Eps 578: Love, Gender, and Advocacy with Cristina Olivetti

Joyful Courage for me means not letting the news get me down. It means continuing to celebrate the choices that we have made as a family, and yeah, just like really trying to show that it’s more fun to be free than to be oppressed.

Resources:

Website – https://www.cristinaolivetti.com/ 
Free Mom Hugs – https://freemomhugs.org/

Transcription

JC Ep 578 (6.2.25) - Final
[00:00:00] Casey O'Roarty: Welcome, welcome, welcome to the Joyful Courage Podcast. This is a place where parents of tweens and teens come to find inspiration, information, and encouragement in the messy terrain of adolescents this season of parenting. Is no joke. And while the details of what we're all moving through might be slightly different, we are indeed having a very collective experience.
[00:00:30] This is a space where we center building, relationship, nurturing life skills, and leaning into our own personal growth. And man, the opportunities abound. Right. My name is Casey O'Roarty. I am a parent coach, positive discipline, lead trainer, and captain of the. Adolescent ship over at Sproutable I'm also a speaker and a published author.
[00:00:53] I've been working with parents and families for over 20 years and continue to navigate my own experience of being a mom with my two young adult kids. I'm so honored that you're here and listening. Please give back to the podcast by sharing it with friends or on social media rate and review us on Apple or Spotify.
[00:01:13] Word of mouth is how we grow. Thank you so, so much. Enjoy the show.
[00:01:23] Hi, listeners. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm really excited to introduce you to today's guest, Christina ti. Christina is a writer, educator, and advocate for gender inclusion. Her memoir about bliss fighting for my trans son's life. Joy and fertility is coming to us in June, 2025. Fueled by a mission to improve the support that trans youth and their families receive during transition.
[00:01:50] She's the official gender educator for Free. Mom Hugs, a national organization that supports lgbtq plus families and frequently presents her workshop, navigating gender in the new world to schools, community organizations, and businesses. Christina's essays have appeared in outlets as varied as Scholastic, parent and Child Spirituality and Health, and msn bs.com.
[00:02:16] You can follow her [email protected]. Hi Christina, welcome to the podcast.
[00:02:22] Cristina Olivetti: Nice to meet you. Nice to be here today. I am so excited. Thank you for having me.
[00:02:26] Casey O'Roarty: I am so excited to have you. This is perfect timing as we move into June, which is pride month and just. Always getting more information about the experiences of other people is so useful for me and for my listeners.
[00:02:41] Talk a little bit, let's start with your book about Bliss. Talk about your inspiration for writing it, for having it published. Sure. Tell us a little bit about it. I love the format, by the way. Sorry to interrupt. Oh, thank you. I love the format of it. You
[00:02:53] Cristina Olivetti: know the book. It's, uh, written as a series of letters to my trans son and I originally, um, started doing that just to.
[00:03:04] Get clear in my own thoughts. I think one of the things for parents of trans kids, but it's true for parents of all kids, is that we make a lot of decisions on their behalf when they're minors that will impact them for the rest of their lives. Now, when you're raising a trans child that. Issues magnified, but it's one that's shared across parenting.
[00:03:26] We're making choices every day for our kids that will impact them for the long term, but in this particular case, I wanted my son to have as complete a record as possible about our family's thinking. I. He, um, came of age, gender wise, at, at a time that I would call like the golden age of gender affirmative care, which was about 2000 14, 15, 16, prior to the first Trump administration.
[00:03:54] Um, and even I. When we were in that moment, I knew that we were in a very, very special moment. I had been a gender studies major as an undergraduate, and so I also wanted to document the history of the moment that we were in when we went through the process. Mm-hmm. So it was kind of like I wanted to give something to my son for him to hold onto and have and understand and push back on in the future if he wanted to.
[00:04:17] But also I wanted to document. For posterity, the choices that we were making because raising gender creative kids were still at the beginning of that. And, um, I, I wanted to have a as honest an account as possible and, and the person who I feel most accountable to is my son. Um, so I think hope that it's a true and honest accounting of how our family approached his transition.
[00:04:40] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm. I loved it. And, you know, while I didn't make it to the end, 'cause I just got it. I really loved Jake's story and just the, you know, I have, I have interviews that I've done with people who are in ver, you know, I have one interview with a non-binary person who works with non-binary and trans people in their practice.
[00:05:04] I have interviews, um, you know, our co-founder at Sprout, which is the. Um, umbrella company of joyful courage. She is raising a non-binary child and I just think that the more that we can hear the stories and is it offensive to say normalize the stories of gender? I think it's so useful 'cause there are people in all different parts of the country that.
[00:05:32] Maybe are so many steps removed that it doesn't, that it's confusing and, and, and misunderstood. So I feel like books like yours are such a
[00:05:42] Cristina Olivetti: gift. So I don't, I would say normalizing is a great word to use. Okay. And I think one of the things, um, that I would sort of bundle with that is the idea that we all have a gender.
[00:05:52] Mm-hmm. We all do gen gender is a question that belongs to all of us, and I think we are. Coming out of what I would call a gender dark age. So, um, in the sort of fifties and sixties, the way that, um, Western Medicine was mostly encountering gender diversity was in the form of intersex kids. And the best practice at that time was to, um, when those children were born and the doctors weren't able to, you know, read their genitals, pick.
[00:06:25] You know, what category of male or female those kids belonged to? They, um, the, the best practice was to sort of, for the doctor to pick whatever parts those parts looked the most, like, and then surgically conform. Mm-hmm. That direction before the kids were even two or three. And then the parents were. Um, encouraged to raise their child socially in that gender.
