Hey everyone, Lara here! As someone who is not trans, I know the feeling of wanting to understand more about the trans experience, but also knowing it can be hard to know where to start, or even what questions to ask! Not to mention, the messages we’re getting online and in the news are loud, scary, and full of untruths.
We were thrilled to have Erica Vogel join us on the show this week to discuss some of the misconceptions we hear about trans folks. But more than that, I think it’s an opportunity for so many of us to listen to and learn from trans voices.
I believe that we all should be able to be our authentic selves, and that the world should support us in being just that. We could have chatted with Erica for hours because, as you’ll hear, she is a delight :)
Erica’s bio
Erica Vogel is the author of Advice from Your Trans Aunty, and the occasionally published political comic Ungovernable. Erica is currently writing her second book under the working title Saving Ourselves: A roadmap for sustainable LGBTQIA progress
She has spent the majority of her life solving a wide variety of trials and tribulations as both a closeted and out transgender woman. Drawing from her experiences, her education, and her interactions with thousands of transgender people, she provides a point of view focused on personal agency as a transgender individual. Described as resilient, authentic, and fearless, she meets people where they are with grace and warmth. Erica is queer, a wife, a parent, and a member of a family with strong LGBTQIA roots. She is a frequent public speaker on trans affairs in and out of workplaces across the United States.
Links:
Follow her on Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, LinkedIn
Transcript
Please note that transcripts aren’t carefully edited for accuracy. Also, this episode is longer than most and if you are reading this in the email and it cuts off, you can click through to the site to read the rest.
[00:00:00] Erica: to hear this from a group of people , that probably have never met a trans person in their life, like I am a delight. If you meet me in public, I see myself as an ambassador, I will meet you where you are.
Whatever question you have, I’m gonna answer it. We’re gonna have a good time.
[00:00:37] Rowan: Welcome to unboxing it. I’m Rowan.
[00:00:40] Lara: And I’m Lara.
[00:00:41] Rowan: And today we have, somebody I’ve been really excited to have on this podcast.
Erica Vogel is the author of Advice from Your Trans Auntie and the occasionally published political comic Ungovernable. Erica is currently writing her second book under the Working Titles, saving Ourselves a Roadmap for Sustainable L-G-B-T-Q-I-A Progress. She spent the majority of her life solving a wide variety of trials and tribulations as both a closeted and out transgender woman.
Drawing from her experiences, her education, and her interactions with thousands of transgender people, she provides a point of view focused on personal agency as a transgender individual described as resilient, authentic, and fearless. She meets people where they are with grace and warmth. Erica is queer, a wife, a parent, and a member of a family with strong L-G-B-T-Q-I-A Roots.
She’s a frequent public speaker on trans affairs, in and out of workplaces across the United States. Erica, thank you so much for joining us today. I am stoked to actually meet you in the actual face, even if it’s virtual, because we have spoken quite a bit online.
[00:01:55] Erica: We have, well, first, and foremost, thanks to you both, Rowan and Lara for having me.
I’m so excited to actually see your face instead of just typing words at you.
[00:02:04] Rowan: Yeah. It’s always a cool new experience, right? you’re pretty much exactly how I imagined you would be, which is delightful.
[00:02:13] Erica: Delightful. That’s what people say sometimes. I’m less than delightful. We’ll see.
[00:02:17] Rowan: Well, I think that’s a lot of us and, especially in this climate, which is actually what we’re going to talk about a lot today. We, explore a lot of things on this podcast. What we do here is we challenge a lot of societal norms.
And unfortunately, I think right now one of the societal norms is this attack against trans people. And it is not just happening in one country. So, Lara and I are both from Canada, you Erica are from the US and we are seeing this play out in both our countries right now in various places. So we thought.
Today would be a great opportunity. Lara is a fantastic trans ally. I am a trans man. You are a trans woman. And this would be a great time to talk about what people are getting wrong about trans people and how we can change the conversation to something more positive.
[00:03:12] Erica: Absolutely. Let’s get into it.
[00:03:13] Lara: Yeah. I think that we have a lot of people who listen to this podcast who are cisgender, and we have a nice mix of folks here for us to talk about this with. And I know that for me, a lot of the learning that I have had over a decade, has come from having conversations with people who are trans or people who are, allies of people who are trans and starting to understand more about things that we just don’t understand because I.
know, that sometimes when we don’t understand things, they seem scary, but often all it takes is a little bit of extra knowledge or answering a few questions that people have to normalize things and be like, oh, okay. No big deal.
[00:04:00] Rowan: Yeah, I’m a big fan of putting a human face on political issues and unfortunately trans people right now are not often seen as people we’re seen as political So I think a really good place to start is Erica, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself beyond the bio.
[00:04:17] Erica: Okay. well, let’s see. As you know, some of this came up in the bio, but my dad came out of the closet when I was three. So I’m a, a child of a gay dad. One of my mom’s brothers is gay.
So I, came up in sort of this sort of rich, gay tradition, if you will. But also from the lens of watching my dad and my uncle navigate the AIDS crisis in the eighties and nineties. You know, I was born in the seventies. so, there was not a point in my life that I’m aware of where I didn’t have someone from the community close to me.
So there was never a question of acceptability on my part. It was more a question of what are the people around me like? Right. So my, school years really as a person’s beginning to grapple with their own sexuality as a person who’s queer, you know, bi, bi plus is the way I think of it,
and kind of knowing I was trans, but not having words for that, so that’s the lens that I come up with, as I’m in high school in the eighties, that’s what I mean by having that sort of rich tradition, if you will. I also have a trans daughter, who is going to be 30 this year, which is wild.
and, you know, one of my other adult kids is non-binary, ? So, it’s just the thing that, our family has, right? beyond that, you know, I’ve worked in tech for a long time. I started in advertising, so I’ve always been in front of people and. I’ve always been a person because of the variety of life experiences that I’ve been through, that people just come to me and be like, Hey, I have this thing going on.
What are your thoughts? . Which at first was sort of off-putting. ‘cause I was like, man, I, I don’t know. But then I recognized eventually, like, well, okay, you’ve, had a very interesting, growing up as a child with, your parents getting divorced, which was rare when I was a kid. I think I was the only kid I knew with divorced parents.
I was certainly one of two people that I knew for the first 20 years of my life that had a gay parent. you know, I got no financial training in my family, so I had to figure that out. When I got into the world as an adult, I had a little bit of some learning disabilities to overcome. and I was, you know, trying to make it as a professional artist, as a designer.
