The Joy Tuck Club
A podcast that celebrates the diversity and beauty of transgender identities and expressions.
How well do you truly understand the vibrant spectrum of transgender identities? Get ready to challenge and expand your perspectives as we share personal stories, debunk myths, share news, and provide helpful insights, advice on transitioning, and tips on being a better ally.
The Joy Tuck Club
Transpiration Special: Meja Foss's Race Against Time
Meeting Meja
Have you ever given much thought to the complex and challenging journey that comes with transitioning? What if you were not just transitioning, but doing so rapidly and globally? Meet our extraordinary guest Meja Foss, a trans woman who decided to take charge of her destiny, racing against time and borders to transition medically and surgically. A successful serial entrepreneur, Meja's journey took her from realizing her need to transition to making it a reality, showcasing her incredible resilience amidst a challenging health care system and the emotional strain of waiting for hormone replacement therapy.
Venturing through the twists and turns of her journey, Meja opens up about her gender-affirming surgeries in Seoul and Istanbul, highlighting the importance of staying longer than recommended post-surgery to prevent complications. She talks candidly about the unexpected side effects she experienced and her decision to embrace the results rather than chasing perfection. Meja also shares the emotional and psychological impacts of these procedures, particularly how her bottom surgery eased her dysphoria.
As we delve further into Meja's life, we explore her ongoing journey as a trans woman, navigating everything from the challenges of passing to contemplating the concept of a magic button to become cis. But Meja's story doesn't end with her transition - she's also a successful woman, wife, and mother. Her story is a testament to the resilience and determination of the trans community, making this episode a must-listen for anyone seeking insight into their experiences. Join us as we explore Meja's inspiring journey, and hear the invaluable advice she has to offer to other trans individuals.
You can connect with Meja online. Just click here: linktr.ee/mejafoss.
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Visit The Joy Tuck Club online at redandfreckles.com for transcripts, commentary, community, news, and much, much more.
Meanwhile, you can always find red+freckles (Rachel & Phoebe) on
Twitter/X: @twodamptrans
Instagram: @twodamptrans
and
Bluesky: @twodamptrans.bsky.social
The Joy Tuck Club is written, produced, and edited by red+freckles, of Two Damp Trans Ltd, UK.
Hey Red, are you sure you're not too tired? You've been at work all day.
Rachel:No, I'm fine, I'm not too tired, hey. But speaking of work, I think I might have got us two new listeners today.
Phoebe:You mean your current work? Hmm.
Rachel:I'm going to start the episode.
Phoebe:Hello and welcome to the first ever Joy Tuck Club Transpiration Special. I'm Phoebe and with me is my co-host, the perennially gorgeous Rachel. Hi we are also known as Red and Freckles and are the team behind two damp trans. Rachel, before we introduce our guests, would you mind sharing with our audience exactly what a transpiration is?
Rachel:Sure, a transpiration is literally what it sounds like it's an inspirational trans person. So it's that simple. And our first ever is Meja Foss, an absolutely fascinating trans woman who shares an incredible story of, as she describes it, a speedrun transition, both medically and surgically. Maya was kind enough to really open up to us, speaking for the first time publicly about all aspects of her journey.
Phoebe:Unless any of us be defined by our transness and nothing else. Maya is also a serial entrepreneur and creator, who started her career in the video games industry before founding her own software development companies. She joins us from Norway, where she lives on a farm with her family and keeps her passion burning to help foster positive representation of the LGBTQ community.
Rachel:That sounds exactly like a game show intro.
Phoebe:Oh God it does. Let's just roll the interview and let her speak for herself. Maya Foss, welcome to the Joy Tuck Club podcast.
Meja:Hello, thank you for having me.
Phoebe:You are actually. Oh, it's so good to have you here. You are also our first ever interview.
Meja:I know I'm honored. It's such a privilege.
Phoebe:It's important too, because one of the points of our podcast is to find and talk with, and gain illumination from, transpirations, and you're definitely a transpiration.
Meja:Oh, thank you.
Phoebe:A tiny little bit of background. I met Maya when I was driving, somewhat aimlessly, from the southern end to the northern end of Norway. We made it quite to the top, we connected and we spent a lovely day with your family.
Meja:Yeah, it was really nice. We spent a family day among the animals cows and the pigs and the sheep, yeah, and the llamas. It was a farmer's kind of a farm day for the whole family. Lots of people. That was a really sunny day and we basically just talked the whole day. We just talked.
Phoebe:Yeah, and you inspired me to look into FFS facial feminization surgery right away.
Meja:Yeah, yeah, because I'd had so obviously I'd had FFS the previous November, so this was in the summer, and then I'd had the previous, I'd had my FFS facial team in November on, you know, 2021. And so I was kind of, I was looking okay, the swelling had mostly gone down, I think, and I was feeling pretty good about myself, although wait a minute, oh, yes, I'd now just come back from. Hey, shall we just talk about all my surgeries? Because that's like, well, let's just get that out of the way, because that's probably so.
Meja:Some people think I've speed run my transition. I don't know if that's how I would put it personally, but it's kind of an interesting way of putting it. I guess I have done a lot in the last two and a half years, which is basically when I hit the wall and realized I had to transition. I said I sometimes mistakenly say I decided to transition. That's not how you say. It's because I didn't decide. It was like okay, this is what I have to do, and that was Easter 2021. So I managed to get on HRT fairly quickly relative to some people who have to wait for ages for that. I managed to get on HRT in about a month and a half. It was the longest month and a half of my life, honestly, because I was absolutely. You know, once I crossed that threshold, I realized that I was. I had to just go for it and do it properly.
Rachel:So was that in Norway.
Meja:This was in Norway.
Rachel:What's the process in Norway?
Meja:So the process, the official process in Norway, success just like. Oh, can I swear?
Rachel:Yeah, no, you can't.
Meja:Right, because that wasn't a big one, but yeah, but it's accurate. So the official process I would have been waiting probably about 18 months at least, and I would have had to be living full time as a woman as well, otherwise they wouldn't have seen me. So a bunch of stuff, yeah, bunch of nonsense, kind of gatekeep-y stuff that we all have to kind of jump through, right, and it's inhumane. You know, trying to make people do already real life experience for a year or more whilst giving them absolutely no help whatsoever is just cruel. So I decided not to do the official process.
Meja:You know, this was the. You know, once I realized that this is something I had to do, I decided I was also going to do it on my own terms, which was kind of a breakthrough moment for me. It's like, hey, I'm going to do this, but I'm going to do it my way, you know, as a fact, and so I'd saved up my money. That's the thing I'd done. I'd saved up my money and once I just, you know, once I was in this position of going for it I was I decided, okay, I'm going to basically use this money to fund my transition, because this is the best thing I could possibly do for myself. This is my life's present to myself. It's the biggest birthday gift I'll ever give myself and it'll last two and a half years.
