On this episode of the GenderGP podcast, we hear from counsellor Jackie Swarbrick, who talks very openly to GenderGP Therapist Marianne Oakes, about her experiences as the partner of first a trans and then a bi-gender person.

As a partner, Jackie found she struggled to find the support she needed. Her experiences eventually led her to setting up Safe Haven, a support group for gender diverse people and their loved ones, located in Cornwall.

 

If you are affected by any of the topics discussed and would like to get in touch please visit our Help Centre. You can also contact us on social media where you will find us at @GenderGP on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. We are always happy to accept ideas for future shows, so if there is something in particular you would like us to discuss or a specific guest you would love to hear from, let us know. Your feedback is really important to us so if you could take a minute or two to leave us an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes it will help others to discover us.

Thanks for listening and don’t forget to share!

 

Show notes

For further information about Safe Haven visit: http://www.safehaven.org.uk

 

 

The GenderGP Podcast

A Partner's Perspective

 

Hello, this is Dr Helen Webberley. Welcome to our Gender GP Podcast, where we will be discussing some of the issues affecting the trans and non-binary community in the world today, together with my co-host Marianne Oakes, a trans woman herself, and our head of therapy.

 

Marianne Oakes:

Hi, it's just me and Jackie Swarbrick today talking. Helen left us to have this conversation as she felt it would be more powerful just the two of us. Jackie is the partner of a trans person, I'm going to say because I'm going to let Jackie introduce herself shortly. But we thought it would be a good idea just to get the other side of the story, as we might say. Welcome, Jackie.

Jackie Swarbrick:

Hi, my name is Jackie Swarbrick. I am married to Paul or Paula, who is bigender. Between us, we run an organisation that is called Safe Haven, which is for transgender people and their partners and family members. And I am a counsellor. My introduction to transgender was with my brother, who has now transitioned.

Marianne Oakes:

How long were you married?

Jackie Swarbrick:

We were together for five years. We met in 2009.

Marianne Oakes:

Did the relationship end because of the transition, if you don’t mind me asking?

Jackie Swarbrick:

Yes. She needed to find herself. She needed to be herself. And that didn’t being married to a woman.

Marianne Oakes:

How long were you aware of her feelings?

Jackie Swarbrick:

I knew there was a problem because she had anger. Sometimes, she'd just get – well he, obviously, would just be really angry and I could never work out why. And with my counsellor's head on, I started to dig around. I realised that he had a real bully for a dad. I thought that was what it was. I thought that was where the anger came from – the bullying dad. But the more unpeeling the onion we did, the more it became apparent that wasn't it. Initially, he told me that when he was a child, he used to cross-dress with his sister. And he thought he should be a girl when he was little, and his mum told him, no, he has to be a boy. So he just sort of got on with being a boy and dressed when he could. Then he heard his dad beating up his gay brother when he was 12, and he thought,

On March 31st, Transgender Day of Visibility, GenderGP hosted a live Q&A with some of the leading international experts in the field of trans youth care.

Dr Helen Webberley was joined by Dr Johanna Olson-Kennedy, Aydin Olson-Kennedy and ‘live from California’, Darlene Tando. The event was hosted by Lizzie Jordan, founder of Think2Speak, who was our guest on the previous episode of the GenderGP podcast.

Listen again here: https://gendergp.com/the-gendergp-podcast-season-2-episode-2-lizzie-jordan-think2speak/

Together, this formidable panel answered your questions on the subject of healthcare for trans and gender variant youth; discussed where we currently stand in the UK and how this compares to the approach taken by the largest transgender youth clinic in the United States, located at Children's Hospital Los Angeles.

 

Episode 3 of the GenderGP podcast contains the live audio from the event, so you can catch up on the move.

This is what gender affirmative healthcare for trans youth looks like.

 

Show notes:

For full details of the event including speaker biographies please click here: https://gendergp.com/liveonlineevent/

You can also watch the footage of our live stream event on our Facebook page @gendergp: https://www.facebook.com/gendergp/videos/587005788464364/

 

The GenderGP Podcast

Season 2. Episode 3. Affirmative Healthcare for Trans Youth

 

Hello, this is Dr. Helen Webberley. Welcome to our Gender GP Podcast, where we will be discussing some of the issues affecting the trans and non-binary community in the world today, together with my co-host Marianne Oakes, a trans woman herself, and our head of therapy.

