Emma Goswell: 0:05 

Well, hi and welcome to our podcast. This is season six of Coming Out Stories. I'm Emma Goswell and I'm your host. It's brought to you by what Goes On Media and, as you probably expect, we bring you different Coming Out Stories from right across our beautiful LGBTQ plus community every single month. Do give us a follow on spotify or wherever you source your podcasts, and you can check us out on social media too. You'll find us easily on facebook and on insta. We are at coming out stories pod.

Emma Goswell: 0:38 

This episode we are going stateside to meet an incredible woman called Wendy. She's actually a transition mentor, helping other trans people navigate change in their life. She had an incredibly long journey to finally come out and transition herself. So she tried to come out age 10 in the 1950s, tried to properly transition in the 70s but didn't, and then, after suppressing who she was for another 45 years, finally transitioned in 2015. By the way, a quick note, because this series has taken a while to get off the ground. Please note that this interview did take place before Trump entered the White House for a second time and since then, of course, trans rights especially have been rescinded and transphobia has been even more rife than it was before. So because of the timing, you won't hear talk about the current state of affairs in the US, but it's a really important episode to listen to and it's so important that we keep sharing trans stories and let trans people talk. So here's Wendy.

Wendy Cole: 1:45 

For me it started at around age three or four. I knew what I liked. I didn't have words for it. I was born transgender. That's how this happens. It's not a choice, it doesn't go away. It's during the second trimester of birth. That is when things like sexual orientation and gender identity are formed in the brain. But the doctor announces that I'm a boy, so that's when the socialization starts from my parents.

Emma Goswell: 2:17 

And I'm guessing we're going back a few years now, when you weres, it was in the very early late 40s, early 50s time frame.

Wendy Cole: 2:27 

Okay, it was around 1951, 52 when I really began to start to sense this. By the time I got to age 10, I couldn't take it anymore, all that socialization that I mentioned, which we all go through, based on our physical anatomy. I wound up coming out to my parents and telling them that I was a girl. I actually dressed up in my mother's clothes, did my own makeup, did my nails and waited for her to come home from grocery shopping and said I'm a girl. This did not go over well.

Emma Goswell: 3:06 

Well, I was going to say this is 1950s America. I don't know if anywhere in the 1950s it would have gone down. Well, there would have been no understanding, would there? What did she say?

Wendy Cole: 3:15 

She told me to get out of the clothes. I said no, I'm a girl. She said well, you're going to have to get out of it before your father comes home. Well, you're going to have to get out of it before your father comes home. It's 1950s, housewife. I expected her to help me, but it's 1950s. She's totally subservient to my father, doesn't have a job, doesn't have a checking account, doesn't have a credit card, none of that stuff. So there was no way she was going to help me, and my father had been a lieutenant commander in the navy during world war ii and that wouldn't have long finished really no and no son of his was going to be a girl period, so they threatened to have me committed to a psychiatric facility after five appointments with the psychiatrist.

Emma Goswell: 4:07 

So it was straight to the psychiatrist, yeah.

Wendy Cole: 4:09 

And at the time Christine Jorgensen was in the papers, also the story about her. She was a World War II vet that came back after World War II in the early 50s after having surgery in Denmark and becoming a woman, so they were very concerned about that. They were also concerned that I was gay. All of these things were going through their minds.

Emma Goswell: 4:36 

And at the age of 10, you don't really know what your sexuality is going to be necessarily, do you, oh God?

Wendy Cole: 4:40 

That scared the hell out of me, because I know the psychiatric facilities. They do electroshock therapy, all that fun stuff. At least at that point in time I had no idea what I would be fixed meant.

Emma Goswell: 4:53 

I mean, they probably still did lobotomies in those days as well.

Wendy Cole: 4:56 

Probably, yeah, definitely. So that started my life of repression. I repressed this all through up into my early 20s.

Emma Goswell: 5:07 

Gosh, can I just ask when you were still a kid, were other kids reacting to you the way that you acted, the way that you dressed, the way you presented yourself? Were they clocking that you were different to them? Were they bullying you in any way?

Wendy Cole: 5:21 

I was fully controlled by my parents. My appearance was always that of a little boy. My father wanted me to do all the little boy things and also wanted me to play sports and football and baseball and all the other stuff, and I didn't want anything to do with it. So, as far as other kids knew, this was my secret. I was hiding it. You talk about being deep in the closet. I had padlocks on the inside of the closet.

