A Queer Understanding
Weekly conversations about all things queer. A space for members of the LGBTQIA+ community to share our stories, struggles, and triumphs, and talk about how we're breaking glass ceilings and making an impact on society.
A Queer Understanding
Owning Your Transition: Andrea Leigh's Unapologetic Perspective
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Andrea Leigh's remarkable journey from pharmacology to fashion defies easy categorization, making her story one that resonates far beyond the transgender community. In this candid conversation, Andrea reveals how after checking all society's boxes for success—a 24-year career at Pfizer, marriage, amateur athletic achievements, even ranch ownership—she still felt fundamentally unfulfilled, leading to a gender transition that transformed her perspective on authenticity and self-acceptance.
The title of her bestselling memoir, "Do You Still Like Football?", comes from her father's first question after she announced her transition plans—a moment that assured both of them that while external packaging might change, her core identity remained intact. Andrea's unique perspective as someone who doesn't fit neatly into expected categories makes her voice particularly valuable in today's polarized conversations about gender, identity, and personal transformation.
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Meet Andrea Lee: Her Diverse Journey
Speaker 1Andrea Lee has definitely been on a road less traveled, transitioning from decades of success in biohealth care to navigating the world of chic fashion. She is now focused on helping others say yes to new experiences and embracing personal transformation. She's a disruptor, a change catalyst, from pharmacy fashion ranging to public speaking, throwing a gender slop, a best-selling memoir, and she's still happily married to her wife of 20-10 years. Prior to venturing into the fashion industry, andrea spent 24 years with Pfizer Inc. Her time with the global powerhouse includes the remarkable story of her gender transition and her continued success in a competitive industry. Andrea's personal and professional story proves she is both unpredictable and a disruptor of conventional thought. A two-time award-winning international speaker, co-host of Thriving Women Network TV, and a transformation coach who helps clients experience fulfillment, peace, growth, resilience and reinvention, andrea's journey continues to inspire others to transform themselves. An executive leader with the C-Suite Network and Lead Her Ship Global, andrea's story encourages others to embrace change and pursue fulfillment with courage. Her number one best-selling memoir, do you Still Like Football? Was released on January 14th.
Speaker 1Here's our conversation. Hi, andrea, thank you so much for being on the show. Hi, thank you for having me. You've had a very diverse life in many ways. I'm really interested in seeing how that evolved, how you went from being in. Was it biohealth care? Yeah?
Speaker 2I worked for a big, large, global powerhouse pharmaceutical company, and when you talk diversity to me I'm not always talking about the Pride Alliance it's like a diversity of experiences, exactly, yeah, it's funny.
24 Years at Pfizer: Building a Career
Speaker 1So you went from there for 24 years to being in fashion, which seems like a very big sling the other direction, being a transformation coach and a podcaster. So walk us through that journey. You were at Pfizer for 24 years. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2I was. I actually came out of college and went right into the pharmaceutical business Was with my first company. Nine years probably stayed five years too long. You get comfy and don't seek to make the changes you should. But I took a buyout when the company reorganized.
Speaker 2I stayed in the industry and joined Pfizer Inc and had a long career with them, over a little over two dozen years. That was very interesting. I was in numerous therapeutic divisions as a sales executive. I sold over two dozen different compounds, many of them you would know by name because they were on TV all the time or they were widely used over billion dollar drugs, and so it gave me a very interesting experience in the industry.
Speaker 2It was a nice, solid, it was very lucrative, and so it afforded me the opportunity to have a lot of experiences outside of my work, to have a lot of experiences outside of my work, and then those are experiences that became very unique to me and offer me a perspective. Now, as I look backwards as somebody that has transitioned, I think I offer a really amazing, unique perspective to everybody, actually not just to a gender, diverse or a community or anything like that. I think I just offer an interesting perspective of life experience that people in the LGBTQ community might not always have experience with or have access to listening to my experience, and so that's been quite amazing so you have been married to your wife for 22 years.
Speaker 1You had married pretty young because you know you said you started at Pfizer like right out of college, so you used. You got married pretty young, launched your career pretty young oh, bless your heart for purpose, actually we.
