Mornin Bitches
A cursing, foul mouth old ladies take on the present world!!! Filled with her opinions, views on current events, and special guest appearances!
Mornin Bitches
Advocacy and Acceptance: A Father's Journey in Raising a Transgender Child
Ever wondered about the struggles and triumphs of raising a transgender child? Tune in as we bring you a soulful conversation with Cody Conner, a dedicated father who walks the journey of advocating for his trans daughter, Rowan, in the current Virginia school system. Cody opens up about the challenges he's faced as Virginia recently put in place a policy that challenges the rights of trans students.
Cody's conversation extends beyond advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights, he also shares his experiences as a parent of a physically disabled child and a possible battle with Pompe disease. His insights on life, love and acceptance are truly inspiring. The narrative further delves into his interests such as writing and even his zodiac sign, giving a 360-degree view of the man behind the advocate. This heartfelt discussion sheds light on the journey of acceptance and love, as Cody encourages us all to create our own life pathways.
MORNIN BITCHES PODCAST
I'm so excited about having Kody Connor into my podcast today to talk about what's going on in his life and his daughter's life and everything. So thank you, kody, for coming in to my podcast. My platform is for trans youth and all transitioning people and for people to be themselves. That's my whole thing on TikTok. So thank you for coming in and let's talk. So let's talk about everything. Tell me about you.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks for having me Me, I don't know pretty regular guy, I guess. For the most part I'm a maintenance supervisor, so I'm blue collar.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:I guess I've done a lot of different jobs in my life when I was younger, before I settled down and met my wife and had the kids. I have three children. Okay, tell me about them. My oldest is make sure I get this right she's 24. And then I have two grandchildren, five and four, and they live in Virginia, just a few hours away from us. And then I have still the two children at home my daughter, who's 13, and my youngest, my son, he's 11. And then my wife. We've been married. Next year will be our 15th wedding anniversary, so congratulations for quite a while now, thank you, that's good, that's wonderful.
Speaker 1:So tell me about everything that transpired with so your daughter. Tell me about her.
Speaker 2:So my daughter Rowan. She came out to us a little over a year ago, last summer, and my wife and I have always been just very open. Just, you love people and that's the only job you have in regards to other people, and so for us, it was just more information about our child. It was just. We were very proud that she trusted us enough and was brave enough to be that open with us so young. The very first thing we did was look at the schools where we lived At the time. We were in a little bit more rural Virginia and they weren't good and we weren't having good interactions with her current schools administration, and so I started looking for jobs. We didn't want to leave Virginia. It was hard because we'd already moved twice Since 2020, this movement of Virginia Beach was our third big move.
Speaker 2:We lived in Portland originally, which is a great area for just human rights all together, just Portland, oregon. But at the beginning of COVID, my wife was working in restaurants. We were living in a very expensive downtown area because I was the maintenance supervisor for that building and a few others, so I was able to live there and the company I was working for was restructuring. We were about to be maybe homeless, because it was $4,000 rent and we were losing our jobs. And so we moved down to Southern California, which is where I was born.
Speaker 1:Oh really, where were you born in?
Speaker 2:Southern California, so I was born in Loma Linda, but I lived originally, I guess when I was a baby, in the little mountain towns in the San Bernardino Mountains just above Lake Ecaipa and San Bernardino little towns, forest falls, Big Bear. But I was a military brat and my parents had their own kind of challenges drugs and that sort of stuff and so I lived in like 12 different states. I moved all over the place, but we moved in 2020 from Portland to Southern California and then California lit on fire.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just everything lit on fire.
