He/His: Gender Identity with Jaiden Love

Kelly: And to really boil it down, pronouns are part of how we self-identify. Pronouns relate directly to our gender identity.

Aurora: Exactly. And this is especially important because sometimes the gender we are assigned to at birth doesn’t align with who we actually are.

Kelly: Okay let’s sit with that for a second. It may not seem like the most natural thing at first, but it’s so important that we all get on board. Truthfully, I still have to actively remind myself to include my pronouns when meeting new people.

Aurora: Girl me, too. And that’s all part of the ways we are socialized. But it’s our job to do better.

Kelly: So maybe you’re still scratching your head about why we need to identify our pronouns. And so to really break it all down we have a very special guest with us this week. We’re talking to Jaiden Love, who is a healer, spiritual guide, and educator.

Aurora: Jaiden is a Black trans man and spends a lot of his time honestly talking to cis people like us.

Kelly: AKA people who identify with the gender they were assigned to at birth. And Jesus we can be so clueless on issues of gender identity.

Aurora: You can say that again.

Kelly: We have so much goodness for you. Please note that we do talk about sex in this episode.

Aurora: Let’s dive in.

Aurora: So Jaiden we are beyond thrilled to have you join us today. Can we start first with you sharing your story?Kelly: What are your pronouns?

Jaiden: OK. Yes, I am Jaiden Love my pronouns are he/him/his. And let’s see my story. We all have a story. [Laughs] Currently in my business – I own my own business, and I do lots of things. I wear many hats in my business. And the current focus is I am an educator, trainer, consultant around gender identity. What that means is or what that can look like as businesses, you know, companies, corporations, schools whoever can hire me to come in and do trainings for the whole business or for a department or a team on the essentials of gender identity.
My goal is to lower the murder and suicide rates of our population. And how do I think this is – how do I think I’m helping with this is by educating folks which, you know, we as humans, we fear what we don’t understand. So I want to educate folks to so that they can bring more inclusively and more compassion and respect towards the trans community. Another way that this can look is I also am passionate about supporting and being there for families. So, for example, if one of their children or two or their children, for that matter, say that they think they’re trans or know that they’re trans and they don’t know what to do with that or where to go with that. I love to support them. And, you know, that can look many different ways as well, like sometimes. I’ve had a family that just needed to know how to start and where to get resources. And so it was just a one time meeting. And then, you know, there’s some families that want to be in contact with me you know, once every other week or once a month or whatever it is.

Aurora: And does that support extend – when you say family I’m going to assume that that support is guidance and understanding for the adults, a.k.a. parents, as well as the children or child?

Jaiden: Yes, and I’m so glad – Thank you for asking this question because oftentimes parents or guardians will call me in because they think, “Oh my gosh, my child needs help, my child needs support.” And I can tell you nine times out of ten, it’s actually the adults in the family that need the support.

Kelly: I would imagine so. That part to me is incredible, that you are a consultant to families to help guide them through this process. Aurora and I were just an event this week where they said that suicide rates of teenagers were up 70 percent from I think it was like two thousand twelve or thirteen.

Aurora: That’s correct.

Kelly: And I would reckon that suicide rates – I don’t know who of those people that had been surveyed were trans people, but I would assume in the trans community it was even higher or had escalated more since that time.

Jaiden: 40 percent of trans adults attempt suicide every year and 50 percent of trans teens attempt suicide every year. And that’s just of the ones, you know, of the people that are comfortable reporting. Right. Like so it’s really higher in both of those cases.

Kelly: And so who, who was Jaiden love when he was born and where was he?

Jaiden: So Jaiden Love was born “AFAB”, which means assigned female at birth, and I grew up in the Midwest in what I consider a fairly large family. I had four older brothers and older sister and a younger sister.

Aurora: Got it. That is large.

Jaiden: It was a small white farming community where I grew up. Now I throw that in there – the part about it being white is because I am a Black man. And I actually was adopted so I grew up in a white family.

Aurora: Wow.

Kelly: OK

Jaiden: Yeah, that puts a little spin on things as well. I had a very interesting life. Not always easy and lots of intersectionalities happening in lots of ways.

