all these psychological problems. But what's funny is usually the psychological problem is not the fact that they're trans. The psychological trouble that we face has to do with other people being assholes to us. And other people trying to crush our spirit or to crush our actual bodies.

You know, there are children in this country who are thrown out of their own houses by their but supposedly loving parents. there are people who lose their jobs, who lose their families, and their right to see their children, all because of who they are. And so they wonder why we struggle in the world? It's not because we're trans. It's because other people fail to open their hearts. That's particularly too for transgender, but I think it's probably universal in some ways for people. Yeah, sure. You know, it's funny for me. I was fortunate enough to be asked. I performed several weddings because I ordained. You'll be surprised me. Nothing would surprise me about you, Clarence. But I did it so I could perform weddings, but actually.

I can do that too. As a notary public in Maine, as long as you're in the state of Maine. I can marry. I'm a reverend, actually, in the Universal Life Church. Very good. And in fact, one of the reasons I did is I have a placard that now I can put in the back of my card that says, reverend in performance of her duty so I can park. Clergy. Yeah, I can park many plays. But I was able to perform weddings. And one of the things that was remarkable for me,

and probably unique, because I performed what I think is the only wedding, a lesbian, atheist, vegan wedding in Texas. But what amazed me... You're really checking boxes, which are you? I didn't. They asked me, but what was so impressed me was the happiness of the ceremony, because even the grandparents, there were... 85, 90-year-old grandparents who were just thrilled by this.

And I think that must make it so much easier in an environment. I mean, wherever we live, whether it's Texas or New York or Maine, it's our kind of microcosm. It's not the big society. The big society, of course, frames some general problems and challenges for all of us and women or men or transgender people. But it's the local group around you that has a huge impact. Yeah, agreed. Now, when you were younger, you talked about sort of your identity.

When you dreamed, did you ever dream yourself as a woman? Oh, of course. From the time you were young, you saw yourself, your gender was... Absolutely. So, but when you woke up... Or I would dream that I was in trouble. I mean, I would dream that I was appearing as myself and that other people, you know, wanted to know who I was, you know, who I was, or what I was, what I thought I was doing. So I'm going to, I don't want to sound like a psychiatrist here, but what do it, with,

But then they were generally sort of anxiety-provoking dreams or happy dreams? They were mysterious more than anything else. I wouldn't say it. They weren't anxious dreams, usually. It was just, I mean, the language of dreams, it's not the language of a novel. It was as I went to this other place and it was a place of mystery. Well, okay. Now there's some other, your main.

things, and I want to talk, we all are, but you're a lovely writer, and I enjoy reading tremendously, and a musician, as we'll get to. When you transitioned, or after you transitioned, did it change your writing? Well, maybe that's not for me to say. Maybe it's for readers to say. Do you feel it? Did you feel it? And you're in the process of writing. Did you feel anything different about... Well, I tell you what, as a man, that's in quotes, before transition, anyhow, I wrote novels.

Most of them were kind of comic and entertaining, and I think in those novels, so I wrote a novel, which is titled The Planets. I wrote one titled The Constellations, which was a sequel. And then there was a novel called Getting In. And those three novels, I think, have a kind of

manic energy to them. and to some degree. Looking at them now, to me, it feels like a... It feels like a story is being told by somebody who's trying to stay one step ahead of the reader, who's not being quite on the level. On the other hand, they're wildly entertaining, and some of them are very happy.

She's not there. Has that same sense of entertainment, humor, for me. Yeah, I think so she's not there, which was my first memoir, my first byline as a woman. Oh, it was your first byline as a woman, okay. Yeah, okay. Was is a book that I think

is more honest and it still has a kind of a comic energy to it, but there's, I think I'm a little bit become, as a woman, I think my voice, I think I'm a little bit better at talking about suffering and And some of the tragic aspects of life, too.

If you wanted to write the doctoral thesis, you could say that my work as a man was fiction and my work as a woman has been nonfiction. And maybe that reflects a change or a metamorphosis from what was false to what is true. And when you say nonfiction, you mean true to reality? Because, I mean, your most recent book, Long Black Vail is a fiction book.