 

Lizzie Jordan:

Good afternoon. We are talking about if your child is transgender, they probably are. We have an amazing panel for you to discuss gender affirmative healthcare. Before I introduce all of the panel today, we have participants joining via Zoom and via Facebook. Zoom is anonymous, and you can submit questions live there not the chat portion, but on the Q&A portion. You can also submit comments on Facebook down below. Those will be shown to us. If you have a personal question, then those will not be answered today, but you can email [email protected] for any questions of a personal nature. And also, if you have any technical issues, don’t worry, because this is being recorded, and so it will be up live on the website and also on Facebook. All questions are anonymous. With that said, I would like to introduce the lovely panel. Over to you, Helen.

Dr. Helen Webberley:

Thank you very much. My name is Helen Webberley. I am a UK-trained doctor, and I have more recently taken a special interest in the care of gender-related issues, both adults and young people. I went with some of my colleagues to Los Angeles in January to the trans youth care conference that these guys put on, and I was blown away by their gender affirmative model. It was just so refreshing that they were not starting from a position of whether we should believe that trans children exist, or what we should do with them; but actually, we do believe they exist, and how do we best help them and support them, both medically and socially. So when I heard these guys were coming over to the UK, we set this up. And I am really, really excited to welcome our three USA members.

Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy:

Good afternoon. My name is Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy. I am a US-trained, board-certified pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist. I have been doing care for trans and gender-diverse youth for the past 13 years. Very excited to be here.

In this episode of our podcast, Lizzie Jordan, CEO and founder of Think2Speak, talks about her work and why an open and honest dialogue around challenging subject matters, such as gender variance, is so vital when it comes to educating younger generations.

Lizzie is our guest host for our event on March 31st, which will be streamed live on Facebook:

 

“If your child says they are transgender, they probably are.”

 

A discussion on the subject of gender affirmative healthcare for trans youth.

Marketing consultant. Award winning social entrepreneur. Mother. Widow. HIV positive. One person; a myriad of possible labels.

 

About Think2Speak:

Think2Speak is a social enterprise which was set up to help tackle the ‘uncomfortable silences’ often felt by young people when discussing sensitive subjects with the professionals involved in their lives. Lizzie and her team work with people to empower them to have the skills to confidently handle sensitive conversations, to know who to speak to and where to go to access further support.

 

Useful links:

https://gendergp.com/liveonlineevent/

https://www.think2speak.com

 

We hope you enjoyed our podcast.

If you have been affected by any of the topics discussed and would like to get in touch please drop us a line at [email protected]. You can also contact us on social media where you will find us at @GenderGP on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. We are always happy to accept ideas for future shows, so if there is something in particular you would like us to discuss or a specific guest you would love to hear from, let us know.

Your feedback is really important to us so if you could take a minute or two to leave us an honest review and rating for the podcast it will help others to discover us. Thanks for listening and don’t forget to share!

 

The GenderGP Podcast

Season 2. Episode 2. Lizzie Jordan, Think2Speak

 

Hello, this is Dr. Helen Webberley. Welcome to our Gender GP Podcast, where we will be discussing some of the issues affecting the trans and non-binary community in the world today, together with my co-host Marianne Oakes, a trans woman herself, and our head of therapy.

 

Dr. Helen Webberley:

I am really delighted to welcome Lizzie Jordan today. She is the CEO and founder of Think2Speak, and she’s also going to be our host for the live-stream event which is taking place on the 31st of March. Hi Lizzie.

Lizzie Jordan:

Hello.

Dr. Helen Webberley:

I’ll let you introduce yourself. Tell us who you are, what you do. And welcome!

Lizzie Jordan:

Thank you very much. I run an organization based in the east midlands. We have people cross-country. What we actually believe in is the empowering skills that conversation can enable. We do that mainly to support young people. So we work with them directly, we work with their families, and also with lots of professionals, so it might be in school or the setting around that that might need a bit of support. Usually, with those conversations, it's stuff that adults would actually shy away from. There are a lot of things around gender identity, sexual health, and bereavement. The conversations that adults are often uncomfortable about.