Emma Goswell: 5:56 

Oh God.

Wendy Cole: 5:59 

And it stayed that way. I even forced myself to go to an all-men's college. That was my last-ditch effort to try and fit in and be one of the guys, and it didn't work. Well, it's never going to work, is it, wenda? You know this now transition. I actually found a psychiatrist who said he would help me. Everything was going along. I was coming out to my neighbors in my apartment building. I actually came out to local friends none of my friends on campus, by the way. Because of all of this, my life was in turmoil inside, inside, daily, struggling with this whole dichotomy between how I identified, how I see myself as female, versus how I have to live.

Emma Goswell: 6:53 

Well, you're acting, aren't you? You're trying to be someone that you're not Totally faking it. And where was your college? Where did you end up going?

Wendy Cole: 7:02 

In a school called Union College in Schenectady, new York. So I'm in upstate New York, I find a psychiatrist. He gets the bright idea of taking me as a case study patient to a quarterly meeting of a group of area psychiatrists. There's about 15 to 20 psychiatrists in this conference room in a local hospital in Schenectady, new York and I am sitting there talking with them. I get about maybe four or five minutes into telling them about my life and how I feel, about who I am and what I am, and one of the psychiatrists stands up, looks around the room, says I'll see you all later, I'm done for today. Looks at me and says you're a freak. You should move to New York City and turn tricks like the rest of them.

Emma Goswell: 7:53 

What.

Wendy Cole: 7:54 

I will never forget that. And I didn't know, I didn't have a full context or meaning for all of that, because back in those days there's no internet, there's no information around all of this, and even though I grew up 50 miles north of New York City, I had no idea what was going on.

Emma Goswell: 8:17 

I mean God, you'd think people go into psychiatry because they want to help people, and he sounds like he was doing the absolute opposite.

Wendy Cole: 8:24 

Well, at my next appointment with him after that, that ended the meeting. That destroyed me. I was done. I found out from him that in the US in those days this is considered a psychological condition that you're born with no treatment and no cure. So basically, he said, I'm on my own.

Emma Goswell: 8:46 

But yet you knew of that lady that came back from the war and transitioned in Europe, so you knew it was possible.

Wendy Cole: 8:53 

Well, that was where I started thinking when I found out about that at a much younger age. How am I going to go to Denmark for surgery?

Emma Goswell: 9:03 

So that really set you back a long way then, just by his one comment.

Wendy Cole: 9:09 

That comment and also too, both in New York State, new York City, san Francisco, california. People like me. If they were found out on the street by police, they would arrest us, put us in jail. Fine, us Names get printed in the paper. That's the way it was in the States.

Emma Goswell: 9:34 

But it wasn't technically illegal to be trans.

Wendy Cole: 9:38 

Technically it was. It was against the law for someone assigned male at birth to appear publicly as female. New York City drag queens, transsexuals, transvestites that's what we were known as back in those days. They were arrested regularly by the New York City police and put in jail and fined. That's why, in June of 1969, when they had the Stonewall riots, the first people to throw bricks at the cops were the transsexuals and the drag queens.

Emma Goswell: 10:14 

Yeah, do you know who I've got a picture of on my bedroom wall? Marsha P Johnson, Because you're right. You're right, you know I'm part of the LGBT community. But we wouldn't certainly, as lesbians and gays and bisexuals, we wouldn't have the rights that we have if our trans friends hadn't fought for us right back in the day, as you just said. We really wouldn't, Exactly.

Wendy Cole: 10:36 

And I enjoy talking with younger people because they think that this is so hard today. Well, go back a few decades. It was a very different story.

Emma Goswell: 10:50 

Although you say that it's quite hard to be trans in America at the moment, I believe, and in the UK.

Wendy Cole: 10:56 

Well, I do pretty well.

Emma Goswell: 10:59 

Well, we've skipped about 35 years of your life there, so let's go. So in 1971, this absolute, absolute asswipe of a psychiatrist said that to you and put you back in the closet with locks both side. What? What happened next? Because there was the long period between 1971 and 2015 when you did actually it took me a couple of years to recover from all of that.

