E 250 Understanding Gender vs. Sex

 Wendy Cole: Transitioning at 67 & Living as Your True Self

Have you ever felt like you weren’t living as your real self?

In this powerful episode, I sit down with Wendy Cole, a Transition Mentor who made the life-altering decision to transition at age 67. Wendy shares her deeply personal story—from knowing her true identity as a child to finally embracing it decades later.

We talk about:

The difference between gender and sex

Why the mental journey of transition is so often overlooked

How to support transgender youth with love and understanding

What parents need to know (and what to avoid)

How to live more freely by shifting your beliefs

Whether you're a parent, educator, ally, or someone who’s curious to learn more about gender identity, this episode offers honest education, heartfelt encouragement, and a message of hope.

🌈 I am a gender-affirming professional who believes in creating safe spaces for all people, especially young people navigating anxiety, identity, and change.

👇 Watch now to learn, reflect, and grow.

🔗 Helpful Links:
Wendy's Podcast: Demystifying the Transgender Journey

Wendy's Article for Parents (via PFLAG)

Wendy's Website


🧠 Subscribe for weekly episodes that support emotional well-being, identity development, and stronger family relationships. 

 Struggling with anxiety in your family? If anxiety is causing tension, fights, or disconnect in your home, you don’t have to face it alone. I help parents bring more peace, confidence, and connection to their families. Let’s talk—schedule a free consultation today or email me: ccoufal@cynthiacoufalcoaching.com

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Transcript

Have you ever felt like you were not truly being yourself? You're living according to everyone else's expectations instead of your own imagine carrying that weight for decades until one day you decide to change everything. What does it really take to make a life altering transition? Why is the mental shift often harder than the physical one?

And how can embracing who you truly are, bring you more freedom and joy than you ever imagined? Well, today I'm talking to Wendy Cole, a transition mentor who took that leap at the age of 67. She now helps others navigate their own major life changes, whether that's gender transition or another transformational shift.

Her story is one of courage, self-acceptance, and the power of the mind. Get ready for a conversation [00:01:00] about overcoming fear. Embracing change and finally living as your true self. Wendy, welcome to the show, 

Wendy Cole: Cynthia. I'm so happy to be here and thank you. That such a beautiful introduction. 

Cynthia: Well, I, I enjoyed.

Saying it, I was like, oh, this is so great and I want people to really understand what we're talking about here. Right. So I think the main, like a lot of things that I want to do with this episode is really just educate my audience because many people do not understand, what gender trans transition is, or what even is gender and how it's getting so mixed up in our world with people talking about it in the wrong ways.

And so I wanna really I would like you to educate us on what is gender as it's different from the sex we're born with. 

Wendy Cole: First of all, gender is between the ears, not the legs. 

Cynthia: Mm. 

Wendy Cole: That's your physical anatomy for reproductive purposes [00:02:00] as a child. 'cause I knew how I felt at three. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. And 

Wendy Cole: four, I liked playing with girls, not boys.

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: By school. I knew there was a big difference. And that's also from socialization by parents and family and friends, et cetera. When we're born, uh, actually before we're born, the second trimester of birth. That is when sexual differentiation begins to occur within the embryo, within the fetus. And part of that is physical, but the brain also has, uh, uh, a role in that tra that, uh, differentiation between the sex.

Uh, gender is formed in the frontal cortex of the brain in the second trimester, and sexual orientation is [00:03:00] formed within the amygdala of the brain. These are hardwired, they're not changeable. Um, gender is also a spectrum or a continuum. No one is absolutely male or absolutely female. It's. A preponderance of traits from uh, one side or the other.

And that's why you wind up with some women who appear to be more masculine and then act a little more masculine. And some men who appear to be quite beautiful and a little more on the softer side. Mm-hmm. It's. That's gender and that's formed in the brain. It's who we see ourselves as. It's far more powerful and can cause, well, you'll hear a psychiatrist or doctors or psychologists say, [00:04:00] well, your child or this person is experiencing dysphoria.

What that really is, is an incongruence between the body, physical body. And the mind, the gender identity, it was formed in the mind. That's the power of the human mind. 

Cynthia: Hmm. 

Wendy Cole: And for most people, there is no incongruence. I. They never think of the word gender from the time the baby's born. The doctor spreads the legs and it, and says, oh, it's a boy or a girl based on the physical anatomy.