[00:06:52] Sure. Um, that's where we actually get the term assigned at birth, because in the case of intersex kids, during those decades, the physicians were precisely assigning a gender to the kids. Now, what we, what we know from that is that, um, so it's not just trans transgender kids that experience gender dysphoria.
[00:07:14] Some of these intersex kids also experienced gender dysphoria. If they were assigned the incorrect gender, they experienced gender dysphoria and so. That's a sort of deep and uh, detailed way of saying, you know, we've been managing this issue of gender for a long time. And at that time in history, uh, we sort of reified the idea of male versus female.
[00:07:38] Mm-hmm. When actually physicians knew that it was a lot muddier in the middle. Um, but we chose to sort of normalize only having two. And so, you know, when I say waking up from a gender dark age, it's the idea that actually we always knew there were something more complicated than two. But it was best practice in Western medicine for a while to pick one.
[00:07:58] Casey O'Roarty: Right.
[00:07:59] Cristina Olivetti: And so now we're up. Make, make it
[00:08:00] Casey O'Roarty: easy. Make it quote easy, right? Yeah. And so now we're
[00:08:03] Cristina Olivetti: waking up to the fact that it actually was never that.
[00:08:05] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about your son and his gender journey. Oh, so my son, I love talking about my son. I so lucky to be raising. I wish, I want everyone to be watching 'cause I love what you happened to you, you just like got this like blissful perfect title for your book.
[00:08:19] Look on your face.
[00:08:21] Cristina Olivetti: He is, uh, you know, I mean for me. Uh, and so for so many parents, it's like the privilege of a lifetime to see someone's unfolding from the very beginning. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's what's one of the coolest parts of parenting. And I will say that my son has been himself from a very young age and, um, you know, and I tell this story of understanding who he is, uh, over time.
[00:08:43] I mean, one story that stands out the most and it's like a, it's sort of family lore, we all chuckle about it, is that, uh, when Jake was about four. He was in the very backseat of the minivan and I was driving up in front and he was looking out the window and he said, mom, when I grow up I wanna look like that.
[00:09:03] And I looked out the window and there was, I'm not kidding you, like a 40-year-old like Iron Man jogger guy. Shirtless and these like little black jogging shorts and super cut, like super well defined like masculinely with the six pack abs and like these pecs that just like winked with each. And I was like, oh.
[00:09:28] And I honestly, because at that time we hadn't figured out Jake's gender. I really thought I had a little girl sitting in my back of my car and I was like, my, I don't, okay. And at that time I thought I was raising, you know, three suburban girls. Mm-hmm. And I said, well honey, um, that person's really, really skinny and I don't think anyone in our family's ever gonna have six pack abs.
[00:09:54] Is that the six? Is that what you want? Six pack abs. And so for years we talked about six pack abs. Mm-hmm. And it wasn't until later when. Jake and I were looking back that even he said like, yeah, he thought he was gonna grow up and be a guy, and so it wasn't the six pack abs, it was that he really wanted to grow up and be that jogger.
[00:10:12] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm. Isn't that so interesting? It's so interesting how we make meaning that makes sense to us in the moment. Yes. Right. So that's the experience that you had as you kind of processed what Jake had to say. Yeah. And, and then
[00:10:26] Cristina Olivetti: he did the same. And what's weird is that that should have been a forgettable moment.
[00:10:30] And we both remember that guy. Yeah. Like, we both really remember that guy. And what I would say is that, you know, um, for his whole childhood, Jake was. A super playful, creative, funny and observant kid. Mm-hmm. Um, really observant. And the truth is, is that we were pretty gender progressive in my family. So we never, um, you know, when Jake wanted to wear boyish clothes, we said, fine.
[00:10:57] When Jake wanted what he called a boyish haircut, we said, fine. So right before. First grade, um, we let him cut his hair short and from that moment on, he was never, ever read as a girl again. Mm-hmm. I mean, we would, yeah. For a while there we would correct people. And then he was like, mom, I don't care. It's fine with me.
[00:11:14] Mm-hmm. And then it became like, mom, I kind of like it when they make that mistake. And then, you know, but you know, a 6-year-old child with a short boyish haircut really reads like a boy to most people. Yeah. And so he just kind of took that and ran with it and it took us a little while to. Sort of bring his gender into focus mm-hmm.
[00:11:34] And make decisions about the path that we were gonna take. But we're a family where we knew pretty early on that he was a gender creative person who was gonna push the boundaries a bit.
[00:11:43] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. Did he have a specific coming out, or?
[00:11:48] Cristina Olivetti: No,
[00:11:48] Casey O'Roarty: that was actually
[00:11:49] Cristina Olivetti: one of the interesting things about Jake's story is that, um, one summer he went to a camp for, um, gender creative kids.
[00:11:57] And one of his big anxieties was like. Mom, do I have a coming out story? Interesting. Yeah. And so as a family, he didn't have a coming out story as a family, it was a process and we were in it together. Mm-hmm. And really, you know, when we ended up at the gender clinic for the first time, I think the most convincing snippet or moment to me on that.
[00:12:19] Visit, you know, was that one of the psychologists asked my kiddo, who at that time was identified as a girl, if my kid could imagine growing up, could they envision their adult selves? And Jake was like, no, no. I don't even think about the future. And it became very clear to me that that was one of the things that trans kids struggle with is that.