Right. Which comes with its own trials and tribulations. And what happened over a period of time was that. The people I work for kept putting me in front of their customers. I was like, I, no, I wanna draw. And they’re like, no, you know how to talk to people because there’s just something about you they connect with.
And that’s sort of where that giving advice thing comes from. I guess people see me as very safe. so I’ve always kind of been in that position to talk to people and I think kind us back to something you said, Rowan, and I think even you Lara, is talking about real life experiences. Putting a face on something brings it home for the person that either wants to know about it or maybe has some wrong thinking about it.
You know, whether it’s about the lgbtq plus community or whether what it’s like to have a learning disability and try to succeed or what leadership in the workplace looks like or what it looks like to fuck up your financial situation and then fix it. Also, huge Star Wars fan. Love Coffee, have cats.
[00:07:10] Rowan: All the important stuff right at the end, right?
[00:07:13] Erica: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And, I, you know, we have a tween at home. So we’re living the tween life.
[00:07:20] Rowan: Yeah. So it’s funny ‘cause I think one of the things that gets people the most when I say I’m trans is they just kind of automatically assume I don’t have any children.
Right. lot of trans people do have children, whether they, have them sort of, I hate to use the term biologically, but whether you know, Someone’s giving birth to them, or, you’re adopting them, or you end up with somebody who, a lot of us have kids, and that shocks people. I think it goes back to that.
Humanity piece. Now, one of the things that you said is something that I can relate to. You happen to mention that you have a trans kid. You also happen to mention that you have a non-binary kid. I have a non-binary kid as well. And what often happens is if I mention that online, inevitably somebody will say, you transed your kid because there is this idea that being trans is contagious somehow.
How do you feel about this idea? Because you have a lot of queer people in your family, so how do you see that in relation to what people say about transness and queerness and contagion? And I’m using air quotes here.
[00:08:29] Erica: Yeah. You know, I think, um, it’s just a bullshit way to describe this.
There’s nothing contagious about that. Before I get into personal experiences, let’s actually get into a little bit of science here, In, I believe it was in World War ii, some experimentation was done on humans by giving them, trans X hormones just to see what would happen. And every person that was on those hormones that was not a trans person wound up with dysphoria.
So you could not force someone to, become a woman or live their life as a woman or live their lives as a man, unless that fit into who they are. Like we have science that back this up. So we cannot trans people. That’s not a thing that happens, What does happen is people who are trans or non-binary, when they see representation, they feel a little bit more able to come out.
? And this again, is kind of related to like the scale of left-handedness. Have you guys seen this one? The sort of reverse bell curve, and I’m a person who lived this, I was born, left-handed. And because, I went to Catholic private school for kindergarten and first grade, even though we were not Catholic, I don’t know how my dad swung that one.
nuns hit my hand till I started writing with my right hand, ? So today I write with my right hand and it’s illegible and my left hand is also illegible, so yay. but the reality is, is that when we started to back off forcing people to be right-handed, we saw, the line shoot up because people will be allowed and they thought, well, everyone’s just gonna become left-handed now.
Eventually that line laid over, right? That’s what we are seeing today with trans people. There are far more trans people than society knows of, but nowhere near as much as they think of, right? I think in the US I’m not sure about for you guys in Canada, particularly on the right. When you ask them, you know, what do you think the percentage of trans people in the US is?
They’ll say 30%, which is wild.
[00:10:14] Lara: What?
[00:10:14] Rowan: Wow.
[00:10:16] Erica: Yes, yes. When you ask them and they’re on the, sort of conservative side of politics, they’ll say numbers like 30% because that’s what their news shows tell them. The reality is it’s not even 1% yet. Right. We’re getting close to 1% in the us. so, you know, you just, you can’t really do that.
So, back to personal experiences, right. So I came out as non-binary and I’ve known off and on. I think the first memory I had, I was like five and it was back to the Catholic school. My dad was dropping us off at school for the first day, and then my brother got out of the car before me.
‘cause you know, I was always forced to sit in the backseat as the baby. And, before I get out, I was like, dad, why am I not dressed like the girls? you know? ‘cause you know, the whole like pleated skirt thing. And he’s like, what are you talking about? You’re not a girl.
And I was like, wait, what? Right? and before that time, most of the people that I played with outside of my brother were the girls in, whatever pre-K was called at that time, I played with the girls, so certainly had some sort of sense that things weren’t quite right, but I didn’t really think that I wasn’t a girl until I had that conversation with my dad.
Now other things happen eventually and I suppress it and I go through these cycles of suppression. I think of it as being confused about my gender. And eventually as I start to catch on, there’s still just not good representation. Alright? So all this is going on and I’ve known for a while and it’s really been more of a.
Can I make it work? Not going this direction, you know, and kind of for me, like it’s the last choice I have, right? ‘cause I’ve been worried about fucking up my life basically. So while I’m wrestling with this, I don’t know that my own child is wrestling with this. Like, we don’t have conversations about it.
We don’t talk about trans people in the house, And so, when I come out as non-binary, the week later they come out as, a trans woman. And I was like, oh shit. . And now that I think about some the, aspects of their life, I kind of see it. I’m kind of not surprised, but there wasn’t enough there for me to be like, oh wait, are you trans?
And I can tell you that there was no, conversation or communication between the two of us at all on that factor. There was like nothing you could point to. And the same with my non-binary child, right? And so. there is not a way to make someone be that , there just isn’t.
Because , as you know, Rowan, there’s this sense of whether you can articulate it in terms of something specific. I am trans. There’s this sense of like, I don’t feel quite right that goes beyond something like a body dysmorphia, right?
[00:12:38] Rowan: Oh yeah.
[00:12:38] Erica: There’s, just this sense of something’s not right about me and not fitting into where I feel like I belong in society.
Some of us can articulate that quite young. Some of us, it takes a while, but there’s no way I could talk Lara into being non-binary. Zero. Right? one of the ways I relay this to people is that, especially allies who’re trying to understand this is take a minute to imagine what it would be like to be the other gender, right?
Most people for a few minutes would be like, well, okay, I have a sense of curiosity around that. But eventually they would come around to a sense of, that’s not quite right for me. Maybe all the way up to revulsion, right. Depending on where you stand on that metric. And the difference is when I’m was forced to inhabit that sort of male part of me.
That’s what I felt 24 7. And when I relay that to allies, they start to understand what it’s like to be in this position and how they couldn’t hang with that thought about themselves for more than five minutes. Right? So it’s not something that can be forced on you. And as I called out earlier, scientifically, we know that it can’t be forced on you.
