and the united states approximately one point four million adults identify as transgender own life of a transgender person can be vastly challenging and right with discrimination however it can be joyful triumphant and liberating on this show i'm joined by tracy and oliver parker are they're here to share their inspiring transgender story as a journey of personal growth and self acceptance take a deep breath and stay so oliver this is about you today your story so could you just tell us first of all how old are you and seventeen excellent and you just graduated high school yes congratulations on graduation thank you so in your words what does it mean to be transgender and say that being transgender means to be someone that other people don't see you as in terms of gender like the way you're perceived outside isn't how you are inside and it's just a sort of expression  difference in yourself that a lot of other people don't really get but it's a switch from what you were born as to what you really are such a great dancer i think that so go back and tell us a little bit about what what led you to this realization about your childhood and how you to realize that you consider yourself transgender oh i had a lot of i went through a lot of faces like i really like to label myself and i went through like a tomboy and then like like more feminine i tried to have all of that and then when i was really young i realized that i had an attraction to girls so while it was a lesbian and then i realized that while they did that that didn't feel right so then i had like a struggle of sexuality before realizing that the problem was more  like identity and so that was i would say like my freshman year of high school was when i realized the the shift that i was experiencing was just that i wasn't exactly like  was more first i went on more than non binary scale like outside of the gender by unary and then i just went through the motions of going through more labels for my gender identity for a while throughout high school before settling on transgender male because i could identify the masculine sense of it that's quite a journey and yet ready here we are aren't we all on that in a parallel way trying to discover who we are like really and live into that as a truth and others are going to label us whatever they're going to label us but we got to choose right our identity in our label if we even need to do so really important to know who we are yeah so that's awesome so tracy you obviously as mom been along for the ride the ups and downs the whole way and i know we're loving and supportive mom you are if you share what your initial response was when you saw when you observed her spoke and what's been your role in oliver's journey well i think my initial response was just that i wanted him to feel comfortable with himself and every stage of this journey and so my role was to help facilitate that as much as i could and what i have come to understand is that i didn't need to understand all of it every step of the way because it's not my journey and so i can't always relate to what oliver has been going through but i can always find it in myself to respect his sense of identity and where he is on that journey so i think that that was the most important thing for me to do for him is to offer support and respect and hold the space for him to you know kind of step into the most comfortable identity that he could different right it's wonderful to journey for you to gore's to be able to be with whatever comes up for you and recognize what's your stuff and what you might be projecting right and clear and separate from that and hold that unconditional space for all over to just be who he is and figure that out for himself right i love this message of we don't need to understand but we want to respect is so much more important than understanding even sometimes  least so how about now as your feelings have also evolved along the way has anything changed even further of all the way that you feel tripoli is there any fears or concerns that do come up for you that are either grounded in practicality real stuff or even your own bias or stuff that comes out well yeah i mean we've been so blessed because we've had such a wonderful support system with therapists and we've been going to children's hospital of philadelphia which has been wonderful facilitating people who are identifying as trans or gay and over actually played a big role with helping them to understand that and so what you see already seen this is the thing that i've witnessed emerging in a very is that it's become his journey now to help other people with their own journeys and so he's off to rowan university to study psychology voice right who you are and then of course the next step in sharing and helping others as well and serving i just love that so back to you all right then tell us what are the most in your view common misconceptions that you've personally encountered and that others experience in the transgender community there's a really have a misconception especially for younger transgender people that this is just a face and it can be harmful for transgender kids to say transgender because it's a label and there's like some like mental pressure on you when you're labeled as transgender however i found that even if this is a kid going through a phase of exploring their gender identity that shouldn't be something that's frowned upon because it's still like self exploration you know and something that you for are going to think about especially in this modern age something that is becoming more while the common so i think it should be more accepted like if even if this is a phase it's something that the parents should consider and accept and support and with like thinking it's harmful i think it's more harmful to silence that type of identity rather than is accept it and just go with it because thinking like this is just a phase and you're hurting yourself it's going to be more damaging like a child or a teenager rather than just saying i don't understand this but i'm going to support you otherwise because it's what you deserve you know absolutely i love that and had to take it seriously and no matter what anybody says to have a conversation about everything means something so and not to minimize or discount anybody there are feelings you reserve feelings right so h personally experience any discrimination or judgment i've experienced a lot of confusion and sort of like challenging like i don't believe you in the sort of way it lead people thinking about like like in the beginning of it they don't get it or they were like i liked you better when you weren't you know like when you're identified as just a lesbian i thought you were better things like that or i don't think this