Meja:So I I went private. I found someone who was basically the only private certainly well known private practitioner of trans health care in Norway, a non binary person called as Benester Pirelli, benestat who's who's reasonably well known in Norway actually, and they are well, they are non binary, they are. They were a practicing doctor until they got the license revoked by the Norwegian authorities because they were helping trans people. So that's quite that's an ongoing.
Meja:That's an ongoing legal case now in Norway. It's, you know, it's. There's a lot of outrage associated with that, but I was lucky enough to get to see them and and I had, basically I had to go down south, I had to go down, I had to travel down and meet them in person and, after a really nice little chat, he, they, were like um, yeah, you know your trans. There's no question. Here's a prescription which is how it should be. Of course, that's how it should be Because I'm, you know, I was, I was well at the time, I was, I was a 45 year old adult with fully functioning mental capacity. And if I, if I say that I'm trans, then I think it's really up to you to believe me and up to the health authorities to believe me, as opposed to you know, saying, okay, well, you might be trans, but we're going to make you wait 18 months and go through six interviews and, you know, give you all these ecologist evaluations and stuff. No, don't, why are you doing this? I am trans and this is what I need. I know what I need. I need HRT and I need it now. So that's so, that's the anyway. That's what I did. That was obviously that was great, that I could do that again. Quite lucky. Not everyone can do that. A lot of people do have to go through the system. I'm now actually I mean I did it in parallel, so I'm now in the system as well I've actually gone through the entire system. I've done the whole Rick's Hospital system. Rick's Hospital are not the place in Oslo where you have to go through to, you know, to get the trans health care through the state. It's the only trans, it's the only gender identity clinic in the entirety of Norway, and Norway is quite a big country. It's got a few million people and it's the only one. That's a bit ridiculous, but anyway, yes, so that was so. That was my HRT. I might get in about a month and a half.
Meja:From that point on, I decided that the one thing that I really absolutely desperately needed to be able to start living full time as a woman because, again, because I was on HRT privately I didn't have to do the RLE, I didn't have to do the real life experience this was me doing it on my own terms and I was under no illusions that I was going to be able to pass as a woman because I had a very manly face and people kept telling me this. People kept saying, oh, you've got such a manly face, and they were, and they thought they were being kind, and every time they said it, I just died a little bit inside. So so I you know, so I knew, I knew the situation and I and I wanted to be able to. You know, I wanted to be able to walk down the street without people gawping at me, basically, and thinking, oh my God, what the hell is that freak doing in a dress, which is what people will think, isn't it?
Meja:So I got an appointment with facial team in Marbella and basically six months later, I guess in November, I was having my entire head peeled off and I was like, oh my God, my skin.
Rachel:So that was your first surgery, that was my first.
Meja:That was a big one.
Rachel:Yeah.
Meja:And it was, and it was a really super important one, right? Because from that point on, once the swelling went down, I mean, actually, you know, just as soon as they unwrapped the bandages, as soon as they took off the nose bandage, I saw myself for the first time in so many years, you know, and I and I recognize myself. And after being, after living almost an entire life and this was the I was at the ripe old age of 45, after living an entire life of looking at myself in the mirror and and just being confused and just looking at it and thinking what the hell, how is that me? This doesn't make any sense.
Meja:And then, once I saw myself, I mean I was still very swollen, I was still sore and bruised and all this kind of stuff. Wow, takes at least six to nine months maybe for the swelling to probably go down. But even in these early days, I saw myself and I recognize myself because I saw myself as I was pre-pubility, you know, before testosterone decided to do a number on my face and it was a revelation and and, and you know I was I was so happy, I was so happy for those, you know, I was just living on cloud nine. For those first couple of months, I took about a thousand selfies. Well, you know which which is, and that's continued.
Rachel:But that's an important part of transition, I think, because once you start seeing yourself and start taking the selfies, it's a real confidence booster.
Meja:It is because I had to keep reminding myself, I had to keep reinforcing to myself this is how I look now and this is how people see me, and and I think that selfies and looking at yourself in a mirror and all this kind of stuff, that this is this is important. People think it's just a vanity project, and actually it's. It's, as a you know, trying to reprogram our brain so that we are, we understand that this is how we look now and this is this is how we interact with the world, and it just feels good because it's like that's. I guess that's how cis people see themselves in the mirror. They just see themselves in the mirror and think, yep, that's me, Everything is good, Everything is correct. I mean, of course they'll see themselves and say, oh, my nose is a little bit too big, oh, I wish my eyes weren't so small, I wish I had a bigger mouth or whatever. Right, and of course everyone does that, but it's, it's, it's. There's a market difference between being being kind of nitpicking on your face and then also seeing a complete stranger in the mirror. Yeah, these are two very different things. So, yeah, so that. So that fixed that problem. I was very happy to say the next.
Meja:The next issue I had was my voice, because my voice again didn't pass and and I tried voice training and it was. I had very limited success with it Basically is what I can say with that and also very limited opportunity to actually practice as well, because I, yeah, I have family and job and limited time. I'm a I'm a very busy lady and so, anyway, I decided to book myself into a place called Medical Voice Center in Hamburg, which the surgeon is called Dr Hess, and he does a very good job. I think there's a lot of demonstration results, videos on his website and I was impressed and I thought, well, that's what I want as well, because there's a mismatch my face starts to is kind of looking feminine.
Meja:I'm sort of passing, but there was various interactions that kind of. They made me laugh. You know, I was kind of, I thought they were kind of funny, but at the same time they really kind of put into perspective what I actually needed to do, because there was this mismatch between my face and my voice. I remember one time I was, I guess I was at the supermarket paying for my food. She asked if I wanted a bag. This was in Norwegian and I said, yes, can I have a bag please? And she just did a massive double take. She was like. She was like, it was like I'd just hit her with a hammer.
Rachel:You're preaching to the choir. My voice is my main source of mind dysphoria, sure Doing. His podcast is a big thing for me.
Meja:Yeah, yeah. But also, I mean, there's a huge wide range of feminine voices and I've heard the government and, I think, only cis people really. You know, people are really very set in the ways and the only thing that's too stendous and very binary, and all these guys, they are obsessed with this idea that you should have a feminine voice if you're a woman. But actually you find it when you start looking around, you find that a lot of women have deep voices, a lot of women have posky voices and it's you know. And also, when you're trans, as a trans woman, as a trans person, as a gender non-compliant person, whatever you're on the spectrum, and all the visual cues or all the just social cues say I'm a woman, and then you hear the voice. It doesn't override anything, you still treat the person as a woman. Yeah, and a lot of people, a lot of cis people specifically, they can't do that and they need to learn to do that.
Rachel:Yeah, okay. So after the voice, what came next?
Meja:After the voice was the hips, because I was as, again, you probably can relate. Probably most trans women can relate. You know, we do tend to be sort of like straight up and straight down as far as our body shape goes, and it is a source of this for a lot of people. Some trans women use padding in the hips. I know that I did for quite a long time and that really made me feel better about my shape, you know.