Kelly: So you’re born into and adopted by a white family. You’re assigned female at birth as a Black female. And what was that like living in the farmlands of the Midwest?

Jaiden: You know, when I was very young, I thought I had the best childhood ever. I loved – I loved growing up on the farm. I loved – I just absolutely loved my brothers and wanted to be just like them. And I just thought that was just because of how much I loved them and adoration kind of thing, but, you know, now I know differently. It’s because I wanted to be that, you know, I wanted to be them. I thought I was a boy or knew or knew I was a boy somewhere deep down. And before I go into that story, one more piece I will just throw in there is that at some point right in my ear, off and on, actually in my childhood, there were times when. my Blackness – there were times when it posed a challenge. Because there’s very few black people in this small community that I grew up in. And I was pretty popular, I was friends with anybody and everybody. There were times when the Black kids, the other, you know, Black kids that were my age would give me a hard time because they would say things to me like, “Oh, you think you’re better than us. You don’t speak like us. You don’t -” you know, whatever. Right. All the things. So, yeah. So I had to deal with – I had to deal with some of that as well in childhood. And it was challenging and you know kids are resilient and at the same time, it forms who we are, right? And so I have no doubt that that has also played a part in you know, lots of different things as I grew up and who I became.

Kelly: And before you walk us through that journey, can we just step back a half a second and just go through a little bit of definitions and terms? Because I know that this is this is nuanced for me.

Aurora: Well, we were we were, you know, before we in preparing for for this conversation with you, Jaiden. I mean, there was a moment in time where Kelly and I looked at ourselves were like, man, we’re some old fashioned Catholic chicks here?

Kelly: And yeah, I was like us nerdy ass prudes don’t know the first damn thing to ask or say or we don’t we don’t know a lot and so we love and we love being educated.

Aurora: Yes.

Kelly: But we would just love because I’m sure if we feel like this, other people feel like this, too.

Aurora: Absolutely.

Kelly: So definitions in terms of like what is gender identity? And what is sexual identity?

Jaiden: Sure. And just to say like terminology, there’s a whole section on this in my trainings. So I will share, like you just said, a few of the key, key pieces that we might be hitting on. So transgender means basically any anybody that does not feel in alignment in the body that they were born into. It can mean lots of things, believe it or not. It can mean, you know, me for example, I was born into a female body and now I’m a trans man. And then the opposite of that, you know, somebody was born into a male body and they’re now a trans female. And then there’s the whole non binary, which can mean lots and lots of things. So I’m not going to go all into that. But just generally speaking – Generally speaking, non binary just does not just what the words say, they just don’t feel in alignment with the binary, they don’t feel like they’re male or female. You know, it might be they feel like both or neither. So there’s lots of nuances in there. So that’s transgender. Now, cis gender, that just means that’s anybody that’s not trans. That’s that’s anybody that does feel in alignment with the body they were born into. Let’s see gender identity. Gender and sex are two different things, and this is hard for some people to wrap their head around, but sex is what were assigned at birth based on our genitalia and chromosomes and things like that. Gender is a social construct. And that’s the piece that’s hard for a lot of people to wrap their heads around. And so I will say that again and then I’ll pause in case you all have a question, which is gender is a social construct. We as a society has defined what each gender is.

Aurora: Correct. And so one of the ways that I have been able to sort of have an understanding and I think a clarity around this, I think sexuality is also in our society is a lot of times determined by who we are attracted to or romantically inclined to write from a partnership perspective. Right. So, you know, I am sexually attracted to males. Right. And gender identity. Yes. It’s a social construct, but it’s very much related to how I feel within the construct of my body.

Jaiden: Exactly. You hit the nail on the head with both of those. Exactly. And many times people get the two confused. And so, yes, sexual identity or sexuality is very different from gender identity.

Aurora: So you are born in the Midwest. You have this amazing family. You love growing up in the farm. You have social and racial challenges growing up in this predominantly white environment as the adopted Black child in a white family and not feeling like you fit in either race camp, right. I can relate a lot as a mixed kid. You know, you love and respect all of those identities, but that love and sort of welcoming isn’t always there. So share with us you know you grew up and you then embarked on a journey of yourself and your career and your skills. So share with us a little bit about that.

