Will Cole: Like, I was taught to not trust my gut.

Jess Romeo: Yes

Will Cole: You know, specifically told "what your gut is telling you is wrong. So listen to this outside source."

Jess Romeo: It's sinful. That's where the sin is.

Will Cole: So I, at a very young age, stopped listening to myself and not being able to recognize - or, I'd have that thought, that intuitive thought and push it away. Like until very recently, you know, and I'm finally learning that like, "oh, no, I get to have desires. I get to have wants, I get to have needs." 

Jess Romeo: Happy Pride Month and welcome to this episode of the Gender IQ Podcast.

In these next two episodes, I will be talking with Dr. Will Cole. So Dr. Cole is a transgender health expert, owner of Queery Research Consulting, LGBTQ health professor, a queer transgender man, husband and seahorse dad.

As your trans cousin on Substack, he combines personal stories with trans health science in everyday language to spread positive, joyful information about being trans. He is pursuing a master's in writing creative nonfiction. His work has been published in Another Jane Pratt Thing, Welter Online, and Baltimore Fishbowl. And in this episode, we talk about his story. He walks us through the deeply personal and sociopolitical landscape of his own gender journey from growing up in a high control religion, navigating marriage and parenthood to leaving academia and launching Queery research consulting. And that is Q-U-E-E-R-Y research consulting, which I love that word play, gotta tell ya. So I love this first part of our conversation. I think you will too. So let's dive in.

Jess Romeo: Well, Will tell us a little bit about your story. I'm really interested to get to know people as much as they're comfortable with. So, I mean, tell me your story and start from the beginning.

Will Cole: Yeah, from the beginning. So I was born in Washington State and lived there until I was almost five. And during that time, I knew something was up with my boyness. I didn't have words to express it and I didn't have support to explore it. But I did declare when I was three that I'm going to be a boy when I grow up and was told on no uncertain terms that that's not possible. 

I moved to Utah when I - was the summer I turned five. So really, I say I grew up in Utah. I lived there until I was 23, 24. And yeah, very like Republican conservative Mormon family. My family was very faithful and active and they still are. And they still live in Utah, all of them. 

So it took me a very long time to figure out that I am trans and that I am queer, though, you know, looking back, I can see a lot of evidence of both that I just didn't know how to put together, right? And especially the queerness was particularly hard for me to figure out. ⁓ And I couldn't until I came out as trans.

So a lot of trans men were lesbians or bi before, including my husband, but I was not. I was in a cisgender straight marriage. I really thought I was a cisgender straight woman. So I, you know, in the Mormon church, I married very young. I was 19 and he was 23. And I gave birth when I was 22.

Jess Romeo: Okay.

Will Cole: And my kid is 22 now.

Jess Romeo: Wow.

Will Cole: So it's been a long time and in my mid-20s, my now ex-husband and I both left Mormonism. At the same time, I was 25, he was 29. And of course that was a big disruption in everything

Jess Romeo: I'm sure.

Will Cole: And I'm still working through the consequences of the complex trauma from that and the emotional trauma. Yeah, we can get into that.

Jess Romeo: Yeah, no, fair enough.

Will Cole: Career-wise, me and my ex both got really interested in East Africa, Tanzania specifically. we ended up - I ended up going there - study abroad as an undergrad with him. And then both of our graduate schools, we sort of centered around Tanzania. So I ended up studying public health and got a master's in African studies and a master's of public health. I started that just months after I left the Mormon church. So that really was just like a great distraction from being an emotional absolute puddle. And eventually, let's see, well, we would go back and forth to Tanzania like for the summer, for a semester. And so I raised my son there quite a lot and Swahili is one of his first languages. 

When I finished it - my masters, came to Johns Hopkins, which is what brought me to Maryland, uh, for a PhD in public health. And, and during that had the opportunity to move full time to Tanzania with my whole family. So I did that in 2011. So yeah - lived there, put my son in an international school - speak Swahili fairly fluently. I have a lot of friends there. And it really was my life there in Tanzania. I was, you know, a mom on the PTA of the international school. And I worked with a field office of Tanzanians to do HIV prevention research with sex workers, female sex workers for many, many years. That's what my dissertation was about.

So I was really HIV focused, but in a very big picture way, like social, cultural, behavioral, psychological way. And so, helping to set up an intervention about community empowerment for the women so that they could be empowered to make choices in their lives instead of being sort of coerced into making choices that they may not want to make and leaving those choices up to them. But then about 2016, still living there, we have these family friends that also do a lot of work in Tanzania that are also American. And the father mentioned that his second child came out as non-binary and used they/them pronouns and had been suicidal, but you know, is much happier now. They're an adult thankfully, but that really sparked something in me.