Dr. Helen Webberley:

We heard recently in the news that they’ve been talking about, again, whether LGBT issues should be discussed in school and what level of education we should be providing to children. Is that too much? Is that too little?

Episode one, part two

 

Part two of our Trans Youth Care episode focuses on the latest medical thinking coming out of the US. Dr Helen shares her thoughts with Marianne on how this compares with the current approach in the UK.

We hope you enjoyed our podcast.

 

Show notes:

 

Find out more about Darlene Tando here: www.darlenetandogenderblog.com

Trans Youth Care Conference: www.transyouthcare.com

Dr Johanna Olson Kennedy was a guest on one of our earlier podcasts, if you haven’t done so already, you can listen here: http://gendergp.com/feed/podcast/

You can also read more about her gender affirmative approach here: https://gendergp.com/gender-affirmative-care-for-trans-youth/

 

If you have been affected by any of the topics discussed and would like to get in touch via our Help Centre. You can also contact us on social media where you will find us at @GenderGP on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

We are always happy to accept ideas for future shows, so if there is something in particular you would like us to discuss or a specific guest you would love to hear from, let us know.

Your feedback is really important to us so if you could take a minute or two to leave us an honest review and rating for the podcast it will help others to discover us. Thanks for listening and don’t forget to share!

 

The GenderGP Podcast

Season 2. Episode 1. Trans Youth Care (part 2)

 

Hello, this is Dr. Helen Webberley. Welcome to our Gender GP Podcast, where we will be discussing some of the issues affecting the trans and non-binary community in the world today, together with my co-host Marianne Oakes, a trans woman herself, and our head of therapy.

 

Marianne Oakes:

Clothing is the unconscious language of the spirit, and clearly expresses itself more when the tongue is condemned to silence. This idea that gender is all about clothes and you touched on it earlier, Helen, when you said that what this idea that we have with what is a boy and what is a girl? I find with a lot of the young trans people, particularly, is that they will fit the criteria to gain acceptance from their parents, but when they become independent – and by independent I mean have access to medical treatment – they will start to express gender differently. So yes, we put a lot of emphasis on clothes and makeup and that kind of thing, but that idea that when the tongue is condemned to silence, when we can’t express ourselves verbally in any way, we express it through the clothes. Actually, as we become more comfortable, we will start expressing it in other ways. So we will get a lot of trans boys that will wear makeup and nail varnish, and you will get a lot of trans girls that will start wearing jeans and t-shirts. I just felt that to me it really stuck out.

Dr. Helen Webberley:

Isn’t it really interesting how much fear that causes us cis gender people around them? When you see your trans son all of a sudden wanting to experiment with makeup or nail varnish, you are thinking, “Oh my goodness! Have I made a mistake?” the other thing about that external expression is children and teenagers that we see, who have found it difficult to be allowed to express themselves through clothing, express themselves through other ways. I think the percentage of piercings, tattoos, and big ear piercings, those are kind of accepted ways of showing your body in a different kind of way. And then of course underneath their clothes, those scars, cuts, the other way of expressing that their body isn’t right. Perhaps if we allowed these youngsters just to express themselves the way that they want to, through clothes, through hair, through whatever it is – we all like clothes,

Episode one, part one

 

Season two of our GenderGP podcast opens with a two part episode in which your hosts, Dr Helen Webberley and Marianne Oakes, share some of their learnings from the Trans Youth Care conference held in LA, in January 2019.

The two-day conference featured three of the US’ leading voices on the care of younger gender variant people:

Dr Johanna Olson-Kennedy, leading medical expert specialising in the care of transgender youth, non-conforming youth and gender variant children.

Aydin Olson-Kennedy, well-known human rights activist who has spoken for the past two decades about the importance of rights for transgender individuals, with emphasis on identifying and acknowledging domains of privilege.

Darlene Tando, LCSW and a proponent of the informed consent model where the individual is the “expert” on their own gender identity.

 

Starting from the position that a person who says they are trans is speaking their truth, the two-day event was entirely focused on how best to support gender variant youth. For Marianne and Dr Helen it was a breath of fresh air to be in a room full of parents and professionals, all wanting to learn more about how they could improve their approach at home and at work.

