You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist

Swell AI Transcript: 92. Austin Unbridled - Reduced.mp4
Austin Unbridled: Well, as I got older and as I started realizing that so much of the trans ideology is rooted in lies and rooted in, honestly, junk science, I started seeing how it was failing people that I loved. And I knew that it failed me. And I kept thinking, well, if I just do this one more thing, if I just get this surgery, my life will be so much better. And I think that that's this sort of enticing draw for a lot of people. They feel the same way.
Stephanie Winn: You must be some kind of therapist. Today I'm speaking with Austin Unbridled. Austin is a 41-year-old former male-to-female identified individual and two-time detransitioner who has grappled with matters of spiritual and gender identity throughout his life. I think Austin is a super interesting person based on his TikToks, and I'm so glad to be speaking with him today. So welcome, Austin. Thanks for being here.

Austin Unbridled: Thank you for having me.

Stephanie Winn: So you have a super interesting story. I watched your TikToks and just an interesting perspective on life because of what you grappled with, with your spiritual journey and your whole process of going through the gender cult and back again. And I just love what you have to say. So for those who haven't heard your story before, we can, you know, feel free to start wherever you'd like to start.

Austin Unbridled: Yeah, okay, thank you so much for having me on here. I'm a big fan of the platform that you have and the topics that you wanna talk about. I got on TikTok because for a while, especially like mid to late pandemic, I just started watching TikToks and I didn't really like make them. And I was seeing stuff and I was like, oh, that's interesting. That's strange. Oh, well, young trans people, saying like what they believed transition and transgender identity was and it seemed so different and at odds with transition five years ago and even 20 years ago when I started my first transition in 2002. And so I after some like real thinking about it and like you know and praying like do I have the strength to go on the internet show my face and tell you know, the things that I feel like to the world, I already was doing it in Reddit, but Reddit is just text. So, you know, and I was frequently getting almost every post that I post, you know, downvoted, or I was getting accounts like, you know, banned or temporary ban just for like talking about how, you know, bottom surgery is not this like, no big deal thing. It's, it's a major life changing thing and it has a really high rate of complication and people don't want to talk about that. And then I was like, well, let's make a TikTok, you know, let's just, let's just make one. And so I sat there in my trailer and just started recording it, um, and put it on the internet and, and within like, you know, uh, 24 hours, like 10,000 people had seen it. And I was like, Oh, wow. You know? And, and And it's just kind of continued to grow. And I haven't really talked about stuff on there a lot because I made a couple videos that really pushed some buttons with people. And I got some death threats and I got some people that I hadn't talked to in my life. coming after me, sending me text messages. And it was just like a little bit too much heat. So I took a step back. But now I've been I've been making TikToks again and talking about, you know, my perspective on things. And I'm grateful for the opportunity. I think I posted maybe 70 videos, and I've had like 20 of them pulled for bullying and hateful content. and i'm frequently banned from like going live because i just talk about how in my experience uh i thought transition would fix me it would alleviate these feelings of uh confusion that i had my whole life you know and that's kind of how it was pitched to me by other trans people and medical doctors and a therapist back in the early 2000s um So, you know, I think it's important for other de-transitioners, you know, there's quite a few specifically male de-transitioners who started speaking up and, you know, the hate that we all get. people really just love to remind us that we've done these terrible things to ourselves. It's like, yeah, we did, but guess what? A lot of your people and our close friends and loved ones encouraged us to do it. Is the onus on the self? Of course, but there's a lot of hands playing along with it.

Stephanie Winn: In a way, detransitioners are like the canary in the coal mine or thinking of family systems theory for the therapists in the audience, sort of the identified patient, right? Maybe the person who's exhibiting the most distress, but sometimes it's a symptom of a wider problem. So you transitioned at 19 in 2002. And prior to that, you grew up with a strict Christian upbringing. And since then, you've come back to your Christian faith in a new way. Can you tell us about the factors growing up that led you to believe at age 19 that you were a woman or would be better off living life as a trans woman or however you conceived of it at the time?

Austin Unbridled: Certainly. Yeah. In hindsight, I When I look back at my life, and even when I think about what I thought about my life at 19, I did not fit into traditional male assigned hobbies or identities. I was very creative, very effeminate. very sensitive and easily hurt. And I grew up with a single dad who is still to this day very critical. And, you know, growing up in the assemblies of God, my family, I was raised in the beginning just sort of like ephemeral christian you know like oh we believe in god and you know god is good and that's it but then i started going to a christian school um in the seventh grade and it really that became my entire life um and that showed me a god that was very angry and had these rules and you know it was the 90s so so the world was actually a lot more homophobic than I think it is now, contrary to what young people would say. But Christianity, or I guess Christian people can be really bad salesmen for the faith, because we have our own traumas, we have our own insecurities, and we have our own interpretations of what the texts mean.

Stephanie Winn: So for you, You were sort of this, as they say, gender non-conforming, or as I prefer to say, gender atypical male child, sensitive, effeminate, discovered that you were gay. And you were given a strict male role model who was hard on you. It sounds like you didn't feel welcomed by your dad. And also you were taught this strict version of a male god. And a strict conception of what it was to be male that you didn't fit in with. And so the idea of maybe I'm actually meant to be a woman sort of almost like absolved you of what might have felt like a sin or a burden at the time.

Austin Unbridled: It did seem like I can have both like a have your cake and eat it to type moment. I think that I Well, the deeper part of it is that when I went to the Christian school, basically they said that, you know, if I was gay, I wouldn't get to go to heaven. And that meant I wouldn't get to see my mom again. And I feel like I really just wanted to have both, you know, in this way, I wanted to see my mom in heaven. I wanted to like, you know, see her again, and also like wanted to live my life. And I was attracted to men, I was also attracted to women. But I think being a teenage boy, I was consumed by, you know, my hormones. And I was very much in love with this boy in my school. And I was very much also in love with this girl the same time. And it was very, like, tumultuous for all three of us.

Stephanie Winn: Sorry, I'm just really sitting with that image of a little five-year-old boy whose mother has died and who just wants nothing more than to be reunited with his mother and how innocent and pure and heartbreaking that is. And yeah, just what a pure place your desire was coming from, but what monumental hoops it must have felt like you had to jump through to

Austin Unbridled: to honor that innocent desire you know i mean like when you're a kid your mom is your whole world our dads go to work and we spend all day with our moms and i just didn't want to be removed from them you know and i thought of god as this like paternal father

Stephanie Winn: I recently told you about a group called Do No Harm, who's working to do just that. Eliminate the harm that so-called gender-affirming care for minors and political ideologies in medicine are causing. Do No Harm is made up of thousands of members across the country, from doctors to nurses to policymakers to concerned parents who see what's happening at practitioners around the country and are waving a red flag. Membership is free, and you get unlimited access to information from experts, on-the-ground updates from people working in medicine or state houses to take a stand, and collaboration with other thinkers. Learn more and sign up at do-no-harm-medicine.org slash some-therapist to learn more. That's do-no-harm-medicine.org slash some-therapist.

Austin Unbridled: We're human brains. We're not perfect in our ability to reason all the time. Emotion is so highly interwoven with faith that I think people get distracted from the fact that part of having faith in a higher power is that there's something greater than yourself. and that power um it's very humbling you know and you tend to not think me me me like you you you thank you for what you've done for me thank you for allowing me to survive through all the things that i've survived and instead of the sort of like progressive christianity mindset which is like yeah anything goes we love it all yeah you're you're you know it's a bdsm we love you know almost all of the progressive churches that i see around have the progress flag on them outside uh and it's like yeah you know all people deserve a pathway into faith but i think that by by deliberately pretending that the bible doesn't talk about these things um is really dangerous to people because they're getting this skewed version of um You know, what Jesus actually requires of people is, you know, he wants you to turn from yourself the thing that turned you away from God in the first part, whatever that is. It could be alcoholism, it could be gambling, it could be sex addiction, whatever. He wants you to, like, turn from that. Say, I don't want to do that anymore. I'm a new creation. So I want to follow and seek something better. And I think if your ears are really open to that message, you will have thoughts about like, well, maybe, you know, maybe spending all day scrolling on Grindr really isn't good for me, you know, and And that goes the same thing for straight people on Tinder all day, trying to find the next big thing. It's just like another form of idolatry that keeps us focused on ourselves and not a higher power, who I believe created us and wants us to thrive on this world.

Stephanie Winn: I love sleep. Sound sleep is a crucial foundation of good mental and physical health, from mood and concentration to metabolism and cellular repair. And I sleep very well thanks to my Eight Sleep Pod Pro Cover. My side of the bed is programmed to be warm when I get in and cool down to a neutral temperature in the middle of the night so I don't wake up overheated like I used to. How would you customize your bed temperature? Visit 8sleep.com and use promo code SUMTHERAPIST to take up to $200 off your purchase. Even if they're already running another sale, this code will get you an additional $50 off. 8sleep currently ships not only within the USA, but also to Canada, the UK, select countries in the European Union, and Australia. Thanks for considering purchases that support the show. So for anyone in the audience who's noticed any slight changes in the audio or video or anything about this conversation sounding glitchy, we're actually piecing it together in several bits because we've had technical difficulties and Austin has had to switch devices and so on. So that explains any differences that you've noticed. But our fingers are crossed that this time it's going to work out and we'll be able to have a more cohesive conversation, especially because Austin's talking about some pretty challenging stuff. We were talking about that time in your life that you were 19 in 2002 and some of the factors leading up to that in your upbringing in terms of gender roles, religion, and things like that. But I'm curious when you were first introduced to this idea of being a trans woman and what made you decide to go through with medicalizing when you were 19.