And that is, for the most part, true for most people. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: But for people like me, that was a, that was a best guess. And all wrong. 

Cynthia: Well, yeah, because we don't know. All sort sorts of things about babies. Like I have some grand, I have three grandchildren and I'm always like thinking, oh, what [00:05:00] instrument will they wanna play?

What sport will they like? Right? What, you know, what you know, just like their preferences and things that they're gonna enjoy doing. And I don't wanna try to, I. Push anything on 'em. I'm just curious to like, I like watching them, right. Grow and develop. Like what are they gonna, like, what's gonna be fun for them?

What are mm-hmm. And that's the same thing about like, oh well, well they wanna wear a dress, will they wanna wear pants? Will they wanna have long hair? Will they wanna have short hair? All of that stuff. Our preferences. And we can see them all over the world. And it's been happening forever. Like I can think back into my elementary days and I was in elementary school in the seventies and I remember I.

There were kids that were doing all sorts of things, were boys that had long hair, there were girls that had short hair. There were girls that hated dresses and only wear pants. And you know, we just, I don't, I feel like the stuff that we're seeing now is just like the next level of what we were already experiencing.

And then now we've [00:06:00] made it into some. I don't know a mess. So you didn't transition until age 67 and I'm guessing, 'cause you said you knew way back before you even started school that you didn't feel right in your body. I'm guessing the transition didn't happen at until 67 because the world at the time when you could have been transitioning like some of our teenage young adults now was just completely unheard of.

Is that. True. 

Wendy Cole: Oh, that's absolutely the case. There's huge differences between today and everything before 2012 and into the last century of, I told my parents at age 10 that I was a girl. Mm. Five psychiatric, uh, visits. And then I was told for stop saying you're a girl. Stop feeling that way. Stop doing what you're doing [00:07:00] and otherwise we're going to commit you to the psychiatric facility.

You'll stay there and be fixed. Mm-hmm. That was my threat at age 10 from my own parents. My life is a classic example of not what to do with your child. And I lived like that repressing this parents have no idea the damage, the pain, the suffering that kids will go through trying to repress who they truly feel they are.

Mm-hmm. And it's. You. The one thing that I learned going through all of this is the power of the human mind. The beliefs that you carry every day about who you are and what you are, those are formed by your thoughts and the emotions of those thoughts. Well, [00:08:00] from age 10, all the way through my teens and in through my twenties.

My emotions were horrible. I was hiding this huge secret. I couldn't tell anybody. I couldn't talk to anybody about it. And if I did, my parents would have me committed and fixed by the time I was, uh, in my early twenties in 19 70, 71, I tried. The transition times were very different. No cell phones, no social media, no internet, no way to research any of this.

And I looked libraries. Mm-hmm. Bookstores. Any place I could find information on this, there virtually was none. And so I tried anyway. I found a psychiatrist who said he would help [00:09:00] me. I started to actually transition. I started coming out to people. I was actually, I did this to try and force myself to fit into male life.

I went to an all men's college. Oh my goodness. You knew that didn't work.

So I didn't come out to anyone on campus. I lived in an apartment off campus. I came out to people in my apartment building friends that I had that were local. And I actually got dressed one night and went to the movie theater to see, to see Clockwork Orange. Wendy Carlos, who had transitioned, did the soundtrack for it.

Cynthia: Mm. 

Wendy Cole: And I had to see it, so I knew it was possible. I. But whether or not I could do it, I had, I didn't yet believe I could. [00:10:00] 

Cynthia: And that 

Wendy Cole: was a key for me. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. So 

Wendy Cole: I kept going. My psychiatrist took me to a quarterly meeting of area psychiatrists around that area of New York State, Schenectady, Albany, Troy, I'm in the hospital in a conference room with about 15 or 20 psychiatrists, and this is in the early 1970s.

These are all medical professionals, MDs. I'm talking. One of them stands up within, within three to five minutes of me talking. I'll see you all next quarter. I've heard all I need to see. You are a freak turns at me. You should move to New York City and turn tricks like the rest of them. I had no clue what he was talking about.

Mm, there were, there was no information about anything like this in those days. I. [00:11:00] There were transvestites, the equivalent today of people who cross dress and transsexuals the equivalent today of people like me. Mm. And that was it. And yes, I did find out much later in my life, they did live underground in New York City or San Francisco.