You know, like I'd heard of non-binary sort of, but it was still fairly new at 2016. Yeah.

Jess Romeo: Yeah, I was gonna say 2016 feels like about the right time for it to reach your consciousness.

Will Cole: Yeah. I just, so the idea of using they/them pronouns, I don't know if I'd heard it before. It just clicked. It just like clicked with me. And I was like, "that makes sense to me." And I didn't say anything out loud at the time, but inside I was like, "holy cow, something's going on. Gender journey, gender journey!"

And then proceeded to go into like severe anxiety for the rest of the year and just sort of put it in the back of my mind.

Jess Romeo (07:07)
That also sounds about right. Yeah.

And at the time I had this like really big competitive grants to write for my career - was finished with my PhD. I think I was finished with my postdoc and I needed to get sort of my own funding. I was - 

Jess Romeo: Are you your R01?

Will Cole: K01 - so a training grant from the NIH and they're, yeah, they're highly competitive. It took months to put everything together. And I just like threw myself into that and survived by popping Xanax. the antidepressant - I was on was the wrong one. And I didn't have a psychiatrist anymore. I was just this total mess.

You know, more recently I was talking to my therapist about that time. I hadn't put together the timing of I opened the gender box and then I hardcore distracted myself with work with high anxiety. And she almost laughed at me like, "duh, of course, of course that was related." But now I understand.

Jess Romeo: Huh. Yeah, no, that's a lot of our chess moves. We, lot of us make that chess move whenever - I relate to that a lot.

Will Cole: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And definitely like academics, like my professor persona is definitely one of my like most solid mechanisms. Like I very much intellectualize things you know - immediately I'll want to just like turn into lecture or study mode. You know like if something new comes up like I want to learn about autism because I have a friend who's autistic then I'm like I buy like 10 books on autism and like read maybe one of them but anyway yeah.

Jess Romeo: 
Yeah. It feels it's - if that retreat feels nicer and easier than feeling all the feels, you know, like I know that I do the same thing. I think I've described it to you before is like I read so many books on democracy and authoritarianism in 2024 because I like to understand the water I'm drowning in. It's just like, "oh, it's not the best, but I did learn a lot." It's something.

Will Cole: Yeah. Yeah, totally. It's something. Yeah I'm totally that way. And so now I recognize, like - my instinct is to write an essay about this. What's really going on and what feelings am I actually avoiding? And let me try to feel them. But being raised how I was, in this, you know, very high control religion and my parents also were, you know, what they call nowadays emotionally immature.

Jess Rome: Yes, you've read the Dr. Gibson's book as well. I see.

Will Cole: Yes. And basically, like, the dynamics were very similar to what an alcoholic family would be, though neither my parents drank, but my mom came from alcoholic lines. So, you know, a lot of generational trauma. And I'm sixth generation Mormon. So, you know, my parents are boomers. They come from a time when going to therapy or seeing seeing a shrink, you know, is just too stigmatized - never - neither of ever been to therapy or psychiatry. So, yeah, of course, you know, that emotional - all of that emotionally stunted me quite a lot. And it wasn't until after I came out as trans and sort of got my life a little bit more settled, then I felt safe enough finally in my body to learn how to have feelings and learn to feel my body. That's when my greatest growth and healing has come.

My religious healing journey has really only started two years ago. I got healed enough that I could feel my feelings, I walked into a religious institution and had a panic attack and realized "oh my body's been feeling this the whole time. I just haven't been conscious of it."

Jess Romeo: Yeah, we were so dissociated from it for so long because we had to be.

Will Cole: So yeah. Yeah. I was just completely dissociated my whole life. So yeah, being like, having transitioned has been the greatest thing for my healing and my growth because now I'm out of survival mode. And so I can go up those echelons of, know, Maslow's hierarchy and even in 2024, I felt like I was even in a thriving place. And then, you know, the election happened and went back into the survival mode.

Jess Romeo: Yeah.

Will Cole: So anyway, when I was still in Tanzania, I had this like gender box in my head, sort of creeping open. And by summer of, let's see, summer of 2017, I finally said it out loud. And at the time I was feeling I'm non-binary. I was like, I'm not a woman, but I also don't think I'm a man. So, okay, I'm non-binary. And I asked my ex and our son to use they/them pronouns with me. I went by the name Sam.

But only very privately, because I was in Tanzania. And, you know, it's very autocratic there. I'm learning - I'm transferring a lot of skills I've developed there to here. Like, don't put anything political online and be careful who you talk to. And don't show up to any rallies, you know. But - and there I would have just been deported, but maybe I will here.

Jess Romeo: Well, how was that with your husband and your son?

