"I Don't Feel Like a Boy, I Am a Boy"

said the most like phenomenal words I'd never even considered. Mama. Everyone thinks I'm a girl, and I'm not. I am a boy. Jody Patterson remembers sitting there on the ground with Penelope, who was just shy if three years old at the time. Jody was filled with a mix of emotions, grateful that her child felt comfortable sharing his true gender identity with her, but also fearful of all the unknowns

and changes that lay ahead for her son. What Jody didn't anticipate, however, were the changes she would undergo as well. If my daughter was actually my son, what else in the world don't I know? It felt like there's a lot that I had not learned and so I went on to quest to learn more, and that learning not only gave me insight to my son and to the millions of trans people that exist, but also to myself.

On Today Show, a mother discovers herself after her son shows her how I'm maya Shunker and this is a slight change of plans, A show about who we are and who we become in the face of a big change. Jody Patterson grew up on New York's Upper West Side in a family of black activists. Doctor Martin Luther King Junior named Jody's grandmother Miss Revolution for her work in the segregated South. Jody's uncle was a legendary poet and musician,

Gil Scott Heron. Her father started the first black brokerage firm on Wall Street, and her mother opened a private school for black families in Harlem. Jody was surrounded from an early age by people who pushed against the status quo, and she was eager to pass that ethos on to her own children. Today, Jodie's mom to five kids, but we started our conversation by talking about what life was like for her. Just before Penelope, who now goes by Pinell,

arrived on the scene. Jodie had two little kids already, a boy and a girl, and on paper, at least, her life was filling up with all of the things she had hoped for. We were living in the heart of New York City, in the Soho right the heart of the heart of the world. We had a lot of resources, a lot of love, we had beautiful home, We traveled a lot, and at the same time it was a really confusing time, really confusing time for me. I didn't know enough, not nearly enough. Yeah, what did

you feel you didn't know enough about? Probably myself. I was still feeling unaccomplished, unsure, not quite satiated, like there was just a want for more and I couldn't put my hand on it. It definitely was not lack of love, but I still couldn't figure out why, with all of this stuff that we had beautiful, healthy children, beautiful access to the world, beautiful home, why I was feeling not quite full. When you first found out that you were

pregnant with Canell, what dreams did you have for your baby? Well, I, from when I was a kid, I always wanted to be a mother. The three things I wanted to be were a mother, a businesswoman in a suit and a teacher. So having children was something that I've always wanted, and I was so excited to be pregnant for the third time. I was also thinking, Gosh, you're already so blessed, maybe maybe there are no more blessings coming. So I was

fearful that this wouldn't be a perfect baby. Yeah, I know, it's one of those things I always think of, how can I be blessed again? How can God give me one more blessing? And so I'm always I was very nervous around that. And then I was excited because I really loved the two children I had, and I was expecting this one to be just as freaking phenomenal. So the biggest feeling was excitement. I would have to say, and the doctor tells you that you're having a girl, right,

do you have any visions of what that would look like? Oh? I was so excited. You know, I come from four girls, or four of us, so I have three sisters and my mom has sisters, and I just love the women in our family. I was so excited to have a girl. I had all these girl names. Big sister Georgia was excited, sort of to have a sister a little jealous, She's like, you know, this could ruin my whole princess thing. But this just the idea of all the rituals that we

would be doing together. We did a lot of hair rituals in my family. We did a lot of quiet private time with just the girls and the women in my family. We have a lot of auntie celebrations with just women. So there was like this real anticipation of raising and spending time with and building up another strong, confident woman because I think the world needs more of that. And so this was like, not only was I going to have another blessing in the family, but like another

gift to the world, Right, That's what I was thinking of. Yeah, it wasn't long before you realize that Kennel was different from your other kids. When was the first time you realize that that's something? So, you know, once we got home and brought baby Penelope home, Penelope was just bubbly, I mean, tons of smiles. Sometimes we'd you know, panel would crawl up onto the dishwasher and like sit inside the dishwasher. There was just Penelope was so phenomenal as