Austin Unbridled: Yeah, well, you know, the year 2002 was such an interesting and different world from what we live in now. And at 18, when I left Christian school, I moved to New York City. And, you know, it was literally like country mouse in the big city. And I got swept up going to clubs like Tunnel and Limelight, I saw all different kinds of people, you know, coming from a small town in North Carolina. I just couldn't imagine. I was like, wow, this is really my life, you know? And I got in. I met, like, an older guy who had a bunch of young, effeminate, like, twinks at his house. And through this thrift store that I worked at and, of course, like, spending time on AOL chat rooms and, like, GeoCities websites, I was just like, you know, I don't know if I'm gay. I don't feel like I'm gay. Like maybe, you know, I like cooking. I like cleaning. I like sewing, you know. And then I met this trans woman at Housing Works, the thrift store that I was volunteering at. And she and I just developed a friendship and she made a lot of things make sense for me. And I saw a lot of her in me. And I saw like, you know, there was this moment where she like tossed a pair of jeans at me and said, you know, try these on. And so I did. And she's like, look at, you know, look at your body. Your body's very feminine, you know. you like hormones will be really good for you um and she was only like maybe five or six years older than me and i thought like you know wow this first of all she's so cool she's tattoos like she works in this bar she doesn't care like you know, what she looks like. She works in a thrift store in the daytime and, you know, she like dances in clubs at night. I was like, wow, I want to be like her, you know? And it was kind of like the end of the club kid era at the at like Limelight and Tunnel, where you would see these people come in and they would just be like movie stars. I'm like, wow, holy crap, I wanna be like that. And I remember seeing Amanda Lepore out in public and I was just like, oh my God, that's a man, that's possible. But it wasn't really until I moved to Savannah after 9-11, because I didn't wanna be in New York City anymore. I moved to Savannah and I started going to the gay club there, Club One, and I met a bunch of drag queens and I met a bunch of, transgender-identified men who, for the best I could understand, passed. Um, and I just was kind of enamored with them. But I was so, like, trying to figure out who I was at the time, and I was… When I left New York, I was spending all my time doing ketamine with these guys until I basically told the older guy who, you know, his house. I was like, I think I'm a trans… I think I'm trans. And he was basically like, well, if you do that, you cannot come here anymore. And I was feeling like, I don't want to get out of New York anyway, so who cares? You know, I felt, I read this book by Chuck Palahniuk, and it's called Invisible Monsters. And I've given that book, crazy, I've given that book to so many other like, quote, trans women that I've known throughout the 22 years. Like have you ever read this book? You know, this is like the only book about a trans woman written by a man That I would ever like recommend and it's funny because it's you know, all the characters in it. There's a lot of different trans identified characters and drag queens and people with sex changes and and it's very dark and nihilistic. There's no point in anything. And there's a line where one of the characters, who's a trans-identified male, says, getting surgery is the biggest and most self-destructive thing you could do. But in that self-destruction, you'll find a new creation, a new phoenix rising from the ashes of your cell. And that really connected with me. That whole, just like that whole story arc in that book really felt like how, you know, this is, this feels bigger than just, you know, a book I got at the bookstore.

Stephanie Winn: It all sounds very romanticized.

Austin Unbridled: Very much so, yeah.

Stephanie Winn: And sort of like a lot of people go through a spiritual phase at that stage in life. But this was sort of, it was a departure from your Christian roots and almost like a new sense of some kind of mystical transcendent possibility or higher self that wants to emerge or this maybe rite of passage of some kind of transformation or metamorphosis that was really appealing to you right at that age of young adulthood, which is a time that can feel so vulnerable for emerging adults. Was any of that maybe a distraction or a way of coping with the pressures of meeting the demands of being an adult, which was so new for you?

Austin Unbridled: Definitely. I always, like, as a kid, I always really related to whatever stories I was reading. You know, I loved the Grimm's fairy tales when I was younger. I, even just through, like, media later in the 90s, I, like, was really into the X-Files and the Matrix and this idea that there is you know, like your perception is not all that's out there, that there are these other things that exist. And I, especially like in the Matrix, I saw a lot of myself, that quest, like where, you know, the character of Neo at the beginning is constantly like searching for meaning, searching for answers. And he's up all night on the computer and I was up all night on the computer. And, um, this idea that like, you could realize that everything you were told was actually a lie. And I was already feeling that in general from everything that I felt like the Christian church told me was a lie. Everything I knew from this small town in North Carolina moving to New York and then 9-11 happened. My family really encouraged me to leave New York because, you know, it was dangerous. And the community of friends that I had from Christian school, this was only like a year after I graduated, were like, this is the harbinger of the end times. You know, this is literally what they told us our entire lives, that planes would fall out of the sky, elevators, you know, would, you know, just like complete chaos would ensue. And this is the beginning of it, you know, this is the sign and the wonder. And the Assemblies of God and like the Southern Pentecostal type of churches that focus heavily on like eschatology and the study of the end times, they really look for these like, you know, connecting dots. And as a kid who was already very heavily Influenced by media and and fantasy books, you know, like fairy tales these ideas that Everything was this sort of romantic like almost almost like a movie, you know I'm a Pisces and I've had people who are really into astrology tell me that Pisces are the greatest actors that they're like they see the whole world as a stage and everything is like a romantic and acting and, you know, dramatic. And I think that's really true. I don't know if I believe in astrology, but I think that there are like archetypes that do make sense with that. And I do connect with that.

Stephanie Winn: So there's, there's this kind of mystical, romantic appeal of discovering that everything you've been taught is a lie. And yet, at the same time, it kind of primes you to be very vulnerable, because it's almost like Whatever, if you think about it as like breaking out of a shell, it's almost like whatever's outside of the shell the moment you break out of it. Well, it's kind of like how a baby duck, the first thing it sees thinks that's its mom, right? It's almost like whatever happens to be around at that moment in your life that you're like, what if it's all an illusion becomes the real thing? There was maybe a lack of any vigilance or skepticism toward the ideas that you were presented, which was this very appealing mystical idea that you might actually truly be a woman or that you could transform into a woman.

Austin Unbridled: Yes, it seemed like this, like, big mystery, you know? And the only thing I knew about really, like, transgender identity or transgenderism was what I saw on TV and what I saw in… And up until I moved to New York, I never really knew that, like, men could become women other than, like, what I saw on, like, Sally or Jerry, which was, you know, this big, like, gotcha. Oh, that woman's really a man, you know, or that man's really… And I never, when I was younger, I did kind of connect the dots with that when I would see it on TV and be like, oh yeah, that's possible. But it wasn't until later, it wasn't until I was in my late teens that I started to really fixate on that idea. Um, that maybe all of this confusion, maybe the fact that I really felt more connected to, you know, the, the stereotypical like female things, because I was, I had a single dad, but I was surrounded by women. My family is mostly women. The church ladies growing up really attached to me, and they knew that I didn't have a mom, and they knew that my brother didn't have a mom, so they really connected and made sure that we were included in going to church with their families and things like that. And there was a lot of coddling. The boys would pick on me, and then my grandmas are on, so the women would be like, well, come inside. don't worry about those boys, you know, just come inside and help me fold laundry and we'll call it a day. You know, and I felt very safe in that. And masculinity just seemed so terrifying. And like, I, the two times that I had had sex with a boy when I was in high school, I cried both times. I was just like, this is like, this is just too much. It's just too, too intense, you know? I feel like I, when I, I had a therapist, you know, and I feel like maybe I should have tried to talk more about this stuff, but I think that it was so buried in my subconscious. Like I didn't know even how to put words to some of this stuff at 19. I mean, you know, most teenagers don't, and you're in that body that's changing every year. It's like a different body. It's like constantly evolving and, and, um, I think I really just latched onto the idea of transition as an escape from all that. I liked the idea you could just move to a new town and become a new person. That's a very American privilege where this country is so big you can just go from one town to another and reinvent yourself. And now this is social media land, but back then it really wasn't. So you could just completely reinvent yourself. And I believed that, like that book Invisible Monsters talks about, that you can leave all that stuff behind. And I believed it. And I really don't think, I don't think you ever can leave anything.

Stephanie Winn: But it was very alluring at the time. And you had also mentioned that you were doing ketamine, which I think of as a dissociative drug. So I wonder if that enhanced sort of the dissociative nature of this, this ideology that you can transcend and transform your body, as well as leave behind your path.

Austin Unbridled: Yeah, I think I was very disassociated in general. And I also, around that same time, around 19, got put on Effexor and Depakote.

Stephanie Winn: Those are heavy drugs.