[00:12:44] They know something about themselves and they also know something about the world and somehow it doesn't add up. And so a lot of trans kids carry that weight on their shoulders alone. Mm-hmm. As lots of kids who have differences do for a while. They mask it, they try to fit in. I mean, kids are incredibly astute at reading the world and at fitting in.
[00:13:03] And so. You know, kids know things about themselves that they don't necessarily share. Yeah. Um, and in our case, it was this, like, I have no idea how to grow up into the person. I think I am.
[00:13:14] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. Yeah. I live in Bellingham, Washington, so I live in this beautiful pocket of love and freedom of expression. And when we first moved here, I remember looking around and realizing like, oh.
[00:13:30] This is a community that has not put a lot of weight in making sure the kids know that, you know, no quote, no. That there's a binary en gender and it, you just, you'd go to the park or you'd go to the lake and you just, the spectrum was on full display and I'm so, and it just was so lovely to me to see what can happen in a community where kids just get to truly get to be themselves.
[00:13:56] Yeah, and you know, early on, my own son was, I remember he came home from school. It was probably around first grade, and we were, my kids were obsessed with Justin Bieber. They were the perfect age to be obsessed with him in early days, and Ian came home and said. Mom, boys aren't supposed to like Justin Bieber, like he was so like, oh God, I'm gonna have to hide this thing.
[00:14:21] Yeah. You know, and front of me identifies as, you know, cis straight, you know, all the things. But, but it, it's just like, to your point, they are so aware and it's so early on what they need to keep about themselves quiet and what is safe. Yes. To express. And I can only imagine how that is upleveled, you know, for a kid like Jake.
[00:14:43] Yeah. Out in the world.
[00:14:52] Cristina Olivetti: I mean, when you talk about Bellingham, it sounds heavenly. Mm-hmm. And I think one of the things, so I live in the Bay Area, which is also a super progressive neck of the woods. And I think one of the things that shocked me actually was that. It looks that way here. Mm-hmm. And still there's a lot of people who are not sure about it.
[00:15:14] Yeah. And a lot of people, when it comes down to will they host a child for a sleepover? Yeah. How do they feel about those bathrooms? People have. It's adults also know what's cool and not cool to talk about. And I feel like one of the interesting things with the administration is that it's become more fashionable or less bad to have real questions about kids gender identity and who belongs where and things like that.
[00:15:45] Casey O'Roarty: Well, and I, that to me just motivates me evermore your stories like yours. 'cause I think, again, closing that proximity and hearing from. You know, real life people who are moving through this and. Yeah, and I have clients, so I, I mentioned to you before I hit record, I have a few clients with kiddos that identify as transgender or non-binary or questioning, and their response to kids expression ranges from full support, right?
[00:16:15] All the way to, you know, less support, more confusion, uncertainty. You write about. Responsibility felt for your child as you consider, you know, when you got to the place of hormone blockers and testosterone and just, you already meant, you know, the weight that we all carry for some of the choices that we're making for our kids as they move through adolescence and future impacts.
[00:16:40] So I would love to hear a little bit more about that weight that you felt as you navigated Jake's journey and Jake's specifically his medical Yeah. Is it what it, is it his medical journey? Is that how we would phrase it?
[00:16:52] Cristina Olivetti: His medical journey is. Yeah, exactly. So I felt like, I felt really confident that as a family, we knew Jake's gender identity and, um, my, uh, scholarly background was in about, was about bias against women in medicine.
[00:17:09] And so I went into the process with a sense of. You know, Western medicine is a place where there's a lot of gender bias. And so my first question was, you know, if gender is a social construct, which is the idea that I grew up with, why would you medicate that? Uh, and I, beyond a shadow of my doubt. And just kicked the tires hard.
[00:17:31] Talked to a lot of transgender people. I was getting my MFA at the time, and so I developed a niche expertise in trans memoir. I was reading story after story after story of people telling their own gender journey story. Um, gosh, Jake picked, well, didn't he? Spending he picked? Well, as far as the parents that would be raising him, and I, I do feel he picked well actually.
[00:17:54] And so, um, and I spent a lot of time with trans writers, just, um, in person and on the page trying to get, like, develop an ear for a pattern. And, um, I think one of the primary indicators that I saw in Jake and that I. Heard described in so many artful and beautiful ways in these memoirs was a sense of dysregulation.
[00:18:18] Like a constant either low or high level dysregulation in the body. Mm-hmm. That goes along with gender dysphoria. So the first thing for me was that like, you know, Jake had cut his hair short. He was accepted as kind of one of the boys at school, and I sort of was like his gender's working for him. Like I didn't see the dysphoric stress.
[00:18:37] Mm-hmm. I did see it in a kind of dysregulation. Many of these kids are your kids who like can't stand the tag a certain way or the light gets too bright and they're like, Ooh. You know, they have those sensory issues that some younger kids tend to have. But it wasn't until like Jake saw his older sister go through puberty that I saw that stress.
[00:18:58] That's considered gender dysphoria come online. Mm-hmm. And so it was at that time that I, and at that first gender clinic appointment that I really, um, understood like. Like this medical approach really does help people. Like if you talk to transgender people who have had their gender affirmed, they talk about a sense of grounding, a sense of integration, a sense of, um, alignment and peace in the body.
[00:19:34] And I could both see that in adult. Trans people that I was speaking with and interviewing for my book and just gathering advice from, and I could also see it in Jake every time we said, yeah, your ideas about yourself are real, and here's how we're gonna do this. Mm-hmm. Here's the next step we're gonna take.
[00:19:53] And with every step the sort of low level dysregulation that he. Displayed a lot of the time in childhood. It just got, he got calmer, he got stronger, he got prouder. He became more confident. I mean, there were times where it would just appear like he would almost grow two inches in front of me when he learned that it was gonna be okay.