Rachel:I've got some hips in a box in the bedroom.
Meja:There you go, your hips in a box. I'm sure you're not alone. I've still got mine somewhere. But yeah, I heard about a surgery that was fairly new called the pelvic plastic, and the surgeon was actually. I was sort of surprised that they were actually doing it, because I thought it was just very experimental and it wasn't really ready to go yet. But when I found out that they were actually operating successfully on a bunch of women there was loads of examples and things it's spaced out of Seoul, south Korea. The clinic's called Onside Barrow Chuk Hospital. I'm afraid I can't remember the name of the surgeon, but it's yeah, so the surgery is called the pelvic plastic. I booked myself in for it.
Meja:This was going to be a big one, but I was very excited about it because I wanted that shape. I wanted wider hips, hips that would look more like cis women's hips, because cis women obviously, when they go through this, this female puberty, their hips widen. We don't get that, so I wanted it. Obviously, the surgery doesn't quite do that for me, but what it did is they attached titanium implants. They screw them using titanium screws. It's all titanium. It's very space-age and mostly I'm mostly a robot and they attach them to the iliac crests of the hips on either side, which is the highest point of the hips. What it does? It does two things, obviously it widens your pelvis, giving you more of an hourglass shape. It also tends to raise the hips as well and shorten the waist, so that your upper body looks a little shorter, which again is a good thing for trans women.
Meja:And so I went to self-career in May 2022. So that was last year. Unfortunately, it didn't go super well. The surgery was fine, but fairly soon after I got back to Norway, I realised that I had to go to the hospital to realise something was wrong One of my Because they also put some silicone packs in there to kind of smooth out the shape and my right one had burst and ruptured.
Meja:So after quite a difficult summer having to deal with this and failing, I went back to self-career for a revision. They took everything out, put all new stuff back in. Actually, I ended up with a better result. They put bigger stuff in because my skin had kind of stretched and the cavities had kind of opened up and stretched so that they could make me wider. So in the end it's kind of fortuitous. I didn't have to pay for it, except for the flights and that. But yeah, I was so happy because, after a summer of struggling to be mobile with this dodgy hip, a week after the surgery I was just walking around self-career. I was just walking around Seoul. I was doing tens of kilometres and I was loving it, so that was great. I saw a skyscraper on the horizon and thought you know what, I'm going to walk to that. Three hours later, I'm going to walk to that you were a trial-balancer.
Rachel:Weren't you the first Western woman to have this procedure?
Meja:That's right, I was actually. Obviously I didn't sign up for that, but they told me two weeks before the surgery. Oh, by the way, we've never actually operated otherwise to a woman before. You're the first Western and you're also the largest one we've ever operated, because it was lovely. Most of the people they operated on were, firstly, there was cis and they were from you know, they were from that region, so they were from self-career or China or Thailand and whatever, and so they were generally smaller because a lot of the girls they were just like, basically just beautiful little dolls.
Rachel:So most of the women they operated on was cis. So you're saying that cis women have a problem with the type of their bodies as well?
Meja:Yeah, it's weird, isn't it? It's almost like they need, like, gender affirming surgery too in order to feel happy about themselves. Makes you think, doesn't it? But yeah, no, so a lot of, yeah, a lot of them wanted you know more, they wanted wider purposes and, of course, they did do trans women as well. But I think that, yeah, I think the majority of the surgeries so far, certainly from the examples based on the website probably are from cis women who just wanted wider hips. But anyway, yeah, I'm really happy with the results. Super result, that's like that's a big one as well. So then, what did I do? Oh, yeah, did it with you, Phoebe. The next one was with you. We went to. We went to Istanbul.
Rachel:My most, my most, that was the hashtag.
Meja:That was a classic. Yeah, we went to Istanbul in October last year. Phoebe was very kindly accompanied me.
Rachel:It was quite easy. You stalled away from me, wasn't it? I had my birthday. It was. I was away for my birthday.
Meja:I think we sort of arranged it before, even before you met, yeah, probably. Anyway, we had a fun time in Istanbul. I mean, the surgery was hard actually, it was one of the hardest surgeries, especially when I woke up. Remember, when I woke up and I was like shivering I still remember it really well and I got the video, yeah, and I was just kind of I think they cooled me down for the surgery or something. But I just got into, I just kind of my core temperature dropped below an important number. I was suffering from basically extreme hypothermia. So I got in, I was, I was pushing, I was carried into the bed after the surgery. I was waking up and I just started shaking and I was shaking the entire room. It was so violent that I've never I've never experienced anything like it.
Meja:They were trying to heat me up and then I started throwing up all over the place.
Rachel:So what kind of implants did you have? Did you go over muscle under muscle? So it's under muscle under muscle tear drop shapes.
Meja:I'm very happy with the shape, really happy with the aesthetic result. Unfortunately, I do believe the surgeon removed the stitches too early and the minimum length of time to stay was probably too short. Normally they use dissolvable stitches for these kinds of things, but this guy didn't. So my still have an open wound underneath my left breast. It's still there. This is like almost a year later and so I have to dress it every day. It's not infected, it's never been infected. It's just open, open to the elements. It's getting smaller. So every you know, I just look at it and I look, I've taken photographs and I can see that it's just gradually, gradually, gradually getting smaller. But I mean, you know it's, it's.
Meja:There's always risks. There are always risks to surgeries, even breast augmentation, which you would think would be fairly safe, fairly standard. I don't know any woman who's been unlucky enough as me that this has happened to. But I just deal with it. I deal with it and I most of the time it doesn't bother me and most of the time you can't tell. You know, I mean I think I've got pretty good tension, but it's, it's. Hopefully one day it's gonna actually close, the room's gonna close. It's gonna be nice.
Rachel:So you're the only other woman I know that has had undermus or same as I have. How was the recovery? Did you get those horrible chest spasms?
Meja:No, I didn't. As far as the recovery, apart from that initial cup of hours from hell after coming out of general, it was okay. I mean, you know I'm used to pain and suffering by now, so you know it was like it was standard. It wasn't as bad as I've ever felt. You know, after that initial part and you know, I guess three or four days later I was kind of walking around very slowly and I was fine. I also got a facelift as well, I should mention, because normally a BA is quite a quick operation. But I actually threw in a couple of other things because it was Istanbul and it was all kind of bargain basement prices.
Rachel:Yeah.
Meja:And actually I was really, again, really happy with the facelift. It knocked a good few years off my face, I'm very happy to say, but it was also. It's also kind of an interesting because it's again it's sort of not just for vanity, it's. I do kind of think of it as a second FFS. When you have your initial FFS, the one I had in Facial Team, they file away a lot of the bone under the jaw right, and so all this bone is gone, but they don't do anything with the skin. So you've still got the same amount of skin that you used to have and what it often leaves you especially if you're unless you're young and got extremely elastic skin which just kind of bounces straight back into place.