a baby. Everything you would want to see moving and physical and smiley and inquisitive even as a little child. But I think the first time when I started to see that there was a energy and Penell that was not settled was around the first birthday. You know, you're you're trying to learn so much about your kid in the beginning, your baby in the beginning. But by birthday number one, I knew something was different. You know, Penelope was not comfortable with physical touch. So even putting on

a diaper needed two parents. I'd have to just like call in for backup. We'd have to have people hold the baby down so that Mama myself could put the diaper on. Penelope was not a certain point, became less snuggly with me. Penelope would push me away and say, no, Mama, no, I'm not talking to you, which mean I'm not talking to you. Penelle wanted to be abound big brother and dad way more than me, and I was not used

to that. All my kids are really snuggly with me in the beginning, and so Penelope was rejecting mama, rejecting mama's touch, And then it became a little bit more layered than that. It would be rejecting dresses, rejecting hair brushing, rejecting certain shoes, rejecting toothbrushes. Penelope never wanted to use Penelope's toothbrush. Penelope wanted to use big brother's toothbrush. Same

thing with dips, shirts, jeans. So we had this toddler running around the house with big brothers clothes draping off of baby Penelope, and it was the only those are the only things that could make a Penelope happy. There was nothing that would see the Penelope more than putting on big brothers T shirt. And then eventually, by the second year of Penelope was a bully at home and at the playground, so pushing siblings around, pushing kids at

the playground, stomping, screaming. We did a whole year of just screaming, screaming, screaming, then reoccurring nightmares the monster's going to get me, mama, Then writing fingernails until the fingers are bloody. You know, it was sort of it was progressing more so than temper tantrum. You know, when you have a mother of multiple temper tantrums don't get you, they don't frazzle you too much. But this was much more than a temperate tantrum. This was a heavy, heavy child.

So most of that year, that second year was frustrating. We couldn't get out of the house. I couldn't get to work, I couldn't get the kids to school. I was feeling very frustrated with the way I was mothering. I couldn't figure it out. Trying to fix it, and I couldn't figure it out. Yeah, you were in problem solver mode, right, I said, more nap time, more love, more hugs and kisses, more story time. I even talk out dairy. I said, maybe it's about the diet. Maybe

this is all just a dairy allergy. Anything that I could think of, everything that my mom did that I thought was great parenting, everything that my grandmother did that I thought was great parenting, and nothing was working. So I was I was angry. Yeah, yeah, no, I completely understand that, and I would just feel so defeated, you know,

because you were so experimental with your approaches. At some point you realize that while you're able to pacify Penell at times and force obedience at other times, there's perhaps something deeper going on, because Penell still seems so troubled day to day, right, And so there's this one night where you decide to engage differently, where you carve out

some one on one time. It was this summer, the end of the summer, and you know, Penelope was just horrendous, knocking over things, pushing big brother, screaming, and so I picked Penelope up, basically picked myself up, and moved us into Penelope's room. When we sat on the floor cross legged, and I looked into Penelope's eyes and I asked this question, what's really wrong baby? Why are you so angry? Just that? What's wrong? Why are you so angry? And it was

it was a million dollar question. Penellope opened up in a way I had not seen ever, eyes filled with tears, and Penelope said the most like phenomenal words I had never even considered. Mama, everyone thinks I'm a girl and I'm not. I am a boy. And what was your initial response to that? No words? I really thought Penelle was gonna say, I hate you, the stupid family. I you know, this sucks, something like very typical of a

three year old, almost three year old. But when Penelope said I am not a girl, I'm a boy, Wow, I just, you know, kind of stumble the way I'm stumbling now. I did not know what that meant. And then I quickly try to pull some things out of the mother rolodex because I have great mothers to rely on, So go into my mother rolodex and I'd think, oh, oh, oh, okay, she this is my thought. She is a feminist, she is tough, she wants to be seen like her brothers. Oh,