Will Cole: So I couldn't come out to anyone. Like don't have a - coming out as non-binary, I remember my husband was kind of confused, but rolled with it. I remember we were on a drive to Ruaha National Park to this tented luxury camp outside of it. We'd won a night stay at this place. I we knew the folks who ran it, and it was for our anniversary trip. So it was our, like, must have been 18th anniversary.

We're on our way on this bumpy dirt road. And I was like, "hey, I have something to tell you. I am non-binary." And he was like, "what does, what does that even mean?" "You know, I'm like, I'm not a woman, but I'm also not a man." And he was like, "well, if you're not either of those, what are you? How do you identify?" And I was like, "a person, I'm just a person." I don't - you know, and he was kind of like, "okay, like, I've always known you were more of a tomboy and I've been attracted to you as this tomboy, you know, person" and he said one of the first things he noticed about me when we met was that I walk like a boy. Like I have a very masculine walk and I was like, yes, that makes sense. I had been told that before.

And, you know, one of the little clues that I knew I was - I am a boy was, you know, people would say you walk like a boy or acting too masculine. So I would be like, okay, I have to ask, act more feminine, let me figure out how to walk like a woman. But in my head, I wouldn't picture a woman to copy. I would picture an effeminate gay man to copy.

Jess Romeo: Yeah, yeah, that's a clue. That's telling.

Will Cole: Yeah. And yeah, my therapist was like, bingo. But yeah, and then when I came out to my son, I'm actually giving a I have a storytelling event coming up for Mother's Day in Columbia where I'm telling the story about coming out to my son and our sort of adjustment from being his mom to his dad. And yeah, he was really good.

We happened to be at Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, which is where Jane Goodall studied the chimpanzees. And we had been chimpanzee trekking that day and had this like absolutely amazing time. And then he and I were sitting outside. So like - we're on the shore of Lake Tanganyika and mango tree shade and there's monkeys playing around us. And I was like, hey - he had been gone for a few weeks visiting family and friends and had just gotten back. So I was like, okay, now it's time to tell them now that we're in person. And I said, "hey, bud, I've got something to tell you." And he actually like went kind of hard and said, "don't tell me, don't tell me. I know what you're going to say. Don't tell me." And I had been like mentioning non-binary things a lot. So I think he did know what I was going to say. And, you know, that obviously hurt a bit. And I was like, "hey, dude-" like, literally, he had just come out to me as straight. Which I was proud, not because he's straight, but because he felt like that was not the default. You know, you had to come out as -

Jess Romeo: Yeah. Right, that there's actually not a come - exactly, that cis straight is not just everyone who's out of the closet and queer people are the ones who have to enter with the rest of them.

Will Cole: Precisely. So I was like, "you know, you just told me you're straight. What if I had said, I don't believe you. How would that feel?" And, you know, he was 15 and very 15 year old response was, well, "I wouldn't, I wouldn't care because I know I'm straight." Right.

But I was getting upset, so I was like, "you know what, let's pause this conversation and try again later." And we ended up going to the beach, and later in the day we reconnected. And I had gone and cried a bit and talked to his dad a little bit about how it hurt. But then later in the evening, I was like, "hey, can we talk about this again? Here are 10 ways in which I know I'm not a woman. 

And I told him some of the things that I've known since childhood, like I wanted to be a boy when I grew up. I always thought I'd be like dad and not mom growing up. All these things that are indicative of me being a man, though I couldn't quite see that yet, but I could see I was non-binary. And so he was just like, "okay, yeah, I didn't know any of that. What pronouns do you want me to use for you?" And it was that easy. Within a few hours, he was just like, "pronouns?"

And at the time I said she/her is still okay, but I'll update you. And within a couple months I did update, you know, and said, "hey, I really want to try they/them. Let's try that in the house." And other than him and his dad, I came out to one other person at the time in Tanzania, who was a Swedish woman who was my best friend there. But other than that, I was just like closeted and it was awful.

Jess Romeo (17:04)
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Will Cole: We spent another year and six months after I came out as non-binary to them, I finally admitted to myself that I'm a man. And I have a whole story written about that as well, that the camel that broke the straw's back per se was Zumba class. I was, I had a friend who was this devout Muslim woman who was Ukrainian and had converted in her 20s or something and she held this Zumba class, but it was strictly women only. And she kept on pushing for me to come, "come to Zumba, come to Zumba, come to Zumba," and I was like, I just made up all these excuses, you know, because it just didn't feel good knowing I'm not a woman.

But finally, I relented because I love to dance and I thought maybe getting out of the house and have some movement would be good for me. And so I went and she did this mix of Zumba and belly dance - her husband's Egyptian. And so it was extra feminine. And I was the only student that day and we were facing the mirror.