Cynthia: Those 

Wendy Cole: were the two big places. And in those days, even when I was trying to transition, part of my fear of going out as my, my authentic self and presenting as my authentic self, if I was revealed in any way, shape or form to a police officer, I would be arrested, put in jail, and find, and my name published in the paper.

Hmm. That was the way it was for every one of us. 

Cynthia: Mm. 

Wendy Cole: And that that, I don't know when that stopped, but it was [00:12:00] probably sometime in the eighties or the nineties that that kind of stopped and died off. Mm-hmm. But still, I found out in 19 70, 71 from my doctor. This is a psychological condition with no treatment and no cure.

You're on your own. Mm. That's the way it was. If you wanted hormone, uh, therapy or anything like that, you had to get the hormones basically out of the country illegally. Mm. 

Cynthia: Or 

Wendy Cole: however else you could get them. Because of the anti-drug stuff going on all through that period of, of our society. You couldn't go into a pharmacy and buy needles.

So my endocrinologist who uh, I was seeing after I transitioned, um, went to medical school at NYU, lived in Greenwich Village, told me he saw [00:13:00] girls like myself dying of eight from not, from, not exclusively from doing sex work, which is how a lot of us survived back then. Mm-hmm. But also sharing needles.

Mm. To inject estrogen and of course injecting estrogen needs to be monitored by the medical community with blood work to make sure you're not injecting too high a level. Mm-hmm. That's the other thing that killed off people was they injected too much and over a long period of time, that's very harmful to the body.

Mm-hmm. 

Cynthia: Oh my 

Wendy Cole: goodness. So, yes, it's very different. Time. Mm. So after I, I, after my failed attempt to transition, I mean, I was just devastated by all of it. I'd always been told, oh, once in the, I've heard this at age 10 from the doctor, [00:14:00] she has a wife, a career, a family, a house. He'll forget all about being a girl and that's.

Not gonna happen. Mm-hmm. This was enshrined in my frontal cortex of my brain during the second trimester of birth. It does not go away. It's real. It's how I feel about who I am. Mm-hmm. So my entire life was spent repressing my big secret. I repressed huge parts of my personality. I was not at all social.

I was not, I had very few friends. I was not outgoing. I couldn't connect with people. Mm-hmm. And that's what parents today who force their children to repress this are subjecting them to is that [00:15:00] kind of life. 

Cynthia: Yeah. 

Wendy Cole: We all need distractions. To help us get through the day. Mine was my technology career. I could immerse myself in the world of computers and programming and databases and all of that stuff, and that's how I got through the day.

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: And I had other distractions for the nighttime. Suicidal ideation is incredibly common, and I can't begin to recount the number of times that I thought of killing myself. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: My wife and my family knew I was miserable. We got married in 78. And that was a tough thing for me to do because I'd always been told that would fix me.

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. I didn't 

Wendy Cole: believe it. You're hoping, but I tried everything [00:16:00] else, so. Mm-hmm. What the heck? I'll buy, I'll drink the heteronormative Kool-Aid, have a wife, have a career, have a family, and all of the stuff that goes with it. And oh, four or five years into our married life, I. I was incredibly Cynthia. I couldn't stand it.

I was never felt so trapped, so despondent and everything, and I was talking in my sleep about being a woman. 

Cynthia: Mm. 

Wendy Cole: My wife woke me up, demanded an explanation. I expected to be divorced by morning. I put it all out for her and for her own reasons. We didn't get divorced. She decided that as long as I didn't do anything about this, we would stay together.

So that's how I lived for approximately the next 35 years. 

Cynthia: Hmm. 

Wendy Cole: She did give me permission to cross stress thinking that maybe this might help relieve some of the [00:17:00] stress. I hated it very simply because it was in secret. I had to do it alone, and it only reminded me of what I couldn't be. Mm. See. In 2014, late 2014, that's when I discovered that my diagnosis had changed.

This is now how I was born. It's now treatable by psychological therapy or replacement therapy and any necessary surgeries. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: I was on the verge of killing myself. I decided to go check the computer one last time to see if anything had changed. And in 19 70, 71, I was told no treatment, no cure, psychological, and no, no treatment, no [00:18:00] cure.