There was so much to share that we have divided the podcast into two parts. In Trans Youth Care part one, Marianne shares her key learnings from a psychological perspective. In part two, Dr Helen discusses the latest medical thinking coming out of the US, and just how similar it is to the patient-led approach taken by those who provide care via GenderGP.

Inspired by the event Dr Helen was quick to invite her esteemed colleagues to join her for a live stream question and answer panel event which will take place on March 31st, 2019 from 3pm-4.30pm. Full details to follow on our website: www.gendergp.com.

“If your child says they are transgender, they probably are.”

A discussion on the subject of gender affirmative healthcare for trans youth.

The event will provide unprecedented access to a formidable panel of guests poised to answer your questions on the subject of healthcare for trans and gender variant youth, where we currently stand in the UK, and how this compares to the approach taken by the largest transgender youth clinic in the United States.

Photo by Jordan McDonald on Unsplash

 

The GenderGP Podcast

Season 2. Episode 1. Trans Youth Care (part 1)

 

Hello, this is Dr. Helen Webberley. Welcome to our Gender GP Podcast, where we will be discussing some of the issues affecting the trans and non-binary community in the world today, together with my co-host Marianne Oakes, a trans woman herself, and our head of therapy.

 

Dr. Helen Webberley:

We’ve just come back from an amazing weekend in LA, where we went to the trans youth care conference, which was run by Johanna Olson-Kennedy and her husband Aiden, and also with the amazing Darlene Tando, who is what we would call a child psychologist or child therapist. I don’t know about you, Marianne, but I was blown away by the attitude towards trans children and trans adolescents. What struck me immediately was we weren’t – I’m guessing there were about a hundred people in the room, maybe more, and we weren’t starting from the point where we often have to start from in the UK of this is what it means to be trans, it’s real, this is how you try and accept a trans person. It was almost like that kind of attitude had all been done many months and years before. Where we were starting was a position from we have a lot of trans children in our country, so how are we as professionals and parents and doctors and counselors and GPS and therapists, going to collectively work together to help these trans c...

Dr Olson-Kennedy to round up season one of the GenderGP podcast we are joined by Dr Johanna Olson-Kennedy.

Dr Olson-Kennedy is the Medical Director of The Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, the largest transgender youth clinic in the United States. She specialises in the care of gender non-conforming children and transgender youth.

Dr. Olson-Kennedy is considered a national expert in the area of medical intervention for transgender youth and young adults in the US. She has appeared frequently on national television and spoken all over the country to educate providers, parents, and other communities about the needs of transgender youth.

In this episode, she joins Marianne and Helen to talk about the gender affirmative approach taken by her clinic and why she believes that compassion is more important than certainty, when it comes to the healthcare needs of young gender variant people.

 

 

Useful links:

https://www.chla.org/profile/johanna-olson-kennedy-md

 

We hope you enjoyed our podcast.

If you have been affected by any of the topics discussed and would like to get in touch please visit our Help Centre. You can also contact us on social media where you will find us at @GenderGP on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

We are always happy to accept ideas for future shows, so if there is something in particular you would like us to discuss or a specific guest you would love to hear from, let us know.

Your feedback is really important to us so if you could take a minute or two to leave us an honest review and rating for the podcast it will help others to discover us. Thanks for listening and don’t forget to share!

 

The GenderGP Podcast

Gender affirmative healthcare with Johanna Olson-Kennedy

 

Hello, this is Dr. Helen Webberley. Welcome to our Gender GP Podcast, where we will be discussing some of the issues affecting the trans and non-binary community in the world today, together with my co-host Marianne Oakes, a trans woman herself, and our head of therapy.

 

Dr. Helen Webberley:

Today, I’d really love to welcome Dr. Olson-Kennedy. I’m going to let her introduce herself, and let her tell us what she does and some of the greatest work that she does. Jo, if I could hand over to you?

Johanna Olson-Kennedy:

Absolutely. My name is Johanna Olson-Kennedy. I’m the medical director for The Centre for Trans Youth Health and Development in Los Angeles, at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. I’ve been doing gender work with gender non-conforming children, trans, adolescent, and young adults for the past twelve years, almost exclusively. We have a large clinic of about just over 1300 young people between the ages of 3 and 25. We see about 5 to 7 new trans or gender-questioning, gender journey young people every week. It’s very exciting and robust. We have the largest youth clinic in the United States, and it’s such a great privilege to work with these young people because they teach me new things every day.