[00:20:13] That he was gonna be okay. That he was okay.
[00:20:15] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:20:16] Cristina Olivetti: And that there was a path forward. I think so many trans kids. Can't envision the path forward, and that's when like doubt and depression and anxiety really start to amp up is that there's, like, they can't imagine a, a comfortable future.
[00:20:34] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm.
[00:20:35] Cristina Olivetti: Right.
[00:20:36] Casey O'Roarty: And they're already living in discomfort.
[00:20:37] Um,
[00:20:38] Cristina Olivetti: right. And the thing is, is I became very convinced that, you know, treating gender dysphoria with gender affirming care actually brings people a lot of peace and healing and health. And so that's how, you know, we decided to move forward. And I think every parent who parents. Any kid with a complicated medical issue or psychological issue has this really steep learning curve they go on.
[00:21:03] Yeah. And then as the adult in the room, you know, has to develop a sense of leadership about how as a family we're gonna approach this. And that's also what the book is about. It's about parenting as leadership, parenting as taking a stand for your family, for your kid in the world. Mm-hmm. Which is something that, you know, moms especially do all the time without a lot of fanfare or applause or recognition.
[00:21:28] It's just a ton of. Mental load and emotional labor and moral labor, I would even say. Right? Yeah. Especially in Jake's case or any parent of any transgender kid, you know, you are making long-term decisions about their bodies. Mm-hmm. And things like that. And so you carry a tremendous amount of moral weight on behalf of your child.
[00:21:47] And I think, you know, in these states that are abandoning gender affirming care, I think there's a deep underestimation of how much loving parents. Take that weight super seriously. Right. Take it super duper seriously. And our, you know, loving parents will always do a better job than a government or institution will in caring for the kids.
[00:22:07] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. You know, as I listen to you, I'm thinking back to a period of time, my daughter's actually been on the podcast and talked about this. She went through a pretty significant mental health crisis as a teenager and dropped out of school and, you know, it was a whole situation. And I, you know, that talk about yeah.
[00:22:26] Weight of responsibility and, and the self-doubt that lives inside of the leadership and. You know, something that I've heard clients of mine. This is such a, of course, perfect timing for this interview. I just was in a conversation with a client about this, you know, with her child who is, you know, raring to go in transition and, you know, she was really concerned while very supportive and loving, but also worried and wondering about the idea of.
[00:22:58] Well, what if they change their mind? What if we do something permanent and it has a long-term lasting result and they change their mind and they, you know, the idea of parents not wanting anything irreversible to happen. Did this come up in your experience with Jake? I mean, you've, you've had this kind of ideal situation where he's, you know, the combination of who you are, right?
[00:23:21] Yeah. Where you are, who he has always been, and. Has that come up for you all? And what kind of advice do you have for parents inside of that question? Yeah,
[00:23:31] Cristina Olivetti: I would say that the, the permanent change that I was worried about the most was had to do with Jake's fertility. Mm-hmm. And you know, the first time that we went to the gender clinic and I, you know, we were sort of heading in the direction of gender affirming care and I was just asking questions about the process.
[00:23:48] I mean, one of the first things I asked about was, you know, I sort of said like, well, if we do this. If, you know, Jake just stops the hormones. His after, after the hormone blockers, if he stops the hormones, his fertility will just come back. Right? And they were like, well, no, he, he will be infertile. And it was something that I feel like I should have understood before I went in there, but I didn't.
[00:24:09] Mm-hmm. It came as a huge surprise to me. And so that was another piece of moral grappling that I really struggled with in the process. And I ended up. You know, working with an endocrinologist to figure out a way for Jake to preserve his eggs while not. Undermining his transition at all. And I think Jake was like the fourth kid in the country to do that.
[00:24:32] Mm-hmm. Wow. So I was very concerned about sort of the permanence of the decisions we were making. I think it is something that all parents need to think about. I think what really helped me the most, I. Really helped me the most, and I think this is the case for any of these permanent decisions we make for our kids, is talk to adults who went through the experience.
[00:24:52] Mm-hmm. It was super important for me to talk to transgender adults and really get in their. In their own voices, what were the childhood choices they wish someone had made on their behalf? How did they feel about their own fertility? You know, if they transitioned after having children, would they have chosen to transition before having children?
[00:25:13] If it meant not having children, like and having these kind of deep conversations, because I had two pieces of myself that I was trying to balance. One was it sort of instinctually felt important to think about. Cole's fertility on his behalf. I mean, I'd spent so much of my life talking about reproductive rights to just do something that caused infertility, felt like kind of not aligned with my own personal values around people's reproductive rights.
[00:25:41] So there was that piece, and then there was this other piece of wondering like, oh, it's like being a parent, just like a cis hit. Bias, like do transgender people not care as much about being parents? Should I not worry about this fertility bit? Mm-hmm. I didn't wanna be like a, like a speed bump in an issue that.
[00:25:58] Wasn't an issue for transgender people. Right. And it was, you know, it was really talking to transgender people that convinced me that this was something worth thinking about. That they, they would have always transitioned first, that like being themselves was top priority for sure. But they felt like, yeah, it's worth thinking about that because transgender people are people and.
[00:26:17] Yeah, some people wanna be parents and some people don't. And so it's nice to have a choice about that. Like that's preferable to not having a choice. Yeah. But all the transgender adults I talked to felt that fertility was secondary to them to identity. Yeah. But it was also like, and there's lots of ways to become a parent.