Yeah, that was my first novel as a woman, as my female byline. And that's not a humorous book. No, I think that has much of the, and it's a very autobiographical book as well. So I think it has some of the energy. So I guess my writing has changed, but maybe it's not like, you know, when I was a boy, I wrote about submarines. And now, as a woman, you know, I'm writing about salads and close dancing or something. Well, I mean, again, all stereotypes are just that.

but one gets a sense that women have a better sense of social interaction, understanding of, or they're in tune more with the social interactions than men. Yeah, people say that I remember noticing in the classroom. It used to be that if I gave the same lecture, it used to be when I was a boy, people would write that shit down. People would say, oh, this is great. And as a woman, people kind of look at me and smile, hmm, and I remember thinking, but now I'm not an authority figure anymore.

And at the same time, I think people, to a certain extent, I'm better at shepherding conversations in the classroom. I think people are able to express the things that they're thinking with a little more ease in my classroom, which in a way is good, I guess, although it's a cliche. And part of me is like, well, goddamn, I still want to be an authority figure. Yeah, of course. Write this down, kids. Yeah, yeah. But if you sent, but on the eye, being a teacher, being able to steer things in the classroom, I mean, there's many, as a teacher, there's many aspects of the classroom besides what the actual learning experience is.

It's much. It's theater. And also, you as the chief actor, you keep changing. Because when you're young, you have the secret pedagogical trick of being part of their generation. And the older you get, I don't share the same music or shows or movies as my students anymore, mostly. And now I have to do it on scholarship alone, which unfortunately is the thing I don't have. Well, what about in, I don't want to push this too far, but what about beyond the classroom, in social interactions, do you find your interaction with the milieu, with friends? and groups that you find yourself being able to interact in groups differently than you did before?

Oh, I mean, the point is, look, it's always going to be different if people are aware, you know, that you're trying, as opposed to people just accepting as a woman. When I first transitioned, I was definitely, especially if I was around men who didn't know, and even sometimes around men that did, I would often find myself people coming on to me, and that was really a shock. because it was just something I talked about socialization. I'd never been trained how to deal with men.

I remember there was a scene my band was playing in a bar and I swear to got this happen. A guy came up to me during one of the bricks with the band and he said, excuse me, was your daddy a thief?

And I said, what, no? And he said, well, I don't know, but someone stole the stars and put him in your eyes. And I said, well, aren't you nice to say that? Thank you so much. And that's when my girlfriend, Laura, grabbed me by the arm and pulled me off, and she said, what is wrong with you? I said, what? She said, thank you very much. That's not what you say in that situation. I said, really? What do you say? She said, what you say is fuck you. Leave me

alone, get out of here. I said, really? Just, he seems so nice. And she was like, I think I said, I don't think he meant any harm. And she said, yeah, harm is exactly what he had in mind. No, but that's an interesting question. I mean, because I think many men would like to be hit on, because they don't get it. And women tend to realize they have to deal in a world which they're being hit on a lot more. I had this argument with, believe it or not, Chris, Jenner of all people. I was because I was on that Caitlin Jenner show and there was one time, I think this is actually, the video of this is actually online somewhere. And everybody in that group, including one or both of the Kardashian, the younger Kardashian girls where they're all sitting around.

And somebody said, oh, Jenny Boyland, we need to get you a stylist. And I'm like, what? And it's like, yeah, you know, you just, and of course it was a day where I was, I thought, because I was on TV. I thought I was looking really good. And they were like, no, not really. And I was like, what an insulting thing to say to me that I need a stylist. I mean, you know, I'm, and then I just kind of said, you know, aren't we here for something more important than what we look like? And Chris Jenner, to her credit, it turns out, maybe to no one's surprise, very smart woman, she said, yeah, but as a woman, you're always going to be in.

you know, you're always going to have to kind of fight to get power in a situation. And if you're beautiful and if you have the right clothes and all this other stuff, then you'll have power in the situation that you wouldn't otherwise have. And I just kind of pushed back on that again. I said, you know, yeah, but that's power that you buy, by buying clothes and by buying all this stuff. And I said, I want people to, if I have power in a situation, I want it to be because I'm smart and because I am a good writer and I've read a lot of books. Yeah.