[00:13:37] Lara: Yeah. I think, Rowan has joked if it was catching, we’ve spent enough time together and I’ve spent enough time with, trans folks that I would be trans by now. Right. And I am not. but I think the conversation is really important because there are people who are like, why all of a sudden are all these kids trans? And I think your representation, statement is true. It’s the same I think with people who are like, why is everybody all of a sudden ADHD, neurodivergent. It’s because without knowing what something is or that it exists, it can be hard to think maybe that’s what’s going on.
And so while I actually know quite a few trans youth, I also know quite a few people who are about the same age as me. So born in the seventies who are also coming out because they also didn’t know until they knew. Right. Like once suddenly people are talking about it, they’re like, oh my gosh. Hang on. Or maybe they knew, but they felt like there was no way that society would allow it, so they never did anything about it.
I think both things are true, but it’s not that suddenly it’s happening, it’s that it’s a lot safer now, eh? Ish. Like, I mean, we’re having a bit of a, a moment, but it’s a lot safer now. Or at least people are talking about it in a way where people can say that is who I am. Therefore I’m going to be that.
I’m going to talk about that. I’m not going to try to hide it.
[00:15:05] Erica: Yeah, and I would say, well, certainly we have a lot of representation. It’s certainly in the zeitgeist. It’s all over the news, right? So you can’t miss it. I think people can see that in themselves a lot more today. I think even given how it is today.
it’s still safer to figure out what to do about it than to try to stuff it down and survive it or a lot more people are willing to, you know, work through their stuff, work through their fear, and take that leap of action. And for some of us it takes a lot. And for some of us it doesn’t take a lot.
I don’t think that’s a measure of whether you are trans. I think that’s a measure of how well you feel You can adapt your life.
[00:15:48] Rowan: That’s a really good point.. I mean, I know for me,and most people who listen to this podcast know a bit about my background, but my ex, came out as a trans woman shortly after our child came out.
And our child was 11 at the time, so within about a year and a half of each other, they came out. I had known for a long time something was wrong. That, feeling that you were speaking to Erica, that goes beyond body dysmorphia because I have body dysmorphia on top of dysphoria.
Like, I definitely have some issues with my body that go way back, but that feeling of it being off of, trying to fit a mold that didn’t work, of also like after my ex came out, leaning more heavily into lesbianism, maybe, you know, sort of like maybe I’m, just more butch, you know?
And kind of going in that direction. But that didn’t feel right either. Like nothing felt right. And. I got to the point where I realized, oh my God, I’m trans. But I was terrified to come out because
There were already two trans people in my family, and if I came out, would that look like contagion?
And it turns out that in some circles, I get memes sent to me of things that I have said that people are like, oh, see, it was contagious. You were wrong. Right? So like, these things are flying around places like Kiwi farms and there are whole subgroups dedicated to talking about how I somehow drank the Kool-Aid, if you will.
But that’s not what happened. What happened was I was able to see what it looks like. I had a front row view to what it looked like to live a life that felt more authentic, that felt right for the first time. I saw a child go through it, and now that child is 23. And is leading a very happy life and is very well adjusted and has had, , just a lot of good things happen in their life.
that’s amazing. And I also saw a woman in her forties who I loved, who went through this, who lived her whole life as a man up un til that point. And was still able to do it, even though it’s arguably a lot harder once your whole life is established like that. But regardless, I got to see these things and then all of the people around us that, you know, sort of entered our lives who were trans, who were friends of ours.
And it unlocked something for me. And thank goodness it did. But no, it’s not contagious. It does lead me to the other big thing that we hear all the time. And I know you get this, Erica, I get this too. Lara, you definitely see this online. You might see this just being talked about in day-to-day circles.
I don’t know, but there is this idea, it’s like, okay, fine. If you’re an adult and you want to transition, that’s up to you. You’re over 18, you can do what you want. Leave the kids alone. Stop grooming the children, right? This idea that somehow we’re grooming kids to be tra- I don’t know what we would get out of that.
I can’t figure that out. I’ve spent years trying to figure that out. If anything, it’s just a longer line for HRT, which like frankly can be long enough, so I don’t want everyone in the whole world to be trans for selfish reasons. Thank you. But there is, you know, you have the president of the United States and he’s yelling transgender for everybody.
That’s what they want. They want transgender for everybody. And, now there’s laws that have happened in various states. There’s laws that have happened here in Canada, in the province of Alberta where they are banning healthcare for trans youth. Now they’re talking about doing. Throughout the entirety of the United States.
Why is everybody so scared about trans kids? What are they getting wrong?
[00:19:27] Erica: Okay, so we’re gonna have to work our way into this one. Here’s where I’m gonna start. number one, I don’t, have a circle of friends that I’m trying to trans, right? I just, I don’t spend my time going to all the neighborhood kids and being like, Hey, do you wanna try on a dress?
That’s just not, that’s not a thing that we do. By the way, just to help make your fans, happy. I’m a coach of a soccer team and they have no problems with me of a youth soccer team. Like, it’s just not a problem.
So I.
Kids can recognize gender somewhere between three to four years old. We know this. This is a fact. They can identify that mom. It Means girl, dad means boy, brother means boy, sister means girl. They have a sense of their own place within gender by that time as well. Now, if you’re trans and it comes far enough to the forefront, you might have a sense of your own not quite fitting into that mold, right?
So like we have to stop pretending that children are not aware of gender. They are. And some children are aware that they don’t fit in with what they’re being told by their parents or society, I think the thing that people really get wrong about this is frankly rooted in one of the easiest wedge issues that there are to bring about.
A wedge issue is something we can get most people up in arms about. That then leads to something else down the ramp, so it gets you going down the rabbit hole. And so it comes down to two things, and you will not be surprised to hear about these two topics when it comes to trans people, , fairness, and sports and children, right?
As soon as something impacts children, it’s easy to get parents on the side of That shouldn’t happen. Right, because it’s easy to fear monger about, right? Like we have a sense of like, oh, we need to protect kids. We need to let them be whatever we need to make sure they get, immunized or maybe don’t get immunized depending on where your stance is, right?
And this same thing is true when it comes to, like I said, something like fairness in sports. And when we take a at lot of the anti-trans arguments, we can go back to the civil rights movements and see that they’re just reskinned versions of that. We can go back to the women’s rights movement and see that they’re just literally the same words used, at least in the US.