Guess when that changed? 2012? Mm. Yeah. That wasn't very long ago. No, only 13 years ago. Mm. And that was the first time we received recognition from the medical community, the therapeutic community. And that's when it became possible. Mm. Before that, yes. People transitioned. From 70 to probably about the eighties, nineties, people lived underground.

They lived, they weren't part of society. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: And forget working for a corporation. 

Cynthia: Yeah. 

Wendy Cole: You couldn't do that. It was, it was next to impossible. So. Once I found that out, I found a therapist and I started working with her. The [00:19:00] important thing for me was I wanted somebody who actually understood this.

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: And had worked with people on this before and I found my excellent therapist and the thing that was really good about her was. It wasn't typical session where, you know, how do you feel about this or whatever. I would talk about what I felt and what I needed to do, and she started challenging my beliefs and I.

That led to me going back into my hippie days of meditations, mindfulness, and I got into Law of Attraction and I picked up on Dr. Joe Dispenza. Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself was my favorite book. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: And. [00:20:00] That's what I applied to myself. Change my beliefs. And your beliefs are formed by the thoughts and emotions that you carry with you every day.

And the more persistent those thoughts and emotions are, the more power the belief has. So. For anyone going through any significant life change and especially changing their, their gender and living as basically I was, I'm now living as who I've always been. Mm-hmm. I didn't transition to be something different.

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: I'm transition. I transitioned to be who I've always been and I've never been happier. 

Cynthia: Mm. 

Wendy Cole: All those decades of repression, I had no [00:21:00] self-acceptance. I was highly self-aware, but in all the wrong ways. Mm-hmm. And I had zero self self-love. Mm-hmm. Hated my life. And I was, mm-hmm. So 2015 when I started my transition, that's when I started to shift my beliefs and shift my thoughts.

I learned how to do that. Changing your thoughts changes your emotions. Your emotions are basically a chemical signature that your body produces to let your body know what your mind is actually thinking. And I was in survival mode my entire life. I, everything I did, everything I thought was all triggering around survival and I.

When I found out that I could do this, I immediately [00:22:00] forget killing myself. Mm-hmm. I went to my wife at the time and I said, remember what we talked about way back when? Yeah. It never goes away. And she said, I know. Well, I now know it's possible to do something about this. I'm going to start therapy. She said, okay, find a therapist.

And I did. My first therapy appointment, I poured my heart out. It was the first time I'd ever spoken to another human being in four and a half decades. 

Cynthia: Mm. 

Wendy Cole: And Stephanie was the first person to ever hear me listen to me, accept me without question and with unconditionally. And at the end of the session as I was leaving, she said, what's your name?

And I snapped back. Wendy, [00:23:00] that was the name of a girl in my sixth grade class. She was the prettiest girl, the popular girl. She, uh, wore the nicest clothes and I made up my mind that if I could ever be who I actually am, I was gonna be Wendy. 

Cynthia: Hmm. 

Wendy Cole: The other guys looked at her from a totally different mindset.

I wanted to be her. 

Cynthia: Yes. Oh my gosh. I am so glad that you were able to make this transition that we finally had. You found the answers and you realized, oh, I can do this. And there were people along the way that helped you with that, which is what you do now mm-hmm. In helping other young people and parents.

Wendy Cole: Right. 

Cynthia: Not only with this transition of gender transition, if that's what they're dealing with, but really any major transition because they all have similar components to them. Yes. Where you're having to kind of change. [00:24:00] Big things about your life mm-hmm. In order to do this thing that you're wanting to do or needing to do.

So, tell us a little bit about your program and how you help young people and how you help parents with these kinds of transitions. 

Wendy Cole: Well any kind of life transition like this I call it Wendy's 80% rule. Hmm. 80% of all life changes begin and exist between your ears. 

Cynthia: Hmm. 

Wendy Cole: It's, you can't live outside your beliefs.

Cynthia: Yeah. 

Wendy Cole: That it's impossible. If you don't believe in something, it won't, it won't be. So in order to accomplish any kind of major, uh, life change like this, whether it be moving across country and changing careers, becoming an entrepreneur and giving up your corporate world changing your gender, getting a divorce, whatever it [00:25:00] is, it starts with shifting your thoughts to something that is more supportive of you.