I get it. She's like, she's going to be maybe a lawyer. These are the things I'm thinking. Literally, in split seconds, I thought that, in those split seconds, that I was dealing with a girl who wanted to be seen as tough, a girl who recognized the inequality in this world and didn't want to have second best, wanted to be seen as lead character. And so I, you know, almost like raised the fist in solidarity with this girl that I thought I was looking at. And you said

that you felt this was a parenting failure. Can you say more about that? I grew up with great stories of great women, Shirley Chisholm, Billy Jean King, Nina Simone, my Angelou was our neighbor, and those stories of those women helped me to be this woman. And those stories are part of my story, and so I was really excited to have my daughters raised around powerful women. And so I thought, oh shit, did I not tell the

Shirley Chisholm story to Penelope? Did I not raise this kid on all of the strong, bold women that have changed America for the better. And I was thinking, Oh, maybe I didn't tell enough of the stories of women and aunties and that female perspective that is so important, that female energy. You know, I thought I had dropped the ball on feminism and therefore this girl didn't want to be a girl. And I was also thinking of it from a self centered perspective, as most of us do. Right,

It's also like very typical. This is something to do with me. What Pannella is saying about him? Is it really about me? So when Pannell says I don't want to be a woman, I'm not thinking what did I do to set up this child? Why does he not want to be? Like? Don't you want to be like me? Exactly? I thought my life was pretty darn good as a black woman. You know a lot of people think differently, Like they don't know, maybe maybe folks think that black

woman is bottom of the barrel. I'm actually and the women in my family actually think of it as the epitome. We want to be black women, we are excited to be black women. And so when this black child said I'm not a girl and I don't want to be a woman, I thought I had failed. And I said, you know, however you feel inside, baby, it's fine if you feel like your brothers, go ahead and act like your brothers. And so I said, look, you know you're perfect the way you are. Your body is perfect, you

are phenomenal. And that that that language was absolutely not landing well on Penelope. When I said your body is perfect and you are perfect, and I love you just as you are, he looked at me again with this anger because I wasn't getting it, you know, when someone doesn't see you and you're trying so hard to explain yourself to them. He gave me one more shot and he said, Mama, no, I don't feel like a boy. I am a boy. And that was the last that was, you know, that was I had to get it on

that point. I had to get it to not get it at that and that moment would have been so many backward steps. In that moment when he said I don't feel like a boy. I am a boy. What I did know was that we were talking about something more than an emotion. It was an identity that we were talking about. And so once Penelope said I don't feel like a boy, I am a boy, I really

just listened for a long time. We must have been in that room for about an hour or so, and Panelle really just told me about how he saw life, how he felt inside, what he was experiencing, none of which I knew. He said, Mama, I love you, but I don't want to be you. I want to be Papa. He said, I don't want tomorrow to come because tomorrow I will look like you. I want a doctor to make me a peanut. Mama, Can a doctor make me a peanut? Here's a kid who was very aware his

body at that time was the culprit. At that moment, at almost three, Panel's body was the enemy. And I understood how deep that was, and I understood how painful that must feel. But he was confiding in me, which was the most beautiful thing and most courageous thing. He confided in me, and he said, will you helped me, Mama? And I said yes, saying yes was a yes, an overarching yes. It wasn't yes to any one particular next step, because I didn't know what the hell, what the hell

were the next steps? But I was saying yes to him, Yes to his life. Yeah. Yeah. When we were talking. When I was listening to him, there was a river behind us, and it was moving with such depth, and the force of the river that I could hear felt like the urgency of the life in front of me. It was a connection that I'll never forget. And Penelope talking about his life, it was, it was happening. It wasn't like I could stop Penelope being who he was. It was in motion, and he needed me to be

with him in motion. And then it struck something in me that was so primary that if I had not said ye, as tip Penelope, I would have been saying no to even myself. That that moment when your child is you is life and there's no half stepping. You just gotta go all the way. You cannot tiptoe. And so I jumped in, We'll be right back with a flight change of plans. I'm talking with Jody Patterson, a mother activist and author of the book The Bold World

and memoir of family and transformation. Her son Pannell, came out to Jody as transgender more than a decade ago, when he was nearly three years old. I wanted to know what the days and weeks were like for Jody after that pivotal moment with Pannell. There's so much crying that is that comes with this, Like when you raise a kid who's different, the NonStop angst of a parent