[00:26:34] Like it doesn't have to be a biological child. So there I can perceive lots of ways of becoming a parent. Um, but there was a very, very strong. Feeling of identity, like figuring out the identity is sort of bedrock for transgender kids. And what I would say to a parent who's worrying about the permanent changes, you know, you really have to talk to transgender people.
[00:26:58] The, the number of people that Detransition is very small.
[00:27:01] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah, yeah.
[00:27:02] Cristina Olivetti: By far the large majority of. People who go through this experience are very happy that they did. Yeah. Those numbers will seem different as it becomes more difficult to be transgender in the world, which it's rapidly becoming more and more and more and more difficult to become transgender.
[00:27:18] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:27:18] Cristina Olivetti: In the world to live peacefully as a transgender person, but. I spent a lot of time thought thinking about this and talking to transgender adults, which is why I include the interviews with transgender adults in my book. I feel like it was such a privilege for me and such a great opportunity for me because I was a writer.
[00:27:36] To be in con conversation with so many trans adults. Mm-hmm. I really wanted to share that experience with other parents like me who might not have as many transgender people in their life. Yeah.
[00:27:47] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. Thank you for that. So will you talk a little bit about what gender affirming care is for minors? Yeah. I think this would be really useful, especially considering, I think it's, again, misunderstood and being.
[00:28:01] Just, yeah. Yeah. Misrepresented. The
[00:28:03] Cristina Olivetti: gender affirming care can start very young when kids tell their parents. Some kids, as young as two, will say, I'm not a girl, I'm a boy. Mm-hmm. Or, I'm not a boy, I'm a girl. And at that age, gender affirming care means just like, you know, letting them use the name and pronouns that they want, letting them wear whatever clothes they want.
[00:28:23] It's just letting them, you know, do the work of exploring their gender. Jake talks a lot about how in his experience he was like working on his identity in those young years, like a lot of the play and a lot of the haircut and dressing, he said he was working on his identity and giving kids a chance.
[00:28:45] The more time kids have to work on their identity. The more confident a family feels about what's happening. I think a lot of families, when you know, a teenager comes out and says, Hey, you didn't know this about me, but for a long time I've been feeling like I'm not a girl or I'm not a boy. That is a very tough moment in a family where the parents suddenly have to come up to speed with where the child is.
[00:29:09] Mm-hmm. And so, but gender affirming care starts off just with simple. You know, non-permanent decisions, haircuts, clothes, names, pronouns, once puberty approaches, and this is where things are in like a huge amount of flux in the country right now. So the sort of next step of gender affirming care would be if someone has gender dysphoria.
[00:29:34] And they're diagnosed after six months of working with a gender therapist. There are a lot of, um, there's a lot of gatekeeping before you can get to the first medical step of transition, which is going on a hormone blocker. And that, um, some medicine that pauses puberty. It's been used for many, many years in, uh, girls who have precocious puberty, which is like puberty that comes on, like when they're 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
[00:29:59] It comes on too early. We, we know that this medication can just. Put the body into stasis and then when you stop that medication, a puberty will happen. If you can have your endogenous puberty happen after that, which is the case of like precocious puberty, if someone started getting periods way too young and took a hormone blocker, then at around 12 or 13, they would stop taking that blocker and they would have a regular female puberty.
[00:30:26] Okay. For transgender kids, if you take the blocker, you'll take, take the blocker and it gives you time to think. Hmm. So it, it's like just a, a pause for the whole family to kind of assess and just to reiterate, before even going on the blocker, which is definitely reversible, before even going, going on the blocker, you have to be in six months of.
[00:30:49] Gender specialist therapy Right. To be approved in for, um, insurance. And that medication's quite expensive. So if you, if insurance isn't covering it, it's not likely a family is going to do it. It's, it's that kind of a medication. So to, to get it covered and to be permitted to take the medication. There's like a huge process that goes into that.
[00:31:12] And then depending on when you start the hormone blocker, you get a year or two of just. Think time letting the child mentally develop. Mm-hmm. I mean, I think that's one of the big things is there's like a lot of mental development. And what was interesting in our case was that Jake didn't really know how he felt about having kids, and certainly at the point that he wanted to start the hormone blockers because he felt like body development happening.
[00:31:38] He was like, I'll, I'll adopt, I'll do whatever. I'll like. I don't need to have kids, like I just need this to stop. Um, and so we started the blockers and about a year in he sort of snuck up to me. We had been looking at family pictures and he's like, well, mom, what if I do wanna have my own baby? What can we do about that?
[00:31:56] I. Right, because I was never gonna push a process on him. But the pause got him beyond kind of like survival, fight flight anxiety into kind of a settled place where he could really think and dream about his future, where he felt finally relaxed. I. Like, oh, this thing that is causing me so much anxiety is not going to happen.
[00:32:17] I can take a deep breath and think about what I do want to happen, what I do want a future to look like and what it could be like. And so I just feel like these hormone blockers are amazing. They're not without their issues. Like we know that, um, there can be bone density issues and there are pieces of investigation that need to continue, but what we know is that whatever gets paused in that.
[00:32:42] Puberty blocker. Time catches up once you start your pubertal hormones. Whether those are the ones that are like innate to you or whether it's like hormone replacement therapy with a medication like you would do for gender affirming care. So if you come to the end of your hormone blockers and you decide, yep.
[00:32:58] I am going to transition. So like the actual transition happens after the hormone blockers, you know, and you start taking, for, my son started taking testosterone, and when Jake started taking testosterone, he got that triangle body shape. He has whiskers. I mean, nobody in the world would think that my person was ever female.