Speaker 2So I was actually in my 30s when we met and married. I said we've been married. Yeah, we've been married a little over 22 years. I just had a birthday. I tend to not tell people how old I am, but I was an older adult when I transitioned and I had an amazing life behind me, which again offers up a really unique perspective. But I had an amazing life behind me and a solid marriage behind me as well, and now a very interesting and unique experience with marriage from the point of transition on, which has been about eight, nine years since I transitioned.
Speaker 1I was curious about the length. So I'm curious about how that impacted work and then also your personal life. So you were at a job and they had known you as your previous self and you started transitioning. Did you guys have a conversation? Actually, let me back up. What led you to feel like he wanted to transition in the first place?
Discovering Unfulfillment Despite Success
Speaker 2Well, yeah, let's talk about that. That was quite an interesting experience because I had this long, nice career with Pfizer and I had also had a nice experience really interesting experiences in the sport of triathlon. As an amateur triathlete I'd been injured severely during training and recovered to meet my personal goals in long-distance triathlon. I also had been hung up my bike up and become certified in sustainable agriculture design. So I wanted to get into that designing being certified on a global basis to design sustainable agriculture properties anything from the size of a postage stamp that could be on an apartment deck to a backyard garden to hundreds of acres if it were possible. I gained my certification and bought my own ranch outside of Norman Oklahoma, moved there and implemented those principles itself All the time.
Speaker 2I'm riding motorcycles as a hobby, I'm involved in Christian apologetics and I have a nice marriage. I've invested in precious metals and I loved my guns. So very much an experience of a white, mostly conservative guy. And yet I was still unfulfilled. I had a great marriage, I had a great career, I had a wonderful family. I had all these outward signs of success. These boxes were checked that society says you need to be successful. I was successful and the boxes that were checked were impressive, but there was still something appalling to me, and through a series of really digging deep into my own soul and my own self over the course of a couple of years, I discovered that I would transition to live the rest of my life as a woman, and so I had a very fulfilled life. I just needed to. I just had realized that, through listening to myself and seeking some deeper introspection, that I would transition my life from that of a guy to live the rest of my life as a woman, and I didn't know anybody that had transitioned. I didn't really run in that community. I was comfortable with it because I grew up, in a way, with a very political, very varied background, very open background. We were a fairly conservative family, but that was okay. We were very open to who we had in our home and that my family had lived a life that relationships were more important than people, knowing what we believed politically, and so I knew that what I was going to go through as far as a gender transition, I didn't know anybody that did transition, and neither did most people that I was acquainted with, not only personally but professionally, and so I brought everybody into my transition. I owned it up front what I was going to do.
Transition Journey: Bringing Everyone Along
Speaker 2I took the news to my parents, and they were wonderful. Of course, they had to grieve the loss of a son and accept the role of a daughter and what that meant, but it went over well after they had adjusted. They are wonderful people. And then my colleagues I went to each one of my colleagues individually and spoke to them about my intent to transition my life and that meant my career working with them to that of a woman's Not exactly protocol HR protocol, but it was what I decided to do to transition my life, and that meant my career working with them to that of a woman's Not exactly protocol HR protocol, but it was what I decided to do, and they genuinely listened and accepted what I had to say to them, and they didn't push back because they accepted what I was doing Didn't mean they necessarily agreed with it, but we certainly had a path forward to work together, and it was a very successful transition. The company, though, responded in a way that was based on the polarizing nature of gender transition, and so let's put everybody through sensitivity training, and so I thought they just showed me a lot of sensitivity and listening to me and I led the training. So not exactly protocol, but we had a good time with it and had our path forward.
Speaker 2My clients were doctors and they were wonderful. I heard a lot of support. I heard a lot of humor. There was a lot of indifference and I think indifference is a good thing in our community and I also heard a retort that said I've got a lot of patients that have done that and that one set me back because I didn't know anybody. But with the number of doctors that told me that and the number of patients they were referring to, I realized that the people that have transitioned are far greater numbers than you would ever believe or most people would be led to believe. So I transitioned, I stepped out of the field, I transitioned and I came back as Andrea and it was humors it was a great transition. I'm sure they were interested in how I turned out. I turned out pretty good.