Speaker 2:And we were. It was really great for a little while because I had taken a position kind of overseeing a camp that had been shut down for COVID. So I was just doing upgrades and maintaining things and we went fishing and hiking and just were able to be outside in the wilderness while everybody else was locked up right until we had to evacuate for the fire. And we were evacuated for about a month and during that time I have a lot of family all over the place, having lived all over, and my grandmother and some of my parents and sisters and aunts and uncles live out here in Virginia as well, and so my grandmother has breast cancer. But at the time we saw it as a great opportunity. We couldn't go to work, we were evacuated, so I would road trip the family out. It cost the savings or whatnot, but it was better than just sitting at the hill wondering if our house was going to burn down. And so we did the big family road trip and drove across the country and spent a couple weeks hanging out with grandma and visiting with family and all of that. My wife really loved how beautiful and green Virginia was, especially since where we came from was on fire, and so she wanted to move to Virginia and happy wife, happy life. So I found a job out and we moved to Virginia. And then, when my daughter came out you know it's very important, our children are the first things in our life and so we looked and found, you know, we looked at what were the best areas in Virginia, what were the best areas still close to our oldest and our grandchildren that were conducive, that were, that were good places for our my daughter, our daughter and our son to grow up, and you know, richmond was one, alexandria was one, and Hampton Roads, virginia Beach this area was one. And so I looked for jobs and this is where I found one that was good enough to support us and then we moved here just as fast as we could and then, as soon as that happened, governor young can introduced is what we're then. They're now the 2023 model school policies, but we're. But we're then the 2022 model school policies, you know, which basically force outing of trans students and, you know, could even go as far as to other LGBTQ students. They just changed the policy in our school to kind of some more adhere to the model school policy, which basically don't even acknowledge trans students as trans students unless there's written parental consent, just, you know, stripping away these students ability to dictate their own identity at all.
Speaker 2:And you know I started speaking at the school board meetings, you know, a year ago now. Then, along with another just amazing group of mostly high school students that have been there every school board meeting. I mean these kids, these kids give me hope, absolutely. You know I show up and listen to all of them speak and really, you know they thank me so many times for showing up and how many times I've, you know, given them strength to be there. But who knows if I'd be there if it weren't for those kids showing me up, you know, letting me know that they're there for my daughter in schools, even if the schools aren't going to be. And it's been a journey.
Speaker 2:You know I'm a pretty people that know me would say I'm a complicated person just because I have a lot of interests, I've done a lot of things, but I'm a quiet, simple person. You know I have written a book and I wrote it just because I felt like I had a story in my mind that I wanted to write and I thought it'd be cool to write a book and I wrote it and I published it on Amazon, and that was it. You know, I think a couple hundred people maybe have read it. I don't know, I don't look at it.
Speaker 2:What's the name of the book Joel? It's called Aronius Conception Truth.
Speaker 1:Aronius Conception Truth on Amazon.
Speaker 2:Aronius Conception Truth and it's a fiction. It's kind of a love and loss kind of story, you know. But I wrote it to write a book, not to become a famous author. I just want to write and that's always kind of been who I am. I do things because I wanted the experience of doing them, not because I ever wanted it at attention. I'm a pretty simple person. I like to go to work, I like to spend time with my kids, I like to watch football on Sundays and. But I've always said and I told myself this a long time ago that I would be whatever I needed to be for my children. And if that meant showing up at every school board meeting, if that meant showing up at community action places, you know whatever that meant and I mean that's just. I guess that's just why I'm here. You know the only reason I'm even on this podcast, right?
Speaker 1:now.
Speaker 2:Thank you for that Is, you know, because I'm always I always going to do what's right, especially for my kids, and it doesn't matter who that angers, it doesn't matter what kind of vulnerability or position that puts me in Good for you. And a big part of that is because I want them to do that same thing.
Speaker 1:Now, what sign are you, cody? I always ask everybody that my zodiac sign.
Speaker 2:So I'm a Capricorn, with a Scorpio rising and a Libra moon.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm a Libra. My birthday is coming up within Leo, rising in an Aquarius moon. Oh, you're a Capricorn. That's a very good sign. That's one of my things. Yeah, the hard hard worker, practical, exactly my grandmother, my Bobby, was a Capricorn, january 15th 1900. I wish he was still alive anyway, but he's not, so wow. So tell me about your daughter, she's 13.
Speaker 2:She's 13. She has a, but also another physical disability that kind of plays in, you know, to her experience. We, we don't actually know what it is. We've been trying to figure it out for a good part of her life now. At first they just said she was knock need and she would grow out of it. And then they said, well, she didn't grow out of it, so maybe it's something more. And, you know, went to the orthopedist and got the X-rays and all of that. They said, no, that's all fine. And that's when we had to start doing, you know, neurologists and geneticists. And so we've done, we did, we did a couple of years of that going to all the different specialists and universities had to go down to Duke. At one point I mean, probably the hardest point during the whole process was they had one of the neurologist geneticists team had diagnosed her with a disease called Pompey disease.
Speaker 1:Hmm, what's that? I don't know anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's super rare, and when it comes to her medical stuff right now, that's where we live. We live in the. Nobody's ever heard of it.