[00:33:21] Mm-hmm. So, you know, the, the sort of final bits of transition, if you've been on pediatric hormone blockers is to start your endogenous or your, um, hormone replacement therapy. Okay? And then for some kids after that, there will be a surgery. Some kids, not especially. Female to male transition kids. If they've been on hormone blockers from a young age, they might not have any surgery at all.
[00:33:43] Okay. Um,
[00:33:44] Casey O'Roarty: yeah. Yeah. Is are hormone. Okay. I'm gonna ask kind of an ignorant, well it might be an ignorant question, but I'm just curious. So the hormone, there's no under, it's a complicated
[00:33:53] Cristina Olivetti: topic. Thank, there's no ignorant question.
[00:33:54] Casey O'Roarty: So, so for the. So girls transitioning to boys. Mm-hmm. Uh, hormone blockers.
[00:34:06] Pause. Menstruation. Pause. The development of breasts. Yes. For boys becoming girls. What did, what did the hormone blockers do?
[00:34:18] Cristina Olivetti: The hormone blockers. Um, pause. Well. Development of male bone structure. Okay. Which tends to be very profound. So for example, like the brow Okay. Has certain mm-hmm. Like fullness to it.
[00:34:32] Mm-hmm. That triangle shape comes, there's um, gait is very gendered. It turns out. So a lot of the bone development pauses. That pauses the what? Right? Bone. Certain kinds of bone development. Okay. Um, and then it also will pause, um, the full development of the testes. Mm-hmm. So one of the topics that I'm not as familiar with, but I know as an ongoing conversation for families who are transitioning from male to female.
[00:35:05] Mm-hmm. Um. You know, uh, gender affirming surgeons had quite perfected, uh, vaginoplasty for adult, transgender people transitioning. Mm-hmm. But if you've been on hormone blockers and you haven't had as much puberty, there's just not as much tissue to kind of re affect genitals. And so the last conversation I had with someone, they were still working on those surgical techniques to perfect.
[00:35:33] Um. That reconstruction, which honestly, whether people have that particular aspect of gender affirming care, it's not, it's not clear to me that that's like a universal, sure. Some people choose to do that surgery, some people don't. Mm-hmm. Um,
[00:35:51] Casey O'Roarty: yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.
[00:36:02] You. So it's something that I really appreciate. I love these letters to Jake, first of all, and the glimpse. Thank you. Just inside of the messiness of the experience, which parenting is so messy, just in general, and I think it's really highlighted. You're such a good writer. So then you have these interviews kind of sprinkled throughout the book.
[00:36:24] I'd love to know. What did you learn, and there's probably, it's probably a long answer, but maybe a couple things that you learned through those interviews that surprised you and maybe mm-hmm. Like highlighting. You know, who in particular was a really useful conversation for you?
[00:36:42] Cristina Olivetti: Oh gosh. I think, you know, one, I, I, I did actually two interviews about, um, the gender dysphoria diagnosis.
[00:36:51] Only one is included in the book, but I interviewed more than one person about gender dysphoria as a diagnosis as it appears in the. You know, DSM manual of like psychological diagnoses and one thing that surprised me was how dissatisfied even the professionals were with this diagnosis. So we live in a, in a world where you need a diagnosis to get your healthcare.
[00:37:14] Mm-hmm. For me, that diagnosis had like a lot of assumptions about, you know, it, it had criteria like. Likes to wear clothes of the opposite gender, or, you know, likes to play with kids of the opposite gender. Like there were all these things that, to me, just didn't seem like a actual thing, and the professionals agreed, and we all sort of zeroed in on the fact that there's.
[00:37:40] Something not in that diagnosis, that innate feeling of being incongruent. Mm-hmm. Which is very hard to describe, um, especially for people who haven't felt gender incongruence. But I think, uh, that word incongruence is a word that came up when I was talking to these professionals. That was a surprise because I felt like it was a better description of what I saw in my kiddo than the actual diagnosis was.
[00:38:05] Yeah. So I think the idea that like this major tool we have, which is diagnosing the problem, it's kind of funky and like it definitely captures kids who are having a stressful experience because of their gender, but I don't think it does a super job of. Um, describing what gender incongruence actually feels like on the inside.
[00:38:29] Yeah. It describes some of the aspects you see on the outside when someone's experiencing gender disc congruence, but there's not enough of the trans voice in that definition, I think, to really like. Bring it into tight focus. You get kind of like a, you can get your arms around what you see happening, but you really need to listen to transgender people talk about their experience of incongruence to really get the inner feeling.
[00:38:55] I think that was a surprise to me.
[00:38:57] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:38:58] Cristina Olivetti: That sort of the definition felt so much the definition of gender dysphoria felt so much from the outside in. Yeah. Whereas like my confidence in my kid and my confidence in going through the transition process with my kid came from hearing people talk about it from the inside out.
[00:39:13] Yeah.
[00:39:13] Casey O'Roarty: Well, and it feels like talking about gender dysphoria, like it's a mental health problem, right? Feels dismissive of what is actually occurring for the person.
[00:39:28] Cristina Olivetti: Absolutely. And what I would say is that there, there's so many reasons for people to have mental health perturbations if they're feeling gender and congruence.
[00:39:37] Sure. Because it's socially unacceptable For sure. And so, you know, I think one of the reasons the book is called about Bliss is that gender affirmation is actually really. It feels really great. Yeah, so like, so there's a way of like treating gender and saying, yeah, I have gender dysphoria, which is just dissonant with the experience, right?