Because you need to do this. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. For 

Wendy Cole: some reason you need to do this. In my case, I really needed to do this my entire life. Mm-hmm. But it wasn't, it wasn't within the heteronormative society, there was no framework for it. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: And there still is no framework for it today. And that's what I help parents with because.

They have no understanding. Their child says, oh, I'm really a boy, or I'm really a girl. Okay, what do we do with that? Mm-hmm. One of, one of the things I find is the first thing they do is, what did I do wrong for this, for my child? I. How did I cause this? Mm-hmm. No, you didn't cause this. Mm-hmm. This happened [00:26:00] in the second trimester of birth.

It's part of humanity. It's part of the fabric of life. It affects a small minority of it, of us. Very small minority, less than 2%. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: But it's still there and it's been over the course of time and through all cultures and history. Native Americans, a lot of shaman were transgender. They were considered dual spirit.

Okay. And it was thought of in a very high regard because they understood both the male and the female. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: So it's, it's. In other cultures, it's kind of accepted, but you know, it's not treated well at all. Um, well in this country, [00:27:00] back in the last century, people like me actually did live underground in places like Manhattan.

Mm-hmm. Uh, San Francisco under threat of being arrested, all of this stuff, and in order to survive because heteronormative society would not ever consider hiring them mm-hmm. To survive. A lot of them did sex work. So I've often questioned this. They were good enough for heteronormative guys. Mm-hmm.

Hetero men to have sex with. Right. But nothing else. Yeah. 

Cynthia: But it 

Wendy Cole: doesn't, it's kind of disgusting. 

Cynthia: It's, it definitely is. And I felt like that about other things in that kind of same realm. But, um, so you also have started a podcast with a cisgender person who, where you kind of talk about all, all the things and, and both sides and.

It [00:28:00] sounds like she asks you some really good questions and really it's like education for everyone. It's education for people who are like, I don't understand this. What is it all about? Mm-hmm. To someone who is maybe transgender and is thinking about transitioning or needing some information about that.

So it's about all those things. 

Wendy Cole: Exactly. And I named it demystifying the transgender journey. Love that. That's its exact purpose. Yes, it will help transgender people because they'll, they'll, a lot of younger people in the community don't know our history, what it was like back in the day or where we came from.

And when you mention Stonewall, that was June of 1969. Remember it well, I was 40 miles north of New York City when that occurred. 

Cynthia: Hmm. 

Wendy Cole: And it wasn't the gay men at Stonewall on [00:29:00] Christopher Street in Greenwich Village who threw the first bricks at the New York City Police. It was the transsexuals of those days and the drag queens.

Mm. They were the ones who actually started the riots. 

Cynthia: Oh my gosh. Which 

Wendy Cole: sparked the. Gay revolution of the 1960s. Mm-hmm 

Cynthia: hmm. 

Wendy Cole: And the first pride parades were nothing like they have today. I was in the new Manhattan Pride Parade on an NYU float in 2018. And one of the guys that was there, he's on Dr.

Blue Bond's staff. Kevin told me, oh, this is nothing the way it used to be. I said, yeah, I can just imagine. He goes, yeah, when we had pride parades, they were protest marches. 

Cynthia: Yeah. 

Wendy Cole: Not with corporate floats [00:30:00] and sponsorship mm-hmm. And all of this other good stuff. But 

Cynthia: yeah, 

Wendy Cole: that's one of the purposes of the podcast that I'm doing with Lynn Murphy.

That's one of the purposes of the community that we're forming around the podcast, is to bring this to the attention of cisgender people as well. Mm-hmm. I have, over the last 10 years, I've been talking with cisgender, gay and straight people. My entire transition life. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: And I love it. I have fun doing it.

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: And it's so important to provide this framework by which to comprehend. And I don't expect people to understand. If you've never looked in the mirror and said, I should have been a boy, or I should have been a girl, I should have been a man or a woman. [00:31:00] I don't expect you to understand it. Mm-hmm.

What I do wanna help you do is change your perspective. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: Be more open to possibilities because after all, and, and the people that I coach and work with possibilities is what life is all about. Mm-hmm. And so true. It's our beliefs that. Enable and propel us forward, or it's our beliefs that mask those possibilities from our vision.

Mm-hmm. And hide them from us. Mm-hmm. Like I was hidden for decades. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: Out of fear and survival mode. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. And, 

Wendy Cole: Or we'll, self-sabotage. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: We don't really truly believe we can do it, but we're gonna try. Yeah. Mm-hmm. It doesn't work that way. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: No. So the human mind is a very [00:32:00] powerful thing.