Dr. Helen Webberley:

And my very first, most obvious question is going to be, over the last twelve years, what changes have you seen? And which are most stark to you?

Johanna Olson-Kennedy:

I think like so many things in gender work, there is this cognitive dissonance where a lot has changed but not enough has changed. And so, one thing that is sort of fundamental or important is that there has been more visibility of trans youth. This is really important because when we think about they way that young people who are tra...

In this episode of the GenderGP podcast, Helen and Marianne are joined by poet Reece Lyons whose thought provoking performance, some months back, at the Roundhouse Poetry Slam resulted in her poem going viral. At the time of recording this podcast, Reece’s performance of: 'I am a woman and I have a penis' had been viewed more than 2 million times. We talk to her about what it means to be trans in Britain today.

Useful links

https://youtu.be/Ty6Ct8AMfqE

http://www.roundhouse.org.uk/whats-on/2018/last-word-2018-/poetry-slam-2018/

Twitter: @reecelyons_

Instagram: Reece Lyons

We hope you enjoyed our podcast.

If you have been affected by any of the topics discussed and would like to get in touch please drop us a line at [email protected]. You can also contact us on social media where you will find us at @GenderGP on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. We are always happy to accept ideas for future shows, so if there is something in particular you would like us to discuss or a specific guest you would love to hear from, let us know.

Your feedback is really important to us so if you could take a minute or two to leave us an honest review and rating for the podcast it will help others to discover us. Thanks for listening and don’t forget to share!

'I am a woman and I have a penis' with special guest Reece Lyons

Hello, this is Dr. Helen Webberley. Welcome to our Gender GP Podcast, where we will be discussing some of the issues affecting the trans and non-binary community in the world today, together with my co-host Marianne Oakes, a trans woman herself, and our head of therapy.

Dr. Helen Webberley: It’s really really lovely to have you. Thank you for joining us today. I’m with Marianne Oakes, and we have Reece Lyons, who is a poet and trans woman. I’m going to let her take on the introduction from there. If you don’t mind, Reece?

Reece Lyons: Yes, I am a trans woman. I’ll just give some background information. I recently wrote and performed a poem at the Last Word Festival Final this year, which happens every year. I wrote a poem about being a trans woman and my trans experience, and then it went viral online. I guess now it has over 2 million views, something crazy like that! the reaction has been amazing. I’m very lucky.

Marianne Oakes: What prompted you to do the poem, if that isn’t an obvious question?

Reece Lyons: You know, I think there is definitely a lack of representation for trans people, and especially trans women representing ourselves. I think a lot of stuff is created about trans people, but it’s often sensationalism. I just wanted to create something that was heartfelt and which came from the actual person who is experiencing them. It’s my own experience. 

Dr. Helen Webberley: I think I have had the privilege of meeting a very great number of transgender people of both genders, and all the way in between. And it’s been an enormous privilege for me. I know that that privilege isn’t afforded to other people. And there may be a lot of people listening who have never had that privilege to meet or speak with somebody, who really really understands what it means to be transgender, whatever that means. Would it be okay if we asked you to explain what that means to you? I know they are obvious questions, like how did you know, when did you know, and how did you find out about it and explore it? There are many basic concepts that perhaps other people haven’t had the privilege to hear from the horse’s mouth, if you know what I mean.

 

Reece Lyons: Yes, how did I know! The age-old question. I don’t really know how I knew. I think for many trans people, anyone LGBT, I kind of have this thing where I don’t want to have to explain myself or prove my humanity to people, if that makes sense.

In this episode of the GenderGP podcast, Helen and Marianne are joined by poet Reece Lyons whose thought provoking performance, some months back, at the Roundhouse Poetry Slam resulted in her poem going viral. At the time of recording this podcast, Reece’s performance of: 'I am a woman and I have a penis' had been viewed more than 2 million times. We talk to her about what it means to be trans in Britain today.