Austin Unbridled: Yeah. And I actually, after A couple of months, I think like six months to a year, I stopped taking the Depakote regularly because it just like, I felt like a ghost. And I had seen a psychiatrist, you know, to get help. And I remember feeling, I only saw him one time. I filled out like 300 question, like Scantron, like the SATs. And they just like zipped it through a machine and then they said you have gender identity disorder, you have gender dysphoria, you have bipolar, you know, and I think, oh, anxiety and depression. And it was like, yeah, duh, like. And they're like, well, here, take, you know, I saw the, I saw the psychiatrist for like maybe 15 to 20 minutes and he wrote me these prescriptions. And then for the next four and a half years, I was on some variation of like from Effexor to Paxil to Wellbutrin to Zoloft, but I never ended up taking Zoloft. I just, like, I'm not going to do it. I'm done with these prescriptions.

Stephanie Winn: a precursor prelude or what's the word I'm looking for almost like in a movie when they tease something that's going to happen foreshadowing that's the word I'm looking for like this idea that you went to a psychiatrist and they didn't spend a lot of time getting to know you you just filled out some bubbles on a sheet. And then in 15 minutes, now you're on all these drugs. And then for the next several years, you're on all these drugs. It's almost like, yeah, foreshadowing with the whole approach to so-called gender-affirming care as well. So you were on all of these drugs. And then what was the beginning of the medicalizing of the trans identity for you?

Austin Unbridled: There was a drag queen at the club in Savannah who lived her life full time, uh, as, you know, as a woman and had had breast implants. And, you know, for, for, for like most, I, she totally passed to me. Um, and she was like, I can get you on hormones. You know, we can, that's not that hard, you know? And so I remember she gave me some, some estrogen and I was talking to my therapist and I was like, well, I want to take estrogen. I want to see if it, you know, I think I really want to do this. I want to transition. I was talking to people at night on the computer, you know, um, like every night, as soon as I got home from school or work, I was like, On the computer talking to people who I perceived to be Women, you know, they I knew that they were Like transgender, but I just put in my mind I thought of them because they're like, oh this person is like 60 or 50 or whatever They were like the women I grew up around and you know This is an internet where you didn't really even have profile pictures, you know uploading a picture to the computer was very That was just, I think, a few years off for most people. And I would talk to these people at night and they would say like, yeah, you know, if I had transitioned when I was your age, my life would have been so much better. You know, if I had transitioned before I had kids, I could have lived a normal life, you know, and there was this big push from all of them to transition yesterday. And this website at the time, TS Roadmap, Andrea James, she was like one of the first big trans rights activists on the internet. She had a whole list of how you could transition, who to talk to, what doctors, how to get on hormones, how to get electrolysis. And I was like, okay, I just follow this list and boom, that's the process. And my therapist did eventually end up writing me a prescription, but it took a couple of different pharmacists to actually fill it. And I ended up having to go all the way to Atlanta to get to get it filled or to get the actual prescription. And then I brought it back to Savannah and like two different pharmacies wouldn't fill it because they saw me as a boy and they were like, I'm not going to fill you an estrogen prescription. But it was a different world in 2002. Yeah. The, you know, it was also Georgia. Um, but the person who helped me get on estrogen the first time, you know, the, the, the like street estrogen, she was like, you have to go to this pharmacy in this part of town and they'll fill anything, no questions asked. So I did. And, you know, in and out there like an hour and I had prescription for Premarin and I took Premarin and Spirinolactone for the next like four years. Um,

Stephanie Winn: What was that process like for you adjusting to the hormones? Did you feel it emotionally? Did you notice it in your body?

Austin Unbridled: I felt crazy. I felt like, you know, I cried a lot, but I was always, I cried a lot as a kid anyway, so that wasn't, that wasn't new. But there came to a point where I just felt like because of the other prescriptions that I was taking, I felt like a ghost. and then I couldn't actually like get out the emotions and the feelings like I couldn't get that release that you get like when you cry or you sob and you just get it all out and so things would just build up and build up and build up and then I would like explode in these rages you know and I remember like hot flashes and you know trying to work like a job at a thrift store and having these like hot flashes and just like you know, like raging out at people because I couldn't regulate my emotions. And I, I would like, I thought of it as like, when, especially when I talk to people on, on the internet about it, like, oh, that's just the hormones, you know, eventually you'll get regulated, work out and you won't feel like that, but it's part of the ebb and the flow in the beginning. So I, that was a challenge.

Stephanie Winn: It's one of those things where I found myself saying this to different people in different contexts where I'm one of those women who is super sensitive to hormones, like I'm very sensitive to fluctuations in my natural cycle. And then the few times that I've altered my hormones in any way, like taking birth control, I had to stop because it just made me feel crazy. Like I was constantly either crying or having a panic attack. And I had to stop because I felt like I was poisoning my endocrine system. And I felt how powerfully my endocrine system is tied with my psychology. And I know not all women respond that way. I am wired in a more highly sensitive way than some. But I do know a lot of women share my experiences as well. And so it's one of those things that's just so mind boggling when we hear about people taking these substances. This is no joke. You're messing not just… I mean, your endocrine system affects everything in your body, but especially your emotions. And it's just so bizarre. I mean, I'm still curious about the narratives kind of then and now because it has been 21 years since this time in your life. the narratives in the trans community as men are going through these incredible mood swings, having had no prior experience of feeling those chemicals coursing through your bloodstream and then to be hit with all of that emotionality, it seems like it would be incredibly disconcerting, but it seems like also it was kind of being painted in this way of like, almost like no pain no gain suffer for beauty like you just gotta get through this and it's all worth it as part of your gender journey to becoming a woman

Austin Unbridled: Yeah, absolutely. It seemed like a rite of passage. There were certain things that I noticed when I was on estrogen, especially in the beginning, that allowed me to be in my body in a way that I had never been before. I remember having this moment where I was walking outside and this gust of wind just blew past me and I felt the goosebumps in my body from that experience in a new way that I had never experienced before. It just felt like the first time I had ever felt a breeze in my entire life. you know when I talk to other people about that they're like oh yeah my arms felt lighter or you know I noticed I'm smiling a lot and it was just like one of these little things that now I think when people would call that like gender euphoria but at the time that like concept didn't even exist so um But then again, it was, there was this constant feeling of anxiety 24 seven because, you know, I was six feet tall. Um, I was like, you know, I was, I'm a male, you know, I have like male skeleton and it wouldn't be quite a few years before my body and my musculature would be altered by estrogen in such a big way.

Stephanie Winn: So there's anxiety maybe as a result of the hormones and also as a result psychologically of the cognitive dissonance between on the one hand making this effort to become a woman on some level knowing that you never would be one.

Austin Unbridled: I said, I believed at the time I would. I really did. I thought that it was like part of this, you know, magical thinking, magical, like transformation looking glass, you know, again, very romantic, very childlike mindset about this, this process.

Stephanie Winn: You were still such a baby. I just had an interview come out recently with Leonard Sachs, who specializes in sex differences. And he said that, you know, this idea that you don't fully mature until you're 25 or 26, that's actually based on an average of males and females. And for males, it's more like 28. So you were such a long way off. from full cognitive maturity. And I'm still thinking too about the cultural changes at that point in your life having come from rural North Carolina to living in New York and then in Georgia, but in different environments and also just the pressures of growing up. It's such an anxiety provoking time when you're like a baby adult and you're like, I got to know how to drive and pay taxes and You know maintain good terms with my landlord and you know, there's so much to learn in those first few years of being independent and Just seemed like this was like a distraction or something you held on to As a way of coping so you said you were out you're on those drugs for four years and and then what?

Austin Unbridled: Uh, well, in that time, I moved to Philly with, uh, I met my best friend in Savannah and she was from like Philly. She had family in the Philly suburbs, so she was moving there and I was like, I want to get out of Savannah. I want to live in a big city. So I moved to Philly and about a year into Philly, I decided I wasn't going to take like, well, the doctor in Savannah wouldn't fill any prescriptions. Like he wrote me the Zola. And I was like, yeah, I'm just trying to find a doctor. But I don't think I want to take… I think I was on Welbutrin or Paxil. I cannot remember the order of how I did, but I started with Effexor and Zoloft was the last one. And I was like, I'm not going to actually do that.

Stephanie Winn: You got off all the meds?

Austin Unbridled: Yeah, I went cold turkey. Except for the estrogen because the Mazzoni Center in Philly, which is like LGBT clinic, they were able to give me estrogen and testosterone spironolactone, the suppressant. because I was already on it. And they had like, you know, sort of like emergency fund for transgender people who were struggling to have their hormones. So I was able to get that with just like, again, another 15 to 20 minute discussion with a nurse practitioner. And I had gotten a breast augmentation that I paid for cash and I didn't have to get any like letters or whatever for that. But I remember the doctor at Misoni said, just kind of casually passing to herself, like, oh, well, you don't need the estrogen for boobies since you already bought them. And I was like, wow, that's OK. That made me feel kind of cringe. But that was another foreshadowing moment. It's like, yeah, you know, I did buy them. They were not, like, natural. They came. And the ones that I have in me that I'm actually getting taken out in seven days again are not natural. And, you know, this idea that you could change yourself to become more authentic, given that we live in such a like surgically altered celebrity reality now, you know, everyone looks like a clown compared to how they did 20 years ago.

Stephanie Winn: It's like the other side of the whole Oh, well, if you have your breasts removed and then you want them later, you can always go and get them. Like that whole… Exactly. What's the word? Like glib, dismissive attitude towards a human body as if surgery isn't a trauma and as if mammary glands are the same as silicone. But so even then it like… didn't land well with you. Did you quit all your psych meds, cold turkey, because you didn't have money for them? You didn't have a prescriber?