is something you should be indulging in because you're so young i've gotten that kind of thing we're just like i don't get this you know overall i don't get your identity mainly from your peers or from adults from a mix of the two you know i'm just like a general sense of not understanding a general sense of not liking the identity when i'm open about it and i've experienced it a few times well i just the fact that you're able to articulate that so just matter of fact lee in some ways even though i imagine you probably felt something at the time and struggled with not taking it personally maybe talk to mom about that when things were happening looking back on that how do you think you handled it  how would you handle it now and continue to handle those kinds of things as they arise because they well adults are not perfect either strangely enough having kind of back in march well i think in the moment of like that kind of thing happening if it was easy for me to like get upset just thinking about it blake like just wishing like it would be easier for people to understand because it's something that i understand very well about myself and it's not something i want to like spend a lot of time explaining to every person it's just easier if they just like took it as they would but i found that like if people ask me questions like even invasive questions i can still like answer them you know people are just often curious and i don't mind if they want to ask questions and make a positive light even things that might be pushing the edge i can still like give them my time of day but i also i find that i did i think it's better to answer that kind of thing like a more positive mindset rather than just getting like upset and like in your own head like i tend to do sometimes suspect or to understand that people who think like that or talk like that will never really get it you know when you're not transgender you'll never really get the experience of being transgender so it's not really like my job to put my all into them accepting me it's just it's more their job to work out how they're going to deal with this kind of thing you know be so proud and that's a great respect for everyone no matter what their struggle right  it's not our job to fix anyone or even to change their minds and very often we can't that's that's their journey and often people when they're around someone who's really comfortable in their own skin makes them uncomfortable because holds a mirror up to how comfortable am i in my own skin and with people or who are different or whatever they might label them and so it's our job to add not our job to educate but i'm sure there's lots of those little moments when you step in that you have to feel your way into it whether they're open so i know you're relatively in the beginning of your physical transition to an actual transition to may all about a year end you said so with the medical on therapeutic support that you had lots of you start taking testosterone so your face your voice your general thank your starts to your appearance starts to become more mass and so what's been the most challenging and surprising part of that and i think the most challenging part is the mood swings and it can be really difficult to manage it but taking it for like a year now it's it's leveled out more but it still can be a big hit ok it's weighing sometimes so on the other end of that what's been the best part of it what's been the most exciting for you i've noticed like as i notice like my body changing my voice changing it just roust a new sense of confidence i've never had before in myself like a new sense of purpose and like the like general ease with myself that i haven't gotten before and just even with all the difficulties of taking a hormone just the confidence and like the happiness and like the self worth that i got from it it's definitely been the best part of it that they go hand in hand together right worth it  effects the temporary some regard definitely good for you q so i know you might have a few things to say that you've discovered regarding the nature of what is considered masculine and what's considered feminine given that you straddle both and then on both sides what do you say about that i think the way that we perceive masculine and feminine as a whole can be really like limiting like there's boxes of what those two terms are supposed to mean that we're supposed to fall  myself i don't try to be like super massive and even as a transgender boy because i don't feel happy you know just constantly trying to just be masculine because you know there is so much fun in exploring  you feel like you're a man and you are you can still explore that kind of thing and i think you know there should just be more exception for exploration for gender because even like sr people think they're stuck on this like certain place their identity and even transgender people it's like pushed onto us that we have to be a certain way for we are saying we're a man or woman but i think that shouldn't be in place at all i think we should be free to express ourselves and the way we see fit i don't think white clothing should be as gendered i don't think makeup should be as gendered i think we should just be able to explore our selves without judgment or about labels that is radical i mean i don't find a radical personally but i can just hear of people thinking how radical that is you and others and the rest of us too yeah cool stuff so let's say someone out there watching this is struggling similarly similar journey to you what would you what would you like  provide i would say that the beginning of this journey is always hard and it's always going to be scary and daunting to realize this about yourself but the thing is going through this experience and knowing this about yourself makes you know so much more than other people will and it makes you so when to move yourself and the best thing to do is explore it with everything you have and don't feel limited to anything because the best thing about being transgender is opening up your mind to everything that you didn't think you could do before that you can now and being the type of person that you know that you can be there's nothing that you have to do it's all about what you personally think of yourself and what you want to be and you shouldn't feel like you have to be anything else but yourself when you realize this regardless of what other people think feel and that i'm sure that there is your journey as you're saying that the journey from self doubt perhaps from questioning now that you're all the way at the end of your journey one hundred percent all the time of confident self acceptance would you say you're so much closer to that then you ever were definitely that i'm sure