 

Useful links

https://youtu.be/Ty6Ct8AMfqE

http://www.roundhouse.org.uk/whats-on/2018/last-word-2018-/poetry-slam-2018/

Twitter: @reecelyons_

Instagram: Reece Lyons

 

We hope you enjoyed our podcast.

If you have been affected by any of the topics discussed and would like to get in touch please drop us a line at [email protected]. You can also contact us on social media where you will find us at @GenderGP on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. We are always happy to accept ideas for future shows, so if there is something in particular you would like us to discuss or a specific guest you would love to hear from, let us know.

Your feedback is really important to us so if you could take a minute or two to leave us an honest review and rating for the podcast it will help others to discover us. Thanks for listening and don’t forget to share!

 

 

The GenderGP Podcast

'I am a woman and I have a penis' with special guest Reece Lyons

 

Hello, this is Dr. Helen Webberley. Welcome to our Gender GP Podcast, where we will be discussing some of the issues affecting the trans and non-binary community in the world today, together with my co-host Marianne Oakes, a trans woman herself, and our head of therapy.

 

Dr. Helen Webberley:

It’s really really lovely to have you. Thank you for joining us today. I’m with Marianne Oakes, and we have Reece Lyons, who is a poet and trans woman. I’m going to let her take on the introduction from there. If you don’t mind, Reece?

Reece Lyons:

Yes, I am a trans woman. I’ll just give some background information. I recently wrote and performed a poem at the Last Word Festival Final this year, which happens every year. I wrote a poem about being a trans woman and my trans experience, and then it went viral online. I guess now it has over 2 million views, something crazy like that! the reaction has been amazing. I’m very lucky.

Marianne Oakes:

What prompted you to do the poem, if that isn’t an obvious question?

Reece Lyons:

You know, I think there is definitely a lack of representation for trans people, and especially trans women representing ourselves. I think a lot of stuff is created about trans people, but it’s often sensationalism. I just wanted to create something that was heartfelt and which came from the actual person who is experiencing them. It’s my own experience.

Dr. Helen Webberley:

I think I have had the privilege of meeting a very great number of transgender people of both genders, and all the way in between. And it’s been an enormous privilege for me. I know that that privilege isn’t afforded to other people. And there may be a lot of people listening who have never had that privilege to meet or speak with somebody, who really really understands what it means to be transgender, whatever that means. Would it be okay if we asked you to explain what that means to you? I know they are obvious questions, like how did you know, when did you know, and how did you find out about it and explore it? There are many basic concepts that perhaps other people haven’t had the privilege to hear from the horse’s mouth,

Author Juno RocheIn this episode of the GenderGP podcast, author Juno Roche joins Dr Helen Webberley and co host Marianne Oakes to discuss a topic which has long been ignored: queer sex. In her enlightening book, of the same name, Roche interviews trans and non binary couples about their approach to sex. Here she shares how the process has helped her to better understand embrace her own identity as a trans woman.

Useful links from today’s show

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Queer -Sex-Non-Binary-Intimacy-Relat ionships/dp/1785924060

https://gendergp.co.uk/queer-s ex-guest-blog-by-juno-roche/

https://www.indy100.com/articl e/transgender-myths-most- common-transition-journey- heterosexual-born-wrong-body- sex-heterosexual-8334851

Twitter: @justjuno1

We hope you enjoyed our podcast.

If you have been affected by any of the topics discussed and would like to get in touch please drop us a line at [email protected]. You can also contact us on social media where you will find us at @GenderGP on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. We are always happy to accept ideas for future shows, so if there is something in particular you would like us to discuss or a specific guest you would love to hear from, let us know.

Your feedback is really important to us so if you could take a minute or two to leave us an honest review and rating for the podcast it will help others to discover us. Thanks for listening and don’t forget to share!

Queer Sex with special guest Juno Roche

Hello, this is Dr. Helen Webberley. Welcome to our Gender GP Podcast, where we will be discussing some of the issues affecting the trans and non-binary community in the world today, together with my co-host Marianne Oakes, a trans woman herself, and our head of therapy.

Dr. Helen Webberley: This morning we are really delighted to welcome Juno Roche to join us. Let me just hand over to you to get the ball rolling.