We can go back to the suffrage movement in the US and see some of the same things repeated, right? We know our opponents know in society that when it comes to marginalized groups, at least in the US if they start talking about safety issues for women and children, that’s how they get people on their side of the argument of this is bad for people.
that’s the root, And actually, as an aside, I did a fun podcast recently about Halloween. And the roots of like the scare that we have in the US about like, someone’s gonna put razorblades in your candy or something like that. I dunno if you guys have heard about that in Canada. the roots of that come from the civil rights movement.
They come with, various white neighborhoods in the seventies, becoming integrated with, black and brown people and not trusting them. So they focused on children’s activities throughout various holiday seasons as a way to push back on that in a way that felt acceptable and approachable to people that pre on their inner fears.
Right? So this is really just about preying on people’s inner fears in a way that they can vocalize without having to say, I hate trans people. Right. So it’s an easy argument to get people on that side of, because they don’t have to say the thing that’s really going on inside.
[00:22:50] Lara: And I would say, on top of that, children are a topic that, yeah, people can get up in arms for, but it’s also a topic that a lot of parents worry they’re gonna get wrong, So if People start saying, oh, don’t do this, it’s bad for your children.
Why would you ever consider, like they’re preying on fear, on top of, you know, a topic that will just be like, we need to protect our children, and oh, you don’t wanna be a bad parent. Like, it’s a really good topic to sort of poke with.
[00:23:18] Erica: Yes. And it is again, when we see, movements trying to limit a movement, you’re gonna find these parallels quite often.
Usually in some way tries to get, particularly women and parents scared about the thing impacting themselves or their kids. So what people get wrong about, trans kids. At least in the US it’s like, what does medical care look like? And let’s be really honest, right? in the US if you’re a trans kid, what medical care looks like is you have access to a therapist.
That, what we’re talking about. Which is what they’re asking for. Put them in front of a therapist. Well actually that’s what we’re doing. And it might also include going by different name might include using different clothes using a different pronoun to describe yourself.
That’s what we’re talking about,
[00:24:01] Rowan: Yeah. That’s it. Until puberty. That’s, everything. That’s the whole package.
[00:24:05] Erica: So nothing can happen. Like that’s all that can happen is we’re allowing kids to express themselves in a way that feels authentic to them to try it on. Right. And after a number of years and they get to puberty, maybe they might get access to puberty blockers.
Right. Which again, to describe this correctly for people, all that does is delay puberty.
[00:24:24] Rowan: And they’ve been used with cis kids for many years for a variety of reasons. Mostly precocious puberty and puberty that comes on too early. Right?
[00:24:32] Erica: Right. As a matter of fact, the lion’s share by huge percentage, I don’t have the numbers present, of people that use puberty blockers are cis-gendered kids for precocious puberty or a variety of other medical needs.
It’s actually rarely trans kids. So when we’re creating laws in the US at least where a trans kid doesn’t have access to that, but a cis kid does, the root of that is discrimination, period. And again, for any parents worrying about this. It’s about delaying puberty until they can make the decision in hopes that either they come to the realization that maybe they are cis and they wanna move forward, going through their normal puberty, or that they can go through the, puberty of the gender that they align with, which will help them down the road in terms of how the rest of their body develops, And as soon as you stop taking puberty blockers, puberty starts one way or the other. So it’s not like you’ll never have puberty. It’s like, oh, we’re just gonna slow it down. And the really telling number here, at least for trans kids, it’s that I think something like 93% of kids that do go onto puberty blockers do go on to hormone replacement therapy because it was the right choice for them.
So what we’re really doing then is giving them a chance to inhabit themselves a bit longer, to be a bit more informed, to be a bit more learned and avoid the pain that would follow. That they would have to find a way to undo. But again, that’s gonna be 16 years old or older in the US
[00:25:53] Rowan: right? Because that’s what people don’t understand.
They’re like, it’s fine. Just let them wait until 18 and then they can make up their own mind. But spell it out for people. What is the consequence of having to wait until adulthood to start HRT?
[00:26:09] Erica: Sure. there’s obviously two lenses to think about this from male or female, right? So if you’re assigned sex at birth, was male and you, go on testosterone, not only are you dealing with that as a person who knows they’re trans, which is going to, I think increase your poor state of mental health right?
I know for me, getting myself onto estrogen was what solved. Not because my body eventually developed, to look more feminine, but because it really kind of solved what was going on within , my brain wasn’t running on the right stuff, And so, just from a mental health perspective, that’s gonna be a huge win for them.
However, it’s going to limit the growth of, facial hair, in trans women, which by the way, is expensive and painful to get rid of permanently. We’re talking three years of having your faces apt with electricity, right? It’s a painful, painful, painful process
[00:26:57] Rowan: and often not covered or limited amount of coverage by any kind of insurance,
[00:27:04] Erica: Out of pocket - Expensive, thousands and thousands of dollars just to not have to shave your face every day. Which, by the way, when you’re running on estrogen, your, skin is thinner. It really hurts to shave your face. It’s not fun. You know, so your, body’s gonna develop in the wrong direction. and now if you’re assigned female at birth, you’re dealing with, menstruation, right?
Which we do know that for, trans men, for many, there’s still a certain amount of menstruation that happens, right? But primarily it’s, again, it’s like your body is developing against your will in a direction that doesn’t align with you, and that will have impacts on you and. It means, for trans men, an eventual, mastectomy that you have to have,
[00:27:41] Rowan: Which I just had.
[00:27:43] Erica: Which you just had, what, four weeks ago?
[00:27:44] Rowan: Yeah. Well, no, a little longer now. Now it’s been eight. but yeah, like I just had that done and then I had to recover from that. Right. So that’s a good six weeks where I had very limited use of my body. it is all of this undoing. I think that’s what we really need people to understand.
It isn’t just Nothing happens. And then when they get to 18, they can decide if they want to transition. No, no. Everything happens in the wrong direction. Causing a lot of them. And the studies are very clear on this extreme emotional distress puts suicidality much higher. and if they make it to 18, and I hate to sound dark about that, but it’s different, I think, than when we were kids.
And people weren’t talking about being trans. It was just everybody went through puberty. You might not have liked it, but everybody goes through it. Now, a lot of these kids know that there is an option, even if somebody’s made it illegal, even if your parents don’t agree with you doing it, even if you can’t access it, there is an option that could make this all go away And then there is another option that could be taken further a few years later that allows you to develop in the way that finally feels right. They’re being denied that. So amount of distress. That that can put a young person in is huge. Yes. But there’s so much fear around this.