Jaiden: So, yeah. So on the farm, growing up on the farm. You know, like I said, I wanted to be just like my brothers, and so whenever they were outside with their shirt off, I would take my shirt off. And, you know, until I started reaching puberty and my mom started making me wear a shirt outside, which didn’t make sense to me at all. And, you know, and my brothers would stand to pee and I would stand try to stand to pee. And of course, that was a mess. And I just thought that that meant I needed to practice more. And yeah so, you know, I was labeled like most back then – I was labeled a tomboy. And that made sense to me at the time I didn’t know anything else. And so then as I moved into my teenage years, I realized that I liked boys, but I also liked girls. And as I didn’t have words for it back then, of course, I didn’t know what any of that meant back then. But eventually I realized that I was a lesbian, which, by the way, throw in there a little – and this is important actually in my coming out story, is that I actually started dating a man in between my freshman and sophomore year of high school, who I actually married right out, right out of high school.

Aurora: Oh, wow. OK.

Jaiden: Mm hmm. And you know, now looking back now being now. Being aware, more aware of, you know, things I now know like that. I saw that as like my way out of the house and I was also raised Catholic, and so it was also what I was quote unquote, supposed to do. Kind of thing. You know, all of that. So anyway, when I obviously left him and came out as a lesbian and because that’s what I thought I was obviously with liking women and lived my life that way for a very long time before I came on as trans.
Around the age of 30 – sexually speaking, I was the top, I was the giver, you know, so on and so forth. And so what that what that means is as the top, you know, we often wore what we call a strap on during sex, which is a prosthetic that women and some trans menus or for that matter, some women use with even in a heterosexual relationship. But we use it for penetrative sex. And so I would use that often for sex. And then I would also use a packer. And a packer is another prosthetic, which is a phallus that we put in our pants to give us a bulge just in everyday life kind of thing. So it looks like we have a cis penis. And so I would use these things and and mainly back then I would use them. Only when I was around my partner because I thought it was for my partner’s sake, right.

Aurora: Okay.

Jaiden: And then when I was around 30. I was dating this woman and using these things, but then she also started treating me are treating things as if I had a penis all of the time, even when I was not packing and energetically I felt that and I really liked it. And that was the first time that I had the thought of: Am I supposed to be a man? And back then you know, we’re talking about 20 years ago being trans was not a big thing. The only kind of transness that was out there really at that time – Now, don’t misunderstand. Being trans has always been a thing. But it was viewed differently back then and at the time back then it was viewed as, you know, you only heard about transvestites, for example – It was sort of a negative connotation to it.

Kelly: I still think I mean, I think people my parents age still think trans is short for transvestites sometimes.

Jaiden: Absolutely. Absolutely. And so I it freaked me out. You know, that thought of “am I supposed to be a man?” freaked me out and I shoved that down really quick and put it under lock and key for a long time and continued on my path. Now it’s, you know, when you’re not being in alignment with your true self – I’ll say it that way – your life is not as happy as it could be. I’ll put it that way. So, you know, life was very challenging and then about six years ago, I had my first big spiritual calling. Now I have been on a very intentional spiritual journey since around 1999 or so that started with, you know, yoga and meditation kinds of things and then I got into Reiki and that’s how I started my business, Reiki is energy healing. Everything’s made up of energy. And so it’s helping, you know, anything heal so that matter, not just humans. Helping anything heal energetically on the energy and energetic level. And with Reiki at each level, you open yourself up more and so you’re in more alignment and more attuned and more alignment with the universal frequency and vibration or more open to God or, you know, whatever you want to call it. So when that happened, I became I became more in touch and more aware of how much of a highly sensitive person I am, an empath, an intuitive. All of those kinds of things. And my spiritual path just deepened. My spiritual practice deepened. And I got this calling six years ago to go to Brazil. Now, the only reason why I’m bringing this up is because that ended up being a yearlong spiritual sabbatical, which threw me into the deepest self healing of my life, probably. And it helped me to get to a place of being able to transition because along that year, along that path I found my truth, I got in touch with my truth. I therefore, got the courage to be able to be my true self. If I wouldn’t have done that year, I would not be here today.