mom helps along with how about for the parents and siblings you have a sibling i do have a sister gemma yes so what message would you offer to other parents and siblings that would be most helpful and supportive to the person i would say the again you're never going to understand this completely if you you're not transgender and it's not your job to get it it's your job to provide support and even if you're scared about this and you don't get it and you're confused the best thing is to ask questions and do research and show love you know both you can do for your trans kids to show them that you see them and that you love them because if you don't give that support  question them and refuse to acknowledge you're going to hurt your child in the long run so the best thing is to just provide them support and a place where they can talk about what they're going through and you don't have to get it you just have to be there for them in the long daughter what would you want those parents that know about their sons and daughters i think just what oliver said you know it's it's it's the way i parent both of my children is to be you know as i've said to them in the past some of the tour guide you know i'm not here to what your life is supposed to be or who you're supposed to be i'm here to hope help you navigate your own path and so i think the most important thing for any parent but especially for a parent of a trance child is you know to to be there to support them to hold the space for them to be the shoulder for them to be the sounding board to understand as much as you can but also understanding that you're never going to understand it totally and that's ok and to find a place in your own space to be ok with it because you know that this child is a separate and whole complete being a complete soul being that has their own journey or that way and even though they emerged from your body they were there as soon as they left that body of their colon complete in themselves and we have a complete soul that has its own journey and so i also want to encourage parents to see their children as some of their best teachers because oliver has certainly been one of my so that lends itself to my next question really really well when we look at this from a higher perspective as well and there whoever were with perfect you've been on my show before you're a professional psychic and medium and actually channel beings from other the other dimension you've written a book with my dually they can look at the other shows to get more  spiritual i love to hear from a spiritual and intuitive perspective how do you view oliver and others going through similar struggles and changes sort of in the bigger picture of spiritual evolution through those eyes well i think it is there's there's no coincidences you know we're going through a massive shift of consciousness right now in our world in the universe and part of that shift of consciousness has to do with identity and how we identify ourselves and and taking a broader view on that and wanting to not box ourselves in as oliver has so well stated here so that you know we can be free to explore other aspects of ourselves without being judged so you know i think that all over came here as part of the shift very intentionally to help us to take a broader view to be more compassionate to open our hearts to something we might not understand or be able to relate to but be able to see as something that is really amazingly expansion and allowing us the opportunity to see something that we may not have ever considered even in ourselves so oliver has taught me a lot about my own gender identity and how i express that him and  budding confidence actually i feel like it's also helping me with my all teachers students from there so i wholeheartedly agree of course with everything that you've just share how do you feel all over when you hear what your mom says and sheds that light on that i'm grateful you know to have obama as good as she is you know a lot of my trance friends are just people i know who are trans they can often be put in a situation where the family is in the best of their identity you know it breaks my heart to see you know kids with who don't have a support system and i'm just so fortunate to have like a mom who's going to she is and they have so much love in my life and to be able to express that as well that energy is going out right now and i speak from right here out there as well so any sort of just final words just to kind of wrap up any final message little that you'd like to offer all of her and then and then tracy think the as a whole we should all work to look into ourselves more and consider our identities and search being more loving to people that we don't understand who are just trying to explore themselves you know that change is always scary but the world is changing and it's for the better for all of us in terms of our identities and how we view ourselves beautiful and i think as a parent you know again the idea of respect if the if your kid wants to use pronouns that you're not used to i think you know respecting that and making a really sincere effort to go along with that you know took me a while to get used to that and you know i would i would mess up a lot and you know with the change in the name and the change in the pronouns and i still occasionally it's kind of slips out because you know we have a long time you know you know it's not like overnight right it's always been very gracious and generous you know i would feel bad sometimes when it which is slipping and butt i was a quick to forgive i'm sure but i think it's just the idea that i was making an effort and i and that i wanted to you know get used to it to respect all over sense of identity i think that's really important as someone you know asked to be referred to in a certain way then i think we need to have to go along with it again whether we agree with it or not and you know people we love and if that it is a young child and they change their mind then you change with them change with them and again support their journey and every  this is big stuff this is big important stuff i think we're planning seeds all of us would like to see some wonderful changes happen in our lifetime so oliver and tracy thank you so so much for what you shared for being so open and for being here and positive energy and all of our of course i wish you the best thank you in college and beyond i know that you will excel and thank you first being so bold and heart centered and coming on the show and sharing your story i'm sure it's going to help so go for wrapping up another enlightening show what's your ideal vision of the world my vision is a world of inclusion where every person feels embraced and next time on positive energy