Jess Romeo: God. You're just naming components of my worst nightmare. Like -

Will Cole: Yeah, you understand. Exactly. I was like, "no, no, no, no, no, I cannot do this," but I also can't just leave. You know, I didn't feel like I could, and I didn't feel like I could tell her why I was feeling so poorly. You know, I didn't know how she felt about trans issues, but she dropped a couple things like no way does she want her boy to grow up to be gay, you know?

Jess Romeo: Yeah, yeah, you knew enough to know that it wasn't likely safe. Yeah.

Will Cole: So I was like - yeah, it didn't feel safe. So I was just like pushing to try to get through this by looking at her instead of me in the mirror and dissociating, of course. And at one point part way through, I remembered I had a friend, I had visited a friend in Germany and she had over some military guys, know, US military guys stationed there. And one of them was this gay man who did cross dressing performances.

And they showed us a video of his on YouTube of him and two other guys dancing, all the single ladies in their like, you know, four stilettos, these five - just great. They were - they were fabulous. They were so good. And I remembered that moment and thought, you know what? Men can do this too.

Jess Romeo: Drag. I've done that same thing before. Like, wait, no, this is just drag. It's fine.

Will Cole: Yep. Yep. Exactly. This is drag. So I looked at myself in the mirror and thought of myself as a man, dancing a feminine-coded dance. And I was like, okay, can handle this now. But still I was, I like left immediately and went home and was really upset. And on the way home, I was walking some street preacher out there, looked at me and in Swahili said like, "a woman in pants, you're going to hell." And one, it hurt that he called me a woman because I was really trying hard to, you know, to be not a woman. And I was dressed very androgynously at the time and I had a binder on, I had short hair, you know. And I don't believe in hell, but I was raised to believe in hell and that emotional baggage is still very there, you know.

Jess Romeo: Yeah. Yeah. After that experience, especially.

Will Cole: And so those two things combined just - I went home and just cried and I tried to tell my husband at the time about it and he just didn't get it. He just didn't get it at all. And he was just like, why do you care what people think? And I'm like, it's not about that at all. It's not about that at all. That's just like, showing me how much I'm not who I am, you know, like -

Jess Romeo: It's not about that. No. Yeah, showing me how invisible I am and if I am visible then I'm not legible or tolerated by - I'm not welcome, you know? I'm not seen and if I am seen I'm not welcome. Like it's... It's not just about what people think of you. You can't mail Robbins your way out of this one. Sorry.

Will Cole: Yeah, I'm not seen. Yeah. Yeah, it's not - yeah. And he always claimed that he doesn't give a shit what people think. I don't know if I can swear here,

Jess Romeo: Yeah, no, we swear all the time.

Will Cole: Yeah. But he was like, I don't give a shit what people think.  But truly he very much cares what people think. That was his defense mechanism, you know? But so the next morning I sat down and I had found a WikiHow page that said, how to know if you're transgender.

Jess Romeo: Yep. Haven't we all looked up something like that?

Will Cole: And I was like, yep. I needed, you know - I was like, non-binary's, not quite - I know I'm masculine of center, but like, it was really, really hard for me to admit that I'm a man because I had a straight husband and I had a 15 year old son. And I'd been living a woman - as a woman for 37 years or something. But I sat down with that WikiHow page and just started typing out, you know, my responses to their prompts that goes through childhood, adolescence, adulthood. And at the end, I had five single space pages of, "obviously you're a man" written down, right? And so by the time I got to the end of that, I said to myself, shit, I'm a guy. And I think at the time it was really hard to say man, I was definitely saying guy.

Jess Romeo: I'm still in that mode. We should talk about that. Yeah.

Will Cole: Yeah, I had a whole session with my therapist about it. But at the moment I was like, "shit, I'm a guy" because like, I have a straight husband. You know, and when I came out, one of the things he did say to me when I said I'm non-binary, not that day on the way to the safari park, but another day, he said, if you do anything medical, I'm getting off the bus.

Jess Romeo: Getting off the bus. That's very specific language. Like -

Will Cole: Yeah. It had been language that he and I used with another friend after we or as we were leaving more in church. We talked extensively to this friend who was also leaving, but he had converted when he was 17 or 18 for a girl, you know, and he was in the divinity school or had graduated from the divinity school at the college we were at. And so we had all these in depth sort of academic intellectual conversations about religion. And for him, he had this metaphor of like, religion's like a bus, and you get on and it takes you somewhere, but you got to know when to get off so you don't miss your stop. So for him, he got on the bus, it took him someplace, it got him off of drugs and off of alcohol, and it got him sort of more straight-laced and it improved his life, he felt. But then it came time that it wasn't serving him anymore.

