Becoming Paloma: A Young Woman’s Transition Journey

Latino USA

Futuro Media and PRX

Society & Culture

4.9 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 15 November 2024

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When Paloma, a second-generation Mexican-American trans woman, was attending Maria Hinojosa’s class at Barnard College, she was using they/them pronouns. Back then, she was downcast and barely spoke a word. Years later, Maria started seeing Paloma’s social media posts as a fabulous and outgoing drag performer. How did that happen?

In this episode, we follow Paloma in her journey to womanhood—a journey that started in her family home in the Bay Area and continues today, after months of Hormone Replacement Treatment (HRT).

Subscribe to our newsletter by going to the top of our homepage.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, dear listener, before we start just letting you know that this story mentions suicide.
0:13.2	All right, take care.
0:14.2	And here we go.
0:15.7	So the thing that was missing was I am a woman.
0:20.7	And I've known this since I was a kid, but I've never allowed myself to accept this because
0:27.9	I had been told that I wasn't enough as a gay boy.
0:33.2	So to add another lens of a transition into that, into a strict Mexican family, into a hood upbringing,
0:42.8	I just had never given myself the opportunity to say it.
0:51.3	From Futuro Media and PRX, it's Latino USA.
0:55.0	I'm Maria Innojosa.
0:57.0	Today, becoming Paloma, a trans woman's journey of self-discovery
1:02.0	and the joy of embodying your true self.
1:09.0	Hi!
1:10.0	Do you have reservation with us? Yeah, my colleague is already here to
1:13.2	Senator. It's for Maria or doing my... Yeah, she's in the back. Okay, thank you. It's a late
1:18.1	afternoon in New York, and well, I don't really need any excuse to go out to a cute
1:24.2	restaurant in the city, especially when it's for work.
1:34.7	But tonight, I am out and about on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for a very special reason.
1:37.4	Thank you so much for coming tonight.
1:41.4	I have a very special guest with me, Miss Paloma Lamona. I'm going to be.
1:51.7	I came out to see a drag show because one of the performers is actually my former student at Arnard College, which is part of Columbia University.
1:55.8	Oh, I want to cry.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Futuro Media and PRX, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Futuro Media and PRX and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.