Kelly: So I’m so curious when you say Brazil – specifically geographically Brazil was calling to you, was there a certain teacher or like timeframe or anything or was just like, ‘I must go here and figure it out”?

Jaiden: So I wasn’t sure either. What I can tell you is that I once I know there a lot of fear there, I was hiding behind a big wall of fear that I was not aware of. So it wasn’t easy. I did not listen and go right away. But when I finally did, I started out by applying to an organization and became like I wouldn’t stayed with a family in their home to teach them conversational English. I learned about the culture, obviously, and and learned so much. That’s how I started my journey, that’s how I don’t know, that’s what made sense to me at the time of a way that I was gonna get there because I didn’t have a lot of money. I sold – I by the way, I got rid of and or sold all of my belonging because I didn’t know what this calling was about. I didn’t know if I was going to end up living there or what. So, so, yeah at the age of 45. And I yeah, I now live very minimally. But anyway. I stayed with the family and then I don’t know if you know who he is, but I also went and stayed on the CASA grounds of John of God.

Kelly: I knew he was going to say that.

Aurora: Yes. Very familiar. I have attended more than my fair share of retreats.

Jaiden: Awesome.

Aurora: So you spent a year –

Jaiden: Absolutely.

Aurora: – unpacking layers and layers and layers of wounds of conditioning.

Kelly: Trauma.

Aurora: For yourself?

Jaiden: Yes. All that. Yes.

Aurora: All of that.

Kelly: So that gave you the love and courage of yourself and in yourself to live your real truth. And then your next journey started?

Jaiden: Exactly.And so then after that journey was over, I was like, OK, you know, where am I landing, like, where am I going? And I came back to Portland, Oregon, for a little bit. And while I was here, I’ve been in touch with there’s I was a school counselor for a brief period of time and I believe, you know, everything happens for a reason, in my opinion, and I believe that I was one of the main reasons why I was the school counselor at that particular school was because I had a student come in as female as a freshman and left, as male as a senior and I supported him through his transition, or the beginning of his true transition. And so after my journey I was talking with him and he had just bought his first like super amazing SDP, which is Stand up Pee device. Now these have been out again for many, many years. Women might know them as the funnel. That’s how they started. The device that women could go hiking with and be able to stay and pee.

Kelly: OK, OK.

Jaiden: And now today trans men predominantly buy them and they look exactly like a cis penis today. You can buy some that look exactly like a cis penis so that we can stand at a urinal and if a cis men were to ever glance down at us for whatever reason, they would not know that we were trans.

Kelly: Amazing.

Jaiden: But anyway, so he had bought one of these and was really excited about it and sent me a picture via text and I was like, “Oh my god, like number one that was hot and number two like, I was like, I need one.” And yeah, I didn’t know. Like, I still wasn’t connecting the dots, really. There is things that were happening over that year away that I was – it was getting me closer and closer. Right. Like I had bought my first binder while I was in the Midwest, by the way, which a binder, by the way, is a very, very tight fitting top that trans men will wear. That compresses the chest so that it looks like we do not have breasts.

Kelly: Gotcha.

Jaiden: And by the way, I should say, they’re just for trans men. There are some guys and I don’t know the medical I can never remember the medical term for it. But there’s some cis men that get man boobs that will wear these as well.

Kelly: OK.

Jaiden: But anyway, I had bought that like in the middle of this spiritual year and still hadn’t like, you know, labeled myself as trans. I just knew like, “Oh my God, I’m just I’m supposed to wear this.” I didn’t know what it meant. But anyway, so. Yeah. Different layers.