Wendy Cole: 11:21 

I wound up after college, moving back in with my parents, and I had heard from age 10 when the first psychiatrist I ever encountered told my parents in front of me oh, once he has a career, once he has a wife, once he has a house and a family, he'll forget all about being a girl. I spoke up at that point, much to my amazement, and said it in front of my father no, I'm a girl. I was taken from the room. Here we are in the early 70s. I've already tried to transition. It was a complete disaster. I've already tried the transition. It was a complete disaster.

Wendy Cole: 12:05 

Emotionally, I was a mess. I was suicidal ideation. I got through that period and I decided okay, well, I know that's kind of BS, but I'll try it. I was fascinated with computers. So I went to a technical school. That was the only way in the early 70s that you could learn about computers. So I went to a technical school. That was the only way in the early 70s that you could learn about computers, unless you went to one of the major universities like Stanford or MIT. So I went to a tech school and started learning about computers. My entire career was in tech. A lot of us, I find because I attend a lot of support group meetings around the US and when I ask people what their careers were a lot of us all go into tech.

Emma Goswell: 12:50 

Why is that Wanda?

Wendy Cole: 12:52 

Well, from my own experiences I know it was very beneficial because I could immerse myself in my digital world programming, creating databases, doing all the stuff that I was doing. In 1974, I started my tech career. I got my first job with a major corporation in the US. I worked for them for 20 years.

Emma Goswell: 13:15 

And meanwhile you're fully embedded in the closet and you go down the route of marrying a woman and having children.

Wendy Cole: 13:21 

I married. I had two children. I had a house, Marrying a woman and having children. I married, I had two children. I had a house 74,. That started In 1978, I was talking in my sleep about being a woman and my wife woke me up demanding an explanation. Wow, emma, I was a basket case. I was anxiety-ridden and depression and fear and shame and guilt and all of that.

Emma Goswell: 13:50 

So did it come out? Did you tell her?

Wendy Cole: 13:52 

I told her everything, expecting to be divorced. By morning I went back to sleep. Actually it was kind of almost a relief. In the morning she said to me we're going to stay together as long as you don't do anything about this and you don't pursue it.

Emma Goswell: 14:10 

That's tough Okay.

Wendy Cole: 14:12 

Well, I knew only eight years had passed and nothing had changed. My diagnosis was still no medical support, no medical help, no, nothing. That was the end of it. So I just continued repressing. She did give me permission to cross-dress, which I tried, and I hated it. It was too painful taking everything off. It reminded me of what I couldn't be, that I couldn't be myself. So I didn't cross-dress for the next 35 years or more.

Emma Goswell: 14:56 

That's a long time to keep suppressed, and by then your kids have well and truly left home, haven't they, and have their own life, presumably. And but I guess it's so embedded in your core being, isn't it Just to be? In the closet and pretend to be.

Wendy Cole: 15:10 

Yes, that is something that I learned when I transitioned 2015,. I started therapy in January Because late 2014, I was killing myself. I had everything set to go. I was 67 years old and I was done. Living, absolutely done.

Emma Goswell: 15:32 

So that was the turning point. You were really rock bottom, suicidal.

Wendy Cole: 15:36 

Rock bottom and I'd been had suicidal ideations and thoughts and everything all the way through. I spent the 80s stoned on pot from morning till night. It's amazing that I had a great career yeah, from morning till night. It's amazing that I had a great career. And by the 90s I was working as a consultant, doing contract work, being hired at a director level or VP level into corporations to develop systems for them. When I was doing that work, I wasn't using pot to mask all of this, I was using psych meds. I found out that if I went to a psychiatrist and I told him all these symptoms didn't matter, that they weren't mine, I just made up symptoms of my anxiety and my depression and everything.

Emma Goswell: 16:28 

But you did have all that yeah.

Wendy Cole: 16:30 

I had all of that, but I didn't tell him the underlying reasons. After all, why would I? Because I was a freak and I still was.

Emma Goswell: 16:39 

And you still believed, even in 2014, that they weren't going to help you.

Wendy Cole: 16:43 

At that point yes, late 2014, I looked and found out that my diagnosis had changed In 2012,. They changed it from a psychological condition that I'm born with to a condition that's now treatable by therapy, with a psychologist, hormone replacement therapy and any necessary surgeries oncologist, hormone replacement therapy and any necessary surgeries. And I went wow. Finally, emma, that's 45 years from my last attempt to transition. I find out that it's now possible. I stopped everything that I was doing. I went, went upstairs. It was afternoon. I went upstairs to my wife and I said remember what we talked about in 1978? And she said yes. I said well, as you know, it doesn't go away. And now I can do something about it. I'm starting therapy in January and between now and then it was November, late November. I'm going to find a therapist.