And she just kind of looked at me like, yeah, well, good luck with that. Well, no, but it would be great. I mean, we should live in, it would be great to live in a world where power, not so much power, but impact, just depending on what you say or what you did and not who you were at some level, gender-wise, culture-wise, class-wise, and otherwise. You know where I noticed the difference? It used to be that if I was going out to dinner by myself, which I don't do that often, but if I'm in the city, or if I'm in a strange city especially, the best place to sit was at the bar with a book. And I would love, I don't like sitting at a table by myself

because then I feel like an object of pity. But if I'm at the bar and I have a book and a cocktail, life is good. But when I was younger and prettier, it would also mean I might as well have had a sign on my back that said, bother me. Yeah, bother me. And now that I'm 60, in fact,

Hmm, funny. Usually I get left alone. I've attained a certain invisibility, which I think I also would not have, if I were still a boy, I think a 60-year-old man is a man of tremendous power in the culture. A 60-year-old woman, you know,

if beauty has a social power, you have less a firm grip, on that by the time you get older. But on the other hand, the good news is now I can sit at a bar and drink my cocktail and read a book and everything is fine. Yeah, yeah, no. I also like to go to bars and read when I was younger. I mean, I feel more comfortable everywhere if I'm alone and have a book for some reason. To me, if I'm in that situation and I'm in a strange city and I've just checked into the hotel and I don't have to do a thing until the next morning, to me, that is seven heaven.

Yeah, I agree. But I will say, though, as a man in his 60s, and happily I'm old, and by the way, you look great to me. Oh, thank you, Lawrence. But it's not so easy to be a man in your 60s either right now. I know, and I don't mean to sound unsympathetic. It's hard getting older. You and I both have hearing aids. We both, well, you have glasses, and I have bionic eyeballs.

But I'm soon going to have a bionic hip. Yeah, and you're going to have a bionicip. So, yeah. It's not just the physical aspect, but social aspects. But the social aspect, being many of 60s. It's no surprise that people turn grayer and become less athletic or bendable the older we get. But we forget about the change in our relationships with other people. And society's changes and the ability know exactly where we have formative years,

and the formative years are 30 years ago and society is very different now. And I think it's a challenge for all of us to figure out how to correctly fit in into that. Right. And so, but for transgender women in particular, there's just been this great emphasis on the transition. Yeah, yeah, sure. Which usually happens in younger, a younger part of your life. And on, you know, a lot of attention the media is paid to people who are suddenly fabulously beautiful. And what's not paid attention to is someone who, like, you know, I've lived a third of my life, 20 years.

in this body. Yeah. And what does it mean to be an older transgender person? What does it mean to be someone who has the kind of unique medical and health care challenges that we have? That's a conversation that you don't hear about. Well, let me, before I leave this, there's one other thing. There's been a, there was at least one study that men interpret women smiling at them as sexual. women interpret men smiling at them as friendly.

Did that change for you? I don't know, Lawrence. I think I'm a pretty friendly person. Yeah, I can attest to that. And I know that I carry with me some vestigial remnants of my socialization in the younger part of my life. I think I'm generally a pretty friendly person. Yeah, you're open and easy to engage with people. I like to engage with strangers, but I'm also feeling as a more vulnerable person now.

Yeah, sure. There are times when I, like for instance, we're taping this in the New York Times building here in New York City. Just about a month ago, I was down on the street here just about a block away, heading to a meeting here at the Times. And somebody came up to me on the street and said, excuse me, are you Jenny Boylan? And I said, why, yes, big smile. And he smiled at me. And he said, I read your work. And I said, yeah.

And he said, you know, that column you wrote? And then he brought up a column that I'd written several weeks earlier. And he got angrier and angrier and anger until finally he started swearing at me. And he said, you need to retract that. You know, he said, you're an idiot for writing that. And that's when I just turned on my heel and kind of, I didn't run, but I walked away swiftly. And I. If you've been a man, you might not.