Right. So we have the suicidality piece and then we also, like you said, we have the physical piece
[00:29:13] Erica: And the cost.
[00:29:13] Rowan: The physical piece, the cost, the cost. And then some things just frankly can’t be undone. There’s some things you can just never change, so It is a very serious thing to deny somebody who is trans access to reversible puberty blockers.
[00:29:31] Erica: Yeah. That would save a lot of angst. it would save a lot of money, would save a lot of surgeries, would save a lot of medical intervention, frankly. And, all because this narrative that you shouldn’t be able to live your life the way you want. I mean, especially in a world, at least in the US where like.
You, Lara, have access to all the gender affirming care that you want to have. I have to talk to a psychiatrist before having the same things. And in some cases two can get signatures on paperwork to do what you have the free choice to do, as long as you have a method with which to pay for it or acquire it.
So just even having access to acquire that requires me to live a life of constant administrivia, right? Constant talking to therapists and listen, I’ve inhabited this part of myself for a while. it’s been a part of my psyche for my whole life. I know who I have. I believe me, I’ve prayed to God a gazillion times.
I’ve been in therapy for 30 years, There’s no part of me that has not worked on this and tried to make it work some other way, what society is telling me is like, no, you haven’t done it enough. Well, girl, if your parents can sign you up for a boob job, why can’t I do that? And the reality of the situation is that trans people have always existed, I know you guys have talked about that. We’ve always been here. We will always be here. Right? And when we look back at other societies across time and across the globe, trans people have shown up.
They’ve always existed. It is in this sort of puritanical western European society where we’ve really kind of squashed down on, you have two roles that you can inhabit and you have to stay in the one role that you were given. And there’s no point in the future where this will go away. Now, what Rowan and I have experienced was that we weren’t allowed to even really consider that we didn’t have representation.
we were just dealing with angst and fear about ourselves in some cases that we knew or we didn’t know. And. Our risk of suicidality was much higher. And you know, when you take a look at the generations of, gen X and boomers, the incidence of transness is quite a bit lower. Not because there was less trans people, less of us even knew that was a thing you could choose to be.
And today what we’re seeing is people having that choice in front of them, knowing themselves well enough to say, well, that is me. And there is a path. And it might be scary to do it right now, but at least I know that I can do it. That doesn’t mean that there is an epidemic. That doesn’t mean that it’s contagious.
That doesn’t mean that we’re, I don’t know, letting kids make life altering decisions. Like they’re not making life altering decisions until they’re much, much, much older. And if a decision is made that will make your life more livable, isn’t that life altering in the right kind of way?
[00:32:09] Rowan: I have a friend who has a child who has faced cancer a couple times.
And her son had to go on the same puberty blockers that my kid did for precocious puberty, because the medications, the radiation, it, you know, it messed up his system you know, she’s never been able to understand why people have such an issue with, you know, a 15-year-old starting hormones you know, she’s like, said to me before, she’s like, if your kid didn’t get those things, they probably wouldn’t be here.
Just like, if my kid didn’t get chemo, he probably wouldn’t be here. Right. She’s like, I know they’re not the same thing, but they both carried big risk without treatment and they both got the treatments they needed, and now they’re both here today. And I love that perspective. I wish more people could understand.
That this is not a fad. This isn’t just because everybody’s friends are doing it. This isn’t some kind of ideology. It’s just that we have arrived at a place medically where we can help our outsides and our insides, our brains. Nobody can understand that, I don’t think, unless they do it, but wow.
When your brain gets the right hormones, what a difference it makes. The first thing I noticed, I took, so I take a gel. A testosterone gel every day. I put the gel on the first day that I got, my prescription of course, ran to the pharmacy and got it. I put it on and it was still a really low dose , that’s the other thing people don’t know.
They don’t just start you on the super high dose. They start you on like the super low dose and they increase it over months and they monitor you over months and they’re extremely careful no matter what age you are the first thing I noticed is about two to three hours after I took that dose, a noise in my head stopped.
I did not know that that noise was there. My entire life, my brain went quiet and I went, oh, this is peace. I had never known peace until my brain went, oh, that’s the hormone I’m supposed to get. Thank you. And it just quieted down and has not started up since.
[00:34:15] Erica: I love that you mentioned that. I think when you told that story at some point online, I responded with my own version of that story.
And, you know, when I first started, again, like you said, low dose and for trans women, it’s a pill that you start on. It’s, or usually two pills, right? ‘cause you need to suppress testosterone and you need to start taking estrogen. So two pills a day. And at first I was like. Mm. I don’t know, man.
But I went into it thinking this, I had this idea of like, you know, it’s such a low dose, it’s not permanent. If it’s not for me, I’ll know and I can stop and nothing will. ‘cause it’s gonna take a while for something to happen anyways. Right. As you know you do have a sense of things happening, before physically they happen.
And so for the first two weeks I was like, I don’t know. I mean, I’m doing the thing. I feel good about doing the thing. then I think I woke up one day and I was like, where did the noise go? Right, the noise. Yes. And the way I describe it is like, you know when you were a kid and you were turning the channels on your TV and you hit the one that was like, where there was no station, it was just static.
That static was gone for the first time. Static in my life. And not only was that gone, but of course the noise of like, something about you is not right. You’re not right. Which, you know, if you imagine that every 15 to 20 minutes going through your day, you got a signal from your brain that something was wrong, what your life would feel like.
Right. That’s literally what’s happening. But to also have that static go away was so amazing. And that was the first time I was like, oh, this is right. This is the right stuff. And you know, I realized that I was finally running on the right hormones, the way that my brain was wired to work. And the way I’ve kind of come to describe it, to sort of help some other arguments that who does, if we’ll get into or not, but like I was a Formula One car running on unleaded gas that you had put in your Corolla.
Right. That’s kind of what it’s like. You don’t have the right gas in the system. And once I had the right fuel in my system, things started working better across the board. Not only did I just have more capacity to deal with things I was more present. I was more aware. I was more in tune with myself because suddenly my brain wasn’t fighting the fuel that was in my system.
[00:36:20] Rowan: Wow. Yeah. I definitely felt very similar when I started HRT and, it’s like every day just keeps getting better. And I talk about it a lot online. I talk about being trans a lot online, which then what happens, and this is another thing I would love to talk about there is this idea that trans is our whole identity, right?
It’s like, because we’re online talking about it all the time. And I, love your take on this, but I know for me, the only reason I’m talking about it so much is because there’s so much that people get wrong.