Austin Unbridled: Again, I was like, I don't want to take these anymore because I think I was just feeling … I felt really attached to the idea that it was all, everything was just a big nothing. And I would say that to a friend of mine. Sort of like nihilism? Very nihilistic. And I said that to a friend of mine who was like the first ever, like, punk former sex worker turned born again Christian, who's an amazing, like, gift from God in my life still to this day. She used to get so mad when I would say that. Like, it's all a bit nothing. Who cares? There's no God, there's no nothing. It's like nothing exists, nothing matters. I can carve my body up into a million things and I had already done that. I'd gotten face surgery, I'd gotten breast surgery, and then shortly thereafter I got castration. And each time I did those things, it felt like a hurdle with a lot of disassociation to submit myself to that. But again, it was heavily romanticized by other trans people, specifically older ones who were always telling me how young I was and how pretty and how passable and how, you know, this is, you know, you're so lucky. I wish I could have done, you know, and working in an age charity in Philadelphia, I met a lot of people who identified as trans and most of them were my parents' age. So, there was this sort of like transition yesterday, get it out of the way, then you can go and live a normal life and you just get through this really bad hardship and then you're free and clear.

Stephanie Winn: And what was your perspective then and what is it now on your relationships with these older people?

Austin Unbridled: I think, and I actually was having a conversation with a friend the other day about something different, but I have always believed naively that other people have my best interests at the forefront of their, in their encouragement of doing things and their relationship to me. I feel like I trust them. I care about them. They obviously, they have my best interest. But I realized, no, that's like the exact opposite of truth. You know, everyone has their own agendas. Everyone has their own realities. And I was doing sex work when I was, I started doing sex work when I was in my early twenties. And it was a lot of men who would be very showing me a lot of adoration for my body. And so it was like my brain was saying, oh, your body's awful, like you hate your penis, you hate your body. But then these men would pay me money and would treat me like, you know, very special. I think that there was a lot of shame in that, but also in the shame, there was a lot of affirmation. And I think that I was being, I've said this on TikTok a few times, I felt, truly, that I was being affirmed by these daddies, but I was really just being consumed. I was just an object for them and their sexual pleasure. And even though they gave me money, fixed my car when it had trouble and did things like that and let me stay in really nice hotels. They didn't actually have anything other than their gratification and their continued ability to access them.

Stephanie Winn: It seemed like there were a few different kind of categories of older males that were sort of preying on you. And so one was this the older trans woman who sort of projected herself himself onto you and told you that you are so lucky. And it seems like part of what set you up to be vulnerable towards those people was that they reminded you of the sweet little church ladies that you grew up with and these Like, women in your family, you just sort of projected that maternal, innocent quality onto them and didn't really see that there could have been anything else driving their treatment of you. And then when you got into, let's say, selling your body, there was this category of men that weren't, they weren't trans women, but there was this relationship where on the one hand, they're giving to you, so there's something that feels nurturing about that, but at the same time, you're being put in a very particular role. And it sounded like the body that you had at that time was sort of like the type of body that gets fetishized by certain types of men. So you were being sought out for like particular types of sex or ways of using your body. And like you're trying to derive something from that, some kind of emotional nourishment, definitely physical nourishment. But at the end of the day, it fell short because it wasn't really love for you.

Austin Unbridled: Yeah, that's true. I, I mean, it's kind of like an alternate set of parents, you know, these like maternal crossdressers at support groups and on the internet and then these like paternal, I mean, I called them the daddies, you know, like the dads, they, they all, they had kids, you know, and they were like, they, they were always older that I think now there's a lot more people that seek out trans people, but back in, you know, 2004 ish, it was mostly like older married men. And, you know, I don't, I don't know where the. I mean, I guess I think pornography is a big part of it. I definitely remember seeing the first time I saw trans porn, it was a photograph, you know, and then later I worked in a video store and there was all kinds of porn in the back room and, you know, I could see whatever I wanted. I could take, I could take like unlimited DVDs and VHS's home with me if I wanted.

Stephanie Winn: Would you mind sharing how you got into the sex industry? I've heard that there's a connection for some people between this pressure to raise money for hormones and surgeries and things like that. Was that a connection for you or was it driven by something else?

Austin Unbridled: Yeah, it was definitely, it wasn't about getting access to money or hormones or anything. The first time I was propositioned was in New York, an older man who I met um was visiting and he invited me to dinner. I went to the Olive Garden at Times Square and had dinner with him and then he invited me to his hotel and we went to his hotel and then we had sex and then he gave me a couple hundred bucks and I was like no that's okay you don't have to give me any money. Oh, no, I'm okay. And he was like, no, no, no, you should, you know, go buy herself something nice, you know? And I remember like thinking, oh, there is, yeah, actually could use the money. I, you know, it'd be fun. And then from then on, especially like with the twinks that I was, this was as a twink, this was like as a boy, not as a trans identified person yet. The guys that were at the older man's house that we were all doing ketamine and going to the club together, they all did sex work. And so it was just like, oh yeah, I saw that guy. And you could go to the club and men would say like, hey, you know, come home with me. And I would. And then it's just like the rest was the rest was there. Now, when I moved to Savannah, it was harder. But hanging around the gay club and being like young and pretty and obviously like trans, people just approached me.

Stephanie Winn: How long did that go on for?

Austin Unbridled: Uh, the last time, well, I did sex work on and off all through my twenties and thirties. I went through the like back page era, the Craigslist adult services, like, you know, the, the internet stuff was more my Philadelphia era because the technology was changing. And that was like the first time, um, I had like could upload pictures and things like the MySpace era. So I would post ads on, on Craigslist and, um, that went on and off until I left there and then I moved to Tucson and I was doing sex work there and again advertising online but I've done it on and off since I was 18 and there were times when I was like oh I really need like like when I owned a house I was like oh I really need to like replace the air conditioner so I just need to like hook for a new AC unit boom you know I would like try to make a thousand dollars and then you know get the whatever repaired um I had gotten money from a car accident that I was in, so I was able to buy a house, a really run-down house in South Philly, and over the course of nine years, I fixed it up, and then I sold it for three times what I paid for it. And I moved to Tucson, and I was like, I bought a house with a swimming pool and a driveway. I was like, wow, I've really made it. I'm living the dream. But I was very unhappy, and I ended up borrowing a lot of money against it to get surgeries, things like that, pay for it, because I wanted it to be a place where trans people could come and hang out. So I would host these pool parties through a local trans advocacy group here in Tucson. And I just blew exorbitant amounts of money, pretty much everything that I had gotten in equity off of my house in Philly and then had to sell my house in Tucson and just kind of take the equity that I got from that to pay for surgery, which was like $24,000. So it sounds like originally it wasn't

Stephanie Winn: something that you were really relying on or there wasn't this vicious cycle, but then it became sort of this tempting source of easy money. So even though it wasn't necessarily always your only source of income, it was just like, oh, damn, I need $1,000. Well, here's an easy route. And then it kind of led to this vicious cycle because you kept upgrading your lifestyle because you were accustomed to having the money, but then you became more dependent on it and did it Did it get to a point where you felt trapped?

Austin Unbridled: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it got to the point where right before I sold the house, like I didn't even want to leave the house in Tucson. I, yeah, like that last year before I sold the house and went to Thailand for surgery, I barely left the house. I like was volunteering at an LGBTQ drop-in center in Tucson. And that was really the first time I started seeing like, wow, these kids, you know, I thought by transitioning kids young, they would have a better life than I had, and they wouldn't have to do this, but here they all were basically doing the exact same things I was doing, and they were younger, you know, they were like 14, 15, getting into sex work and I just felt like that was so wrong and it really stressed me out and it made me start to question a lot of things and I was in a relationship that fell apart and you know I had a roommate who had gotten bottom surgery and she was just like you know very talking about how much better her life was, and I had already met a bunch of people who had bottom surgery and they always said the same thing. They always were like, my life is so much better, my boyfriend can't tell, the doctor can't tell, my orgasms are better, I feel so much better, you know, it was never, I never ever hurt a single trans person. in real life ever speak about any negative downsides of transition other than complaining about having to dilate daily. But even ones that had complications always downplayed it, like it was just like, oh, but you know, it'll get better. And it's like, I think in my own mind, I became like the frog in the pot of water slowly boiling, that it's just like, yeah, it's just part of it, it's just part of it, it's just part of it. you know, submit to it and you'll be fine. And every single trans person I knew that had bottom surgery talked about how great it was and how much better everything was for them. And I just really believed maybe this is my solution too. Maybe this is the root of all the stuff is, you know, my whole anxiety, my whole my whole issue with myself comes down to the fact that I have a penis and that it has been the thing that people want from me. Even when I was, you know, like a kid, which I've talked about in a few other podcasts, when an older boy kind of tricked me into, you know, having a sexual experience with him when I was eight, like I I just didn't, I just, I don't know. I just have a lot of issues with my genitalia. And I wish that I had had somebody in my life, other than my father, who was the only person that told me I shouldn't do it. Everyone else in my life, literally sad because they were all well-meaning liberals. Well, if that's what you want to do to make yourself better or to feel happy or to feel better in your body, I support you. That's beautiful. And you're already, I was already so desensitized to surgery because when you tell people you're trans, that's literally the first thing that comes into their mind. Well, did you have surgery? You know, and people are very brazen to ask you, like, what's in your pants? And I know a lot of trans-identified people are always complaining that people ask them about surgery, but it's like, that's all you guys talk about. That's all we talk about is surgery, and I'm gonna get my FFS, I'm gonna get a BBL. You guys are perpetuating it. BBL? Oh, Brazilian butt lift. That's the new big thing that all the trans women right now are trying to get. Oh, great. Yeah, they all want the BBL.