Well, I was never the kind of person who would have swung a punch anyway. But you did talk about that vulnerability. I remember there's a time after you were performing and she's not there, a very poignant scene. The first time late at night after a performance of you're walking to your car, a whole different level of vulnerability. Yeah, a guy came up to me and kind of grabbed my arm. He'd been watching me from the bar like a wolf all night long.

He said to me something like, we can do this the easy way or we can do this long. hard way. And I was like, wow. It was just kind of shocking to me and very frightening. Fortunately, I guess it's fortunate. He was drunk enough so that I actually pushed him down and got in my car and locked the car and drove away. Somebody said to me later, well, if you'd still, if you hadn't been socialized as boy, you wouldn't have pushed him away. And I don't know if that's true. Somebody said that to me. I think most women probably would have. Well, also, you're, you're a tall woman.

I mean, you're not a, you know, you're six feet of love. Yes. Or five foot 12, as my mother used to say. But I mean, you know, so that, you know, physically, I mean, if you'd been much smaller, I don't know if it had been, but. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Let me ask another thing, because, and among many facets, besides being a writer, and we'll get back to writing as I want to talk about your writing too, and a teacher,

you have been a musician. And, I mean, I couldn't help think, actually, a song came to mind as you, when we were first talking about what you experienced after transition. And of course the stones, you can't always get what you want. Sometimes you get you need. I'll use that for my next book. Okay, good. And you have free permission to you.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mick. For me and Mick Jagger. Thank you, Mick. But did your taste in music change at all? No. No. No. I mean, I think my reaction to music has changed. My reaction to a lot of things has changed. And I hate to say it because it's such cliched bullshit

and maybe it's just hormonal, maybe it's the effect of chemicals in the bloodstream, but tears are very close to the surface. I'm much more likely to be moved by a piece of music and to have my breath taken away. Before you transitioned, it wasn't as frequent.

Do you ever try? Do you ever cry? Very rarely, very rarely. But then, I mean, in those days, I was just keeping everything locked down in the hole, as they say on the wire. Yeah, I just, as very close in. Well, you know, I try, look, I don't pretend to be a literary critic. I read a lot, and I like literature. I like it, you know, to read. Says the author of a best-selling book.

Well, but okay, but not yet a novel, although I have been working on. But anyway, I see connections. at least, and I haven't read all you work, but when I, that they all, at least what I see, I see remnants of your life, or at least, you know, she's not there, talks about a key change in your life. And, but there's also, the other, the other memoirs are sort of also haunted by the past in a way. And so I see this, this continuity of haunting and a, and a, and a, and a, not an epiphany, but a key moments in the life of changing, that produce a future that changes things, particularly in the most recent book, of sort of this continuity of ghosts.

Ghosts in your parents' house, ghosts of your past life. And I'm wondering, you know, I want to talk about that a little bit. Do you see? Well, sure. And I think, so when we talk about ghosts, it could be we're talking about what I think is something that's make-believe that there are spirits that are out to scare us and I don't

I've seen things that I can't explain but I at the same time I don't really believe in those kinds of ghosts and I think it's... Because they're not there Yeah I think it's silly I mean I do there are things that we can't explain but the kind of ghosts that I think are more

they're more interesting are the ghost as metaphor which is to say so to me being haunted to me means that something has happened to you that you've never quite gotten over and it continues to affect who you

become into the future it's like shadow it's more like shadows than ghosts the trail after us and for some people it's trauma some terrible thing happened to them and I think there are a lot of trans people like that

there's certainly a lot of veterans who are like that but I think people can also be haunted by joy and you're lucky if that's you if that's you if something really good happens to you with any luck you carry that with you for the rest of your life as well well but I also see so I see it's not just haunting but I see or ghosts I see family secrets

episodes that change lives those are two things I think about I think about from knowing your personal life, family secrets, interpersonal secrets, haunting events, episodes that change lives. And it's interesting for me to see that continuity of, do you think you're fascinated by family secrets because you were keeping so many secrets personally? Oh yeah, sure. And it's funny, there is a sense that if only we could only tell the truth, then we wouldn't be haunted.