is real. So I was, you know, spending a lot of time on the couch crying, spending a lot of time in the bed crying, and it was getting to the point where it was overriding other things, overriding my ability to be there for all the children, be there for my husband, be there for the daily tasks that needed to get done. And so one day I was sitting on this couch, on my couch just crying, I

mean like really sobbing, curled up. Then of all, the kids were at school, and my my sister friend, who was like an auntie to the children, was sitting on the couch next to me, and she usually just let me do what I you know, needed to do, which was cry, But this one day in particular, she just looked at me, calmly and quietly but very clearly said to me, you know, Jody, big girls we cry and

type at the same time, you know. And as I looked at her, because it was first of all, I'd never heard anything like it, so it wasn't like, you know, a catchphrase, big girls cry and type at the same time. And it took a second, but she never explained it. I just understood it. So it's a phrase that comes at a time. It's a South and phrase and it probably was, you know, birthed when women were typing on typewriters and were asked to do things at the desk,

assisting people on typewriters. But they were also activists, they were also mothers, They were also leaders in their community, and they had a lot to be pissed off about, a lot to be scared about. And so you have to get through the day, but you're gonna cry and type at the same time. And remember this is ten years ago, so we don't have we didn't have the understanding of the language. We didn't have trends, icons, living, we didn't have Janet Mock, we didn't have posed, we

didn't have any of the understanding. So the next several weeks which turned into several months, which turned into many months, I just typed away at my computer and google transgender and then I would squirrel through anything that came up, whether it was like doctors in the field, hypotheses, theories, you know, peer groups, parents, organizations. That those those weeks of just like exploring the World Wide Web were dark in a sense because they were mostly at night. I

was hiding away from everyone. It's a strange time, strange time, very um, very very inward. I didn't have a network of people then to talk to. And then some in some moments, I would have these like moments of like light, like total optimism. And I stumbled upon a video of this little girl named Jazz, who is a young trans kid at the time, little girl, and I just deep dived into her story and her family. You organized a

family movie night around Jazz's story, right, Yeah. We're sitting on the couch and it's you know, a few, I think three of the youngest kids, and we're watching as his family really just be proud to be a trans family. And Jazz is being bubbly and you know, so outgoing, and she's loving being a trans kid, and Panela looks at me for the first time and says, Mama, I'm trans too, like Jazz. Mama, I'm trans like Jazz, first time, first time ever putting word to how he was inside

and how he is as a person. And it was this kid, you know, that he saw on the computer. Just it just you know, this is why representation matters. It's like a catchphrase, representation matters. And then when you actually realize that the only time your kid has seen themselves on a screen is once, and it lights your kid up. You want that, You want more of that. Yeah, you're navigating this moment where you're trying to educate yourself on every thing there is to know about being transgender.

You're also protecting your child right and you're trying to bring others in the family on board. Well, what inspires you, Jody, to to get to action in all this like fear, anxiety, complete and utter, like gut wrenching fear. I am terrified, and that energy is absolutely understandable. It has earned skepticism of this country, of these politics, of these folks in official positions to make laws. I am and that that's so,

that energy of fear is natural and normal. And actually a healthy response to the environment, and I turn that energy into activism. So I don't It's not that I'm not scared. It's not that I don't think about folks that are killing black trans people. But I take that that inner fear and I turn it into outward action. And you very quickly become Pannell's lead supporter an advocate when it comes to getting the family and community on

board with his true gender identity. You craft letters to your community and you have Panell participate in that process. Can you tell me more about what that experience was like and how it changed your relationship with Panell? If it did change it it did, You're right, I mean, it's funny. I just I didn't think about it being a turning point in our relationship. But when you say it that way, it actually was. We became partners in the sense that we were working towards a shared common goal.