Meja:I'm not lucky enough to have any of those things. It means that you kind of look a bit saggy under the jaw, you got jowls and you kind of just, yeah, you know, you just look a bit saggy. So what a lot of women do is they go for a facelift to just kind of get rid of that excess skin. And yeah, I was really really happy with the result. I did a few of the little things, but those were the main things.
Rachel:So how did Turkey compare for you said it's like a bargain bargain-based with prices. How did you feel like the treatment out there and the aftercare and everything compared to your previous surgeries?
Meja:I think probably you get, you pay your money and you take your choice, don't you? I suspect that I would have had a maybe a slightly easier experience and potentially a better you know less of a complication perhaps, if I'd have gone somewhere and spent a lot more money, if I'd have gone to, perhaps, ocean Clinic down in Marbella. They do, they do BAs and they know all about trans women as well. I'm not sure that the surgeon had much experience with trans women and I'm not sure he had much experience with using the large size implants that I needed in order to balance out my relative shapes. So that's possibly why we've got complications.
Meja:So, yeah, I'm not sure what to do about it other than just to wait and see if it closes. But I am going to talk to, I'm going to mention this to my GP now, because my GP has been saying look, don't worry, it's going to close. And here we are, 10 months later and I'm like you said it was going to close. We tried your way. Can we try my way now? Can you just, can you just suture it please now?
Phoebe:Yeah.
Meja:It is what I've been asking for for ages.
Phoebe:Lord, it's just a bunch of stitches.
Meja:I know I'll try again, but anyway, that was my penultimate surgery, the last surgery I had. So this is the. How many are we up to? You know six. This is going to be the sixth, isn't it? Yeah, it's ridiculous. This is my last one, and I've just come back from Thailand and I've just had SRS in Thailand. So I'm sitting on this cushion. I'm sitting on a cushion with a hole in it.
Phoebe:And guess hemorrhoids.
Meja:Not quite front hemorrhoids. Now it's still quite sore and sensitive and delicate. It's been two months, actually. It's going to be two months in two days, I think.
Rachel:Wow, has it been long enough quickly?
Meja:I can't believe it's already two days. Yeah, I was in Thailand for a little while. I wanted to. I didn't want to make the same mistakes that I'd made in the last two surgeries, where I just kind of I stayed for the recommended length of time and then I went home and then I had complications and I was like right, I'm not going to do that again, I'm going to stay for longer than they recommend. So I stayed for almost two months in Thailand and just to make sure that everything was going to be okay, you know, just to make sure that any complications were going to be caught while I was there and they could fix it and revise it right there. And of course, you know you take an umbrella with you and it doesn't rain, right?
Meja:So yeah everyone was fine, and if, but if. But it's you know, but that's okay Cause if, if I hadn't, if I hadn't done that, then, yes, my vagina would probably fall now.
Phoebe:So glad that didn't happen.
Meja:I'm glad that didn't happen all this time yet, but I'm hopefully it's, it's not going to happen. As far as the result goes, it's, it's amazing. So I went to the soup porn clinic which is it's not in Bangkok, it's kind of around the coast to the southeast in a town called Chonburi, and it's, it's quite amazing. It's like a trans haven again, you know, like facial team when you're in facial team and there's lots of trans girls just walking around the streets and you can go make friends with them and socialize and stuff.
Meja:It's a bit like that, except except double, it's twice as much. So you can really we're all. We're all in the same hotel and it's quite a big hotel and we literally take up entire floors of this hotel. So it's, it's, it's trans central. You can just hang out with other trans girls breakfast, go to the rooms, imbibe the local cuisine. Thailand's quite good because they don't regulate marijuana. It's not Mary. It's not regularly part of the pain regime that we were part of, the, you know, dealing with that, dealing with the pain or whatever. A lot of girls kind of self medicating. Now we go, it works pretty well, I got to say killer.
Meja:It is absolute. The thing is, it absolutely is as well, isn't it? So I had a. I mean I had. It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times, you know, because I was surrounded by all these amazing trans women, were all. We're all in the same boat. We're all kind of recovering either from primary surgery or from revisions. A lot of girls come back for revisions because they want that perfect pussy. I don't know if I will. Honestly, I'm not sure I'll go back, unless, unless I, unless, once it's recovered, I kind of just think it looks like like what the hell's that? What have I done Then? I think I'm going to be fine because there's a whole range of, like a lot of girls, like they just want the perfect pussy. They've seen, you know, they've got obsessed with this kind of idea of this just like perfect, cute little thing, and I'm like, yeah, that's cool. But you know what? I've seen? An awful I've seen. I've seen a lot of pussies in my life and none of them are perfect. It's fine.
Phoebe:No, it's true.
Meja:It's like the imperfections almost make it more authentic, yeah, but anyway, yeah, no, it was really hard. I got, I got addicted to drugs. I got addicted to opiates, without realizing it. I was on the tramadol and I was using it for pain relief. I was following the recommended guidelines for tramadol and I was like this is this is fine to you know, two tablets in the morning, two tablets in the evening, and I'm you know, it's really helping me with the pain. Good, good, good.
Meja:And then I went to the clinic for a different pain medication, gabapentin, for the nerve pain which was starting to kind of flare up, and I was like, okay, brilliant, I'll take this and I'll just. I'll just take this instead of the tramadol, because I should point out that the communication it's I mean, it's a language barrier thing, right. So the communication is not always that good and it's not consistent between the patients and the clinic. You sort of have to, I mean, you're sort of on your own to a certain extent. And they handed out these tramadol it's like candy, you know, they were just giving it. I was like I've run out of tramadol and they're okay, we'll give you twice as much. I was like fine, so my body had become completely dependent on this.
Meja:I, when I switched my pain medication that night, I was shaking and just aching and just sweating in bed, no sleep whatsoever. The next morning I was, I was done, I had no energy. I, when I got out of the bed in order to go to the toilet because then I had to start going to the toilet an awful lot and I and I could barely make it without fainting, without passing out, because I was so wiped out. And a lot of girls go with companions, a lot of girls kind of take the moms or the significant others or, you know, friends or whatever. And it was me, it was just me on my own. So I was. That was a really that took about a week to get that out of my system and it was a really really dark week. That was one of the hardest times that I can think that I've ever had to live through, quite honestly, because I just got this new pussy.
Phoebe:Yeah.
Meja:And I didn't want it to get damaged, and I was going to the toilet every half an hour, making the most disgusting things in the toilet, and it was just going everywhere. I mean, I don't want to go into too much detail because it's gross, isn't it, but it's also. You can understand the problem right? Yeah, I'm amazed I got through it. I mean there was no other way to go. I got through it. I got through that week and I lost about 10% of my body weight.
Rachel:Is that normal? I've heard that with SRS. That's a thing.
Meja:Yeah, it is a thing. I was already struggling with my weight. I was at 77 kilograms when I left After the surgery. I was down for sure. After that week of just lying in bed shivering an intense diarrhea, I was down to about 69. I've managed to put it back on Not all of it, but I'm making a good effort to put it back on again. It's about to a healthier weight. I still can't go back to the gym.