And I really need people to see. That I’m just like everybody else and I happen to be trans.
[00:37:06] Erica: Yeah. I’m so glad you asked this. So yeah, being trans online is a trip. It’s not always a fun one. I mean, you do get to meet a lot of people and you know, sort of one of the problems that there is, if you wanna call that for the community, is because there’s such a low incidence of us. Unless you live where I do in, you know, Washington DC area where there’s a bunch of trans people or, and I know that you said Rowan, there’s quite a few in Toronto.
You swing a cat, you’re gonna hit one. . We don’t have places to congregate often, especially like when you’re thinking about United States and you go to less populous areas. You might be it in your state. I mean, probably not exactly that, but there’s no one near you.
And so online spaces has always been a place where our community has congregated because. That’s the only place you could figure it out unless you were in like New York City before AOL existed. Or California. You might not even know that trans people existed. So number one, there is this need to be online to even find information, to find representation, to find your people to talk to.
Because there’s a lot of information exchanged between us. Rowan and I might have a lot of things in common in terms of like what it’s like to exist in a world that politicizes you or to try to find a job. I certainly have some experiences living on testosterone like Rowan does and vice versa.
But I can’t really talk to Rowan about his medicine very much. Right. But there’s still a lot we can talk about. But then you have the other half of people feeling like it’s their job to tell you who you are. I mean, you don’t know me, you don’t know who I am, but you’re going out of your way to tell me who you think I am from your little mobile device that was in your back pocket five minutes ago.
And it’s sort of a wild existence. so yeah, there’s a lot of that to deal with. I’m sorry, I think I’ve lost your question, Rowan.
[00:38:47] Rowan: Oh, Lara, were you gonna say something?
[00:38:49] Lara: No, mean, I think that’s okay. I would almost just continue on from that, right? So all of these folks who want to tell trans people what to be, I think that that’s Part of the bigger topic that we talk about on this podcast, which are all the things that a lot of society has tried to tell us we need to be in order for whoever came up with this stuff, to have life be Easy and for people to do what they want and for them to be successful. And, I think it’s just another one of those things, right?
They’re gonna tell you what they think you need to feel like, but they wouldn’t accept it if we told them what we think they should feel like. Right. Like it, goes both ways. And one of the most important things to me is helping folks figure out who they are so that they can be that, whether that’s, you know, in queerness or it’s just understanding their brain or accepting themselves as a creative thinker.
Like it’s all the things, right. So, Accepting yourself for who you are is so good for us. Right. Like, to be able to be like, this is who I am and I feel accepted. And so when you were talking about, kids and people are like, just wait till you’re 18. Like that’s a really long time to be told you can’t be who you know you are.
That’s a really long time to feel like nobody is on your side. If they’re saying no, I happen to know quite a few trans teens and being told to wait constantly to be able to step into who they are, It hurts them so much. Like their hearts are like, it breaks my heart to hear how they’re feeling when they’re just be like, you have to wait some more.
You have to wait some more. You have to wait some more because they know what’s going to feel better and everybody’s like, sorry. No.
[00:40:41] Erica: Yeah, and unpack that a little bit, right? Like, we ask kids every day of all ages to start to learn who they are, right? They learn, how to take care of their basic needs from how to, eat or go to the bathroom.
They go to school, they’re around their peers. We start asking them from a young age, who do you wanna be when you grow up? We sort of bring them into the idea that they’re gonna marry a certain type of person and maybe have kids and, kids are constantly discovering who they are and asking them to wait on such a crucial piece of information.
When the risk is that they decide they were wrong. That’s the risk. The risk is like, they’re like, no, you know what, I am a girl, right? I thought I wasn’t, but I feel like I am. And the other side of that is they figure out that they were actually a boy. And we are fortunate in that now we know what to do.
Well studied by the way, backed up by tons of medical information. And it’s a safe process. It’s a process of discovery and each person gets to chart their own course. And it just seems silly to me to say, no, you can’t be that, you can’t acknowledge that part of yourself. It’s conversion therapy just dressed up again for trans people instead of, gay and lesbian people or bisexual people.
Right. The idea that somehow we can’t trust kids to tell us who they are when we trust them to tell us who they are on so many other facts all the time is wild. And to hear this from a group of people , that probably have never met a trans person in their life, like I am a delight. If you meet me in public, I see myself as an ambassador, I will meet you where you are.
Whatever question you have, I’m gonna answer it. We’re gonna have a good time. look, I’m six feet tall. I’m a big and sassy gal. You’re gonna love hanging out with me. And for you to tell me daily, online that I’m going to hell, or that I need to see a therapist or that I’m mentally ill.
When you’ve never talked to me in person, you’ve probably even never interacted with me you posted that on my timeline today, you have no idea the joy that I bring into my being every single day. And it’s contagious, And I honestly feel like what we should be doing for the trans community is being like.
What’s a group of people that really knows how to navigate something incredibly difficult? what group of people knows more about authenticity than trans people. What stories should be told about discovering who you really are? If you’re not thinking about trans people, like, can you imagine what it’s like to look in the mirror and see a guy and know that you’re a woman and to have to walk that path and figure that out and claim your womanhood or claim your manhood and go through that process in society?
Do you know the courage it takes to live that? Because I promise you we’re living in a lot of doubt about like, oh my God, is this real? Do I do what? happens? And every person who’s trans is a walking example of what it looks like to reach for the best part of yourself. And yet we demonize that because.
What we can’t even point to regret rates that are worth reporting.
[00:43:38] Rowan: Right. Yeah. People regret, knee replacement surgery, hip surgery tattoos.
[00:43:43] Erica: Heart transplants are regretted more often than transition.
[00:43:46] Rowan: Exactly. And I really wish that people understood that a little better and understood the other thing that we bring to the table, which is our unique experience of seeing the world through different genders being perceived as different genders.
I am a man who understands how women are treated in a way that most men will never understand. You are a woman who understands how men can behave. Because you’ve been in places covertly, if you will, before you came out. You have seen. How men are when women aren’t around.
[00:44:25] Erica: Oh, yes.
[00:44:25] Rowan: You have seen probably, I’m assuming the walking back of your privilege. I have seen my privilege expand. Suddenly. As soon as people saw me as a guy. Yeah. All of a sudden everyone thinks I know what I’m talking about When I don’t, you know, everyone invites me into the boys club, pats me on the back, talks to me about The wife, you know, all these things that never happened before. So that’s one thing. But Erica, you have such a wonderful way of communicating, so I can totally see why you wrote a book. And while you’re writing another one, but I would love before we wrap up this episode in a few minutes, I would love to hear more about your book or books.