Speaker 2I didn't have pronoun requests for them. I wasn't going to compel their validation with a pronoun request. I wasn't going to have memos on restroom usage. I knew that they had known me for 20 years. It was going to compel their validation with a pronoun request. I wasn't going to have memos on restroom usage. I knew that they had known me for 20 years. It was going to take some time. I was working with women who were now working with a woman who used to be a guy three, four months before. So compelling all the right restrooms and the pronoun usage wasn't going to speed the process of responding with acceptance of Andrea up any faster. It just took some time. And so, because I was patient with them, they were patient with me and it was wonderful.
Speaker 2And within just two weeks of my return, we were watching. We were in the medical offices and we were watching the waiting room from a distance and observing some peculiar behavior from a patient. I said that guy, he sure is weird. And hearing what I said, just two weeks after my transition, I smiled real big. I turned to the doctor and I said that was an interesting thing to hear myself say. And he didn't miss a beat. He looked right at me and said we're all weird, andrea. And it was. And, as funny as that is, it was a massive change in my mental outlook of what of, of the indifference of people, of what we and how quick we are to project our stuff onto other people and that we truly are weird. And it was a very big mind shift for me that I think unknowing at the time, led to a tremendous amount of how I dealt with my transition.
Speaker 2My transition has been amazingly successful.
Speaker 2I have a different outlook.
Speaker 2I very much own my transition and I don't seek any validation from other people.
Speaker 2I didn't seek to transition to be a trans woman. I transitioned to be a woman and I tried to be very clear with people that most people don't care how I identify. I simply sought to be identified as a woman. So I knew that would take some work. I knew it would take a good surgeon and because I don't expect anything from other people, only owning my transition myself, it's been a very good transition and of course it stings if somebody is polarized by me, but that is so few and so far between that. I don't let it get at me. In fact I welcome it because I operate so much with the understanding that most people don't care. It acts as a reminder that some people do care and some people care deeply. It's just that most of the time people are indifferent and I found a lot of freedom in the indifference of people, because that indifference of people gave me a real freedom to be myself without fearing judgment, and I think that's carried me a tremendous amount with the transition.
Speaker 3Do you believe because you have a very unique characters of story. Do you believe that inspired people around you to be more open to what they are, whether it's gay, trans?
Speaker 2or just what they are. I think what I discovered is that my openness with myself, my ability to answer questions, my willingness to answer questions and be very open about my transition has been an amazing experience for a lot of people around me. A lot of people around me I have discovered and this is why I'm now more public with my own show and that kind of thing is that I discovered that very few people that have undergone gender transition are willing to talk about it. They're not fully articulate, they're not fully able to articulate what they are going through. They don't um, it's, there's an inability to answer questions from people that seek to understand.
Speaker 2I have an understanding that people that I don't expect people to understand and I tell them up front because I barely understand myself sometimes, but I am willing to talk about it, which I think makes me unique.
Speaker 2And so for every person that's transgender or has undergone some gender transition, there's someone around them, like a mother, a father, a brother, a sister, a grandparent, an aunt and uncle, that seek to understand because they love their loved one very much, and it's difficult sometimes if their loved one is not fully able to articulate the journey their own and I am I'm willing to step up.
Speaker 2I don't fit the stereotype of the gender transition individual. I'm totally out of the box and that's on purpose. I didn't seek to be in any box of anybody's, I marched to the beat of my own drum. But I also have an experience that people can relate to and I'm able to articulate it and I love being around people and my public talks are typically followed, usually about 20 minutes, and they're usually followed by a Q&A. That is amazing, runs twice as long as talks and people get to hear ask questions of somebody in the arena, not just simply on the extreme right or the extreme left telling people what to think. I'm in the arena and I'm willing to talk about it and the talk and the questions and the answers are greatly appreciated.
Speaker 3So transgender women. How do you feel about all these changes that are being imposed against the transgender community at East Palm? Because, that's you know, the transgender community is under attack by the current administration. So how does that really keep me? You have a really good situation, but unfortunately a lot of other transgender individuals don't have the support and the love that you have told you. Use your influence to put a word out there and help those people to be so feel like they have a voice in society.
Speaker 2It's a really interesting question. It's a good question too, I think. With us being weeks, not even months, into a new administration. The atmosphere we're in, politically wise in this country and around the world to some extent, is very appears to be divisive and polarizing, but my experience is I'm not so sure that it is what we hear. What we fear and what we individually experience may be a little bit different than what we're told is happening on in a media type level. I would prefer to see how things play out.