Rachel:Hopefully it's gone back on in the right places as well, that's the idea.
Meja:It's like you automatically cycle your fat, your distribution, don't you? And a lot of girls do that on purpose.
Rachel:That's something we're going to talk about at some point.
Meja:weight cycling yeah, it's a good thing to do. It doesn't work for everyone, but for the people who it does work for, it works really well. The idea is that you just lose weight, Sorry come.
Phoebe:Oh, weight cycling through SRS Good. Weight cycling through an opioid addiction Bad.
Meja:Well, you've got to look at the silver linings. Yes, I was addicted to opioids, but I got free weight cycling out of it, so it's never so bad as it's not good for something.
Phoebe:Every cloud. How long did your withdrawal symptoms last?
Meja:It was about a week, about a week.
Phoebe:Wow.
Meja:And then I was weak as a lamb or kitten, whichever animal it was.
Meja:I was as weak as one of them and just slowly managed to pick myself back up.
Meja:But yeah, apart from that terrible, terrible experience, it was really incredible to hang out with all these amazing trans women, inspirational. By the end of my stay, I was going to the pool, I bought myself a bikini and I was just chilling by the pool in my bikini at the hotel. So it's just like I just walked down to the fourth floor and I was at the pool, got a bit sunburned, because it's really easy to get sunburned in Thailand, even if you put on, even if you, you know the sun is really intense, so you've got to apply it like every half hour sunscreen. But it was fantastic. I had some really nice times. I had some really amazing chance to meet some really nice friends who I hope I can keep in touch with, and it was, and now I'm back here and I just missed them because, you know, going from that kind of environment where we're all there was so many trans women, so many inspirational, kind of fun, funny, intelligent, you know, cool people, and then I'm back on my farm and I'm surrounded by sheep and farmers.
Phoebe:What, what. What effect has the surgery had on your dysphoria?
Meja:That's a good question. So what? So what the? The bottom surgery, just all the surgery, but the bottom surgery, so. So again, it was a little, a little bit like the FFS, in that I've been suddenly felt right. I look, you know, once I looked at myself in the mirror and I and I didn't have this silly dangly thing that I never really got on with. Quite honestly, it was never, it was never really for me. And you saw, I looked at the mirror and I was like, yeah, that's just, that's just right now. That's good, that's, that's that's how it should be, that's I feel good about that. I love the fact that I can wear bikinis and it's just flat. There's no worries about tucking. You know what I've? Are we allowed to talk a little bit about sex here, or what? Is that okay? I love the fact. This is something I've really like is that I can be aroused and no one knows.
Meja:It's my no one. No one knows, I can be as aroused as I like and like. It's just no sign and I think that's really cool.
Meja:So you know, as a when you've got a, when you've got a, when you've got a dick and and you're aroused and you know, you kind of you maybe I don't know I've had this experience. You know you like, you know, yeah, you're smooching in a nightclub or something and you're like, well, I'm going to go get another drink. You get up and then like, no, actually sit back down again, I'm not going to get another drink, I'm just going to wait a few minutes and then I'll go and get that drink because I'm, because you can't, you can't get up, you've got to wait. It's very inconvenient and also kind of embarrassing, especially for me. I don't know, I don't know if it's the same for everyone, but for me as a trans woman, I was just embarrassed by that. It was just really embarrassing having that. So now I'm not embarrassed, it's great.
Meja:What is hard is dilating three times a day. That's not, that's not fun, it's part of the. So it's not forever. I think after the third month I can go down to two times a day. After the sixth month I can go down to one time a day and then kind of soon after that, I can just do as and when is needed.
Rachel:How long do you have to dilate for?
Meja:It's um what the time is. I got to dilate for about 20, 25 minutes.
Rachel:Okay, and at the moment it's three times a day.
Meja:It's three times a day and it's not, it's not fun, actually it's, you know, it's, it's not, it's, you know. Some people think, oh, you just basically having sex with yourself with a glass dildo, right? No, no, you're not, because having sex involves being aroused and being turned on and having a fun time. And this is this is not that, this is like a medical thing you just got to do. It's difficult because you know so it's really important that you do it, otherwise it kind of it gets, it gets tight, and scar contraction means that that it gets tighter. And so if you don't kind of, if you're not consistent and you're not kind of dedicated to doing it, it would get. It just gets harder and harder.
Rachel:Yeah.
Meja:And so you know, maintaining that, maintaining that dilation schedule, is um so it's a big part of my life and because I got to do it three times a day basically splits the day up into three, which means I can't really do anything during the day. It's like I can't go anywhere unless I can just do it quickly in the morning or quickly in the afternoon.
Rachel:It's just, uh, just to clarify because, um, obviously the GC thing is that we have to dilate because it's an open wound and if we don't do that it's going to heal itself up. But that's not why you're dilating, it's to stop the scar tissue from contracting, right.
Meja:Yeah, it's, it's um, so it's not a wound. When it was straight out surgery, then I think probably you could have clasped it as as a wound that was healing. I'm now two months post surgery. It's not an open wound anymore.
Rachel:No, it's healed.
Meja:That's, you know, this is, this is now, this is now part of my body. It's, I mean, the super home technique is really super cool. Uh, I don't know how much you want to tell you about it, but it but basically, um, normal penile inversion standard. The penile inversion means that it uses the length of your penis To create the vaginal canal. Super on technique Uh, it starts off by inverting below your parity in peritoneum. Yes, you know the space between your balls and your balls. Um, so it inverts that, but then it. But then what he does is he creates the vaginal canal from your scrotal tissue and he creates a like a mesh of that, uh, and attaches that. And then he also uses well, I'm just gonna card, he uses a bit of, um, a tissue which is kind of creates, creates wetness. I can't remember where he gets it from now, I think it's from the balls or something, but he creates that and he actually attaches that at the end as well, so that I can naturally get wet.
Rachel:So you're, you're, you're self lubricating.
Meja:I'm self lubricating baby. Not so much yet and, as I said, dilation it doesn't.
Rachel:So one of the things you mentioned on Twitter that I found very interesting was you weren't allowed to even have naughty thoughts.
Meja:No, no, no. Sexy thoughts for two months.
Rachel:How did you find?
Meja:that I didn't manage it. I mean, I can't control my dreams, can I? So I was having these intensely erotic dreams at times and I woke up and I was like, yeah, that was a nice. Oh no, what have I done? I've broken my vagina, you know. It's like, haven't it's fine. The reason we shouldn't have sexy thoughts is because, again, the soup on technique, which is slightly different from a lot of well, radically different from a lot of standard techniques, is that he uses a rectile tissue that used to be on the penis and he places that in places where cis women's, you know kind of vagina would get engorged. You know, once it fills with blood it gets engorged, it kind of gets. It's like a lady boner, I think, is what it's called, and so I, you know, that's that's what I get as well, and it kind of feels quite nice.