Tell us what you wanna tell us about that, because I want everybody to get their hands on this.
[00:45:15] Erica: so this book is, my first book was really an advice column in a book. And there’s a great little story about this book. , so my grandfather was an English professor.
My mom’s brother, is a classics professor of literature, right? So I grew up with professors in my life. my mom, they wanted her to go and be an English professor as well, and she was like, sort of set up for that career , she was grading her dad’s, college papers while she was in high school, right.
She was that good. But her mom had been a nurse in World War ii. And so she wanted to follow in her mom’s footsteps. Her mom died , when my mom was 13. so she went on to be a nurse, and, she wrote poetry her whole life, she was actually quite good at writing. so I grew up with this sense of like, oh, like our family writes books because my grandfather, my uncle wrote textbooks that many of us in the US used in high school and college in our English, in our literature classes, right?
I grew up knowing far more about Chaucer and Beowulf than any person has the right to know about, which is really not a fun way to grow up, however, I always had it in my mind that, oh, I should write something because it’s sort of the family thing, and I never really knew. What to write about. Now, granted in my day job as a tech person and having worked in advertising, I write all the time, right? It is part of my job, but writing a book. I never knew what story to tell. once I transitioned I was like, oh, maybe I have a story to tell finally.
And so I, met up with a girlfriend for lunch.
She was leaving, I think two days later to go back to India for a year to spend time with her family. You know, she’s taking like a sabbatical. She had several weddings to go to in, the sort of Asia Pacific region. She was like, I’m just gonna spend a year there. And I was like, great. And I was talking to her like, I really feel like I should write something.
And she’s like, Erica, you’re really good at giving advice.
I’ve watched you speak to hundreds of people and you give advice. Just write a book of advice of all the things that people ask you. I was like, oh, that’s a great idea. And it really resonated with me. And I think. At the end of that lunch, she’s like, you’re my trans auntie. You should call it advice from your trans auntie.
So that’s where the name comes from, So that first book is, I think 49 questions. I get a lot. Everything from how do I know I’m trans to what does it look like to advocate for yourself when talking to your doctor to What’s it like to search on the job market for a job as an out trans person?
Like, look, I’m six feet tall. You know, I’m trans when you see me, right? So I have to deal with that fact every time I interview for a new job, right? And so the book is like 500 to 700 word prompts of like, here’s a question. I give it a perspective. Sometimes I have a personal story.
to tell around it. And the goal is to point you in a direction, not to say you should do this, but to say, consider this, right? Because I don’t know Rowan’s circumstances. I don’t know what Rowan went through to pick his name. I can tell him what I did. And the rules that I set to help me pick one, and he might pick those up, But I’m not gonna prescribe his rationale. That’s really what the book is about. So it’s a really good book for people that are at the beginning of transition, maybe early days, or just have like, you know, okay, I’ve been transitioning for two years now. It’s good for that. It’s a really great book for allies, for families, for coworkers that wanna understand trans perspectives in meaningful ways, to really kinda learn about what are things that we go through, what are our fears?
What are some anecdotes that I can hang on? And we know that when we’re giving data and we’re giving facts and we tell a story around it, the likelihood of it sticking with you increases by 60%. Right? So that’s why I use so many stories. The second book that I’m working on now, I thought about for a while, is not a book of advice, although there will be advice in it, I guess.
Considering the landscape that we live in, particularly in the US with, we’re probably looking at 10 years to regain the rights we had a year ago. As a matter of fact, we are the first minority group in the US to lose rights that we’ve gained trans people, Hasn’t happened to another group yet coming, but it hasn’t happened.
And so the book is really focused on what did we get right from our previous movement? What can we learn from other, movements by marginalized people? What new things might we need to try? It’s really meant to sort of be a projection, how we get to a place ten years from now where we’re not reliant on having to talk other communities to looking out for us, but we’ve built, who we are into the culture of this country and hopefully countries, right?
So that it’s not a question anymore. We’re trying to make ourselves sort of bulletproof is the perspective that I’m putting out there. And you know, I think one thing that we’ve learned here in the US is, that while we have allies, there’s a difference between someone who calls themselves an ally and believes that I should have my own rights and a person who will stand up for my rights, There’s a big gulf between those two. Now, we’ve certainly seen people standing up for our rights, but we’ve seen a whole lot more people being like, well, yeah, you should be able to do that, what else? What more do you want from me? Right?
[00:49:55] Rowan: Yeah. That’s the thing.
[00:49:56] Erica: Right? Well, okay, cool. You do you No, we need to get beyond you.
Do you? Because that’s why we’re in the state that we’re in right now. So the second book is meant to be a look into how might we need to adapt, and I’ll be covering politics, running for elected position, how we manage our economics, right? As a group in the us as,, millennials and Gen Zs become the largest population.
They will command 30% of the economic power in the us. and 30% of them will be members of the LGBTQ plus community based on projections. So how do we manage our economic power, as a group to leverage better outcomes for ourselves? How might we need to message differently? How might we meet people where they are more, what things are truly things that we will not back up on, and what things are we willing to explain?
Right. So that’s really book two. I’m still in the research mode, so I’m not writing officially yet, but I plan to start writing in January.
[00:50:55] Lara: Amazing.
[00:50:55] Rowan: Wow. I love talking to people who are smarter than me. This has been fantastic,
[00:51:00] Erica: I’m not smarter than you. Come on.
[00:51:02] Rowan: Well, lemme tell you, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
Testosterone made me dumber. I’m sorry, cis men everywhere. But also it gave me so much confidence that I just think it’s okay. My charm will make up for it. No joke. This is where I’ve arrived. That’s maybe what I want people to know. Erica, if you were sitting in a room of some of the most powerful people in the world right now and.
They were attentive to what you had to say about trans people in 2025, 2026. What would you tell them?
[00:51:40] Erica: I think the thing that I would honestly say is like when all of you look at me, I guess I represent to you all of the ills that the trans community provides, right? And let’s be honest, as a white trans lady, I’m the most visible person, right?
In their narratives, they don’t talk about trans men or non-binary people. Often I would say to them, when you look at what you think is wrong with me, and you weigh that on balance, against what’s good for society as a nation, as a globe. Spending your time marginalizing us further doesn’t actually move anyone further forward.
