Love and Transition, a story from The Moth

We Can Do Hard Things

Glennon Doyle & Audacy

Society & Culture, Relationships, Education, Self-improvement

4.8 • 41.1K Ratings

🗓️ 18 July 2025

⏱️ 4 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We're excited to bring you a beautiful story from The Moth, as told by storyteller and activist, Tiq Milan. In this story, Tiq explores themes of love and transition, all while keeping a very important secret from his mom. You can hear the extended version of this story and more heartwarming, funny, true stories on Tuesdays and Fridays on The Moth podcast. Since its launch in 1997, The Moth has presented thousands of true stories, told live and without notes, to standing-room-only crowds worldwide. Moth storytellers stand alone, under a spotlight, with only a microphone and a roomful of strangers. The storyteller and the audience embark on a high-wire act of shared experience which is both terrifying and exhilarating. Since 2008, The Moth podcast has featured many of our favorite stories told live on Moth stages around the country. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey Pod Squad. We're excited to share something a little different with you today. It's a beautiful story from The Moth podcast, which I love and I think you're really going to enjoy. You are probably familiar with the Moth. It's just the longstanding critically acclaimed event series where storytellers stand alone under a spotlight with just a microphone in a
0:22.6	room full of strangers. Every week, the Moth's podcast feed presents stories that are funny and
0:27.9	strange and heartbreaking and above all, true. So today you're going to hear a story from
0:33.1	storyteller Teak Milan. Teak is a writer, speaker, activist, and beloved Moth storyteller.
0:39.3	This is an abridged version of a favorite Teak story which explores themes of love and transition.
0:44.3	If you like what you hear, you can find the expanded version of the story and many more beautiful, funny, human stories from the moth right now,
0:52.3	everywhere you get your podcasts. Take a a listen i was my mother's fourth
0:57.6	daughter and when i was 15 i sat my mother down and i said mommy i got something to tell you
1:03.3	and she said oh shit and i said mom i'm gay now she was shocked but she became my fiercest ally
1:10.5	and when i moved to new York City, we talked daily.
1:13.6	And one day she called me and she said,
1:15.6	Tegaboo, why you got to be so mannish?
1:18.6	Why can't you be a soft butch like Ellen DeGeneres?
1:21.6	Now, as a transgender person, what we know is that we may lose everybody that we thought loved us.
1:29.7	And I was scared that I was going to lose her.
1:32.7	But a few days before I was to have my top surgery, I called my mother and I said, Mommy,
1:37.8	I am having a double mastectomy, a chest reconstruction. I'm a man.
1:41.8	She said, what the fuck?
1:47.7	But on the day of surgery, there she was,
1:55.1	Miss Mary at the hospital. And she had this Ralph Lauren robe and a blue teddy bear for me. And afterwards, she cried and she said, it felt like her daughter died. You know, because my transition wasn't just mine alone.
2:03.6	And I said, Mommy, I'm still yours.
2:06.6	And I think it was in that moment that she started to accept me as her son.
	...

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