Stephanie Winn: Okay. Yeah, there's really no end to the consumer market for these things, is there? So when you went to Thailand, was that for vaginoplasty?

Austin Unbridled: And I had a couple friends that went to this doctor and they all said, you know, how amazing it was and how the result and the general consensus on the internet and in like trans identified male spaces is that Thailand has the best options because they use a different, slightly different technique than what is done here in America. and it's more affordable, it's easier to get, and you get to like stay in a hotel for a month in pretty much the lap of luxury due to the exchange rate. So when I got there, yeah the hotel was really nice, but the doctor's clinic was literally like just It was like he was churning out Model T Fords. It was like assembly line. And my surgery was at 6 p.m. in the evening, and he had been doing various stuff in the clinic since 6 a.m. that morning. So he was already on a 12-hour day when he started operating on me. And my four-hour surgery took six and a half hours. And apparently I had to have two bags of blood transfusion because I lost a lot of blood. But they wouldn't tell me what or why or how. They made it seem like it was my fault that I'm like a bleeder. And I was like, well, I've never, I've had a bunch of surgeries before and I've never had these issues. Can you tell me what went wrong? And they would just say like, it's very common. It's very common, you know? And that was the thing that they, there was a girl who had a complication in the hotel and basically like, she was sitting down and I guess popped a stitch or something and she just like, Started hemorrhaging blood and they had to like rush her out of there and take her to the big hospital in Bangkok Like they couldn't even deal with at the clinic. They had to take her right to the hospital and Everyone was just when she came back like the next day the nurses were like, it's common. It's common Oh, it's she was she just had a stitch very common And There's nothing really common about that, other than the fact that maybe your surgeon is just not that good at what he's dealing. And most of the people I think that have had bottom surgery are, including myself, we have real extreme issues with our genitalia, and we don't know, like, what's a better, you know, Maybe I think a lot of people who have surgery that are male, like male born, don't really know anything about a natural vagina. Maybe if they do, it's just porn based, or like the one girl that they hooked up with. I'm speaking from experience. But so many trans people tell each other in this echo chamber that Nobody can tell the difference. Even lesbians can't tell the difference. And, you know, it's just so sad and delusional to think that that's true. But, you know, I believed it.

Stephanie Winn: How old were you when you had that surgery?

Austin Unbridled: I was actually 36. And again, I think of that as my water was boiling moment, and I jumped out of the pot because I had had FFS when I was two months until my 21st birthday, so I wasn't even old enough to drink. But I flew to San Francisco using money from my car accident and gave Dr. Douglas Osterhout like $36,000 to give me a new face. And I remember when I saw him in his office, I was like, will I be pretty? Will I be pretty? And he said, in my experience, pretty boys make pretty girls. And I was like, oh, okay. So I felt very assured. And again, he's a doctor with a really nice office and like big mahogany desk. And you're like, oh, this guy, yeah, he knows what he's talking about. And I feel like doctors had saved my life from that car accident that I was in as a kid. Doctors saved my life once. I had a tremendous respect and almost adoration for doctors because they're saving lives. They're doing this amazing stuff. My grandma always had General Hospital on the TV at the house. So yeah, doctors are good people. They want to help. And I think now doctors are just, they are equally compromised because it's all about the money for them.

Stephanie Winn: So your first surgery was at 20. Your last surgery was at 36. This is a long process for you. And you said that that was your frog in the boiling hot water finally jumping out of the pot moment. So did things spiral downhill after that?

Austin Unbridled: Yeah, when I came back, when I came back, I had a really hard time being present and like, like I had sold my house, I sold my car, like my dream car, I sold, I got, I like, I like was processing like having traded these things in my life that I was really proud of, you know, that I thought meant that I had like done something good in my life and I traded them for this idea of a better genital, a better option, you know, but And so many like men that I met pre-transit or pre-surgery would always say like, if you, you know, I think you're amazing, I would love to date you, but yeah, I'm not into the penis, so you'd have to have surgery. And then, so you hear that for like a decade and then you finally get surgery and all of a sudden all the guys are like, yeah, I'm just really not into that. I wish you, you know, I'm looking for a pre-op. i'm looking for a pre-op and again it just shows you that it is you're being consumed you're not being affirmed they don't even see you as a person they literally see you as an extension of whatever pornography um and that was a hard thing to come back to because i thought like okay well now i'm like fixed and i can be like truly myself and so i went on this road trip for a couple months and just drove around the country and went to national parks and met some people and and then i got back here to uh arizona and then the pandemic started and that's when i washed up at this nudist like colony this nudist area and I met people for the first time in my life that were, you know, like in all different types of bodies. And they were totally okay with it. And, and once I got the courage to like take off, you know, my all my clothes and just be naked out there, I felt so free. And I felt like wow, I feel more comfortable naked than I do when I wear clothes in town. And then I started seeing trans people, male to females, female to males, coming down to the beach, and they were being naked, and they were loved and accepted, and nobody was trying to kill them, like I'd heard from trans rights activists in my community. Everyone was just accepted. Even the guys at the nude beach that are very, very masculine, they're really respectful to the trans people that are there. There's really no hatefulness.

Stephanie Winn: I know you've mentioned that on your TikToks, but you haven't mentioned it in this episode yet, that part of your involvement in the trans community was sort of this indoctrination into this sphere of outsiders, this sort of increasingly distorted worldview about what all the quote-unquote cis people are like, this whole idea of the trans genocide, that people like me want you dead, all of that stuff, and the activism was also part of your journey, part of what maybe isolated you too. So it seems like the pandemic and finding yourself escaping the lockdowns, being outside with other people in the nude was really breaking out of your social bubble. and very eye-opening for you.

Austin Unbridled: Definitely. And not only that, because this area, this nude beach, is pretty well-known, there would be occasionally people from my previous life that would wander into the environment. But they would never, these like trans rights activists, these other LGBT people, they would never integrate with the nudists. They would always go by themselves and be naked or topless or whatever together. They never integrated with the group. And I even before I like totally just stopped talking to all those people, I would hear them say like, oh, they're just a bunch of dirty old men. And I'm like, no, they're literally really good people. They don't hate you because you're a woman with a hairy chest and a beard. They don't hate you. They don't hate me. And they were like, well, that's because you have passing privilege. And they don't know that you're trans. And I was like, well, I don't know if that's true. I don't know what's their level of perception about if they're clocking me or what. I just really started feeling comfortable in my body and realizing, oh my god, I didn't need to change anything. The human body is literally just a body. And I think that was also because I was getting older. I was approaching 40, where it's like, you look back at yourself and you're like, I was so beautiful. Why did I try to mutate myself into something else? I couldn't see the beauty. I literally just thought that was this monster. And again, it goes back to that book, Invisible Monsters. There's a whole line where the person is actually a model. They're beautiful. but they have this horrible disfiguring accident and they become an invisible person, an invisible monster. And I felt like that my whole life. I just felt, you know, when people could see me, they weren't seeing the real me. And when they were seeing the real me, it was this incongruous, like, Okay, you're a boy that's feminine, but you're not really a woman, you know? And having, like, heartache after heartache after heartache when you finally share that you're trans with people, and you think they're gonna accept you, and they don't. And it's not that they didn't accept me and, like, they hated me, they were just like, that's not what I'm into. You know, and I can't fault them for that and that's like I I see now, you know having had Seven male to female friends in that 20 year span commit suicide. I know that some of them had surgery my last friend who She's number seven She had surgery and then very shortly after killed herself because it I think the same exact thing that I was going through she was going through but we're all super we internalize we don't talk about it and because all you ever hear is How great it is and anytime someone speaks against that they're like silence. They're told that that person's crazy You know, like they tell me I transitioned for the wrong reason or I got surgery for the wrong reason, you know, and it's like well What's the right reason?

Stephanie Winn: There's all the shifting of the goalposts and obfuscating. And then meanwhile, the consequences are deadly serious. You lost seven friends to suicide. And something I've uncovered doing this advocacy work is the disturbing knowledge that we've actually known for a lot longer than a lot of people would like to admit that sex reassignment surgery or whatever you want to call it does not improve mental health and that it does in fact increase the risk of suicide. And it seems like in sort of the underground community of drag queens and transsexuals that anyone who's been around long enough has seen this. has seen friends like yours. And it seems at least anecdotally that sort of the more extreme the body modification, the higher the risk of suicide. And I imagine that those friend suicides for you, they happened sort of gradually or were they clustered happening all at once? And how did that… There was an escalation during the pandemic.