Rachel:So did you have to stop your HRT for your surgery as well.
Meja:Yeah, I did, yeah, yeah, you know.
Rachel:I'm guessing, if you're not on T block, it's um. Well, you're not producing testosterone.
Meja:I don't produce testosterone. I've got a whole. I've got a whole packet of beacons to my that I'm never going to use again and it's really nice to not have to worry about that's one less thing, and also psychologically it's really nice as well, because I just don't have to. I just know that I'm not, that my body's not creating testosterone Certainly not from my balls anyway, because they are gone.
Rachel:Have you experienced any breast growth after your bottom surgery? I've heard that's a thing as well, Now that you're completely not producing testosterone. Women say that their boobs grow a little bit more.
Meja:Yeah, I haven't noticed. It's still still fairly early days, so it's possible that it will. But, um, and I'm also, I'm on pregester progesterone as well. Um, that was nice to start that again. But, and I'm not. The thing is that I've got. I mean, what have I got? I've got E. I've got E cups. In the UK. These are E cups, so I don't need anymore. Honestly, I don't they start growing anymore. It's like, well, fine, but you do do you take it.
Meja:I'll take it if I got it, but I just got it by all my new bra, bra, bra. Again, it's expensive.
Rachel:Yeah, so you've had six surgeries. If you could have only picked one to have, it would have been the FFS right.
Meja:No question. No question Because it's how we socially interact with the world, it's how people, it's how people see us, how people interact with us, and it was just, it was just so nice to see myself again. You know, as I said, it's just so nice to recognize what I used to look like before, before testosterone did this thing.
Phoebe:Yeah, you described it in the same way I do, Because I had it in December last year and it was the same feeling going from. Who is this person in the mirror? I don't know them. They're a stranger feeling quite out of body as a result to oh my god, that's you, that's actually you then, and that happened for me about two weeks after the surgery.
Meja:Yeah, it was similar for me.
Meja:It was when the nose bandage came off for me, and that was just a revelation.
Meja:It was so nice, so nice, and since then I've never really been misgendered Like some people get misgendered on the, because the thing is I actually I don't pass, and I think that this is important. This is an important thing to maybe just touch on, in that you know, when I'm walking down the street, I'm taller than your average woman, I got broader shoulders than your average woman, I get, I mean, people notice me and I'm pretty sure that they're like, ooh, what's going on there? That's, oh, is she trans? That's kind of what I imagine is going on, but I guess I don't really know. But that's what I imagine is happening, because I do get a lot of looks. People do kind of just go up, especially in this little town that I live in. I can't walk down the street and just blend in, because I'm usually the literally only other person on the street, so there's no one else to look at, and so they just sometimes are a bit rude and they just kind of just stare.
Rachel:Or maybe they're staring because you're so stunning.
Meja:That's that possible.
Rachel:Yeah, that's what always goes through my mind, because I have much to say. I'm tall, I've got bright red hair. You know you're not going to notice me if I'm walking down the street, but I like to think people are looking at me because they're like hey, look at her, she's hot.
Meja:I mean, it could be the massive pair of angel wings that I wear as a woman and my tiara and my fabulous high heel boots. I don't know, it could be that as well. I'm not sure if that's what they're looking at. No, actually, actually that is a. That is a real thing. So sometimes passing is, it's not just about your physical attributes, it's not just about your shape of your mouth or the whiteness of your jaw or how tall you are, all these things. Sometimes it's a decision to just blend in and therefore it's a conscious choice. So and it's a conscious choice that I don't necessarily want to make, like, if I wanted to blend in and pass really well, then I could make that choice to do so and I probably could, and I probably could do a better job. I could do a better job. I could wear quite plain clothes. I could wear you know no colors yeah, braids and browns and blacks. I could wear flat, boring shoes. I could have my hair in a ponytail. I could have minimal makeup, you know, just the dab here and there, no eyeliner, all this kind of stuff.
Meja:And then and then also, it's very important that you just walk like you're, like you're supposed to be there. You're not, you know, you don't kind of do the trans girl kind of thing, where you kind of kind of try to make yourself smaller, which is which is the thing that a lot of because a lot of us are tall, sometimes girls get into this kind of thing where they kind of kind of hunch over a little bit just to kind of bring themselves down so that the smaller, so that they feel like they're not, you know, because they're very aware of the height, you just own it. You just own it, you just walk straight back. Yeah, confident, I'm supposed to be here. This is me doing my thing. I, you know, and I don't care about anything because I've got a thing to do. I go, I need to go get milk from the shop, or I'm going to go and meet a friend for coffee, and this is me and I'm confident and I'm strong, and I'm and I'm meant to be here.
Phoebe:Stepping out of the shadows.
Meja:Yeah, and then if you, and then if you do that, then you know you can start to maybe pass assist If that's what you want to do. But I'm not necessarily, I'm not 100% on board with that whole idea. It's like I'm quite, I'm proud to be trans. I think that I am, you know, is this is a badge of honor and pride for me, because I've been through so much to be myself, like seriously a lot. You know, the surgeries obviously have been firstly, very expensive and, secondly, very painful and hard to recover from.
Meja:But also just, you know, just making this change and losing all these things that I used to have, like male privilege, like a loving relationship with my wife, all these things that I've had to sacrifice in order to be myself, I'm happy to, I'm happy for people to kind of see that, see that, you know, see this person, see this woman walking down the street confidently. But also, oh, she's, she's different, huh, she's maybe trans. Wow, that's, that's inspirational, because I also quite like the idea of trans. This is like, just by my very existence, I, you know, I can trans people, you know people who already trans, right, of course. But if you're already already questioning, if you already kind of you know know there's something wrong if you are basically trans and you're either not necessarily completely aware of it yet or just finding the courage to do something about it and seeing someone like me living my life and being confident and having fun and doing all the things that I can do now, which is a lot more than I ever could before.
Meja:Yeah, it's inspirational and.
Rachel:I'm transpirational.
Meja:I'm really happy to be able to be part of that. Honestly, I think, it would be a shame to hide.
Rachel:So this ties in nicely with one of the questions we were going to ask, and it's the magic button question. If there was a magic button in front of you that you, if you pushed it, would make you sis, would you press that button?
Meja:Yeah, but the thing is I'm going to betray everything I just said and say yes, I would, because I would have had such an easier life. I never asked this. If the do I press, I press the button and suddenly I'm says now, but I have all the memories have been so. This is because it's a tricky question, because it doesn't necessarily make sense, because even if I press the button, I'm assuming you I would suddenly have all the physical attributes of a trans, of a cis woman.
Rachel:So I'd be able to. I didn't say you'd be a cis woman.
Meja:Well, sorry, what did you do? Oh, oh, a cis man.
Rachel:You could be either, but you wouldn't be trans. I don't know who that person would be.
Meja:I don't know who that person would be if I was a cis man. It wouldn't be me, that's for sure. So that's basically a button I will destroy myself, Boom gone.