But I think people get used to being haunted. It becomes such a habit that even after we've told our truth and lived our truth, we still are in the habit of feeling the past. And the thing is that people have to build a bridge between who they are and who they were. You can't just begin your life one day as if everything had happened before that never existed. When people enter the witness protection program, I have no idea how they survive because it kind of means you don't have a history. And even if your history is something that you're not proud of or that is painful to you, you have to make peace with it. Because otherwise you can never really be whole. At least that's what I think.

Yeah, that's true. Although you had to enter womanhood without having girlhood. So in some sense, it's a, I mean, you write about it a little bit. Yeah, but, you know, in a way, I feel, look, mostly, I mean, that's sad, because it means that in some ways I'm a more awkward person than I would be at this age. Awkward is not how I would describe you, Jenny. But I think, on the whole, how lucky am I to have had a boyhood? I've seen things most women don't get to see. And my boyhood was not, I mean, it was strange.

It was kind of an isolated boyhood. but, you know, I had that life and there were a lot of joys in that life, and I'm grateful for them. Well, I think that's right. I mean, we'll may get to some differences we have, opinion we have, but one of the marvels for me is that the only life we have is the one we're living here, and our life is a series of experiences. And having had a wide variety of experiences, even ones which are rather traumatic, at the end of our lives, we get to say, we live through, through that and experience that. And how lucky are we, even if it's an experience,

we never would have asked for, that we went through it. What's the film? I can't even remember what the film is, but there's a scene where somebody has gone back in time and has the opportunity to skip over, or maybe they have the opportunity to go forward in time and skip over their adolescence and skip over their miserable 20s.

And someone else is trying to advise them on this, and says, well, you could do that, but think about all the heartbreak you're going to miss out on. Yeah, exactly. No, and I've written about time travel. What a shame. Yeah, and I've often said, you know, people are fascinated by time travel for two reasons. One, to go back and correct the errors of the youth and two, to relive them. My son is an engineer, and he was drawing this mysterious drawing with a lot of equations.

I said, what are you doing? He said, oh, I'm working on the issue of time travel. And I said, which direction? He said to the past, I said, as far as I know, the only way you can go in physics is in the future. He said, well, that's what I'm working on. So the next morning I came downstairs, and here was this drawing, which he'd completed. And there was an arrow showing the present, and there was an arrow that went back, and there was a circle and an X on the timeline. And I thought, hmm, and I looked around, and he wasn't in the house.

Oh, he thought, oh. Wait a minute. This is bad. This is bad. I hope he knows how to get back. Turns out he was at his girlfriends, but... Okay. Yeah, we do all travel pretty well into the future. We mastered that part of time travel.

And it's an open question about whether we can do the opposite. And there's many... You know, I've written about it. I know you have. Yeah, and it's... I'm betting no. You know, there's lots of pair. We can go into that, but I'm not going to be,

because I want to talk more about you. But one of the things I noticed, and again, maybe if I'd done more homework, I would know. The last book, whenever you talk about... talking the first person. And as I'm writing a novel, it's interesting for me to think about writing the third person versus the first person. But the first person is a female character in this last book.

Were there novels of yours, before you transition, where the first person was a male? I have almost always, all of my novels, except for a few chapters in the new one were third person. Yeah, there's a few chapters in the new one where it's a first person, but I didn't know if you've carried that. No, I never, I never. but I don't know if it's about gender. I think it's about the...

Henry James, I believe, said the first person was barbaric. That certainly as an author, you have more... You may not have as much intimacy with a third person in voice, but on the other hand, you have the ability to make all sorts of godlike choices. Which gives you more control in the thing you're writing. It's fascinating for me, because as I've been playing with writing fiction,

the idea of writing in the first person, it seems so alien to me. It's so much easier for me to write in the third person. Because you are creating a godlike reality. But then when I write memoir, it can only be the first person. Yeah, of course. But hopefully there's a difference.