So he got off the bus, right? And he was explaining this metaphor to us one night. And I just got angry. I was like, I was born on the bus. It's not fair. And I've been told every other bus is wrong and not going anywhere and broken down. And that...

Jess Romeo: Yeah, exactly. Like, this is the only bus you can ever be on. In fact, there are no other buses that work. Yeah. 

Will Cole: There are no other buses. You get off the bus, you die. The devil has you. It's not a great metaphor for someone who's born in it. But yeah, that's where my ex got that, like he's getting off the bus of our marriage, I guess. It's not a kind metaphor. Yeah.

Jess Romeo: Yeah, that's an even worse application of the metaphor. Like it feels like a way to sort of have emotionally distancing language about something that's really hard. Yeah.

Will Cole: Yeah, yeah. Yes, he's also very emotionally immature. As was I at the time, you know, I'm building that. Yeah, so that was - so I knew that if I needed to go on testosterone or needed top surgery, it was gonna be divorce, right? And I believed at the time that we had a good relationship, that we had a good marriage. I see now with distance and time that we didn't, but at the time, it was really devastating. So I actually told my son first, and like any teenager again, he was mostly concerned about how this might impact him because he was taking his finals that year and he thought "if you tell dad, he's gonna get really upset and that's gonna mess with me and mess up my finals. So can you please not tell him yet" kind of thing. But yeah.

Jess Romeo: Yeah, just being a teenager.

Will Cole: So what I ended up doing is like after that I, I did come out to both of them. Um, and became just so depressed because I was in the closet still. I didn't see any future. I couldn't see past August. That was February. I couldn't see past August because that's when my son, we were sending my son off to boarding school for his junior year. The place where we were was really rural and didn't have 11th and 12th grade. So he had to go somewhere else. And his preferred choice was this international school in New Mexico. So I was like, "okay, I just have to make it until I take him." And I just sort of plotted the time until then. And then I was like, I'm going to the US and I'm not coming back, you know? And so that's what- 

Jess Romeo: Yeah, I'm gonna stay.

Will Cole: Yeah, I just like willed myself through those six months being like, "I need to be here for my son." I got to support him through his finals. I got to be there for him for his final summer, you know, here. And I still wasn't thinking we're getting a divorce, but I was like, "I have to get out of here. Like I cannot stay in the closet here." And my ex was like, "yeah, you can't. Like I see how bad this is for your mental health. You know, you go back to Baltimore and we'll figure it out, right? We'll live on two different continents. We'll figure it out." He even went in and - went in with me to buy a house in Baltimore. And because of our jobs, we both had a lot of international travel. And we actually, we decided we would try to see each other every six to eight weeks. And we managed that for a few months, actually, like we met in Thailand, because we both had work there at the same time, met in Spain, and, you know, he came for the holidays.

So we did see each other periodically and, it just got worse and worse. And my - 

Jess Romeo: Yeah, because - had you started getting gender affirming medical care at this point or no? Okay, still no.

Will Cole: No. So my bargaining was, "well, I'll go to the States, then I can come out in Baltimore, and I can socially transition and legally transition, and we'll see if that's enough for me." Yeah.

So I did. I came out fully as a man. I slowly started to realize my queerness, and it clearly was not enough. I knew in my heart that I needed testosterone and then I needed top surgery. And I was just sort of, you know, doing this bargaining thing in my own head. And he was too and eventually, it was actually one year to the day after I said, shit, I'm a guy.

Just by coincidence, I emailed him and said, listen, I must start testosterone, even if it means we divorce. And that's the first time I said it fully. You know, I had said I need testosterone, but not even if you don't want it. You know, like, I was like, even if it means divorce. And so a month later, we met in the middle in Spain in Barcelona and had that conversation - facilitated by my therapist of, "yeah, I have to do this." And I was like, "if you can stay on and sort of see how it goes, maybe you're a little bit more bi than you thought, or maybe we can make this work. Maybe we can figure out an arrangement. There's a polyamory or whatever." ⁓

Jess Romeo: Yeah bargaining, but just putting it external this time not you having to hold the burden

Will Cole: Yep. Yeah. And he was like, "no, that's my line in the sand. Like I can't do it." Like, and you know, he is straight, you know, and he can't help that. So yeah, that we had that conversation. I cried for an hour and then I got up and made my appointment for the very next week.

Like, my provider had been waiting. She'd already gotten pre-op for me. She was like, you just tell me when you want that nurse's appointment for them to teach you how to do it. And I was like, "all right, it's time." And so the next week I did that, that's my anniversary. And the very next day I went to my first queer dance party at Autobar in Baltimore and kissed my first queer kiss. I was like, once I decided, was like, "all right, I'm all in." Just like plunge into the deep end. 