Speaker 2The current administration. The president has been president before and I transitioned during that first admit I never felt inhibited at all about pursuing the transition when the president was in his first term. So I never and I never felt personally like there was any issue with him on a personal level regarding my statuses, not only before obviously not before my transition, but even after my transition, like that was never an issue. I actually felt more because of the way I was and very much an individual and not into identity politics, I very much felt more, I actually felt more attacked by people from who would that would be considered from the left or within the pride alliance and for not marching to the beat of one drum, and I haven't done that, and so whenever I would talk about my experience, I got more pushback from the left than I did the right. But I'm willing to see how it pans out and a lot of times I think we have our own experiences.
Views on Transgender Issues in Sports
Speaker 2I have experiences with people that I'm in. You know that I visit as far as uh when I go get my own healthcare. That puts me in a position to talk and visit and get different viewpoints, and they're very much welcome and help me form my opinions about other people's experience, because other people experience things very different than me and I find it very fascinating and so many times I think that doesn't make it doesn't make mine any more or any less real than anybody else's experience. We just experience life through our own eyes and our own interpretation of what's going on around us, and I'm very open to that. It's very much been very helpful to me to know how other transgendered individuals experience their life, and some very much in senior and some without. I don't experience a lot of fear in my life, but I know some do, and so I know that they have a different experience than I do and I'm very open to hearing those experiences. I'm not closed at all about it.
Speaker 3Because I had friends that were affected by the previous Trump administration and that's affected now. First and foremost, the ex-alliance on the press board abolished. Transgender people cannot enlist in the military anymore. The NIS attack black people, transgender people, gay people, all that. So I will probably disagree with you that this administration is for people like us, because it's not. It has been proven and just the things that they're doing currently is showing that it's not for people of the LGBTQ community. I'm not transgender. I have a lot of friends that are transgender, that are experienced and different from what you are. Let's say your experience is different. It's very unique. I've seen it first hand in the last seven years and I'm seeing it now with people that I know that are really putting on a lot of resources that are being discriminated against even more. Just last week, a transgender man. This is all the time where a transgender man was killed in New York, in upstate New York.
Speaker 2So I saw that.
Speaker 3The hate is more. When the president is pushing the hate along with his supporters, it is going to get worse. As a Black woman, I was in touch and gay, just as a Black person with an accent. The experience that I had in the last administration was oh, go back home. Where are you here? All these things right, let it die down. Then it died down and I can see it coming again because of the hate and the just the rigidness of what? And it's not just social media, it's not just the news, it's what I've experienced. I've seen people experience cause I don't care about news and identity politics and all that. What I care about is reality.
Speaker 2Yeah. I hear what you're saying.
Speaker 3I take yeah, I hear what you're saying. When I'm up in a new world, that experience that's of positive was because all the elements of positive experience I want this administration to do good, but unfortunately it's not going to do good for people like me. You have a different experience from I did you and from a lot of transgender people that I know. But I'm really happy when I see someone that's actually excelling in whatever environment they are in, so that I'm really happy, genuine love puppy, that you can see that way right now.
Speaker 2Yeah, and that's what I want to offer a different perspective of what we hear every day in the news. Is that because that can be a totally different perspective, what you've told, what you've told me, is very common and what I've told you probably don't hear a whole lot of, and but it doesn't make it any more or any less valid. I think it's a. I think it's uh, I'm very happy that people I live in conservative Oklahoma and Texas and I've had a very successful transition in places that people would think that is very highly unlikely, but my experience is one of indifference to me and I have found a lot of freedom in that indifference to me. Why that may or may not be the case may have a lot to do with how I experience or how I've helped people and yeah, I'm very open to, but I'm very open and I understand that my experience is very unique.
Speaker 3Right, and that's what made you easy to talk to, regardless if they left him or not, because you are very honest to say no, my experience is different from someone else's experience. That is unique, and the word unique has a lot of weight on yourself. It's definitely a unique situation.
Speaker 2Yes, what I think sometimes, too, is where I find mine is that when I talk about the issues we hear about, when we talk about restroom usage or we talk about sports transgender athletes, playing sports and I offer up a really different perspective on those as someone who was a competitive amateur athlete or someone who dealt with the restrooms as part of a workplace issue and things like that and I'm not easy to predict, which I think makes it welcome.