And that's the other thing that I find with a lot of people in my own community. They don't really fully appreciate or understand why they should mentally and emotionally transition as well as present themselves differently. 

Cynthia: Mm. 

Wendy Cole: It's all about energy. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: The energy of the universe surrounds us and it's part of us, and it's our thoughts and our emotions that are the energy that we put out into the universe and out into the world.

I. So if you are walking around with doubts and you're kind of afraid of being misgendered and you don't know what's really going on, and you're not, you, you, you, you're, you're scared. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: That's the energy you're going to put out into society. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. [00:33:00] 

Wendy Cole: And that's when we're most likely to be misgendered and.

Have other things fall, fall back on us, like, you know, get harassed and all of that stuff. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: So I learned very quickly during the first three months of my therapy and the first three months of 2015, I learned that if my energy was confident, if I believed that I could do this, and that was the energy that I was putting out.

That's what I would receive. Mm-hmm. All part of law of Attraction. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. And, and I don't teach my clients like necessarily the law of attraction, but we talk a lot about that. So, right. My client and my listeners will, I mean that if they're listening to other episodes, they're gonna understand like, oh yeah, this is what Cynthia's been talking about, just in different words.

So we do, we do that a lot with [00:34:00] my clients. You wrote an article for parents that, um, you are going to, well, I'll put it in the show notes so people can have an have. And it was for pflag, which for families who are curious about that, that is just an organ organization that helps parents with, I think the whole L-G-B-T-Q community.

It isn't just about transgender, it's, you know, if you have a child that may be, is gay or. Or maybe they're questioning or you're questioning what's going on, that that's an organization that you can get a lot of information from? 

Wendy Cole: Absolutely. The a regional president of PFLAG reached out to me from a friend of a friend who heard my PO one of my podcast interviews and wanted an article about my work and what I do.

So I, I gave him the article and I said to him would you be interested in an article for parents? And he said, absolutely. He said, PFLAG was [00:35:00] formed a quite a while ago, basically back in the last century, to help parents of gay children. He said, gay children are not our problem now. Um. A lot has happened within that world to make being gay more socially acceptable.

Mm-hmm. And kind of understood. While some people may not agree with it and et cetera, we won't go there, but mm-hmm. Uh, the bottom line is it evolved to where there's more understanding, more mm-hmm. Comprehension, different perspectives. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: P Flag's, biggest problem he said now is transgender. 

Cynthia: Mm. 

Wendy Cole: And so many parents throw their kids out.

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: And that's a huge problem. So he said, of course. And I pr I wrote [00:36:00] an article for them. He published it and his statement back to me was my wife and I read this and we wished we'd had this article and a resource like you, uh, when our our own child announced that he was now our daughter mm-hmm.

And transitioned eight years ago. 

Cynthia: Mm. 

Wendy Cole: So it is a chronic problem. I have a an acquaintance, a friend who was in the advertising field in LA and quit his advertising career. Went to Stanford University, got a degree in psychology. He's gay, he's married to a lovely man. They have a child. They live in LA and.

He got a, got a psychology degree and his emphasis on his practice is working with, with transgender kids. 

Cynthia: Mm. 

Wendy Cole: Which I think is marvelous. Wonderful. Yes. We need that. And [00:37:00] there's so many people that don't comprehend this and have all the wrong ex, information. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. And that's 

Wendy Cole: the purpose of the podcast, the purpose of the community.

And, and the reason why I even started doing all these podcast interviews 

Cynthia: mm-hmm. Is to 

Wendy Cole: help people find a different way of framing this mm-hmm. And begin to change and shift their perspectives. Mm-hmm. And my goal for the community and why I am personally, uh, working on doing this is the transgender community needs allies.

That's how the gay community mm-hmm. Came to be where they are right now. Mm-hmm. 

Cynthia: And 

Wendy Cole: a lot of my gay friends are telling me, keep doing what you're doing. It's the only way. Mm-hmm. 

Cynthia: Yes. Well, and I am one of those allies too, and I have loved, I am just so glad that you, reached out to be on the podcast because this is a topic that I hadn't [00:38:00] talked about yet, but something that's very close to my heart because I've had many clients.