Austin Unbridled: There was an, well, I would say, back it up. There was an, it was accelerating during the Trump administration. Because before that, I would say, I want to think three friends. And over those three friends, it was probably maybe seven or eight years. So, kind of like, okay, a friend died. It's terrible. You grieve, and then a couple years later, another one does. But then, yeah, from like 2016 to 2020, yeah, there was like four.

Stephanie Winn: And they had all had vaginoplasty?

Austin Unbridled: No, not all of them. The last one did. I don't know I don't know about two of them, like, what their surgical… I know that they had, like, work done, but I don't know about their actual, like, genitals.

Stephanie Winn: I'm really sorry. Did you get any closure? I mean, I know it's impossible to get closure, obviously, face-to-face with someone who's not there, but how did you make sense of it?

Austin Unbridled: Well, as I got older and as I started realizing that so much of the trans, like, ideology is rooted in lies and rooted in Honestly, like junk science, I started seeing how it was failing people that I loved. And I knew that it failed me. And I kept like thinking, well, if I just do this one more thing, if I just get this surgery, my life will be so much better. And I think that that's this sort of enticing draw for a lot of people is they feel the same way. Like, well, it worked for that girl on YouTube. She's happy. A lot of the trans male to female surgery influencers on the internet are really doing dangerous stuff because they're telling people that they don't even know how changing their body changed their life for the better. And we don't even know if that's true or not. When you start making content, people get really addicted to your content they want you don't post enough you don't make any videos Um, and that, that is a lot to handle. It's a lot to be publicly concealed. And I have a very small platform on the internet, but some of these people, you know, they have hundreds of thousands of subscribers and it's, it's heartbreaking to know that they're not being able to be 100% truthful because of the, you know, the machine that is pushing the trans positive agenda and not the reality based aspect that there's downsides to it.

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Austin Unbridled: Yeah, I I think a lot of it was coming to the realization that You know as a kid, I learned that that you know, the Bible says that people are fearfully and wonderfully made and that when you Give your life to Christ, which I did many times as a kid You were made into a new creation. You so you shed off your worldly I identity and you become this new creation in Christ, which is like focused on loving God above all else and loving your neighbor as yourself. And even in my times of like, you know, when I was as far away from God as I could get, I still like especially as like a, as like a liberal person, like I really wanted to like, yeah, we have to take in all the refugees. Yeah. We have to love all the people that are going through trouble right now. We have to help the homeless people. We have to do all these things. And my desire to be loving and caring and nurturing, um, I was seeing my friends who said that they had those same things and their solution was different than my solution. I remember one time I got into this huge argument with someone. a friend of a friend and that friend ended up not really becoming my friend for much longer after this because I was against abolishing prisons. This was in like 2013, you know, and they were like, well, if there was, you know, if there were no prisons, there would be no crime. And I remember thinking, well, that does not make any sense to me. But again, you're being told you have to unlearn everything. And that was right around the time in the radical trans and queer LGBTQ community that the early stages of wokeism were starting to come in, where it's like, white people are the problem. White males are the biggest problem of all. if you had a college education, you're part of the problem. You know, I remember this like LGBT off-grid community that I was affiliated with and went to quite a bit in Tennessee. And I remember they had like a hundred queer people in a barn, forcing us to do the Jubilee thing where it's like, they would make a statement and then you'd have to go stand on one side of the barn, you know? And that's the first time. And it was like, I remember one of the prompts was, I grew up in a house, not an apartment. And I was like, well, at times I lived in a house, but then we lost the house. At times I lived in a trailer. At times I lived in my grandma's house and slept on her couch. How do I fit myself in there? And then I remember asking, I stayed neutral for a lot of it. And they were like, you're not participating in this. And I was like, life is way more nuanced. You might have lived in a house, but you might not have had furniture. You might have had sheets tacked up or newspapers in the windows. The world is not all just cut and dry. But they didn't see it that way. They were like, if you ever lived in a house that your family owned, you have to stand on this side. And it's like, well, that doesn't make sense.

Stephanie Winn: And can I just chime in and say it also doesn't make sense with what we know about human nature and what really fills a person, what really sets a person up for success. Yes, socioeconomic success is important, but I'm pretty sure looking at the big picture that if you grow up in a loving home with two supportive parents in an apartment and eat good food, you're going to be better off than living in a mansion with absent checked out parents who don't care about you, or even with a lot of different nannies and caregivers going in and out, which is the case for a lot of wealthy people, that's actually a setup for the potential development of sociopathies when someone doesn't have present caregivers to attach to in any secure kind of way. Yeah, so you were really exposed to sort of the black and white thinking and the victim perpetrator mindset and all of that. And even as early as 2013, you were like, this doesn't square with my human experience.

Austin Unbridled: And I would say things, and they would say, well, that's because you're white. That's because you have white privilege. That's because you have passing privilege. That's because you have pretty privilege. You have skinny privilege. I mean, if you name some random thing, they would tack privilege on the end of it. And immediately, all that did was just shut you up. you're done you can't you can't you know you have race privilege okay well how do you respond to that you know and they were always telling everyone to unlearn this and unlearn that and this is the truth and like what you grew up knowing is not the truth And I, I saw people get canceled in the early stages of cancellation culture, like, you know, and there were some LGBT people who were canceled by the LGBT, like radical queer woke mob, um, for, you know, being men or being you know like oh maybe this person hit on a female and she didn't feel comfortable so now he's a rapist you know now he's like an assaulter you know because he touched her or whatever and it's like again you know the the mob was really starting to get nasty And I just learned, yeah, it's better. I want to keep my friends just to keep my mouth shut. And then, honestly, around 2020, it was the boiling point for me because, well, closer to 2021 when the vaccine came out, because my heart was saying, don't, don't, don't. They just made this thing, you know, you guys all hate Trump, but now you're saying I have to take a vaccine that they, that, you know, like he made or he pushed, you know, whatever. And they were literally telling me that I was killing black and brown people by not getting vaccinated because they were the most at risk for coronavirus and blah, blah, blah.

Stephanie Winn: They're really heavy handed with the guilt tripping, aren't they?

Austin Unbridled: It's very guilt. It's more, I would say, honestly, the LGBT community is more guilt driven in the way that they control people than the Pentecostal church that I grew up in. You know, like the Pentecostal church, they'll say, oh, you'll lose your eternal salvation. And you're like, that's pretty scary. But like, the queer community wants to come for your entire life. They want you to be fired. They don't want you to have housing. They don't want you to have a platform on the internet. They want your life. And I saw that happen. I saw there were LGBT people who opened businesses in Philadelphia, but they didn't hire enough black and brown, non-white POC non-binaries. So they got canceled and then they lost their business. I had a friend who opened up a tattoo parlor and was not a white person, but got outwoked by her own employees or their own employees. And it's just tragic. Because our culture, if we're really LGBT and loving our community, we need to be encouraging ourselves to keep our money and to start businesses and to do good things with the community. But instead, we're just giving money to Big Pharma to mutilate us in the spirit of being a good person. And I don't think a single Pfizer rep or any surgeon really cares about people in the end because most people, actually I would say any trans person that has surgery, if you go to any Reddit forum, trans surgeries on Reddit, anyone who contacts their doctor with a problem, the number one thing they say is, I'm bleeding out of my neo-vagina, it took the doctor a week to respond to me. if they responded at all. I asked the clinic in Thailand what actually happened because I thought about getting something to fix my urethra and they never responded because they didn't want to do a revision you know and so I'm like okay well I'm gonna get it here in America to kind of fix this issue, which, you know, never happens, but like almost everyone I know who has had male to female vaginoplasty has some kind of complication. They just minimize it, you know, because I think it's like the cost-sunk fallacy where it's like, oh, I put so much of my life into this thing and now I can't admit to the mass that maybe I made a mistake. And again, I think that kept me silent for a long time, but at a certain point, especially when all my friends were calling me a white supremacist neo-Nazi because I didn't want to take an experimental vaccine, I started realizing, maybe these people are fucking deranged. Maybe they do not have my best interest. Maybe they don't have anyone's best interest. Maybe they're literally just like parroting some sort of other narrative that is like darker and more maybe borderline satanic. I don't know. But it is, I think, an agenda of evil and an agenda of destruction. And I know people like to say that it's a death cult. and i used to think that that was like okay that's kind of pushing it but having seen seven people i know care and cared about commit suicide and and you know like they almost get except in their like personalized people we remember them but there is no like you know memorial to them there is no it's just like oh back to your transition, you know? And they are like, oh, we love them, but they added to the statistic, you know? And I don't want to commit suicide anymore because one, I feel like the majority of the reasons why… wanted to commit suicide was just to get out of feeling all of this stuff all of the time. And I totally understand why my friends made that decision. But now I want to stay alive to spite this, you know, to spite them and to say like, hey, You're not going to get me. You guys tricked me into cutting off my penis. And I really believed, and this is my own naivety and my own mental illness and my own struggle, that that was a solution to fix me. And every doctor who wrote me a letter for surgery said I was an ideal candidate. that I was irrevocably committed to the change. And I read that and I was thinking, yeah, that's real, that's like a diploma, you know, that's like, that's real. And I just see now, it's just like, that's literally what they have to say in order to be like legally, you know, that irrevocably committed to the change and ideal candidate are the two like phrases legally that have to be in the letter. And I feel like such a fool, you know, for reading that and thinking, this is a doctor, they care about me. And now I just feel like, oh, they were just trying to get their, you know, $400 letter writing fee. And that's the other thing too, like I'm gonna legally change my name back, but I actually have to get a doctor to write a note to change my name back to my birth name, even though my birth certificate, I never changed. So that's another couple hundred dollar fee that I have to come up with just to change my name back to the name that I was born under. Which is Austin. Which is Austin, yeah. And it's like, there's so many funds for people to get surgery. Like I have this GoFundMe and I'm so incredibly grateful for everyone that has donated and shared it. There are GoFundMes for people to get, you know, Botox. Trans people to get like lip filler and stuff and boom, they're filled in a second. Like people love giving trans people money to have surgeries. But when a trans person says, like, hey, you know what? I made a mistake. I think I want to go back. You know, it's like crickets. Nobody wants to, nobody wants to touch that. And that's why, like, I'm so grateful for my platform on TikTok and the people that, um, that have donated to that. It's like, I see, like, that is a person who is saying, like, you know, especially in this bad economy, One, that they feel touched by the fact that there are people out there that thought this would fix them and realized, oh my god, it was a lie. And I had contacted a couple of doctors and I found one in Phoenix who was very sensitive. I guess, sensitive to detransitioners, understanding, realizes that yes, while his clinic does treat trans people, he also sees that there is going to be a bigger trans, detrans thing in the future, you know, and he said he hasn't seen it yet. But it's starting, you know, that I'm not his first one, but it's starting to escalate. You know, and that's scary because guess what? They made it almost impossible for insurance companies to cover detransition-related medical costs. So I'll be on testosterone for the rest of my life.