Emma Goswell: 17:50 

And how did she react to that? Because she probably thought, oh, this is done and dusted now. We talked about this 45 years ago. He's absolutely fine.

Wendy Cole: 17:57 

Well, you see, this is the thing too, that I was carrying not only all the shame, guilt and fear and all that for those 45 years, I was also carrying all these feelings of guilt for having lied to her by omission. I never told her about this, and then she decided to stay with me. She did say at one point during the first six months of 2015,. She said to me I never expected this. Now, in our 40s and 50s, I was very worried about what you were doing and all of that. And she used to take me clothes shopping. I could care less what I looked like. I hated who I was, I hated myself. Nice clothes and looking fashionable as a guy Forget it Could care less. So she'd take me shopping and she'd say you'd look nice in this, sure, fine, whatever. And she looked fine and looked at me and goes you don't want to be here, do you? And I said no, you want to be in the other department, uh-huh.

Emma Goswell: 19:07 

Oh God. So she did know, yeah, and so did she stand by you then.

Wendy Cole: 19:13 

For the time being. Yes, I found a therapist. I started therapy. I decided by my second session that what I needed to do was go to therapy every Thursday morning as Wendy, that I was going to get dressed as Wendy and leave the house against my wife's wishes, because I could cross dress as long as we were still married. But I couldn't leave the house. I couldn't tell anyone, it was still a secret. And after my second therapy appointment I said to my therapist, stephanie. I said I'm going to do this. But you realize it's doubly hard because now I have to establish boundaries with my wife and go against her wishes, which is something that, out of guilt and shame and everything else, I usually never did.

Wendy Cole: 20:08 

My first therapy appointment was absolutely wonderful. It ended with me getting up, starting to head for the door and it's the first person I've ever talked to in 45 years about how I feel, about who I am and what I'm experiencing. About how I feel about who I am and what I'm experiencing. I've been repressing it that long and I just poured it all out. So as I'm walking out, I turn to say goodbye and she looks up at me. She's sitting there with my file folder on her lap and she says to me what's your name and without even thinking.

Wendy Cole: 20:45 

I snap back, Wendy, you must have had it somewhere in your head for a long time, I guess. Well, wendy was a girl in my grammar school class, probably fifth or sixth grade. She was the prettiest girl in class, she was the most popular girl and she was nice and I decided, if I can ever be a girl, I'm going to be wendy. Wow, that's where the name came from, and I carried it all those years, all those decades.

Emma Goswell: 21:13 

Yeah, when I looked down, Stephanie was crossing out my male representative's name and writing Wendy on my file folder. That must have felt great.

Wendy Cole: 21:25 

For 67 years of my life. She is the only person, the first person, to ever accept me for who I am, what I am, without any need to understand or anything like that. It's just okay, you're Wendy, period. I left there going wow. By the end of February I'm beginning to realize yes, I can do this. We all have a lot of beliefs and things that float through our minds every day. Our inner voice is always telling us things that we can't do. I started learning how to control those thoughts and shift those thoughts to being positive and supportive of me, so that I can go forward and I'm not going to stay stuck anymore. I'm not staying in the closet, I'm going to be Wendy.

Emma Goswell: 22:15 

That's a big step and that's what led you to fully go for it and be the Wendy you are today.

Wendy Cole: 22:20 

And then we get into March of 2015. And that's when I decide I'm starting hormone replacement therapy. When I told my wife about it, that's when she looked at me and said we didn't discuss it and I said, well, there is nothing to discuss, this is something that I need to do for me and this is what I'm doing. And she said, oh, okay, then that does it. We're getting a divorce. And I said, okay, and I knew why, but I just wanted to ask. And I said why? And she said you're going to develop breasts In 1978, we did talk a little bit about it and you did talk about surgery. So Lord knows what else you're going to do. I'm not a lesbian. I'm not going to be married to someone who lives like a woman or is a woman. Period. I just looked at her and said okay.

Emma Goswell: 23:22 

And did you understand her deep down oh totally, totally.

Wendy Cole: 23:26 

In fact I've had clients who try to stay married, really do a lot of work on that and they meet with a lot of resistance. And I try to put it into a perspective of okay, I'm a woman, I marry a man. How would I feel if he decides he's now a woman? Put myself in her position. She's a heteronormative, heterosexual woman and I'm no longer what she expected to marry.