Jess Romeo: Yeah. I've tried to explain that to people because I'll get the feedback often that when people, when folks transition, if that's the word that makes sense to them, like if they're using that word, that people in their lives feel like it's actually moving very fast. Like they're kind of surprised at like, okay, wait, there's a lot that's happening. Like, are you sure? And what they don't hear or experience is exactly what you just told us of how long it was internal and how long it was not visible, not legible to the people around you and even your inner circle. It was hard for you to say that until you were ready to lose your relationship. Like that took a while to be able to sit with. And so what I try to tell people is like, it's really, it's kind of like how a bridge fails. Like these defensive structures, a bridge failure, like it's there for a really long time. And then there becomes just sort of critical failure and everything kind of falls and you need liberation as if it is water. And that's what I hear in your story and so many others.

Will Cole: Yeah. Yeah, it really is like, you know, people who think this is somehow a choice, no. Like, this is so fundamentally visceral to me that I was, I divorced, ended a marriage of 20 years, you know, that I, and a man with I have a kid with, and - again, I thought it was a great marriage at the time. It's how we both characterized it at the time. I was just delusional, but yeah, it was really, really devastating. And at the same time, yeah, I was so primed. I was just like, I had all this, you know, energy built up and I had figured out I'm queer and I hadn't told any of my friends, like only my therapist knew. And like, even my best, best friends who like - as soon as they got home from Spain were like "let's have dinner tell us what happened" you know they didn't know until I was like "I'm kissing someone" I was like "surprise!" Yeah so -

Jess Romeo: And I know that like we teach, you know, we'll teach if you've ever been to a trans 101, you'll learn sexuality and gender identity are two different contrasts. They're not the same thing, right? Yes. And I'm also very bored by that. But I think hearing the ways in which a trans narrative felt like it didn't apply to you because you weren't a lesbian. You were identifying as like you were attracted to men.

And that's not, you know, we now have the diaries of Lou Sullivan - had been around, they're out there. But I think there's really something to be said for - there's still a whole lot of conformity and expectation in sort of a mainstream trans narrative. There are ways that I could identify it because I was queer throughout, you know, and now that's getting a little bit more complicated, right? When gender and sexuality are related, right? The idea of actually being in relation with a man feels far different now than it would have. Like there was something about gender dysphoria that impacted that before in a way that isn't really a barrier now. So it's - they're related. How would you, would you say that it had that impact on you, that it didn't seem like you could identify?

Will Cole: Yeah. For sure. Yeah, I think that is one of the reasons it took me so long to figure it out because I was attracted to men and I didn't feel attraction to women. I couldn't feel it in - because of that gender dysphoria. I had so much dysphoria about my own body, about my chest that I projected that - hatred even, onto other women's - or onto women's bodies, right? And so I was like, "ew, no, I can't even imagine," you know? And like, I would hear women, straight women be like, "oh, everybody loves boobs. Who doesn't love boobs? Boobs could create world peace." And I'm like, "ugh, no, what are you talking about?" Ew. Yeah. Yeah.

Jess Romeo: Right. Yeah. Yeah, I'm also not sure about the whole world peace thing, but yeah, we are two trans guys talking, so maybe we're a little biased.

Will Cole: So, but once I started binding and once I was out socially as a man, I could relate to women differently and to women's bodies differently. And even before I got my own top surgery, I found myself attracted to women and non-binary people who had breasts, you know, and even the first time I had sex with, you know, queer sex, they touched my chest on my binder and they were like, "I'm sorry. I didn't ask if that's okay. "And I was like, "actually, yeah, it is," you know? And then, you know, I asked if I could touch theirs - they're a non-binary person. And they were like, "yeah, that's great." And they were like, "I didn't know you wanted to." And I was like, "I didn't either until right now." It was this very new, you know, thing for me. But yeah, it was like once that my own dysphoria lessened, I could stop projecting that internal hatred onto other people. 

And there is something to be said about now I'm relating to women as a trans man, which is different than a lesbian relation. And I'm relating to men as a man, which is also a different power dynamic and a different, you know, and, you know, I am attracted, I can be attracted to people regardless of gender. But I definitely remember talking to my therapist about like, I think I might be more bi than I thought, you know, and he was like, he was a trans man too - he is. And he was like, yeah, this is actually really common in trans people.

Jess Rome: It's like the most common sexual orientation for trans folks.

Will Cole: Yes. Yeah, it's like once you are yourself, then you can explore your real sexuality and it tends to be very expansive. Yeah, and a lot of people like point to the testosterone for that. So it's like, oh yeah, it increased your libido and it changed your orientation. And I was like, it wasn't the testosterone at all for me. It came long, it came before the testosterone. Yeah, it wasn't - it was about being myself and being socially a man rather than the chemical.