The memoir hopefully has some connection to the real world. And the other one is a reflection of the real world, of course, by show don't. I think we were talking before. But in order to, I mean, whenever we're writing, it some way we're by allegory whether it's physics or otherwise we're we're trying to show and not tell we're trying to get people to think about things but not saying hey you need to think about gender or you need to think about traumatic events or you need to think about this it's showing

us so people can empathize and begin to think about their own experience right we're using the example of often it's one thing to lecture someone about equality in human rights and then because that's yeah the telling but then we're using the example of often it's one we're using the example of often it's one when you show, that means when someone sees that it's someone they love. It's someone I mean, sometimes I think the best case for my womanhood is made simply by me living my life.

Sure. And whenever I run it into people who just don't believe that I should have equal rights, I refute them. Look at me, I'm crying now. I refute them. My work here is done. How do I refute them? I refute them with the fact of my life. I refute them by living every day with joy

and fullness. and Blarney. And that is a better argument for my humanity than any lecture. Yeah, I think that's right. You know, I remember, actually, I'm going to cry because I remember, for me, the most poignant moment when we had an event that I ran, that you and Phyllis Frye, who was the first transgender judge. And I remember looking out at the audience and saying,

if you have a problem recognizing, in this case, transgender people are women, just look at the two wonderful women who were on stage with me. I mean, I couldn't imagine a better. way of just saying, look, get over it. These are two wonderful women. Hello. Yeah, exactly. Hello. I think what happens is people come up with a theory,

a theory of the universe, a theory that excludes people. Or excludes people can argue themselves away from the truth. And sometimes I think if, you have a theory about the world, especially that involves human beings, that doesn't make life easier, that doesn't reduce the suffering of people who are really at risk. Maybe what you need is a better theory. Yeah, exactly.

Speaking of, oh, that's a great segue because something else we want to talk about. Because I think if we're going to talk about, you know, gender and sex, we have to hit politics and religion. All the things you're not supposed to talk about. You're in, you're out with Jenny Boylan. Yeah, no, no, so I think that let's talk about the, we've been dealing with personal things, which has been fascinating. But there is the politics of transgender.

We're living in, you know, it often amazes me. We're almost the same age. I'm old than you, but as a child of the 60s, I never thought we'd be here in some ways, good ways, but mostly bad ways. I thought we'd have gotten over so many things we haven't. And we're living these times when again, after, marriage equality. It seemed to me that transgender was just around the corner of acceptance and openness, and now we're in these times where, at least from above, maybe not for below, but there's these

incredible retrenching and things are worse. Why do we talk about that a little bit? And I know you write about it in your columns, but describe the current situation and what your concerns are. Well, we're in a situation where all of the progress that we made over the last 10 years or so is attempting to be rolled back. by this administration. And it is, what's interesting is that they've got a number of issues that they're pushing through or trying to legislate

or trying to just accomplish by executive order. And my theory is that it's not, it's not that they really care about transgender people in bathrooms, because they've actually been in bathrooms with transgender people. Whether they know or not. For decades and decades without knowing. it, both in the men's room and in the women's room.

It's not about transgender service in the military because transgender people have been serving and the former deputy secretary of defense, Amanda Simpson, is a transgender woman. It's not about any of this stuff. It's not about... What they're trying to do is to simply say,

there shouldn't be transgender people. Yeah. We should just, we should just, this whole thing makes us, is the kind of society we don't want to live in. We don't want to live in a society in which something that seems as certain to us as maleness and femaleness is less dependable. It destabilizes the world. So they're trying, essentially, as Randy Newman once saying, We're trying to wash us away. Yeah.

And yet, we're still going to be here because guess what? We've always been here. Well, I'm wondering if it's more than that, though. It's not this I don't want a world with transgender people. I wonder if maybe I should change. And I was going to say straw man, but straw women. The point is, it seems to me, I see similarities between the reactions that are happening about transgender and immigration in the sense that I always try.

I can't remember whether this Güringer, or Gerdl Goebbels, who said that to make people do what you want, it doesn't matter whether you have democracy or dictatorship, just make them afraid. That transgender people are a convenient label of people you should be afraid of because your children might be, and immigrants you must be afraid of because they might take over your jobs, and it allows you to more effectively control people. Right, because what do I actually want from people? Turns out nothing. I want to be left alone.