Stephanie Winn: So you said that you'll be on testosterone for the rest of your life. That was going to be my next question. So since you've been castrated, your body no longer produces testosterone. You've also had the impact of the years of taking spironolactone and estrogen. So what's it been like getting back on testosterone for you? I've heard really mixed things from people in similar positions, like for example, Corinna Cohn has had similar surgeries and chooses streaming on estrogen in his case because the body needs hormones to survive and while his body is obviously adapted to testosterone, he's expressed that it's, and many similar people have expressed that it's frustrating to have the, and pardon me if any of this is too personal, but to have the sex drive that testosterone creates when your body isn't capable of doing the same things anymore. So, I've heard people staying on estrogen for that reason. I'm curious whatever you'd be willing to share about your decision to go back on testosterone and how that's been for you.

Austin Unbridled: Yeah, I stopped taking estrogen probably like nine to ten months before I started taking testosterone. When I stopped taking estrogen, I wasn't doing it in the pursuit of taking testosterone. I was like, I've been on this for as long as I can remember. What would happen if I just stopped taking it? And estrogen always made me very lethargic. It always made me very, like, tired and kind of foggy. I do believe that estrogen-induced brain fog on a male body is a real thing. There's a lot of fatigue. It made my bones ache. There's bone degeneration. There's muscular degeneration. When I started taking testosterone, I was like, well, let's just see what my body needs, you know, like maybe, um, when I stopped taking estrogen, I actually gained some weight. Um, cause I started eating again. Like I, I had basically, excuse me, I had basically starved myself for most of my adult life to stay skinny so that I would be more passable. Um, but when I stopped taking estrogen, I was just like, yeah, who cares? You know, who cares anymore? And plus, I was living on and off at the nudist area, so the way that my body here didn't even matter because I wasn't seeing it. There's no mirrors down there. It's literally a canyon. You know, you're just seeing other people and they're seeing you however they see you. But when I started taking testosterone, I always threw out from the time I had surgery to the time till even just a couple days ago, I have these dreams where I didn't have the surgery. And then I wake up and I realize, oh, I did. Fuck. Oops. OK. And sometimes it's just like, OK, back to bed. Other times it's like, no, I'm not going back to sleep after that. It's like, you know, I can't. It's so intense. You know, you have dreams where and especially on testosterone, which causes you to have, you know, like an increased sex drive. It's like all of this stuff is It's in the forefront. It's like, yeah, I'm horny. I can't help it. I take a shot and then I want to punch a hole in the wall and also have sex. I can make peace and be comfortable knowing that you know, I'll never have a penis again. That is something that I work on every day and I pray about it and I try to journal about it and just try to grieve the loss. But it's like I have no control over my brain in my dreams. And when I have dreams, it's like you're truly unbridled. None of the stuff that's happened in your waking life actually has an effect. You can fly. You can do anything in your dreams. And testosterone, I think, has caused me to have more sexual dreams. I've always had a pretty active dream. I've been a big dreamer in my life. But testosterone definitely causes you to have other desires. And when I wake up from that and I realize, oh, in a dream I was just having, I'd never had surgery and I was happy in my body and I was okay and I was fulfilled and I was comfortable. And now I wake up and, you know, I'm back in this body where I did make that decision and I do pick up the pieces from that every day. And I'm so grateful that on the off-grid area that I live on, the landmates that I have, there's a bunch of guys and they are so incredibly I know some of the stuff that I say has to probably make them uncomfortable at times, but they are so open and honest about giving me the space to say, yes, I cut off my penis. Yes, I am literally trying to make peace with that. I'm trying to stay alive every day. They see that. and they are respectful, and they listen, and they ask questions, and they never make fun of me for it, you know? And there's, like, only two of them are gay. The rest of them are mostly straight guys, you know? And I know it's gotta be challenging for them to hear this stuff, because, you know, the male penis is, like, the fundamental, like, divining rod of the masculine body, but…

Stephanie Winn: And castration anxiety is a concept going back a while and it's never been more real.

Austin Unbridled: I'm so grateful for them to just let me talk it out.

Stephanie Winn: I'm so grateful that you have that space to really come to terms. I mean, that's what grieving requires oftentimes is just to like go through that process of saying out loud to another human being like, yes, this happened and it's permanent. But but the fact that there are people who are there for you, I'm so grateful for that. Me too. Well, I'd wanted to talk about your faith, and we've kind of skirted around it, but I'm also realizing I have three questions, actually two questions in a statement from my Locals community for you, and one of them is about your faith. So is now a good time for that? Sure, let's go. Okay. So from the Locals community, which anyone can join at somekindoftherapist.locals.com, that's where I let you know who my upcoming guests are going to be, give you the opportunity to ask questions, 40-something asks, Is Austin comfortable sharing how Christianity helped restore him spiritually in a way that he no longer wanted or needed gender transition? What was the aha moment or thought that told him he's better off as himself a man?

Austin Unbridled: wow, that aha moment is the moment that I got saved. It was during the pandemic, probably say the beginning of August, 2020. I was camping in Durango, Colorado at a lake with no internet, no phone service, just my journal, my Bible, and my brain. And I had this profound moment where I felt like Because no one could hear me, I was able to freely talk out loud to the forest, to the trees, to the lake, to the sun. There was nobody up there, so I was just talking. I've always prayed. Even when I didn't identify as a Christian, I was like, yeah, I knew there was a God. I just didn't know if I was able to define what it was. But it was really in that realization from 2020 to 2021 that like, there is nothing wrong with being a sensitive, caring, effeminate, emotional male. God literally created me to be that way. He created, you know, tomboys. He created effeminate men all throughout history. You know, and again, people have done things to themselves, eunuchs, castration, and you know, like the cult of Sibley, like people have changed themselves. But God created us to be who we are. And I don't think that it's inherently wrong. And so when I started to make peace with that and be like, maybe God's purpose for me was to just be this like atypical male, you know, this not like NASCAR loving, because how I grew up, not this like, you know, super macho, fast and furious brained, you know, person that's just like, there's a real other creature that's like individual and, and unique. And our I don't believe because of my own insecurities and because of society that I trusted that plan. I didn't submit to that plan. I wanted to follow my own And I really thought that like there was something greater than God, you know, and I Realized now what a mistake that was because I I've realized I actually limited by transitioning. I limited my own emotional spiritual sexual growth I stunted myself basically at 19 and I At 41 years old, I feel like, oh my God, where did 20 years go? I still feel like that 19-year-old confused person. But through studying the Bible and talking to other Christian people who dealt with all kinds of sexual traumas and same-sex attraction and some Christians I know that have extreme sex addiction, having conversations with them and realizing, hey, I'm not alone. There's this other community of people that's willing to say like, yeah, we believe in God or we love Jesus Christ, but we're also human and we struggle with these things. And rather than take them on as merit badges of honor because I'm into this king or that king or whatever, we say like, oh no, this is actually an idol that separates my relationship from God and keeps me from really focusing on him, which is what makes me a better person because you're not focused on the self.

Stephanie Winn: Yeah, that's really beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. I have another question for you from Jillian YK. She asks, I have been wondering about the real longevity of transition over the lifespan and if it really and truly is ever the best solution for anyone. While you were an active part of the trans community, did you encounter individuals who had been transitioned longer than you and regretted their decisions? Were there quiet detransitioners you were aware of? I guess this kind of ties back to some of the things you were saying about this kind of pressure for people to only share the good and not the bad. But then you're seeing, if it's so great, then why do the goalposts keep shifting? Why are people so cruel to each other? Why are my friends dying?