Kelly: So I just think it’s so interesting that you became a school counselor and here one of your teachers appears to you. Right. as a high schooler. And you just get these breadcrumbs along the way and you’re like capital “L” listening. Deeper and deeper.
Aurora: I hear that and I’m like, “Oh, my God. Of course, that’s a journey for most of us, right?” Like, I can look at the aspects of what are the big themes in my own life. And I’m sure four, four, four people in our audience. It’s like the crumbs are there, the seeds, the flags are all there. And it’s amazing to me how so many of us shoo them away or is maybe, you know, as you’ve shared with us, Jaiden, we don’t get quiet enough. We don’t get quiet enough to listen.

Jaiden: Right.

Kelly: And then was that when you started to really contemplate the transition process?

Jaiden: Yes, exactly. So when I went after he sent me that picture and we had that conversation, I went to, you know, the adult toy store here in town and to get myself or to at least just see what kind of SDP these were valuable available here and how much they were. So I went and checked him out and what have you. And I didn’t buy anything that day. But then from that moment on, I could not get it out of my brain. It was not just the SDP like it just all. It had opened up a doorway. And all of a sudden that’s all that was on my mind. It was all I could think about from the moment I woke up until I went to bed at night.

Kelly: It’s like you didn’t know the possibility until you showed the way. And then it’s like I know that feeling of them being obsessed and and wanting you – And now I get it. I get how it could work. And now I know the direction I have to go.

Jaiden: Exactly, and it still was freaking me out. However, one of the commitments I made to myself right before I left for Brazil was that I was going to no longer allow fear to stop me in my life. It doesn’t mean fear doesn’t still show up. It often still shows up. But now I sit down and I have a cup of coffee, a cup of tea with fear, and then I do it anyway.

Aurora: You said “What if.” What if I go and talk to a doctor and see what that is or what if I find out what the process is? I mean, what. I’m just curious as to. What those questions are.

Jaiden: So that is exactly what a lot of people do write like a lot of people will, you know, talk to their families or talk to their best friend or go to, you know, talk to their therapist or, you know, a trusted teacher, whoever. Right. Like a lot of people – that’s what that’s what a lot of folks do. I for whatever reason, I go inward and I have lots of conversations with God, my higher self, whatever you want to call it and just get in touch with my truth. But sometimes in my life, like when something big is happening, if I ever get to a place where it just keeps swirling around in my mind or, you know, I need to get out of my head, then I’ll go to a trusted friend and have a conversation with them kind of thing, too. I gotta get it outside of my head. But this I knew without a doubt I was like, “Nobody can help me with this.” This is a very personal thing that only I can do, like that only I can take care of, like I only I can come to whatever that truth is. Nobody can help me with that.

Aurora: And so you make that decision after much inward reflection, inward alignment. And you make a decision to align –

Kelly: Or is it a knowing? Like you’re like, “I know I’m a man.” Is it a decision? Is it a knowing? Is it the same thing? Different.

Jaiden: It’s definitely, it’s definitely unknowing. And I really appreciate you pointing to that because a lot of people think that it’s a decision or a choice. I mean, sure, we all have choice. Like I could have continued to live female bodied and been miserable. Or I could choose to listen to, you know, what’s an alignment and be the happiest I’ve been in my life. So it’s a choice in that way. And, you know, just like with being gay, lesbian, trans, whatever – it’s just what is.
Kelly: And then to parallel this, what do you say to parents who are completely bowled over their child says they’re not who they were born, they’re not who they’ve been conditioned to be their whole life. How do you coach a parent through that? A cis gender, probably straight parent.