Speaker 2As far as the restroom usage is concerned, I find it fascinating that people can deal in a lot of fear of restroom issues when I find that let's critically think about it just a little bit and understand that restrooms have walls and they have dividers and they have doors on them and people are typically more concerned with taking care of their own business than who's putting lipstick on in the mirror, and I think that's something that's generated uses fear to generate. I think that the issue of transgender athletes competing in sports is one that fascinates me because I see it as an inability to set boundaries, and so when we talk about elite athletes, like at the Olympic level or the national level, these are committees and judges that have no problem disqualifying athletes for taking decongestants, and clearly has biological advantages of having been a male, even born a male, and so we're fascinated Again, because that's something that's been said from a trans person.
Speaker 2Yes, and you can write it down and you can quote me on it. I just find it very fascinating at the athletic level, at the levels of where the sports governing bodies reside, that they actually will disqualify athletes on the chance due to that they've taken decongestants, something as simple as decongestants, or antihistamines over-the-counter products that just simply where there might be a chance, a slight chance, that they offer a performance enhancing benefit, they will disqualify the athletes from competing. Yet they find it difficult to set boundaries on athletes from competing that used to be male, when we know that they have biological advantages of larger hearts, larger lungs, bigger hands, bigger feet. They're bigger, stronger and faster for the most part, than somebody that is a biological woman. Sports isn't about equality. Sports is about fairness, and we want fairness in sports or we will seek to have, we will feast to have fairness in sports, and it is simple, and so that leads to me to believe that it is a very political, politicized situation that has more depth to it than fairness in sports, because fairness is what it's all about. So there's no question at all and I think that it should be no question at all from the very times To transition, no matter if someone's known that they want to transition or should transition or need to transition from the youngest of age, and every transition is different, so all the circumstances are different. It ultimately is a choice to transition and choices have consequences. It ultimately is a choice to transition and choices have consequences, and so this is something that setting boundaries on even a child or a youth age because they're too tall for their age, or there's little boys that are too heavy and too big for their age, that can't compete with the same age boys in the football because they will crush them, and so these boundaries of physical boundaries are normal at all ages.
Transformation Coaching: Helping Others Evolve
Speaker 2We just happen to live in a culture where there's political points trying to be made and boundaries are hard to set anyway, and this is a culture that can hardly set boundaries by giving iphones to two-year-olds, asking them to set boundaries on their own sons or daughters and and the way they want to live their life or the questions they might have.
Speaker 2As being a youth growing up might be difficult for parents and we can talk about those things and how we want to look at those things, but I just see it as an inability to set boundaries and, uh, say no to certain things, but it doesn't have to be not in a doesn't have to be in an unkind way.
Speaker 2I have no problem at all, uh, fostering someone's questioning, uh, if're a youth, if they're a child, if they're an adolescent, if they're a minor, I have no problem with them questioning their gender or how they want to live. As far as how we foster that as a society, though, with pharmacological usage and medical, the insertion of medical roles I'm at a loss for how to describe that but any medical procedures or pharmacological procedures, that's highly. I question that, because I've already seen enough youth that have questioned their identities to say they're transitioned and then they don't want to transition, or they're not questioning anymore early ages, when they're still under the age of adulthood, and so I just think that there's all kinds of things we limit the youth to, and this would just be another one that wouldn't be out of the realm of, wouldn't be out of the realm of normal.
Speaker 3To say no more. I probably changed my mind 20 times of what I want to be like when I run the age on birth. I know probably I will 2021. So it for a child to make that decision. It's to me, it's absurd that the parents would be okay with a child making that decision. There are some things that I totally agree with. Of course I agree with that. What I don't agree on is to just say somebody has qualified for a job because they're trying to do an equality of not getting the same rights.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's really interesting. That's really interesting as well. I'm not as clear on. I'm not as clear sometimes if one is not qualified because I don't see there being. I don't see that being transgender disqualifies anybody from anything. There might be a couple of circumstances, but I know even in the military, we still have Navy pilots that are flying $110 million F-18s that have not been disqualified from flying. They're still currently on flight schedules.
