Welcome to Breaking Down Patriarchy. I'm Sam Rose Preminger.

As I'm sure some of you know, I'm a producer and editor here on the podcast, and usually I'm quite happy staying behind the scenes.

But, in honor of Pride Month, Amy has very graciously asked me to take center stage this week to talk to you all about the transgender

community. Because once again, in 2025, trans people like me are still in the cultural and

political spotlight, with our rights, our safety, and even just the fact of our existence, somehow

still being constantly debated. So, we're going to get into

it and hopefully answer all of your burning questions. In the first half of the episode,

I'm going to share a personal essay that some of you might be familiar with. It's an updated

version of a piece I originally shared way back in 2022 during season two of the podcast.

And in that, I'm going to tell you all about my own coming out journey.

And then stick around because in the back half, I'm going to be answering questions,

a whole bunch of listener submitted questions about the transgender experience.

All right.

Is everyone ready?

Great.

Let's get into it.

In my childhood, I felt most at home when I was crouching by the edge of a pond, holding a net in my hands to scoop up frogs or a stick to overturn old mossy logs and admire all the tiny microcosms underneath. The natural world, it seemed to me, was brimming with diversity,

thriving on the interplay of unique creatures, each as marvelous as the next, and I recognized myself as an equal spirit in that

intricate community of life. I knew I belonged, and still to this day when I imagine myself,

most being myself, what I see is my early childhood, a slender, spectacled kid taking shelter under the leaves of sugar maples and silver pines, dappled by the summer rains of central New York.

But the reality is that trips to the woods were an exception in my childhood.

Instead, I was raised several hours south of those forests, deep in the hollow of the suburbs,

...