Jaiden: So let’s see. It’s I’m pausing because situation can be, you know, very different. And so I meet the parents where they’re at. And oftentimes one thing that does not change, though, is that I will encourage a therapist to be involved. Not because I doubt children, quite honestly. The younger the child and again, this is just my opinion. This is not like I want to make sure that it’s clear that this is all my opinion that the younger the child, the more I believe them. Right. Right from the get go, because they don’t have all of the conditioning. They don’t have all of the whatever. And so when I hear about a three, four, five, six year old tell their parent that, you know, a little girl say, “Why don’t I have a penis? I’m supposed to have a penis.” Or I have actually heard. That a 6 year old wanted to kill themselves because they’re in the wrong body that I am like there is no doubt in my being, you know. I can get very passionate about that. They just don’t have that conditioning.
I support parents in having a counselor, a therapist get involved. I support them in, you know, talking to the doctor. Although let me also say that, you know, one of the fears that parents often have is, you know “What, if, you know, we start these kids so young on hormones and all this and that and then it’s a mistake or they change their mind or things like that.” So the first thing I want to say is that hormones and all of that do not start when the kids are little, that none of that starts when they’re when they’re young. It’s only a social transition that happens when kids are little, which means, you know, they can be called a different name, choose a different name if they want. Which means they might play with different toys. That means they might dress differently. You know, that kinds of things use, use the different pronouns, you know, that kinds of stuff. Change their name. Medical transition – When you’re getting hormones or hormone blockers into play and all of that kinds of stuff, that is not going to happen until later. And so I just want to throw that out there, because I know that some parents got really freaked out and worried about that style.

Kelly: That’s helpful to understand. And in another parallel in your workplace and in someone’s workplace, if you’re brought in, you know, and people are coming from a million different backgrounds, what are kind of the guidelines that you provide?

Jaiden: I – so let me say that I am a unique individual. I am a unique trainer because of how spiritual I am. There is a spiritual undertone to everything that I do.

Aurora: Thank goodness.

Kelly: Us, too, buddy..

Jaiden: So the reason why I’m saying that is because what people are hiring me for os just what I said in the beginning, right, like to learn the essentials of gender identity. They know it’s a big deal in this day and age, you know, so and so forth. People are starting to get it that they got to get on board, right. And then because of my style of training, it becomes quite honestly, it’s more of a conversation. And I’m also extremely open and vulnerable, which, by the way, I never shared with you. I should have could have shared with you in the beginning of this conversation that I only have – I tell everyone I only have one question that you cannot ask me, which is you cannot ask me what my name was previously. And that’s because that sort of curiosity is not educational. Other than that, you can ask me absolutely any question. And this is a pretty unique opportunity because there are not a lot of trans folks out there that allow you to ask them absolutely any question. Even other trans facilitators will sometimes not be open to you asking about genitalia or sex things or anything along those lines. And I am open to all of it because I believe that, sure, you can find a lot of information online, but we as human beings, we learn best by connection, through connection. And who better for you to learn from than a trans person themself? So I just want to throw that out there.

Kelly: Trans person you learn to love. I know you in your presence and you learn you as a person. And yes, you feel love for you and then you can receive from you. It makes a lot of sense.

Jaiden: Yes. And so often because I because of the space that I hold and because I’m so vulnerable and because of the love that I give the audience. People open up pretty quickly. And it becomes this amazing conversation that allows people to not only learn what I’m offering, but also to look within themself.

Aurora: Beautiful. Yeah.

Kelly: And so can you help describe for us why inclusive language is so important, why we say our pronouns? And do you ever get pushback on that?

Jaiden: Absolutely. So pronouns first I’ll just say really briefly, pronouns are so important because first of all, it’s part of our identity. Everyone likes to be referred to with the appropriate name and pronoun. Whether you’re cis, gender or trans. Right. Second to that is having cis gender folks, having everyone start to use their pronouns when they introduced themselves, for example, or when you put a name tag on, you know, you can put your pronouns on it or at the bottom of your email, whatever any of these things. All of these things help the trans community, because it helps to normalize it, if trans folks are the only ones to ever have to share our pronouns, then we’re never becoming fully or truly included. Right.

Kelly: Yes.

Aurora: And what would you say to those folks that feel like. Yes. But when you’re asking me to articulate my pronouns, you’re actually asking me to condone or support something I don’t believe in or per the conversation we were having earlier my whether it’s by religious belief or my own belief in thinking that gender identity is a choice versus a knowing of who I am.