Speaker 2But there are some things in my experience is that some of the things that would limit a transgender individual from working in a job are probably going to be difficult to legislate against because they're they're prejudices of the heart and so that is going to be very hard to legislate. Thought, and so it's one of my, one of my missions or for lack of a better way of saying it is to make people comfortable and help them answer questions and help them to fill in the gaps they might have, just about anybody that may be transgender or have undergone a gender transition. In fact, I'm speaking to an employment resources uh body in the state of Oklahoma and I'm very welcome. I'm very excited about doing that because they asked me to do it. I'm very excited about that because I have a feeling that I will be answering some questions that they've had and will be able to offer a different viewpoint that may alleviate some of those things of the heart.
Speaker 1So, andrea, I'd like to shift a little bit, because it's pretty clear to me how your life experiences have led you to want to become a transformation coach. So let's talk a little bit more about that business, your work there, what that looks like, what kind of clients you work with, I love to work with people that just want to understand themselves more, understand why they respond the way they respond to stuff.
Speaker 2So many of the so much of the programming of ourselves is we are programmed from this time we are six to 12 years old, typically in a very impactful way, and so we are all broken individuals. We all have some form of trauma in our life, however slight or however big it may be. We have some that have helped form us and we're all broken to some extent. But at the same time, we're highly resilient and I like to say we're fragile little people with fragile little bodies. My gosh, we are resilient and people rise from the ashes all the time, and so I like to help people see a different perspective and gain insight into really some of the ways they believe, into some of the ways they believe things and, quite frankly, some of us have. They believe into some of the ways they believe things and, quite frankly, some of us have some pretty fucked up beliefs. But if we can realize where those come from and why they're formed in us the way they are, we can lose them.
Speaker 2A lot of times, when you see the things you believe are nonsense, it makes it easier to lose. I like to use a. I like to use the example of like when you're a little kid and you run and jump in bed from four feet away because there's that boogie man under the bed that you don't want to reach out get you, but at some point you realize that boogie man really isn't there, you're not running and jumping in bed anymore. A lot of times we can do that at our level. If we can realize that there, our level, if we can realize that there are beliefs that we're operating under that are sheer nonsense, we can lose them. But sometimes it takes some deep work to understand that or simply understand where that belief system comes from.
Speaker 1And a lot of times, just in the knowledge of it's very helpful in losing it, in what limits us into the ways, into being our very best versions of ourselves so are you working with people who, as you said, we all have traumas to some degree, but do you tend to work with people who recognize that they are living in such a way that it is negatively impacting their life and they may or may not recognize that it's from trauma and you're helping them get to a place of more stability, or more order? Thinking versus disorder thinking Is the work as intense as that? Or maybe people who are wanting to transition, feeling stuck as far as work or other things that are more like daily living type things?
Speaker 2I think there's. I'm not a trauma coach. I do understand, though, that we are like I said earlier, we are all broken in some aspect. But what I really like to work with is I like to work with a wide range of people. For example, I like to work with somebody that's young, that's in a career transition. Let's say that they might have worked in the automotive industry and they want to transition to fashion and what that looks like, and then they realize that maybe that's not quite for them, but then they want to do something else, and so, undergoing a career transition at the same time that maybe they're undergoing a career transition, they're getting married and they're buying their home all at the same time and understanding that you've chosen to take on three stressful things at the exact same time Things that, looked at, might be looked at individually as stressful, and combining them all together in the series of a month might be something worth being coached through, as maybe dealing with a single retiree female who's now moving geographies as a retiree and across country in a place where she's never been living the first part of her life, in a totally different area of the country.
Speaker 2That might be something worth thinking about or talking to somebody about. So I'm thinking of, I'm thinking of examples, and then simply there's just people that want to understand why they think the way they think about certain issues, and we all have our stuff Interesting. I like to work with people. I say I like to work with people's souls. There's enough business coaches out there that like to work with people and getting income, but there's more business coaches than there is people that have had success doing it. So I'm always wary of that.
Speaker 2I think I'd like to just work with somebody who has simply reinvented themselves somewhat successfully to where they are actually happy with who they are and that to help them see that most of the fears are in our heads and that I like to help people realize that most people are indifferent to them and there's a lot of freedom. I think I mentioned earlier there's a lot of freedom in indifference. It's not a bad thing when people are too self-absorbed into their own lives and to be focused on yours. That's not a bad thing. That's a real sense of freedom to be yourself without fearing what other people think, because we spend so much of our time projecting our fears onto other people. It's simply not the case. People simply aren't thinking about us like we fear they are.