Speaker 1:Pompey disease.
Speaker 2:Wow, and, and so what Pompey disease actually is? It's a glucosamine storage disease, yeah, and so you know, we build up sugars in our muscles and stuff as we use our bodies, right, and we create enzymes that break those muscles, those sugars down. Hmm, and in Pompey disease you don't create that enzyme, or you don't create enough of it, and so those sugars just build up in your muscles and it breaks your muscles down and it presents very much like muscular dystrophy.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:You know, that was what they originally thought that she had, but that didn't come up on the, the test, the genetic tests or anything and the. You know, the thing with with Pompey disease is the average life spans about 30 years, and so they told us that was what she had for a little while and that was hard. That was hard because after a couple of months with that still diagnosis we did. You know, we have to talk to our daughter about it and 30 years isn't a long time.
Speaker 1:No, no, is this before she transitioned or after?
Speaker 2:This is, this is before.
Speaker 1:Hmm. So that to me says you know, maybe if I only had this much time to live, I'm going to live my life the way I feel I want to. That's growing that out there?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. And and and you know, during this time we had those talks because you know, there's certain memories, especially as a parent, especially during hard times, that you just they're there for you. And I remember when we were walking we liked to walk, even though she struggles with it some and we're walking to go get a slurpee at the little corner store we're still in rural Virginia and and she asked me how, that, how long am I gonna live, dad?
Speaker 1:Hmm.
Speaker 2:Hmm, and I told her there was a. You know, I told her the truth and actually I even sugarcoated the truth a little bit because I was already 40 then. And I told her that, you know, she should hopefully get a live as long as I am alive now, old as, I am now.
Speaker 1:I will do you, if you don't mind me asking.
Speaker 2:I'll turn 43 this year, oh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, young stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Well, and my daughter knows that too, right.
Speaker 1:I'll be 76 on Tuesday.
Speaker 2:Well, and you know, my daughter's a smart, she's a smart kid, and so she knew that I was telling her she wouldn't grow old. Um, and when we got back home after that walk, she locked herself in her room and she screamed I just want to be a normal kid, why can't I just be a normal kid? And so that those few months were real hard for our family, you know. And then, after you know further, geneticists and teams of geneticists went through her blood work and more Test. They, they, they backed off of that diagnosis, hmm, and said that she's just a carrier and doesn't actually have that.
Speaker 2:Good and that was good, and that was good. And when that happened we took about a year break or so. Hmm, just for everybody, you know she was definitely tired of being poked and prodded and all of that, and now we're back into it. You know a bit now MRIs coming up and okay, electromyography and and all of that and so, but really she's, you know, she likes to play video games.
Speaker 1:What's her favorite video game?
Speaker 2:Right now it's this game on Roblox called blocks fruits, like I know it's just I know it's kind of loosely based off an anime called one piece. It's kind of pirates and they eat these fruits that give them special power.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:And so that's, that's the game she's more or less into playing most of the time right now and she's cool, like pretty much all kids do. She always has. You know, just like school for the most part. Hmm, you know she, she's. She's gotten a lot better with it, just as she's gotten older and learned more tools, especially in regulated emotions, and you know she gets a lot of support at home. But school's hard for her. Kids pick on her, for you know her identity for physical disability and she's on an emotional IEP for emotional disability just an ability to regulate her emotions sometimes which.
Speaker 1:You know, we have her in all Cody, no, okay just you are just as wondering some of what you got. A lot of Trans kids reach out to me who are on tick-tock, you know, but they're 13 and above.
Speaker 2:So you know, knowing that, I'm a supporter yeah, and she probably could be if she really asked. And we talked about it and we've talked about it a little bit, but she hasn't really pushed for having an account or really wanting to.
Speaker 2:I don't push her to okay and and really very much like in regards to what's going on in the world and laws and things like that. It's not something we talk about and dwell on a lot in our home, especially around our children. You know they're alright, they're 11 and 13 and we try our best to let them be 11 and 13. You.
Speaker 1:You know, a couple of questions for you, if you don't mind. Well, I want to send you, if you would send me your address through my email. I want to send different things that you know like I don't know if it. If it do you ever, would you take a morning bitches Cup from me? I want to send you that and and a couple of like my hoodies and stuff, maybe for your daughter, for your wife, because I don't talk a lot about this, but I Make tenets people. I owned a lighting company before I went back into show business 10 years ago and my favorite people were the maintenance people who worked Like you, because they always gave me a lot of, because I see you real people. You're not fucking people the way so many people are in the world. So you guys were very and servers to my two favorite people servers and maintenance people. So it's your wife. Your wife works at a restaurant.