Jess Romeo: That's interesting. It makes sense to me that people without the lived experience might go there and think about, well, it's the medical intervention. Testosterone really does change things, but that at a gut level felt wrong to me because it has nothing to do - sure, hormones do change things about like level and severity of drive, right? It changes the valence of that drive, but not it's about the relationship with yourself and your own body. Like that's so crystal clear to me.

Will Cole: Yeah. Yeah, that's how it feels to me, for sure. And I think a lot of people develop that relationship with themselves once they start testosterone. So you can't tell which is which, right? So that makes sense.

Jess Romeo: Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, it is always hard to isolate the variable. But hey, we're humans. It's always hard to isolate the variable. Yeah.

Will Cole: It is. It's so complicated. Yeah.
Yeah, so I came out like, well, we decided to divorce - that was early 2019. And I started testosterone then and had my top surgery about three months later. And yeah, I had this like great queer summer at 40. And I joked that like, I went through puberty at the same time as my son did and while divorcing.

Like that is an insane combination of things. And yeah, I like, I look back at that time in my life and I sort of affectionately call that part of me 2019 Will. 2019 Will caught up for lost time and made some mistakes and had a little bit more fun than he should have probably. And ⁓ yeah, I spent a lot of time drinking and in bars and picking up people in bars and - yeah, really just sort of figuring out how to date. The last time I was single, I was an 18-year-old Mormon girl.

Jess Romeo: Yeah, I was gonna say like there's a lot of reason I think that that happened like a lot of wild oats to sow for lack of a better term, which - I actually hate that term.

Will Cole: Yeah, I have - yeah, I can have a lot of empathy for that part of myself, even though at the time I felt a lot of shame and, you know, conflicted feelings. And, you know, I had friends that were like, "whoa, pump the brakes, dude." But yeah, it was like, it's a time I went through. Yeah. yeah, my son turned 17 that summer. Told him after his school year finished and I was with him physically, we got his other dad on FaceTime to tell him about the divorce. And he was pretty just like - he had his own troubles at the time and so he was just pretty numb. And he was like, okay. And later - later I talked to him about it and he was like, "I was glad you got a divorce. I wished you'd done it years before that, you know?" So we've had a lot of talks and learning since then, but he really rolled with that and was fine with that. And his dad, his other dad remarried has a baby 18 years younger than my son. So he has a little half sister now, but they live in Europe. So he doesn't see her much.

Yeah, and then like, since I was ever - when I came out as socially, I also wanted my career focus to incorporate more LGBTQ stuff and trans stuff. And my real goal was to work in sexual health of gay trans men. Because when I first got it came out, I was like, I'm a gay trans man. I like men. And that's a niche that no one was doing at the time.

I got in on the ground level with global HIV activists who are also trans men and gay or queer at risk for HIV or have HIV. And so we formed this global working group of trans men and HIV. And it's been working ever since. And when I go to HIV conferences wherever I meet up again with all these trans guys and have friends around the world and - but to get there, I just sort of, started networking with my public health people who did anything related. So there's a lot of people that do HIV and within that they're studying men who have sex with men or trans women. And so I just put the word out there that I'm looking to work in this space. I really want to work on trans men. and, you know, it took a couple good years, two, three years, but, you know, I went in on NIH grants with people and there was this great windfall of like every grant we had applied for over the past three years, suddenly all got funded. At the same time, and at the exact time that I was like, I'm sick of academia, I'm leaving.

So like I called one of my co-investigators, the principal investigator on this project, and he was so excited to be like, "yeah, we got the money and we're going to do this and this and this." And I was like, "hey, wait, hold on. I'm calling to tell you I'm leaving." Um, because at the time, like academia, I was successful. I, I inherited two classes on LGBTQ health at Hopkins and I taught those. I still teach one of them. And I, you know, it's getting all these grants - I had the K award, so I, my time was like padded. and I just felt so dissatisfied and was floundering and could not make myself write an R grant, which would be the next natural step in that career path. And I even like for two years, I even did like mentorship programs and all this stuff to help me write this single specific grant page and I couldn't do it. And finally I was like, I don't want to. And this weight just lifted off my shoulders, you know. So - and at the same time I was like seeing the anti-trans sentiment that was building since like, you know, 2020 here.

Jess Romeo: Yeah, because this is 2020 or so. Yeah, it started really building.

