Sy sits down with executive producer of BEING Trans, Kasey Barrett, to reflect on their time on the podcast and answer some questions about episode one.

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Sele Leota, Jeffrey

Sele Leota  00:04

Hi, everyone. I’m Sele Leota, I’m the co-executive producer of BEING: TRANS. And today we are looking back at our premiere episode, episode one with one of our cast members, Jeff. Hi, Jeff.

Jeffrey  00:14

Hi, Sele.

Sele Leota  00:16

So this is Lemonada Media and BEING studios first outing into the audio reality world. Tell me, Was it weird? Having a crew follow you around?

Jeffrey  00:25

Oh, it was weird. It was a lot of pressure. Yeah, I don’t think you know what to expect. You go in, and then you initially think your life is like, do I do anything? I felt boring. And then as it starts to roll, and you get comfortable, you realize, hey, I do have some stuff going on in my life. And I don’t know, it was cool, because I think I discovered a lot about myself.

Sele Leota  00:54

Even though it’s a relatively small production crew, was it hard for you to be vulnerable around strangers?

Jeffrey  01:00

Yeah. It’s definitely difficult to get emotional when there’s a bunch of people standing around. And also it’s not, you know, it feels like you’re just in a room, but then you know that this is gonna go out into the world. And so it is difficult. And sometimes you don’t realize what it is until after you’re done with that moment.

Sele Leota  01:24

We’ve talked about your sobriety on and off tape, and you’ve expressed how important it was for you to be open and honest about that. How did the taping of a docu-series and all the challenges that come with it, play into that?

Jeffrey  01:36

Yeah, it’s interesting. When I’m under stress, I’m the least worried about my sobriety, I’m typically more worried about my sobriety, whenever people aren’t around me all the time. That’s when things happen. You can hide it and such. But I’m also at a point in my sobriety that a lot of my strength in it comes from being honest about where I have been, and being excited about where I am now. I want to be honest about it, because it’s important to me. I’m glad that it’s out there, and everybody should know, Jeffrey was a crazy alcoholic, and now not. And then now things are going amazingly. And that’s how it is.

Sele Leota  02:23

In this episode, we meet both of your parents who are in Texas, and they are lovely and supportive. Were they always supportive, or did you ever face any challenges?

Jeffrey  02:31

It’s interesting. I will say I think the most important thing to know is that a lot of times, parents do get there, but it can take a second. So also give your parents a little bit of leeway because my mom didn’t get it right away. And she made a ton of missteps. But it’s because neither of us knew what was going on. We were figuring it out. I mean, in one of the first times that I had come out, she was like, What do I do? I’ve lost my daughter; we can’t go shopping anymore. And I was like, whoa, whoa, don’t close your wallet. We’re just going to do a different section of the store. But she mourned the death of her child for a while. And eventually she got the pronouns and she figured out how she was going to tell the story and it’s become so beautiful now, and she’s my parents are, you know, my best friends and adulthood.

Sele Leota  03:30

Alright, thank you, Jeff. And thanks, everyone for listening.