Rachel:Pretty much yeah.
Meja:That's not a button I would press but. But yeah, let's put.
Rachel:Okay, let's clarify what the button does. Let's say it's cis woman.
Meja:So cis woman? Yes, I would do it. And then. But then the question is do I retain all my memories? Have I been, have I had this history of my life up until now? And then, suddenly I have the physical attributes of cis woman, which is fine. But you know what? I'm still a trans woman, even though I might look like a cis woman. I can't just get rid of all those memories. I can't get rid of all that history and all those experiences that I've had. So, even though I might look like a cis woman, I'd actually just be a trans woman who passes extremely well.
Rachel:So what if pressing the button made you like, went back and changed you from when you were younger? So you were cis all through your life, so you wouldn't have had any of these experiences and it would actually change you as a person. Would you still press it?
Meja:I've had like some completely different life.
Rachel:So you wouldn't be you anymore.
Meja:So I would only be able to remember all these things that have happened to me, but they didn't actually happen to me. They would just be memories. They would be kind of just fuzzy memories. It's like, oh yeah, I remember having those cis friends at school. I remember being raped that time by my boyfriend. I remember, you know, having getting pregnant and then having to have an abortion because I was only 16. I remember all these things, but they, but they didn't actually happen to me, did they? I mean, because they didn't, because this is just a button that's made me think that it's happened to me. So would I press that button? No, what the button? So I would, I would.
Meja:I would ask for a different button. I would ask for a button that says you can, you can go back in time and there's time where you kind of had the opportunity to be, to be cis throughout your life. You can take it. Here's your life again, basically, but you can be, but this time you can be cis, and I'd also like to retain all my memories from this life, as well as trans, thank you, because then I'd still be me and I'd still be there. It would just be an extension of my life and I'd be able to compare and contrast and I'd be like, wow, it's being a cis person is like also shit, but in different ways. But maybe, but maybe easy.
Rachel:Okay, if you could go back in time and speak to your younger self, what advice would you give to yourself? What would you say?
Meja:I don't know, and I know these are popular questions.
Rachel:Yeah, that's why we stuck them in.
Meja:But I also have. I also struggle with them because it took me a long time to not dwell on the past, to not dwell on how I just, you know, I wish I could have transitioned when I was young. I really do, but I just don't know how I could do it. And even then, I've thought about this question and even if I could go back in time and talk to my past self, and somehow that would also be me and I would be able to fix everything and like, none of this is how anything works. But you know what I mean, if I could do that, what would I say? How would I actually enable myself to transition and become my true self? And honestly, I don't have a clue. Because this is so. Let's think about it.
Meja:This is the 1980s. There was no possibility of getting onto puberty blockers in the UK at this time. The only place I could go to get on puberty blocks to avoid the first puberty which which which wrecked me. It was so traumatic and it wrecked me. So I would absolutely want to avoid that. I would like to go through the correct puberty from agenda, which is obviously a puberty, so I'd need to go on puberty blockers. There's no one in the UK to have to go to Amsterdam. There was a clinic in Amsterdam that were doing it around this time about 1987, I think just before I started puberty. So, mom and dad, hi, what we need to do is we need to just, you know, forget about all this life. You need to quit your jobs and we need to go to Amsterdam and become citizens in Amsterdam so that I can get it. It's like that's not going to happen. Okay, it's like. What are you talking about? You're just a, just an 11 year old. Be quiet.
Phoebe:Yeah.
Meja:I've had a pretty. The thing is, though right is that it's, it's I've had. In many ways, I've had a good life, I've had a privileged life. I've made the best I've. I've been dealt some bad cards, right, I have, but I've also played them really well. I've struggled with depression throughout my entire life. I've, I've, I've, you know it's.
Meja:It's not been an easy life, Right, there's no question, because being trans and being in the wrong body for so long is it's psychologically damaging to a person, but I managed to find ways to cope and I managed to forge a life with, you know, with my wife.
Meja:I've had children, and I've been reasonably, reasonably successful in my careers, so that I can kind of get myself to the point where I'm able to then do what I've done. So it's sort of all I mean, it all makes sense, Like the struggle has been it's part of me, and conquering that, that huge hurdle, climbing this, this incredible mountain which I never thought I'd be able to scale, it's part of my journey, and to just wipe it all away with a button, or to be able to just go back in time and and avoid, avoid it somehow, I've no, I mean I've no idea if I would have been happy. So if I could have, just if I said here's some estrogen, you can be a woman now, you can kind of go through the right puberty or whatever Would that person have been happy? I don't know, Would it have been a better life than what I've got? I wouldn't have had children I absolutely adore my little girls and I wouldn't have had those.
Phoebe:So take it away from your, from speaking to yourself in the past. What would you say to someone else who you meet them, you realize they're an egg just waiting to crack. What would be your advice to them?
Meja:That's really tricky, because so, firstly, it's difficult to know for sure, it's difficult to like you can suspect, you know it's like, oh gosh, they do seem like they might be an egg. It's very, you know, there's definitely signs, but I don't know if you know for sure. Ultimately, it's up to them. You can kind of help them by, or firstly, just by, being present and showing them, and that's something that I'm very aware that I have.
Meja:I've met various people who've just kind of wanted to meet me, you know, for a coffee or whatever, and you know the wheels in their brains they were turning, they were turning and I was like you know, this is good and I don't have to necessarily. I mean, you know, I'm not a salesperson, I'm not going to kind of sell you on the whole kind of hey, it's cool to be trans. If you are trans and if this is something that you absolutely need to do, then I think you need to try and get there yourself. But there's so much more representation nowadays. There's so much more kind of inspirational trans people, both men and women and everything in between, that they can look at now, which we know, which I think that our generation just didn't have right. We just didn't have that. Our generation had men in dresses as the punchline of a joke. Ace Ventura oh my God, it's a tranny. You know all this kind of stuff which is just kind of designed by society to make us really think that there's something wrong with us Objects are ridiculous.
Meja:Shame to be trans it's trying to enforce this society, isn't it?
Meja:Don't step out of those bounds, because then you'll be a freak and you'll end up on the streets as a prostitute sucking dick for drugs. That's what it means to be transgender. You know you don't want that, do you? Nowadays it's like, hey, you could be a really amazing model or film star or whatever computer scientist or anything. You could be anything you want to be, and you can also be trans, and that's part of the human experience and it's a normal thing to be. You're not damaged. There's nothing to be ashamed of. A good percentage of people are trans, and that is a normal thing to be.
Rachel:That's pretty good advice. So, okay, that was for someone who said it wasn't correct, but how about the newly trans? Would you have any tip for someone who's just come out and they're like oh, I don't know what to do about growing my hair and makeup. It all seems so scary.