Speaker 2:She used to. Now she works in a grocery store. Oh, all right, she just changes the prices.
Speaker 1:Well, that's great people real people are the people that you know. I've met a lot of Famous people, but real people are the people that I'm attracted to, the people that really mean something in the world and say something and do something, like you. People who support their children for whatever reason Transitioning, and people aren't afraid to go in front of a school board and tell them what they think, like you, cody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's been hard. The school board is leaning towards. Well, they basically already have voted to implement the policies in some way or another. And it's really frustrating the way they've done it because you know they they put out a statement saying they voted not to to adopt the model school policies, but then during the last school board meeting they voted to change a school appall as an existing policy and and in that policy instructs the superintendent to create regulations that are consistent With the model school policies.
Speaker 1:Now, what do you think they're so afraid of?
Speaker 2:Um, that's a good question. You know, some of them are, some of them are politicians. Okay, you know, they're afraid of public opinion. You know, some of the school board members are particular school board members. It's, it's the religious beliefs they're afraid that. You know, and you do. You do have this in our society and I don't see it prevalent, but it is existing in a certain Part of our population in America where they feel, you know, this kind of threat to white people, threat to Christianity, you know, threat exactly, and and it's just almost, it's just a complete inability to acknowledge that Other people believe differently than them and that those people exist. And it's okay, you know.
Speaker 1:My baby booger generation. We had hoped and prayed and worked so that everybody could be who they were. But, you know, the 80s came and everything changed. So, unfortunately for the country and it's just as far as my go has gone downhill ever since. Especially about this. This is this is such an important issue for me I do have a trans cousin. She, she transitioned when she was a teenager and she went through all of the transitions of, like you know, went through Therapy and then, of course, removing, you know, different parts of her body and now she's getting married. So I, you know, I think that everybody should be who they are in life and not be afraid to be who they are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and and you know I Get angry and you can see my frustration sometimes and some of my tiktoks and all those things, but you know, really, I, I, my ultimate intention for everybody is the best for them.
Speaker 2:I Want you to have virtuous goals. I want you to grow, learn and achieve those goals, and I don't expect Anybody else to believe exactly the same way I do, you know. I just hope that what you believe Fulfills you, helps you be satisfied in your life, makes you a better person in better part of our society. I don't subscribe.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna cut you off because we gotta go soon. What do you want? But what I could, I could listen to you for a. What do you want the United States of America right now to know, because it'll be on Spotify in about 20 minutes. So what do you want everybody to know about you and your family, and especially your daughter and her rights?
Speaker 2:Everybody has the right to be who they are, and we need to stop letting this far fringe outrage politics that are based on attacking anybody Tear our communities apart anymore. We need to love each other, and that's what my daughter is trying to do, that's what my family is trying to do. She's trying to love herself and we're trying to love her, and just that's what you're attacking.
Speaker 1:That's what you're attacking I love you, I love you for coming on and standing up for your daughter. I don't know her, but I'm going to send all these different merchandises to the family and if you want to find it, you don't want to, but I'm just because what you're saying means so much to me. You know, I have a son and three grandchildren. Now, if my son I just wish my son was gay, but he's you know I thought, well, if I have a gay son, maybe I'll like not want to leave his mother, but obviously I'm gay. So he left his mother. He got married to a beautiful girl, three grandchildren, but you know so. But it's just what you're doing is so amazing and I want to thank you for coming on to my podcast. My podcast for me has been for the last, I guess what is it? Nine months to speak my mind and allow other people to speak their hands?
Speaker 2:Well, that's a beautiful thing. I appreciate you. You know giving people a voice.
Speaker 1:That love. I appreciate you. Cody Conner, thank you for coming on my podcast Morning Bitches. Send me your address and all that stuff and I'll send you guys a bunch of different things. And I just want to say one thing about this I was always made fun of when I was a little girl by the mean girls in school always. And my reality is I. You know my idea of who I am and who I was as far exceeded what they've become and who they are. So you tell your daughter that If anything you know she can be whoever she wants to be. Like I have created my life.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Anyway.
Speaker 1:Cody Conner. Thank you. If no one told you they love you today, I love you because you're you, la la.