Emma Goswell: 24:01 

Yeah, still tough, though for both of you, really, isn't it?

Wendy Cole: 24:05 

We actually divorced amicably. We're actually still friends. Great, actually, she's probably one of the few people that I knew before. That didn't leave me completely.

Emma Goswell: 24:18 

That's great, and I'm going to assume maybe if you didn't come out till you were 67, that maybe your parents weren't around to come out too.

Wendy Cole: 24:25 

No, they weren't.

Emma Goswell: 24:27 

Yeah, but I'm guessing there's a different ballpark really having to come out to? No, they weren't, yeah, but I'm guessing it's a different ballpark really having to come out to your children.

Wendy Cole: 24:32 

That was interesting. At best my son's no longer alive.

Wendy Cole: 24:39 

Oh gosh, I'm sorry, that's a long story. And my daughter, who actually got a master's in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and works as a counselor we don't have any relationship left at all. Oh no, I told her one evening, right after this all started, and she didn't say a word during an hour. I talked with her for about an hour oh, I talked for about an hour, an hour and a half maybe, and she got up and left and I tried reaching out to her with text messages, voicemails, emails for four days and no response. And then, finally, when she did pick up the phone, I said you know, out of all of the people that I know, I would have expected you to understand this. And she said well, yes, I did study this in school, but you were my dad. And she hung up.

Emma Goswell: 25:46 

Gosh, and still no change in that no change in that.

Wendy Cole: 25:51 

it's had its ups and downs. There have been moments, but uh, uh, that's done. The door's open. If she wants to come back, she can, but this is the thing I've learned to let go. I've let go of everything from my past and everyone in it, the people that did come with me, because family and friends all transition with us.

Emma Goswell: 26:15 

And, Wendy, I have to point out, because it's so poignant, the picture on the wall behind you, because it's a great trans symbol the butterfly. So you've got a lovely picture of a butterfly on the wall behind you and it says change is good. Because people are scared of change, aren't they? And I know absolutely.

Emma Goswell: 26:30 

You know, not only have you changed your entire life, you've changed your career as well, which is probably a smaller thing, but you have gone on, taken all this experience that you've gained over your you know 70 plus years and are now helping people through change. So perhaps you know for the last five minutes or so, if we can go through, exactly what it is you do and and how you help people to go through any kind of significant life change.

Wendy Cole: 26:56 

Let's put it this way if you're going to change your career in terms that I can relate to you worked for one company doing a particular type of work on the east coast of the US and you're now moving to California or someplace other in the country, you're completely uprooting yourself, your family, you're changing, you're changing your career, you're moving into a new profession, et cetera. These are scary life changes and what I do is I help people get unstuck. I help them change the thoughts that are going through their minds to be more supportive, to see a much more positive future and not fear that change. In fact, I learned to embrace change. Change is good. It results in personal growth.

Emma Goswell: 27:48 

And I'm guessing some of your clients are trans, are they? I'm guessing that's something that you'd be really brilliant at advising on, I guess.

Wendy Cole: 27:56 

The majority of my clients are trans. Well, I'll give you an example. I had a client who came into our first Zoom session together. She couldn't look at the camera. She was looking down. She's going. I'm scared, I'm tired of living a lie and I have no clue what I'm doing. My response to that was great. That's why you're here. Let's get to work. By our sixth session together, she had begun to really change. She had also gone off and done her legal name change and her new driver's license, with her new picture and new gender and everything. Six sessions, everything. Six sessions, Once you start to help someone who's stuck and can't move forward and you start to show them the possibilities because life is all about possibilities and it's our beliefs, the thoughts that we carry on our own mind, that block us from achieving those possibilities or even seeing what's possible for us.

Emma Goswell: 29:03 

Now I always ask people towards the end for some advice for other people that perhaps haven't come out yet. But you know, maybe it's advice for someone like you who is so deeply embedded in the closet that, as you said, you had locks on the inside and the outside and it was very difficult and it took a long time for you to come out. So what would your advice be to someone in any similar situation?