Jaiden: Right. And not only a choice, but there’s also folks that believe it’s just not really a thing by the way, who that we are, we are just mentally ill is what some people even think. I haven’t – I’m trying to think you’re I don’t know that I’ve had someone specifically say that to me and I know that it’s present. Just as an example, I’ve had like eight when I spoke at a law firm. I had my contact at the law firm, warned me that there was people that believed this way.
In my personal life, I try to live my life as much as possible as I’m just Jaiden. I’m just a guy in the world. I’m just Jaiden. I’m not a trans man. I’m stealth, right. I don’t walk through the grocery store telling everyone that I’m trans. Right. I pass 100 percent of the time. Now, nobody knows that I’m trans unless I offer that information. And so if somebody were to come up to me or if I were to overhear somebody being disrespectful in my personal life, I’m going to respond differently than I would when I’m training or in my work or in my professional life. So that makes sense?

Aurora: Correct.

Kelly: Yes, I’m tracking.

Jaiden: And so so in my professional life as I’m training, if somebody asks me a question or makes a comment that that’s very disrespectful. I’m just in a different place. I am a channel. I just it doesn’t hit me personally.
So, for example this actually happened at a law firm where one of the attorneys said to me. Something along the lines of he was he was asking me. It was when we were talking about pronouns and he said that somebody demanded to be referred to as it. I have never, ever heard of that in my life that somebody wants to be referred to as it. And so how I responded in that moment was I said, oh, interesting. I haven’t heard of that before. I said, well, I said, just like any other pronoun you would respond to how someone is asking you to, you know. But yeah, it was just it was really clear that he was not being respectful. And so overall, what I’m doing, though, how I view this when I go into places, there’s going to be people – I make the assumption that there’s going to be people that are not completely onboard. I’ll say it that way. And so I just believe that I’m there to plant seeds for them. I cannot make people change. I cannot make people believe something. You know.

Kelly: Amen.

Jaiden: So I’m hired. I’m hired to do something and I go in and do it to the best of my ability with from a place of love and trust.

Aurora: Can you, Jaiden, and can you walk us through what was the medical journey, emotional journey that then transpired to your arrival to who you are now as Jaiden?

Jaiden: Ok – it’s a long process. The mental and emotional journey in and of itself is years long. There is so much that we have to contemplate and go through that there’s no way for cis folks to understand. You know, even though this is something that we have to do in some instances, in some instances, in order to stay alive. But to have a better life. It’s something that we have to do. It’s still the process and the journey is extremely challenging to change your gender. So the emotional and mental processes, years long. I started transitioning. Four and a half years ago, and I’m still very deep in that process, learning new things on the emotional mental level, new challenges arise which has me realize you know, I have to this actually what I’m thinking of is speaking into the intersectionality of my life. Like, for example, walking this earth as a Black female was, is very different than walking this earth as a Black male.
How I am treated it’s so incredibly huge and – or even, you know, even female to male. But yeah, being a Black male in this day and age, like it’s it’s very huge in lots of lots of challenges that arise. So that takes years. And then the medical part of the transition can take years, mostly due to financial reasons. Not all insurance companies cover our surgeries and or hormones. And trans folks are in one of the categories of being – It’s really hard for us to find jobs or to get hired. And often, often there’s a lot of homeless trans folks. So medically can take years as well.

Kelly: Do you feel like your home now? Or do you feel like you’re still evolving and transitioning?

Jaiden: Oh, I’m still very much evolving. I more – I am more home than I ever have been, and I’m still very much evolving. I often hear, you know, some of my trans male friends that are further along in their process than I am or have been out and transitioned for many, many years, I’ve I’ve often heard some of them say that it’s it’s – we’re not done transitioning when we even when we finish our medical transition. Like it’s it’s just continuous probably for most of our life.

Kelly: Well, that I understand that I am a 40 year old white woman. It’s taken me this many years to love my own body. And I and I got breast augmentation and, you know, and that was fun. But, you know, also I had to look at like what – why didn’t I love myself as it was? And I feel like most of my women friends, we still are grappling with body issues and then you’d slap on aging on top of it and all the other evolutions of our form.
So I absolutely can feel that we are still evolving. You and I Jaiden and that and my medical procedures were way less than yours. And I’ve only experienced it as a white female.