Speaker 1So if someone wanted to reach out to you for your services, what do they need to do?
Speaker 2They could go to andrealeecom and there is numerous ways to touch base with me on my website on the contact page. They can follow me through my social media or they can simply email me at andreaandrealeecom and they can also. Another good way to learn more about me and my journey is through my book. It's a special deal right now on the ebook version of it and they can get my book and there's a way to do that on my website Again.
"Do You Still Like Football?" Title Origin
Speaker 2Andrealeecom L-E-I-G-H has a number of ways to get in touch with me about the different things I do, from speaking to having me work with them on an individual basis. I just have a really good time. That's a great way to contact me. My talks are usually very transformative in the way that people go and attend them and listen to me walk out of. They simply don't hear what I'm saying, very often coming from somebody such as myself because there's actually not that many hardly riding cattle, ranching gun carrying guys that transition and we'll talk about it and I have, and so it makes me unique, to use that powerful word Unique.
Speaker 3You are definitely interesting to talk to, so done. This is talking to you.
Speaker 1Yeah, I can listen to you. We could talk for hours.
Speaker 2I could do. I can do the same thing.
Speaker 1Yeah, there's a lot of things you touched on that I would love to dive more into, but we have a limited time, so I we mentioned your book.
Speaker 2it is called do you still like football?
Speaker 1and the title where that came from. In my head I think that I have a story. I've made the story of where that title comes from.
Speaker 2You tell me like the word and prone I think it was a very I think it was one of the most impactful things that had happened to me and that is when I decided to transition. I went to my parents and we're a very close family and I went to my parents and I told my father who was a football player, baseball player, navy airman and I said, dad, I'm going to transition and spend the rest of my life as a woman. And he thought about it long and hard. I wondered how he was going to react or respond to the news that I had told him. He looked up at me and he looked back down again and I was very much anticipation of his response. And he looked up and he had some tears in his eyes and he said he was delightful.
Speaker 1And I never say right, that is exactly what happened. It is.
Speaker 2And it was, it would have, and what it told me was very important. I knew instantly that my transition was over, before it had begun, and that he had gone to the core of who I was and that I was. As I've said many times, I was that very masculine guy. I'm very, I was very comfortable in my masculinity, and so I think that made the transition that much easier, so that I was comfortable in it and that I could leave it to do what I needed to do.
Speaker 2And my dad went to the core of who I was, and I think it would have rocked him more had I said no to liking football than the news I had just delivered him. But his gun was, in effect, going to be a dar, and what that did for him was assure him that I was the same on the inside, and what it did for me was assure me that what was important to the people that I love the most was that I was who I was, and then what was at the package didn't run the package package while they had to grieve the loss of the package, that the core was going to remain unchanged, and so that's where the title of the book comes from, and it was very important to me in my transition in the way they responded to me love that for you it's not bad, beautiful story.
Speaker 3That's what I said and that's why we have this podcast. I think we can come tell their stories from a different point of view. We may not agree on everything, but you know what, if we all agree, the world would be great, right. And everybody's not the same, and I love your stories. They're beautiful stories and I love how resilient you are and how open you are and you touch on some really key things. One thing that really stands out to me is when you say make people comfortable, answer the questions that they have, because that will help to change how people see people.
Speaker 2It is, and it's in help people, because people seek to understand and I tell people up front I can't help you understand because I barely understand myself and it is difficult to understand. Transition isn't normal but that's okay.
Speaker 2We have a culture where obesity is the norm, crushing debts everywhere and half the marriages end in divorce. I think it's okay to not be normal and I think most people realize that in some way. I call it a compassionate indifference is that we realize at some level, I have my stuff and you have yours. I'm not judging you, don't judge me. And it's a compassionate indifference that offers a lot of freedom, and again it goes back to if that freedom that it offers is go be yourself without fearing judgment, because even if they are thinking about you right then and there, they've forgotten you when they leave your presence for the most part. And if they haven't, then that says more about them than it does you.
Speaker 3Oh whoa, I could just sit here and live and be like this. All right, if there's there, you have it Andrea Lee, a wife and a pro-transgender woman who is not afraid to light a fire to enact change. Thank you, andrea, for being on Ape for Understanding. It was a pleasure having you on the show.
Speaker 2Thank you very much for having me.