Will Cole: Yeah. And I was like, I have advisors telling me to like how to hack my H index to get better scores on my resume and like how to pad my resume and like, you know, like these strategies that just were a hundred percent toward adding things to my CV. And that was the point. And I was like, no, this isn't doing it for me. Like my siblings, especially my black and brown sisters are being murdered in the streets all the time. Like I saw another one this morning. I can't just be working to pad my CV. It just didn't, it didn't work for me. It does not compute. And I just didn't feel like I was doing enough activism and advocacy and using my skills for good. And of course I was doing activism and advocacy in my spare time as a volunteer. But I was like, I have to get out.

Jess Romeo: The masks that we wear for a long time, I think authenticity sort of begets slash demands more authenticity in a way that like, "this was a mask of sorts that I was wearing too, and this isn't working for me. And I know the same intuitive gut way that I knew about my gender." Like that way of knowing starts to become a more trusty guide, at least for me.

Like we grew up in different religions, but I'm from the Bible Belt where that was sort of, it was a similar culture of high control. There are these certain rules you must follow and trusting intuition and critical thinking, both very strongly discouraged. And so it feels really healing for me to actually tune into that. And I can imagine it has been for you too, not that it's easy.

Will Cole: Yeah, for sure. For sure. yeah, same. Like, I was taught to not trust my gut. You know, specifically told what your gut is telling you is wrong.

Jess Romeo: Yes. It's sinful. That's where the sin is.

Will Cole: So listen to this outside source. So I, at a very young age, stopped listening to myself and not being able to recognize, or like, I, I would be - I'd have that thought, that intuitive thought and push it away. Like until very recently, you know, and I'm finally learning since I've learned to feel my emotions in my body. finally learning that like, no, that I get to have desires. I get to have wants, I get to have needs and like even very simple stuff just to practice, just to build that skill.

I would start with like, my husband would say, you know, "we're getting takeout, what do you want?" And before I'd be like, "oh, whatever, what do you want?" You know, very people pleasing, very, "I don't - my needs don't matter." And now I stop and think if he's like, "how about Indian or Afghan?" I actually stop and think like, "what is my desire?" And that's a very simple thing. And I'm like, actually, I prefer Afghan today, you know, like, speaking that out loud has been a big challenge for me. And a practice I've had to repeat and work on.

And, you know, I'm still working on recognizing that like, actually I have medical needs, I should go to the doctor and take care of them. I have a nodule, a carpal boss, I finally learned what it is, but I've had this nodule knuckle thing for 27 years grown and it's bothered me. And I broke that wrist when I was 18. So I was just, it was like, that's just an old injury. But it started burning. And I finally went to the doctor to go check it out after 27 years and I need surgery. So I'm getting surgery next month. And my therapist was so proud. Like you finally like decided you are worth taking care of, you know, and that's profound. And there's so many people, especially when people raised as women that don't do that. I mean, my mom is an example. She didn't take care of herself. She took care of seven kids and a spouse, you know.

Jess Romeo: Exactly. There ways in which it's kind of seen as self-indulgent to take care of yourself when it's actually really vital. It's necessary. Quite important.

Will Cole: Yes. Yeah, it's actually necessary to rest and take care of yourself. Yeah, so much has changed since I came out ⁓ in such good ways of yeah, authenticity of opportunity for healing and growth and, you know, making amends. ⁓ You know, there are, you know, ⁓ I have trouble saying it. I was a darn good parent. Like I was a really good parent. But I have this part of me that thinks I was really, really bad and ruined everything, you know, and, and even though I was a good parent, there are ways in which I failed my son. Right? Like no matter how hard, how hard you try, there's just going to be some mismatches. He had needs that I couldn't meet because I didn't know. Right. And he suffered because of that in ways I didn't understand until later. And so, you know, I'm big enough to recognize that and say sorry. You know, "I'm sorry I couldn't be there for you in the ways you needed." And not make excuses for that. I didn't know. I, you know, I was, you know, and he's very empathetic about me. He's like, "you didn't know you were, you know, you were in that situation too." But, um, that opportunity for healing and growth is like life changing, obviously.

Jess Romeo: And that will be it for part one with Dr. Will Cole. I so appreciated his openness and sharing just so much of his story with us because I know it can benefit others to know how he navigated this journey to wholeness. So again, if you want to hear more from Will, you can follow him on Substack at yourtranscousin.substack.com and follow his work at Query Research Consulting.

If this episode got you thinking, please share it with someone who'd appreciate it. Leave a review, subscribe, and most of all, keep showing up for these conversations. That's how we shift the culture. One story, one moment of resonance at a time. We'll be back for part two with Dr. Will Cole and discuss more about his career, the state of science today, and effective ways to combat misinformation and connect with people who disagree.

You won't want to miss it. Until next time, happy pride. Take care of yourselves and each other. We'll see you here soon.