[00:39:59] It's like, well, no, you treat people like in the way that they're, like if someone tells you who they are and you believe them, everybody's happy.
[00:40:08] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:40:08] Cristina Olivetti: Yeah. Like. Someone tells you who they are and you believe them. There's a feeling of peace, harmony, joy. That's just innate there. Exactly. Like as a, you know, gender dysphoria came into our vocabulary in like 2014, 2013, something like that, and it was supposed to be.
[00:40:26] Veering away from gender identity disorder. Mm-hmm. Which was like a mental health disorder. We still haven't quite, yeah, not quite there yet. I like
[00:40:34] Casey O'Roarty: the incongruent language. That makes sense. Because, you know, being in alignment, whatever that means to you, whether it's gender or sexuality, or. Just way of being in the world.
[00:40:46] Exactly. Yeah. That makes sense. Like
[00:40:48] Cristina Olivetti: we should all be going after alignment. Yeah. And if it's like a way to help people get, like aligned on something as fundamental as their gender identity, yeah. We should do it because it brings people a lot of peace. Yeah.
[00:40:58] Casey O'Roarty: Yes. Yes. And the current climate right now, and you've, you've mentioned it a few times.
[00:41:05] It just feels so aggressive towards transgender and non-binary people. And my mama Heart just feels for your mama heart and for all the parental hearts out there who are looking after their wellbeing of their kiddos, how are you taking care of yourself and what is the work of allyship
[00:41:24] Cristina Olivetti: for you? Oh my gosh, that's such a great question.
[00:41:27] Thank you for asking that question. I mean, I think first of all. One of the ways I take care of myself is to continually remind myself that I believe most Americans are behind the transgender community. I think most people in the US want people to live in peace and are not paying so much attention to other people that they care a lot.
[00:41:52] I think, you know, I just remind myself that the administration uses this topic. To create division. Mm-hmm. And so I try to keep in my heart a sense that, and I love this quote from Jenny Finney Boylan, who's like a very famous transgender writer. Love will prevail.
[00:42:10] Casey O'Roarty: Mm. Love
[00:42:10] Cristina Olivetti: will prevail, love will prevail.
[00:42:12] And so I just tell myself that all the time, and I actually believe it. I believe it, like my personal experience has shown me. More people are with us than against us. Confused on some issues, confused about sports, whatever, you know. But the truth is, is those problems are so small. I mean, there's fewer than 10 trans athletes in 510,000 competing at the college level.
[00:42:38] Yeah, it's a small problem. Yeah. It's not, it's not what we should have been discussing as an entire country on the first day of a presidential administration. Right? Right. It's a distraction that's meant to divide us. And so I think, you know, what I would ask my fellow citizens is to remember, this is a very small portion of your fellow citizenship.
[00:42:56] You know, trans people make up less than 2%. Of the United States, less than 2%. This is a very, very small, small, small group of people. So like, can we all agree that like we shouldn't be making such a big deal about this? Like we should all be getting on with our lives and let the people who are actually having the experience manage the experience.
[00:43:16] Mm-hmm. I mean, I think that's one thing that I really, really want allies to keep remembering is like, this is not just an intellectual exercise. These are real lives, and it's a real small group of people. Yeah. And so the job of allyship is to really push back on this topic being used as a divider of the country.
[00:43:36] Yeah. And so one of, a couple of the things that I really like to ask allies to do is just to wear their pride pins, especially when they're traveling. Mm. Traveling is sort of rapidly becoming more difficult for trans people. I don't know if listeners know, but Jake has had a male passport for many years now, but we need to renew it in December.
[00:43:57] And so, you know, in December that will come back with a female gender marker unless things change.
[00:44:03] Casey O'Roarty: Wow.
[00:44:03] Cristina Olivetti: And so pretty soon, if Jake is gonna go to Canada or whatever he or England or outta the country, he's going to be put into a position that. Makes 'em very vulnerable in the airport. So airports especially are a place where our transgender community is vulnerable.
[00:44:21] And so to just realize that when you're in an airport, there are people who are having a terrifying time. And just to keep your eyes and ears open and like wear the pride pin. And it's kind of, yeah, give a sense that like, we've got your back here because we think that you should be able to travel places, you know?
[00:44:39] And I think it's being, you know. I think being an ally is also just not being confused about the many ways that the administration is trying to upend. The way law and order has worked in the country. You know, I mean, I don't wanna be someone who like is overreactive, but I think we need to keep calling a spade a spade.
[00:45:04] And it's like if the courts are saying You need to do something, you need to do it. And like I. The administration doesn't follow what the courts do. We're in like a new territory. Mm-hmm. And so I don't think that everyone has to get, believe me, as many people as wanna come out, hug trans kids in pride parades and stuff.
[00:45:21] Like Absolutely. I will talk to you all day long. I will send you free mom hug T-shirts, like yes, all the hugs, all the pride pins, all of that. And also the big story here is we need to be pushing back on an administration that's doing many things all at one time to confuse us and divide us against one another.
[00:45:40] Yeah. And so the transgender issue is one of many issues that's being used to divide the country. So like, just try to stay clear sighted and you know. Congress and the courts aren't responsible for checking a presidency that's not following the rules. Yeah. That's like the best thing an ally can remember, like the Congress and the courts check the president and like when that's not happening, we all need to be out in the streets.
[00:46:05] Yeah. For all the reasons. For sure. Not just the trans reasons. For sure.