Aurora: And I’m going dare say and your transitioning or your medical procedures, Kelly, in all fairness, are acceptable, right? And so, yeah. And so when you know, when you share your story, Jaiden is just such a complexity and such an intersectionality of so many things. Right. And and it’s a constant evolution. So I get your point, Kelly, where it’s like we’re all grappling with arriving at ourselves. The complexity of you arriving at yourself is is huge in monumental but there’s sort of a kernel of that that we can understand because in our own version. We we grapple with a minutia of that trauma. And of that –

Jaiden: Right.

Aurora: You know, arriving at self-love. And our arrival to self loved, one could say, is is actually an ease, you know. It’s an easier path and it’s still shitty, right? And hard and emotional and gut wrenching really can even come –

Kelly: Yeah. I don’t mean to, you know, project my own shit on you, Jaiden. And of course.

Jaiden: No, I didn’t. Yeah. I didn’t take it that way. But thank you for speaking to that.

Aurora: But you know, it’s just sort of the the the beauty of holding space and loving and understanding and sort of the journey of arriving itself, of true self-love.

Jaiden:That’s it. That’s it.

Aurora: And you know, we cannot be more grateful for you in sharing this story with us. And I do want to just. I do want to ask this one question, because we didn’t get a chance to touch on this as far as activism and the work that you’re doing and how there tends to be times this conflict or this slight racing, I don’t know if it’s a racing or not giving it right for lead to finishing it its place of, you know, our trans brothers and sisters within the entire sort of queer community. You know, I you know, I was just looking, you know, in preparation, Kelly and I were looking through data and research. And it’s even interesting because trans doesn’t show up. Right. And in this one census, we were reading. And so can you. Can you share? You know, anything that would be helpful for us to understand or what you would love to see happen as we all sort of view and respect each other as humans.

Jaiden: Well, I heard two pieces to that question. One was addressing. The trans piece is part of the LGBTQ plus community, and just really, really briefly, what I’ll speak to that is just that they’re just like everybody else, it actually surprised me when I first came out. I assumed that my, you know, gay and lesbian friends, for example. Would have more understanding when I came out and just like everybody else, they most gay and lesbian folks are clueless as well. Everybody across the board needs more education on trans community and what it means to be trans.

Kelly: I would love to know what your opt-in would be for our listeners. I mean, you’re closing out our first season of the act and you touch on more multi dimensionality than anybody we’ve spoken to yet.

Jaiden: You know, spiritual Jaiden the core of who I am says to do your own work and to love yourself. And because the more people get in touch with their true self and love themselves, we’re all connected. And so the more it’s going to affect all of humanity, not just the trans community. My other answer would be to try to educate yourself a little bit into around, you know, trans stuff. And please, you know, email me. Contact me if you have questions because like I said in the beginning, I just am really passionate about. Having more understanding, you know, for the trans community, more compassion and respect for the trans community, where can everyone I’m assigned inside you? It’s not going away. You know what I mean?

Aurora: Jaiden, it has been an absolute honor to hold space with you to begin this conversation with you. Thank you for your transparency, your honesty, your guidance and most importantly, for your love. This has been beautiful. Thank you so much.

Jaiden: Thank you.

Kelly: We love you, Jaiden.

Aurora: I feel like we were only getting started.

Kelly: Seriously. We just scratched the surface.

Aurora: These are some big earth shaking topics. So there’s no way we can digest it all in one conversation.

Kelly: Well thankfully, we can all learn more with Jaiden. Hire him, seriously, y’all! We’ll link all his information in our show notes.

Aurora: Now it’s your turn. We want to know what’s on your mind. And for cis folks, how do you think you can be more inclusive in your everyday? Find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @the opt in.

Aurora: ….Kelly…..I have to say it.

Kelly: What?

Aurora: I’m sad. Jaiden was our last guest for the season.

Kelly: I know, girl, but we’re going to be back so soon. Plus we still have one more bonus episode.

Aurora: True – I can’t wait for our season conversation.

Kelly: More soon so keep up with us in your feed.

Aurora: Music for this episode is by Jordan McCree. And the Opt-In is produced by Rachel Ishikawa.

Aurora: Until next week.

Kelly: Bye.