Austin Unbridled: I don't think I really can think of one trans, specifically male person, that detransition that went back to being a male. I, I think if they, anyone that I know that like kind of turned away from like trans identity is just non-binary or like non-conforming. Um. The quiet de-transitioning is really interesting. There are a lot of trans people in my life that I have lost track of and I don't really know. Um. where they're at or what they're doing. Like right around 2020, I completely like nuked my Instagram that I had had since like 2013, a couple thousand people that I was connected to. And so since then, I haven't really seen as much from them and I don't really know, but I know I'm not the only one. I know that there's like, there, I mean, the detransition Reddit has like 50 something thousand people in it that that talk every day. I mean, and I've gone through a couple accounts getting banned there because people think, oh, maybe what I have to say is a little too much. Because, you know, like you can't say on the internet. You can't speak against any kind of trans ideology because as soon as a trans person sees it, it's over for you. You know, and that's why I like my TikTok videos always, all my good ones always get banned. So the ones that are on like, that are, that are on TikTok are my like, tame ones. It's, uh, you're kind of fighting this like big machine, you know, this big, like, cabal of, of truth deniers.

Stephanie Winn: My one last comment, Mr. Delgado says, having watched some of Austin's videos, here are some of my impressions. What strikes me first is that Austin seems genuinely concerned for the well-being of young people who might be considering undergoing some form of medical intervention, hormonal or otherwise, for gender transition. He is very upfront about wanting to provide them with cautionary advice based on his 20 or so years of having undergone hormone treatment and on what he has learned from other sources. I gather that he grew up working class and that he leads a semi-nomadic, outdoor-focused life. In one of his videos, he refers to his extreme religious upbringing, but whatever religious tradition he was raised in, he either never left it or has made an adult conversion back to the Christian faith. So, several questions come to my mind, but I'm going to hold off on trying to put them into writing just yet." And then he just left it there. He didn't come back.

Austin Unbridled: Well, he can, you know, he can email me, and I'd be proud to talk to him about it and answer any questions that he has. Yeah, I get that a lot, actually, that I have reverting back to my original Christianity, which I don't see it that way, you know. my old Christianity would have me be out there telling people what they can and can't do with their life. And I get people say that that's what I'm doing now by saying you shouldn't transition, but When you think about when you get older, when you're not a 19-year-old person finding an identity, or a teenager that found your identity in transgenderism and now has to defend that to the very end, you realize that yes, in your life you do make mistakes, you do regret things, you will wake up in the middle of the night Not just from, you know, dreams of cutting your penis off, but maybe because you said something really cringe to somebody that you cared about and it haunts you to this day. So you will have regrets in your life about random things. having regrets about, you know, bad sexual experiences you have is nothing compared to having regrets about things you allowed yourself to do to yourself because you believed that it would, by basically destroying yourself, you could become a better version of yourself. you know and i think that's where this sort of like transhumanism mindset comes in that's like if i just kill me i can become a new better evolved version of myself i think that's a very enticing very alluring option these days to just like nuclear bomb your entire existence and become, you know, this like celebrated version of yourself. But again, it's all just in the pursuit of narcissistic, like self-pleasure and sexual gratification. It's like, you're not actually constructing anything, you're just destroying and then tricking yourself into believing that like again you know everyone hates you which is not true you know um that your body you're born in the wrong body not true you know like i don't want to say too much because you know i'll get you in trouble but it's like you can be who you are without submitting to a medical agenda that was basically created by child molesters like John Money and, you know, Kinsey and Harry Benjamin and Magnus Hirschfeld, you don't have to submit to this version. If you guys hate white men so much, why do you submit yourself to gender ideology that was literally created by white men? who are child molesters. Like, I'm sorry. I can't find one single instance of these people that really pushed the agendas in the beginning that didn't have some sort of weird sexual, you know, ulterior motive.

Stephanie Winn: That's a mic drop.

Austin Unbridled: Yeah. I'll leave it at that, because honestly, like, seek yourself and seek God, and you won't need to change yourself. You know, seek God first, and the rest will follow.

Stephanie Winn: Seems like you've found peace somehow.

Austin Unbridled: It's a tumultuous piece, but acceptance is, you know, a long-term thing. And accepting yourself for who you really are is the most authentic thing that you can do. And finding authenticity in an alternative version of yourself that is not based in facts is only going to lead you into heartache, sadness, and statistically a higher instance of killing yourself. And so, Maybe you don't have to do that. Maybe you don't have to submit to these, you know, mindsets that are being pushed. Question, who's pushing them? And to what end? You know, is it really important to castrate yourself? Is it really important to, you know, end your own, like, ability to create life, you know? Like, what's the agenda there? It's very deep, you know? And I think, again, as, like, someone who believes in God, if you believe in good, you have to believe in evil. So there is this, like, other agenda. Maybe it's spiritual warfare. Maybe it's, you know, whatever. It's just, it's out there, and it's not good.

Stephanie Winn: So what's on the horizon for you?

Austin Unbridled: Well, I, um, I'm trying to go to ministry school next year, not because I want to like actually, um, you know, be part of like a mega church or be part of the, like being capital C church. But one, I want the, um, the education, you know, I want to actually get deep into the scriptures and not just the, like the Bible we have. I want to look at the like stuff in Greek. I want to look at it in Hebrew. I want to, Um… Before I transitioned, I was very like, I wanted to own my own business. I wanted to have a lot of goals in life. I wanted to learn a lot. I went to Italy, you know, I wanted to like see these things. I want to go to, to, um, Israel once this whole Middle East thing is all settled. I really want to go see like the Holy sites. I was actually going to go there in February this year, but, um, you know, that'll be a year or two down the road, but I'm hoping that, um, You know, one, whoever has ears to hear that they are perfect and fearfully, wonderfully made and created in the image of God, and to for them to hear that and know that, accept that. I think that's my purpose. That's my horizon. It's just like, yeah, you don't have to change anything. You are perfect. So go in grace.

Stephanie Winn: I've noticed it seems that there are many detransitioners who find comfort and healing in faith and It heartens me to know that you are putting yourself in a position where vulnerable people can come to you for strength and comfort and guidance. And also, I don't want to forget, I know you'd mentioned your GoFundMe, but you are currently raising funds to have your breast implants removed. And so we'll definitely include a link to your GoFundMe in the show notes if it's still running. And is there anything you'd like people to know about that?

Austin Unbridled: I'm just really excited to get them out of me and be able to move forward in life. It's really the only thing that holds me back. Testosterone basically transitioned me back to a man in three months. It's crazy how powerful that drug is. But really the breast implants are the only thing that it's like, you know, females can bind their breasts down because it's natural tissue, but plastic bubbles made in France, you know, you can only compress them so much. So I'm just really looking forward to being able to sleep on my stomach again and also Because I have them, and you know, I do find that I hunch over a lot so that they're less visible, especially in the last couple months. It'll just be nice to just like have them and have them out and stand firm in not just my faith, but in my body.

Stephanie Winn: Okay. And besides that, where can people find you?

Austin Unbridled: Oh, check me out on TikTok while that account is still up. It's Austin.unbridled. I have a YouTube channel, which I haven't really made a lot of content with due to technical difficulties, but that is Austin.unbridled on YouTube. And, um, I've done some other content with some other creators and I think I've had really good conversations and I would love to, um, kind of do that with You know, my own channel. So, um, those are the two big things that I, that I, uh, I've gone through. I've had a couple of Twitter accounts get nuked in the past and a lot of Reddit accounts get nuked, but, um, mostly I just talk on Tik TOK. And so, and then feel free to reach me out. Um, you know, my, my email address is unbridle yourself at gmail.com and, um, you know, hit me up. If you have any questions, I'd love to, to, to talk and listen and answer any questions people have, or just hold space for people going through this.

Stephanie Winn: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed our conversation. I really appreciate your your honesty and courage and humility and just everything you brought to the table.

Austin Unbridled: Thank you. I'm just really grateful that you, you know, use your position to talk about these things.

Stephanie Winn: Thank you. I try.

Austin Unbridled: Dangerous these days.

Stephanie Winn: Yeah, I feel like it's like my form of penance because I feel like my field has so much blood on its hands. So if I can kind of go against the tide and talk to detransitioners and ROGD parents, you know, kind of the least I can do.

Austin Unbridled: Amen. Well, God bless you and thank you.

Stephanie Winn: I hope you enjoyed this episode of You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist podcast. To check out my book recommendations, articles, wellness products, guest episodes on other podcasts, consulting services, and lots more, visit sometherapist.com or follow me on Twitter or Instagram at Some Therapist. If you'd like to go deeper, join my community at somekindoftherapist.locals.com. Members can dialogue with other listeners, post questions for upcoming podcast guests to respond to, or ask questions for me to respond to in exclusive members-only Q&A live streams. To learn more about the gender crisis, watch our film, No Way Back, The Reality of Gender-Affirming Parenthood, at nowaybackfilm.com. Special thanks to my producers, Eric and Amber Beals at DifferentMix, and to Joey Pecoraro for our theme song, Half Awake. If you appreciate this podcast and want more people to find it, kindly take a moment to rate, review, like, comment, and share on your platforms of choice. Of course, just because I am some therapist doesn't mean I'm your therapist. This podcast is not a substitute for medical advice. If you need help, ask your doctor or browse your local therapists online. And whatever you do next, please take care of yourself. Eat well, sleep well, move your body, get outside, and tell someone you love them. You're worth it.