[00:46:08] Casey O'Roarty: For sure. Thank you for that. I mentioned in your bio and I just quickly wanna ask you a little bit more about it. But also I wanna ask you about free Mom Hugs t-shirts. Maybe I'll ask you at that after the show. Oh yeah. Maybe we can talk free mom hugs.
[00:46:24] Cristina Olivetti: For sure. They're so cute. Yes.
[00:46:26] Casey O'Roarty: What is, what about this workshop that you lead, navigating gender in the new world? Where are you doing that? And is that something that's like a public workshop? How do you, what is that? For
[00:46:36] Cristina Olivetti: sure. So, so I, um, so it's a workshop that's very much about what we were talking about today.
[00:46:42] Um, I do a workshop, so I do it in a couple ways. One is I do it for schools, businesses. That's mostly where I do it. Schools and businesses. I've done it at local public schools. I've done it at Stanford. I. Just explaining what I explained to you about what is gender transition, all that stuff. I also do that workshop for um, families who are raising trans kids who wanna do a family and friends.
[00:47:07] Gender education sort of fireside chat. Yes. So we can do a zoom call and you know, you can have your best friends and your mom and dad and other family members come and like learn from a neutral third party who can answer the hard questions and give some background and kind of advocate. Gently advocate for the family, but really educate people.
[00:47:28] One of the things that I really, and I'm a coach also, so I coach families RAI raising awesome gender creative kids.
[00:47:35] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm.
[00:47:36] Cristina Olivetti: One-on-one. And one of the things that I talk with families about is really, you know, as you send your kid out into the world, helping the kid understand how to create like circles of support, even if you're going stealth at a school, you're still gonna have a circle of adults.
[00:47:51] Who maybe are
[00:47:52] Casey O'Roarty: in the now and supporting you.
[00:47:53] Cristina Olivetti: Yeah. And so I like to help families call in their like allies. Like say, please, you know, like you're such a good friend. I would love to invite you and closer to our family, you know, Jake's gonna be at this school. And you know, there's two families there that know his gender history.
[00:48:12] I just would love to tell you more about this topic, share with you some education so that like in case you hear the other moms talking, like maybe you could have some good explanations for them. Mm-hmm. So I really am a fan of that approach and I think it's one of the most effective approaches in terms of educating allies because we all care more when we know something.
[00:48:32] Yeah, exactly. And so. The more that I can help families who have a trans child teach other families about these issues, about gender creativity, the better. And like that's really why I wrote the book, is to be out there supporting families who are going through this process, especially in this difficult time.
[00:48:51] Where trans families need as much support as they can get. 'cause it's just a pretty hard time. Yeah. And we need other families out there being like, no, no, no. I support them. This is great for their kid. This is why I think that's true.
[00:49:01] Casey O'Roarty: I'm so glad you're doing this work. I have so many ideas. I'm so excited to continue to be in relationship with you and have you in my network as well.
[00:49:09] Me too. This is
[00:49:10] Cristina Olivetti: so fun. And I'm, you know, I'm really, I'm really hopeful for trans kids. The word that I keep in the back of my head is. Slingshot, you know, I mean, minority communities of all kinds have gone through hard times and have, you know, seen better futures, and I really believe, I, I like to think that we're in the hardest part of that slingshot move.
[00:49:32] We're like pulling back before we move
[00:49:34] Casey O'Roarty: forward. Yeah. Yeah. So I always ask my guests in the context of what we've talked about, what does joyful courage mean to you?
[00:49:44] Cristina Olivetti: Oh my gosh. Um, joyful courage for me means, uh, not letting the news get me down. Yeah. It means continuing to celebrate the choices that we have made as a family and yeah, just like really trying to show that it's more fun to be free than to be oppressed.
[00:50:04] Yeah. Oh, I love that. Thank you. And to like have a good time doing it. And the other thing that joyful courage means to me is actually getting out and. Talking with people like you, meeting families across the country. One of the reasons I'm involved in Free Mom Hugs is because it's an organization that's in the center of the country.
[00:50:20] You and I are from coasts. Mm-hmm. Free Mom. Hugs is out of Oklahoma City, and I wanted to meet parents who were in different kinds of states. Yeah. Um, raising their trans kids, and that is. So fun for me and so inspiring and I've really learned a lot by spending time in Oklahoma and other parts of the country that I'd never been to before.
[00:50:42] Awesome. I love to learn more about the country.
[00:50:44] Casey O'Roarty: Where can people find you and follow your work,
[00:50:47] Cristina Olivetti: Christina? Sure. So there's two places. Uh, christina oti.com, and my name is spelled C-R-I-S-T-I-N-A, and then my last name is OLI. V-E-T-T-I. So that's christina ti.com and from there you can get to my substack or you can buy my book.
[00:51:05] Beautiful. Great. Back to my Substack and buy my book. That would be amazing. Yes.
[00:51:07] Casey O'Roarty: Perfect. I'll make sure those links are in the show notes. Thank you so much for spending time with me today.
[00:51:12] Cristina Olivetti: Oh my gosh, this was so fun. I really enjoyed it. Thank you for having me.
[00:51:20] Casey O'Roarty: Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to my  Sproutable partners, Julietta and Alanna. Thank you Danielle, for supporting with the show notes as well as Chris Mann and the team at PodShaper for all the support with getting the show out there and making it sound good. As I mentioned, sharing is caring. If you're willing to pass on this episode to others or take a few minutes to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, it helps other parents find this useful content.
[00:51:48] Be sure to check out what we have going on for parents. Of kids of all ages and sign up for our newsletter to stay connected at be sproutable.com. I see you doing all the things. I believe in you. See you next time.