Wendy Cole: 29:25 

First, you're never too old. I hear that all the time from people in their 40s or 50s and their 60s I'm too old to do this? No, you're not. You're never too old to be yourself. The other thing I'll tell people is the joy you're going to find on the other side is something that you'd never dreamed possible, and this is not only a physical appearance change and a name and a gender change. Internally, you become you, the person that you should have been for decades, and letting go of that male personage or the female, if you're going in the other direction. Letting go is so incredibly freeing. Yes, it can hurt to be told by people that they want nothing more to do with you or you know well, you do you and they kind of drift out of your life. Yes, people do drift out of your life and accept that and learn to let go. Don't worry, because other people will come in. Letting go makes room for new experiences and new things to come in.

Emma Goswell: 30:49 

And you are just the best example of living your best life in your 70s. I bet you never thought that would be happening, but you really are.

Wendy Cole: 30:56 

Well. Transition saved my life. I was 70 pounds heavier. My blood work was terrible. I was 70 pounds heavier, my blood work was terrible. I was type 2 diabetic. Three years into this and my primary care doctor looks at me and said what's going on with you? I'm taking you off your diabetic meds, you don't need any of the other meds and your blood work comes back perfect all the time. What is going on? I said it all starts with being happy.

Emma Goswell: 31:25 

Exactly yeah.

Wendy Cole: 31:28 

And I care about myself and I take care of myself. Now I've lost all that weight too, and I exercise daily.

Emma Goswell: 31:36 

And as well as another way that you're living your best life is you've got a couple of books coming out and a podcast. What can you tell us about that before you leave us?

Wendy Cole: 31:45 

I'm about halfway through writing my main book, which is essentially not a transition story. It's a story based on my life and I go through everything I learned about life and living as a result of having been born, transgender and having to deal with this. Then the second book that I'm working on is a book for parents of transgender, because they have no context for this. I was inspired to write that book when I was asked by the regional president of PFLAG one of the regional presidents to write an article for parents and I did and it went over well, and so that inspired me to do a book based on that. I think that's such a great idea.

Emma Goswell: 32:33 

We did a series of this podcast called Meet the Parents, primarily because we'd had an email from a parent of a trans child who was just like I. Had to find your podcast to understand what was going on. There's no resources out there for how to cope with trans children. There's more now, but even just a couple of years ago there really was nothing.

Wendy Cole: 32:52 

And I've started coaching parents as well, and the podcast is called Demystifying the Transgender Journey. I'm a co-host and I'm doing it with a lady by the name of Lynn Murphy. She's a cisgender woman, knew about LGBT what any cisgender person knows, lgbt what Any Cisgender Person Knows and she was interviewing me for her book and for a podcast that she does and it's evolved and now we're doing a brand-new podcast together called Demystifying the Transgender Journey. My mission and legacy for everything that I do is to humanize being born transgender for the rest of society. How many people ever get an opportunity to talk with someone like me? Not many.

Wendy Cole: 33:43 

I'm open, I answer all questions, I enjoy talking with people about it, and because in this country too, everybody starts hearing things about transgender, that is very divisive.

Emma Goswell: 33:54 

Well, there's a lot of myths out there and there's a lot of untruths perpetrated on platforms like X as well.

Wendy Cole: 33:59 

That's basically all that's out there.

Emma Goswell: 34:00 

There's a lot of lies told.

Wendy Cole: 34:02 

So I wanted to use my voice to tell people what it's actually like to be me.

Emma Goswell: 34:09 

Good, well, there you go, wendy, me and you changing the world, one podcast at a time, but it is important, isn't it? You know, it's only by telling our stories and sharing them that we can, you know, just educate everybody and make the world, hopefully, a more tolerant and equal and fairer and loving place.

Wendy Cole: 34:29 

Exactly, that's beautiful. Emma, thank you.

Emma Goswell: 34:29 

The one and only Wendy Cole Further proof that good things finally come to those who wait. And if you'd like to find out more about Wendy and what she's up to, please go to meetwendycolecom. Oh, and do check out her podcast as well that she does with Lynn Murphy. It's called Demystifying the Transgender Journey. Now, next episode, back here on Coming Out Stories, you'll meet Patrick from Barbados, who I interviewed live on stage at a podcast festival in Sheffield.

Patrick: 35:01 

There's a picture of me in a crib, on my back wearing all pink, legs crossed, with a bottle near, and I went. Could you not tell? I mean I didn't dress myself and I was just like a right little princess and I loved it. My best image is my brother running around going He-Man, and there was me going She-Ra.

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