It's the finale! Evan reflects on how things have changed for him since the beginning of the season and announces whether or not there will be another.
Original music by Evan James White
Link to "Hey, Man! We've Got This": https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DZHWFW5D
("In the Ether" keyboard musical intro)
Evan: Welcome to Just Another Guy (Who Happens to Be Trans). I'm your host, Evan James White.
I can't believe season one is basically complete. So much has happened since I started the podcast. I published a book. It's actually an updated version of a book I published in 2022. It's called Hey, Man! We've Got This!: Affirming Our Manhood while They Try to Take it Away. It's available on Amazon for $11, that's the print version. The Kindle version is also available for $5. And I really wanted to make the book accessible to other trans guys, that's why I didn't charge a significant amount for it. And half of the proceeds are actually going to fund gender affirming care for other trans men. With everything going on politically, I wanna make sure that other guys have access to care because I don't know, we don't know when, if, where that care is not going to be provided anymore.
But going back to the book that I released in 2022, that book is called Hey, Man! You've Got This!: This Trans Man's Daily Dose of Affirmation. And that book combines affirmations, questions for reflection and anecdotes for each day of the year. With that book, I kind of danced around the idea that I wanted it to be an affirmation book for trans men. That's why I said that it was my daily dose (chuckles). But with the book out now, I am not shy about the fact that I want it to be an affirmation book for trans men. So there's 70 affirmations that can be read anytime of day, any day of the year, whenever somebody wants to read it. It could be read in a full day if somebody really wanted to. And a lot of the affirmations repeat themselves because I'm really trying to hone in this idea of repeating the things that we need for ourselves in a society, in a world, in a political climate that really tries to take away our manhood.
So yeah, I released the updated version of the book this year. I have a girlfriend now, as I also alluded to in a previous podcast episode, and things are still going really, really well. We're learning more and more about each other every time we interact. We're talking about at some point moving in together. We laugh together all the time, we go out and do things together. We're both big foodies, so we constantly are trying new restaurants and just hanging out. Like it's so nice to take my time and get to know someone and also be committed to them, and also know that I want a future with them and we have the rest of our lives. It's really great. I'm just really, really happy. And oh, I should actually just say her name now. Her name is Tee (chuckles heartily).
Also, through Tee I've met some really, really cool people and one of them in particular, I don't know if I should say his name on the podcast because I don't know if he wants to be named. So I won't for now but if he does in future episodes, season two, I will for sure shout him out. But he's a fellow trans guy and I love this dude. I've only, like, hung out with him a couple of times since meeting him but we get along really, really well. We look a lot alike and I just really appreciate his company and the closeness I feel with another guy like me. I don't have a lot of guy friends in general and don't have a lot of guy friends who are also trans. And those kind of relationships are relationships that I would like to have and I would like to build because I think it's important to be supported by and to support other guys like me.
With all these great things that have been happening since I started the podcast, there's also some stuff that is still scary. I myself had a really interesting interaction at the airport when I went to go visit my moms in Indiana last month. I went through TSA and did the body scan and when I came out of the body scan device a TSA agent asked me to step aside. Then a male agent explained that he was going to pat me down and that there was something that went off down by my private area, and said, “Would you like to do it here or we can go in a backroom?” I said, “Hey, I'll do it here.”
So he pats me down and he says, “Do you have anything down …?” He didn't say crotch but basically “near your crotch area.” And I said, “Yeah, I'm wearing a packer.”
So (chuckles) he called his supervisor over, who happened to be a brother around my age, and he whispered to him what he thought the situation was. So when the brother came up to me and said, “Hey, you know, what do you have down there?” I said, “It's a packer. I'm a trans man.” And he said, “Oh, OK, we've actually had this situation happen before.”
He asked me if the packer was attached to my body. I said no, it wasn't. He said, “Yeah, you know, in the future maybe what you might want to do is visit the restroom prior to going through the scanner, (basically to remove the packer) and then after going through security visit the restroom again to put it back on.”
I said, “You know, this has never happened to me before,” because it hadn’t. I’d traveled at least six different times over the past two years with my packer on, going through the body scan and it's never picked anything up. In fact, I told him the reason why I do wear the packer through security is because I thought that if it didn't show anything down there then that would be suspicious and I would get flagged for that reason. But he explained to me, ”No, these scanners only detect the presence of something other than a body part, not the absence of something.”
So I said, “OK, I understand that. “Thank you for explaining to me.” He said, “Cool, we still need to check the packer and pat you down again. So we're going to go into a backroom and do that.”
So I was getting nervous because you know, I got two cis guys escorting me to a room that has no windows. The only door is one door that they're basically blocking once we get into the room, and I couldn't touch any of my stuff. I couldn't make any calls. My phone was in my bag which was in their custody. I also wasn't traveling with anyone, so I was all by myself dealing with this shit. I didn't know what to expect.
But we got in the room and they said, “Hey, you know, we can turn around and give you some privacy while you remove the device.” I said, “It's cool.” I just reached in my pants, grabbed it, took it out, handed it to him (laughs).The guy who initially patted me down started laughing and the supervisor, you know, had his gloves on and was just kind of like looking at it, inspecting it. And I kind of felt bad for him, truthfully, because that shit had been in my boxers for over 12 hours (laughs). So I know it smelled bad (laughs) and had pubic hairs and everything else on it (laughs). He had to, like, handle it.
So the other guy then pats me down again and I'm clear. It was really quick. I could tell he didn't even really want to do it (laughs). He rushed and was like, “He's good.” (laughs) So then I got handed back my packer and they left the room so I could put it back on. And then I left and I said thanks and I said, “Hey, I'd shake your hand but, you know.” And me and the supervisor kind of laughed at it, dapped it up, and then I was on my way.
But I just thought that it was interesting because under the Biden Administration, I never experienced any of that. I find it very curious that I never had any issues before now. I may be traveling by car (laughs) from now on when it comes to domestic travel.
So I don't know how bad things are going to get. I don't know how much worse things are going to be, but I do know that I'm going to be here continuing to speak, continuing to share my story. So I will be here for a season two. This has been Just Another Guy (Who Happens to Be Trans). I'm your host, Evan James White. Peace.
("In the Ether" keyboard musical outro)