Juno Roche: Fantastic. It’s always slightly daunting when someone says let’s start the ball rolling. It’s lovely to be here, and it’s lovely to be asked on to talk about my book which came out earlier this year, Queer Sex. And also to talk more generally about why I felt the need to write the book and why I actually do a lot of the stuff that I do, which is around trans empowerment, trans bodies, trans sex, and in a sense, kind of the way that we have some autonomy about our process. Thank you for inviting me on to talk.

Dr. Helen Webberley: You mentioned trans empowerment. Why do you think trans people need empowerment? What does that actually mean to the man in the street?

Juno Roche: Well, the woman in the street, as it may happen. For me, it’s about how our processes are paternalistically aligned. From my generation, and I still hear many people say – so we tend to do this thing that we demonise the bodies we were born in by saying, “I was born in the wrong body.” And if you think about that statement on its own, it’s such a divisive statement to make about your own body, to say that you were born in the wrong body. There is an awful lot of things wrong with society, and what society puts onto women, and puts onto men. And the way that it handles gender. What happens is that we have to try and fit in to that. and we have a slight incongruence about our bodies, but that doesn’t mean that they are the wrong bodies. It is important to me that we take back control, so that we don’t just join line after line of people trying to make us better, trying to make this right, trying to make us fit in. when will we be man enough? When will we be acceptable? At what point do we blend? At what point do we pass? At what point do we become absorbed into society? People say to us there is no more disempowering or un-empowering line than somebody saying I’d never have known.

In this episode of the GenderGP podcast, author Juno Roche joins Dr Helen Webberley and co host Marianne Oakes to discuss a topic which has long been ignored: queer sex. In her enlightening book, of the same name, Roche interviews trans and non binary couples about their approach to sex. Here she shares how the process has helped her to better understand embrace her own identity as a trans woman.

 

Useful links from today’s show

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Queer-Sex-Non-Binary-Intimacy-Relationships/dp/1785924060

https://gendergp.com/queer-sex-guest-blog-by-juno-roche/

https://www.indy100.com/article/transgender-myths-most-common-transition-journey-heterosexual-born-wrong-body-sex-heterosexual-8334851

Twitter: @justjuno1

 

 

We hope you enjoyed our podcast.

If you have been affected by any of the topics discussed and would like to get in touch please visit our Help Centre to access our team of gender specialists. You can also contact us on social media where you will find us at @GenderGP on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. We are always happy to accept ideas for future shows, so if there is something in particular you would like us to discuss or a specific guest you would love to hear from, let us know.

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The GenderGP Podcast

Queer Sex with special guest Juno Roche

 

Hello, this is Dr. Helen Webberley. Welcome to our Gender GP Podcast, where we will be discussing some of the issues affecting the trans and non-binary community in the world today, together with my co-host Marianne Oakes, a trans woman herself, and our head of therapy.

 

Dr. Helen Webberley:

This morning we are really delighted to welcome Juno Roche to join us. Let me just hand over to you to get the ball rolling.

Juno Roche:

Fantastic. It’s always slightly daunting when someone says let’s start the ball rolling. It’s lovely to be here, and it’s lovely to be asked on to talk about my book which came out earlier this year, Queer Sex. And also to talk more generally about why I felt the need to write the book and why I actually do a lot of the stuff that I do, which is around trans empowerment, trans bodies, trans sex, and in a sense, kind of the way that we have some autonomy about our process. Thank you for inviting me on to talk.

Dr. Helen Webberley:

You mentioned trans empowerment. Why do you think trans people need empowerment? What does that actually mean to the man in the street?

Juno Roche:

Well, the woman in the street, as it may happen. For me, it’s about how our processes are paternalistically aligned. From my generation, and I still hear many people say – so we tend to do this thing that we demonise the bodies we were born in by saying, “I was born in the wrong body.” And if you think about that statement on its own, it’s such a divisive statement to make about your own body, to say that you were born in the wrong body. There is an awful lot of things wrong with society, and what society puts onto women, and puts onto men. And the way that it handles gender. What happens is that we have to try and fit in to that. and we have a slight incongruence about our bodies, but that doesn’t mean that they are the wrong bodies. It is important to me that we take back control, so that we don’t just join line after line of people trying to make us better, trying to make this right, trying to make us fit in.