Are transgender, non-binary questioning gay. And I love all of them. I loved all of my students at school. I remember one of my students when I was gonna leave the school system and do my own work, he said, put gender affirming on your website so that people know that, that, that you're safe. Right?

And I haven't actually put that on my website, but I am a safe person and I want people to know that 

Wendy Cole: I sense that there are 

Cynthia: adults out here. That are here for you and we wanna listen to you and we wanna care for you. Mm-hmm. And so parents, you need to just find those adults that are. Safe for your child to talk to young people that are listening.

Just look for the adults that are gonna help you. 'cause there are some. Mm-hmm. You sometimes just have to kind of weed through the people, so. Right. I'm so glad that you're with us today and I'm gonna put all your information in the show notes 'cause I want people to go to your podcast and get this [00:39:00] article so that, especially parents that maybe they're dealing with some of this at home and they, they need some answers because.

There isn't a lot of information about what to do, and I just appreciate the education because Okay, even though this is some stuff that I kind of had already figured out with working with my clients, a lot of people don't understand how this works, so I'm glad that you were able to help us with that, and I appreciate that so much.

Wendy Cole: One additional thing with the article that was prompted me to stop writing my main book, which was things I learned about Life and Living, having gone through this for 67 years to transition and everything that I've gone through since, and I put that on hold and I started a book for parents. 

Cynthia: Mm. 

Wendy Cole: And.

I've got the, I got the edits back at the beginning of last summer, and I started working on them, but then I switched over to [00:40:00] working on the podcast. So I'm switching back to finishing my edit so I can get the book to my publisher. And my working title is the same as the title of the uh, article. Love knows No Gender Parenting a Transgender Child.

Cynthia: Oh, I love that so much. Well, I'm glad you're doing that because parents need that information and really just, all of us need this information Yes. To navigate the world because we're going to experience people of all kinds. Mm-hmm. And we want to just be kind and, and love all of them. So thank you so much.

Okay. 

Wendy Cole: Thank you, Cynthia. I, I really love this. I make one more comment. 

Cynthia: Yeah. 

Wendy Cole: LGBT. Most people hear that and they think sex. 

Cynthia: Mm. 

Wendy Cole: Well sexual orientation is the L, the G and the B. The T [00:41:00] is gender. 

Cynthia: Mm. 

Wendy Cole: Very different Subject matter. And therein lies also some of the confusion around it. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. And. 

Wendy Cole: I, I, I had a, um, neighbor who was a psych, a psychologist, and this really kind of blew him away when I've told him, and a t can be an L, a G or a B or hetero.

Cynthia: Yeah, sometimes I've gotten a little bit confused by that around. Yeah. Sometimes I'm like, okay, how does that work? And, uh, it kind of is mind bendy sometimes when you think about how all that works. But, but I'm open to it. I wanna, I wanna understand it. 

Wendy Cole: After I had my surgery in 2017 NYU Medical Center, I still hadn't, I, I not only had repressed so much of my personality in repressing my gender identity, I also repressed my [00:42:00] sexual orientation. Mm-hmm. I married a woman that was one of the check boxes for heteronormative life, period. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: Whether or not I was attracted to women. I didn't really know, I didn't date much or anything because I had the secret to hide and I was afraid women would figure me out.

Like I was afraid gay people would figure me out only to discover they didn't know either. So anyway it's, it's, it's really wild. So after I had what I called my birth defect corrected mm-hmm. Uh, I. Gave it a shot. See how I felt? And I found out that I'm actually a heterosexual woman. 

Cynthia: Okay. 

Wendy Cole: And that's cool.

That was totally repressed. My male facsimile knew he wasn't gay. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. I wasn't 

Wendy Cole: attracted to men. 

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. 

Wendy Cole: But now it works. [00:43:00] 

Cynthia: Yeah. 

Wendy Cole: Oh my gosh. That is so cool. So those are the things that can change. The last 10 years have been the happiest years of my life by far, and I've absolutely loved engaging with people.

Cynthia: Mm-hmm. That's wonderful. I love that. Well, I, I'm glad that you engaged with my audience today because I, I, I'm happy to. Thank you. Love meeting new people. Well, thank you so much, and we will maybe talk to you again to get more information. 

Wendy Cole: Okay. Thank you, Cynthia Uhhuh. It's a real pleasure.