I want to teach my classes. I want to ride my bicycle. I want to bake some bread. I want to play the piano. I mean, my existence doesn't come at the price of anyone else's anything. And somehow they're trying to twist it around so that my going about my business will come at the price of and I don't know what the price is.

I guess it's, at the very least, it's someone's view of the world that people are being deprived of a world in which I ought not be allowed to exist. Or that it'll change, I mean, again, it'll change your children. I mean, the big thing about gay for a long time is, oh, my goodness, if you have gay teachers or gay foster parents, they're going to make the kids gay. There must be some of that where people say,

we have transgender people. They're going to want to make your kids. They're going to commit your kids boys. They shouldn't be boys. Yeah, right. In fact, there's a whole conservative movement now that is now up in arms about transgender

trans men coming out in high school and in college that it's a fad. There's a woman from who published a piece in the Wall Street Journal about the epidemic. Yeah. And it's

as if somehow people are entering into the most profound decision of their lives, the same way that they decide to, I don't know, go to a Miley Cyrus concert. Yeah, wouldn't it be so much fun to enter into something that's going to put me in a difficult position for the rest of my life? Hey, that's something I want to do easier. Yeah, and result in sterilization and marginalization. The same way they see about gay people. It's a fad. Oh, it's a fad. They've even admitted.

there is a document came out that shows that, in fact, they knew all along that transgender people posed no threat in public restrooms, but they could use it as a bludgeon. A bludgeon. In fact, more Republican congressmen have been arrested for solicitation in public restrooms than transgender people. That's a fact. Yeah, yeah, there you go. But again, I think it's using, as I say, I'm going to start saying straw women for now. But, but, um... Well, you could because of there, but you should say straw men, straw persons.

Straw persons, I think. Because there's, again, people forget that there really are an equal number of transmen and trans women. In fact, you know, in fact, actually my friend Pangalides has been saying that he just tries never to use gender at all now, just talk to, because people are people in some ways. Yeah, I mean, I get that, but I'm not, there are transgender people who are advocating the end of gender. Yeah, yeah. And I'm not one of them because actually, actually, I'm not one of them. Because actually, for me, being female is really fun. Yeah, sure.

And I don't use pronoun thing. And I think of myself as a woman without an asterisk and without explanation. Sure. So I think gender is great. I know people feel differently. That's okay, too. Well, I think it's funny how politically incorrect is said. And that's why I said it to pretend that there aren't differences between men and women that are biological.

There are. And that's nothing to be, that's not a pejorative. That's the thing in some ways we're celebrating. I mean, as the rest of the diversity of life is worth celebrating in many different ways. But, okay, look, let's, oh, well, I should, look, there's one thing I want to bring up maybe when I talk about this context of, and I will because you brought it up, one of your kids is trans. Yeah. Of course, people can say, is it, you know, environment or, you know, is it heredity or environment, you know, have you thought about it? I have thought about it.

I'll keep my comments brief because I want my child to be able to tell their own story. I suspect that it's about as good an argument for this being genetic as anything else. It took me by surprise and made me rethink a lot of things. It's not a story in which I particularly come out very well, to tell you the truth. And maybe that's why it's worth telling that if I, Little Miss Transgender poster child, failed to be the perfect parent when my own child came out, at least at first,

I think that's worth looking at. And maybe it just means that I'm a less perfect person than I hoped to be. I don't want to believe it. I can't put myself in your position, but if I try, which I think we should all be doing, try to walk in each other's shoes, that I would see my...

I would sure one of things I would be concerned about is, gee, I hope. hope that this is coming from them and not from me. Exactly. Well, and I struggle with that. Because I mean, I'll just end this by the with this, that my life has been hard. Yeah. It's been uniquely hard.

And there's been a lot of kind of, in spite of the fact that I'm, I think I'm a lucky and a buoyant person. But for all that, there have been a lot of tears and a lot of struggle. And, you know, you don't want your child's life to be hard. Yeah, you want it. And at the very least, you don't want your child's life to be hard the way yours was and not because of you. So I had to struggle with all of that first. But it turns out my child is not living my life again.