And if that’s your point of view, you should not be sitting in this room. Let’s be honest, the real ills of this world is that there are people that we are okay with having less, less access to healthcare, less access to education, less access to agency. We are more okay with securing the bulk of the power, the bulk of the money, the bulk of decisions to a precious few people that only work in their own interests.
Marginalizing me further, will only hurt me if you spent as much effort as you spend on me on improving society, you will improve the lives of billions of people. So my message would be, leave me alone, get over it. And if you’re in this position of power and you’re using it to make just my life worse, or just the life, like, it’s terrible to do that for.
You know, the Global Society of Trans People, which is maybe 50 million people. Yes. That’s, that’s awful. But you could be spending time in your life actually working to improve the lives of other, keeping me from playing sports isn’t gonna affect people who play sports. Keeping me from HRT isn’t gonna affect people who need HRT.
Keeping me from the surgeries that I want to have isn’t gonna help people get access to their surgeries. Preventing me from finding a job isn’t gonna help people get other jobs. Right. Like it’s, that would be my message. Like your focus is entirely self-centered on pleasing an angry group of people instead of doing the thing That was kind of the promise of what you got into this for, which was to help the world be a better place.
The world is a better place with trans people in it because there isn’t a world where trans people don’t exist. There’s not one, there never has been one. There never will be one. There’s no amount of squashing us that will make someone else not be trans 20 years from now. So given that, why are you focused on me?
[00:53:55] Lara: Yeah.
[00:53:57] Rowan: Wow. Wow. Oh gosh. I mean these are all things that I think about a lot, but it means a lot to talk to somebody else who says them. And, I don’t know if you have any thoughts about this Poor, poor Lara? I warned her beforehand. I said the two of us are going to, we’re just gonna be talking back and forth and I don’t wanna, we’re just gonna riff leave you out.
So I apologize, Lara. Is there anything you would like to add before we start to wrap this up?
[00:54:24] Erica and Lara overlapping: Me or Lara? Me or Erica?
[00:54:26] Rowan: Oh, sorry.
lemme try that again.
[00:54:27] Erica: It was all that confidence you got from testosterone.
[00:54:29] Rowan: That’s right. I’m a man. Everyone should automatically know what I’m trying to say and what I’m thinking.
What I’m thinking often isn’t very much. Lara, is there anything you would like to add to this conversation we’ve been having? Any questions , that we maybe missed before we start to wrap this up?
[00:54:48] Lara: I mean, I think I did take part, and there’s only so much that I have to say. I think a world where we are accepting of people, we should be accepting everyone.
And unfortunately some of what my conclusions are is that there are folks who don’t. Want people to be themselves. Right. Like that is ultimately that they are more self interested than interested in helping everyone. And I think that sucks, but I do hope that those who are sort of in the middle or just don’t really understand or feel like I don’t really get it.
Right. If you don’t really get it, but you wanna get it. There are so many ways that you can talk to people, read books, and learn. you know, trans folks are people who are amazing and No different than all the other amazing people, you know? And if we can just stop making it seem like a problem and start seeing it as an opportunity, like imagine how wonderful that would be.
[00:55:50] Erica: Yeah, I would like to speak to Lara directly and all the other Laras out there and Larry’s and allies, This is what allyship looks like, Lara spends her time on a podcast with Rowan talking about trans and other topics, right? making space for him to be who he is because she knows that his authenticity is one of the best things about him,
and that’s amazing. And to be celebrated. And I know that Lara would stand next to me in public if I needed her help. Now I’m loud. I don’t need her to stand up for me, but I would love her to stand with me, and I would welcome that anytime. And for all of you out there that are allies like Lara, keep it up.
Keep going. Be loud standing with your trans friends, people who aren’t sure, you know what. You don’t need to be sure. You can certainly go and find education, read books, go talk to trans people. Don’t just look online at topics that are anti-trans. If you wanna know trans people and just allow people to be who they are, because at the end of the day, there is some place in your life, Lara and other allies and people that don’t know if they’re allies, where other people have allowed you to be who you are.
Whether that’s because you’re a super fan of car racing or football, or you really love knitting or you’re really into Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, or all you do is talk about your job that’s rooted in your authenticity and the people around you make room for that. Making room for me isn’t any harder.
You don’t need to understand my choices or my life to make room for me.
There’s not a certain amount of space for people to go around. So if you’re unsure, go talk to a trans person. Go read a memoir by this guy over here, right? Read my book.
Take the time to educate yourself to know something a little bit about, because mostly we have zero impact on your life. There’s just not enough of us, but there is enough of us for people to decide that we should be allowed to be who we are without interference.
[00:57:46] Lara: Love it.
[00:57:47] Rowan: Perfect. Erica, where can people find you if they wanna follow you and just hang out with you online?
Like I have the delight to do pretty much every day.
[00:57:57] Erica: Awesome. the easiest single place to find me is my website, Erica Vogel, E-R-I-C-A-V-O-G-E L.com. and that has links to all my socials, but you can find me on. Instagram or Threads or even LinkedIn if you’re into like, what’s it like to know a trans person in the workplace, which is a wild experience.
so you can find me all this place and frankly, you can probably find Rowan and I just talking about stuff online all the time.
[00:58:24] Rowan: Yeah, we just hang out. We just chat back and forth. It’s great. Yeah. I’ll definitely send you a message after this too. Erica, thank you. I think I speak for both of us.
but thank you so much for your time, your generosity, your perspective, your kindness, your wisdom. I think our better people for knowing you. Um, sorry Lara, I’m speaking for you. I guess that’s my job now. ‘cause I’m a dude, but like I,
[00:58:48] Lara: Do I get my own thoughts now Rowan?
[00:58:52] Rowan: I mean, I guess if you really want to. Yeah, go ahead.
[00:58:57] Erica: Lara, now you have to say you’re better for meeting me.
[00:58:58] Lara: No, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much for your time and just chatting with us. I’ve really enjoyed it.
[00:59:05] Erica: Yeah. Well, thank you. I so appreciate both of you. I’m glad I got to meet you, Lara. Rowan, I’m finally glad I got to talk to your face and just not talk to you via my phone and typing.
It’s amazing. I love you.
[00:59:14] Rowan: Super fun Yeah. We’ll have to do this again.
[00:59:16] Erica: Yes.
[00:59:17] Rowan: Amazing. And thank you to everyone who is listening to this. If you have any questions, comments, feel free to drop us a line, always and uh, go, go buy some books trans people. Go read some books. Go read Erica’s book. You can read, you can want to.
But definitely go check out Erica’s, and other peoples’, and we appreciate you. Have a