Meja:So I was one of these trans people who always knew. I always knew so from the age of being able to think, being aware of you know, the difference between boys and girls and things. I kind of just knew. I was like uh-oh, I think something might be wrong. And I tried to exert my will and it didn't work. I was pushed straight back down again. So I was like, okay, I'm just going to have to deal with this, I'm just going to have to pretend not to be trans.
Meja:But obviously it was a good strategy, it was a survival strategy. It worked kind of well for me in some ways. Maybe not so well in other ways, but as a young, as a little you know, as a little child, that's just what I had to do. So I know that a lot of trans people work it out. Later on in life, you know, the whole worldview suddenly changes when they realize, oh my gosh, I'm trans. And at that point they haven't, you know, they're not prepared for it. It's such a it's kind of a shock and it's kind of it's a revelation and it's, you know, hopefully it's a happy one, but also it's like it can be scary as well, but that's not my experience because I always knew.
Meja:So I've been. You know, I've been cross-dressing all my life. I've been doing my makeup since 12. I've been, I've had long hair my entire life. That was like a big tail. No one knew. They just thought I was into rock music. But I wasn't. I just had long hair because I wasn't good.
Rachel:Oh, the things we do. I pretended to be into cycling so I could shave my legs.
Meja:That's a good one. I didn't pretend to be into cycling, I learned to love it.
Rachel:Yeah, it was, it was, that's how it started.
Meja:Swimming works as well. If you're into swimming, that, honestly, is a good one. So back to the original question. As you know what my advice would be. My advice would be to seek out other trans people, seek out community. Don't be an island, because there's no need to be an island. If you can try and seek out community on social media or, even better, in person, try and find a local LGBTQ group. You can join it. They will accept you. We are a very, very accepting bunch of people and you know you can turn up however you like. You don't have to present in any way. If you tell us your pronouns and what and who you are identifying, as we will believe you. Of course, we will believe you.
Rachel:There's no right or wrong way to be trans right.
Meja:There's no right or wrong way to be trans.
Meja:And if you're early on in your trans journey, it's like maybe you do want to wear that dress, maybe you do want to grow your hair or wear a wig and put on makeup or whatever. Maybe you want to do that and you just don't have. It's just, it can be quite a scary proposition, right? So you don't feel you have to do any of those things in order to try to seek out community, because I really don't think that you're going to be judged. You know, I would certainly hope not. Anyway, it would be very hypocritical of people to judge you. But by being around those kinds of people, I think you're going to start to find yourself and you're going to start to be able to then properly explore and properly kind of start your journey, knowing that you're not alone, because I think that it's so important to know that you're not alone and that there are a lot of people like you and all you have to do is reach out and find them and then, if everything's easier, when you can, when you can, do it with someone else.
Phoebe:Yeah, well said. Do you have any regrets from transitioning?
Meja:So, yeah, I do have regrets, because it's not all been roses. You know as amazing as it has been to be able to finally be myself, to be comfortable with myself, to be able to interact with people as myself, to not have these filters constantly on. So I was always filtering myself before. I was always like this is what a man would say, right, so that's what I should say. Oh shit, how am I standing? Am I standing in a slightly feminine way?
Meja:Gotta stand like a man All these, you know all these things that I was constantly second guessing about myself and talking about my performance as a, you know, trying to pretend to be a man. All those filters are gone, so I've thinks so much easier, so much easier now and I can be myself, and that's fantastic, so that's so. That's something I definitely don't regret. But unfortunately, I have lost my relationship with my wife and I kind of knew that that was going to happen. That's one of the reasons why I, why I put it off for so long, and that's one of the reasons why I just tried to hold on for as long as I could, because I I, I ideally love my wife and and I knew that if I transitioned, then that it would basically be over and and it kind of is. We still care for each other deeply and we obviously still we're still parents of these children who we know, and we're a pretty good family. You know we are very loving and caring and pretty happy family. But but, yeah, I've lost. I've lost something that was you know, that was incredibly important to me. Yeah, and I think that this is a very common story. This is, this is the kind of thing that does stop people from transitioning. It does stop. It does stop us from being ourselves. That leap into the unknown and the fear of losing what you hold most dear to you. It does keep a lot of people in the closet, and and and.
Meja:Yeah, I held on for as long as I could and I made as many sacrifices as I could until it was basically impossible for me to continue, and then I just had to buy the bullet. I wish that that's how. I wish that was not the case. I wish that my wife was still happy to be with me. But it's, you know, and we do enter each other's company, but at the same time, it's it's also painful, because we are aware of how much we've lost Both of us. So so yeah, I've got regrets. I've got regrets, of course I do. I just got to move forward. I can't, I can't dwell on the regrets, because you know that's that way lies madness. I've got to look forward. I've got to try to move on with my life a bit and try and explore. You know what this next phase of my life is going to be. I don't know what it is yet. I don't, I don't know.
Phoebe:I'm going to.
Meja:We're thinking about trying to separate our lives out a bit more, because at the moment, I still we all still live together. I think I need to try and forge a new path. I'm not sure what that looks like yet, and I'm not sure what I'm going to do or where I'm going to go. It's quite scary. It's quite exciting as well, but but mostly it's scary. So we'll see. We'll see what you know.
Rachel:Ask me again in a year and I'll wait and we will have you back in a year's time for a catch up.
Phoebe:It worked out all for me, no.
Meja:I'm on street corners.
Phoebe:They told me this would happen.
Meja:I should have listened.
Phoebe:The GCs were right all along. Well, thank you so much for being part of this first ever interview on the Joy Tuck Club podcast Before you. Before we say goodbye, do you have any shameless plugs you'd like to provide for your own channels or anyone else?
Meja:Yeah, are you able to link to the URL?
Rachel:Yeah, but we have to do that.
Meja:Yeah, so you just, yeah, just linked to them. They'll be hopefully, as part of the description in this, this podcast. I'm you know I'm all over Twitter, I've got, I've got an. Only fans got a regular stream. Now Twitch stream that I do. I'm very much into Lego, so I play, I build Lego and chat and it's very trancy and it's very fun.
Phoebe:It's called yeah, I visited you there and it is. It's a really nice. You have such a great interaction with everyone who's there. It's very chatty.
Meja:We have a lot of fun. We do have a lot of fun actually, yeah, and and I don't hold back on the adult things you know we talk about anything, but it's it's you know, it's very much a trans experience and we talk about, you know, adult stuff. It's, it's fun. Yeah, I guess that's it. Oh, I'm on Instagram as well. I want everything. Just put my link tree on there.
Rachel:Yeah, no problem.
Phoebe:Rachel, did you have anything else?
Rachel:I don't think so. Just just been lovely chatting to you.
Meja:I feel like I've done a lot of talking.
Phoebe:That's the idea.
Meja:Yeah, yes, yes. So I don't feel I've let you get a word in that way.
Rachel:No, this, this was all about you. It was perfect. Thank you so much.
Meja:You're very welcome. It's been a pleasure.
Phoebe:May a fuss. Thank you, bye, bye.
Meja:Okay, I guess, I guess you bet.