My child is living her life. And she's engaged to be married. She's been accepted to graduate school. She has a scholarship to graduate school. And she's a delightful, funny, joyful person. So she's going to be just fine, thanks. Now you sound like a proud mama. I am a proud mama.

Of course, that's great. That's great. But I'm not proud of myself because I think I wish I'd been, I think I, I wish I'd seen more deeper into my child's life when she was growing up. Well, I think as any parent, and I think we all as any parent would think that. I mean, it's just a lot easier to screw up as a parent than it is to be good. And so it's easy to look back at the times one could have been better. Because there's so many opportunities for that. But anyway, by the way, I think your life, when I look at it too, it looks to me quite fun and exciting.

But, I mean, maybe from the outside. On the outside, it always looks better, by I suppose. Look, the last thing I want to talk about, of course, is religion. We talk to sex, politics, now religion. Because I know we have at least slightly different views about that. We've talked about that before. I'll bet the same words have come out of each of our mouths at various times. And I think the, because the kind of atheist that you are is not an atheist who believes in nothing.

And the kind of Christian that I am is not the kind of Christian who believes in something. Well, as I've written, nothing, you know, something comes from nothing, very easy. So there's not a big difference between the two. But I think, I mean, I think for you, I think you are at least, and I'm going to put words in your mouth and it may not be true so you can jump up. but many people call themselves Christians because they want to think of themselves as good people. And they think of those. I think it's clear that most people who are not the extremists, pick and choose out of their whatever chosen religion or family religion.

Those things they like and toss the things they don't like and they call that their religion because for some reason it makes them feel good about themselves and it makes them feel like there might be good people. And there's been studies shown that many, at least in England, most of the people who check the box Christian don't believe in transubstantiation, virgin birth, this or that. They like to think of themselves as good people. Is that why you think of yourself as a Christian? Here's what I believe. I think that we should all love each other. I think that we should feed the hungry. We should we're not laughing. We should give, we should try to make sure that people can can live, um,

their lives full measure on this earth. We should forgive each other. We should have compassion for each other. Maybe that's not Christianity. It isn't. And if you don't want to call it Christianity, I'm perfectly fine with that. Because there are things, most of the Christians that I know that I think of are people, I don't agree with on anything.

And I think a lot of them have done terrible, stupid things and believe in things that are not true. So I call myself a Christian because I found a home in the Riverside Church. but the Riverside Church here in New York is based on social justice. And I don't want to lose a lot of sleep in a lot of bullshit. Yeah, or labeling. So. But let me just say it's interesting because, I mean, you know,

there's been studies shown that on a list of people, including transgender, that, you know, you'd rather be president. Atheist is down there at the bottom with rapists. And it's fascinating to me to see that. Although I saw another poll that said for the first time, no religion has edged out. Christian, yeah, evangelical. Yeah, it's like 40.1%. I view this as great progress.

Some other people don't. But I think the point I want to make is that the real problem that I view is that religion is usurp morality in the sense that everything that you said, I think, does not define a Christian. it just finds a caring, concerned, rational human being. And that to label people who don't believe in some thing or don't accept it as viable as immoral is just as bad as labeling people who don't choose, but who are transgender as immoral because having nothing to do with their beliefs, their actions,

the way they treat others around them, we need to start peeing people based on the quality of their ideas and the quality of their actions and not on the package or the label or the gender. I'm in full agreement. And I think that's a great way to end in full agreement. Thank you. It's always such a joy to talk to you. What a gas to be with you, Lawrence. Thanks for having me here.

It's great. See you later. The Origins podcast is produced by Lawrence Krause, Nancy Doll, Amelia Huggins, John and Don Edwards, and Rob Zeps. Directed and edited by Gus and Luke Holwerta. audio by Thomas Amison, web design by Redmondmedialab.com, animation by Tomahawk Visual Effects, and music by Ricolus. To see the full video of this podcast, as well as other bonus content, visit us at patreon.com slash origins podcast.