You know, usually it's like top down authority, parents, that's the agenda, and the kids until you you know, finish college, you're growing along with your parents' agenda more so than not. And so this was the first time when Penelope and I, when my child and I were going on a path that it was a shared agenda and actually an agenda that the child had set. There's a moment when the kid takes a lead, because only only the individual self

knows itself. So I allowed that understanding of what the goal was to be set by Penelope, and then I navigated the details of that, and so it looked like, you know, writing a letter to the family announcing penelas a boy, asking for their respect and their love and their support, and also stating that if they weren't ready to give those things love and support, then they could take their time and get back to us when they were ready, but that there would be no misgendering or

miss that we wouldn't be responding or acting um in the way we used to act with pinellib This is this was a new day. So I wrote a letter to the family. Pinelle signed the letter and edited the letter, and addressed the envelopes and put the stickers on the stamps on sometimes even hand delivering those letters to people. Um. And he was really proud of that letter. Go him, yeah,

go little rock star. You had mentioned, Jody that there were there were dark times because you didn't have a lot of people that you could talk to about this, especially in those early weeks and months. And part of your process for creating a safe environment for for Pinell and for you, right what was was to deepen your connection to the transgender community. What did you what did

you learn from that from that process? I mean, the biggest takeaway from that time for me is that you know, our worlds are small, our friend groups are tiny, and they typically reflect who we are. So when I looked at my friends, I had mostly black female women mother friends. To me, that was like, that was that was doing

that was doing it. You know, if you and I was raised this way, that you rely on your black community because most of the learning, most of this success, most of the tenacity, creativity, art, culture, language is going to come from the black community. You know, just look through history. And then when when I realized that that friend group did not reflect the reality of my family, I thought, well, this is ridiculous. And I had not

one trans friend. I had not one gender non conforming friend that I knew of, And so I took it a bit further and said, like, who's in my chosen family, who's in my community? And no one reflected my son and that that really disgusted me because I was essentially telling myself that Pennell was the only trans person in the world. And again, that deepens your fear as a parent if your child is the only person in the world that is like themselves. And so I said, you know,

it's important to go outside of your little box. And so I went into you know, this mode of like just spreading out in the world and really stretching, like physically just stretching out and touching all of the world. And that looked like googling transgender conferences, LGBT conferences, queer conferences. I literally drove to conferences. I flew to conferences. I sat and I listened for the first year. I went back the next year, sat and listened. I joined parent groups.

I took our family to a parent a family trans sleep away camp. The whole family went. I mean, there's you know, there endless ways to get to stretch out. And I was really intentionally doing that. So, so it's been over a decade Jody since you had that conversation with Panell about his true gender identity. How have things been for Panell? How have things been for you since then? Um, what's what's changed for both of you and what's stayed the same? M Oh wow, what stayed the same? You know?

It's it's um. When I first that that moment on the floor ten years ago, when Panell said I'm not a girl, I'm a boy, I really thought the world flipped upside down. I thought there's nothing, nothing normal, nothing good even is going to come from this um. Since then, I clearly see things differently. But what's interesting is that he he literally is the same kid. I mean, you know I didn't. So what is consistent is that Penelope

is the person I birthed. You know, the pronouns have changed, the clothing has changed, the happiness has grown, but essentially the character, the spirit of Penelope is consistent. Penelope back then did not have to disappear for Penelope today to come. I just had to shift and the world just had to shift. So the consistency is that I did not lose a child. Consistency is that the child I birthed

is the child who is now a really fantastic teenager. Yeah, and that was important to me because you know, you don't want to lose anything. Definitely don't want to lose a child, even in like theory. Yes, I understand that, and I didn't. Yeah, so that's an amazing thing to me to look and say, God, you're just just like that little baby I was crawling into the dishwasher, you know, crawling on like countertops and stuff, inquisitive and happy. Um

what has changed? You know? I lost I shifted out of a lot of relationships when I understood my son to be transa well, you know, when I had this question that was that was swirling around in my head. If my daughter was actually my son, what else in the world don't I know? It felt like there was a lot that I had not learned, and so I went on to quest to learn more. And that learning not only gave me insight to my son and to the millions of trans people that exist, but also to myself.

I was able to be as bold as I was telling my son to be. This woman was able to be bold as well. And that's that's probably the biggest thing that has changed my my The way I interact with people is different, and because of that, I had to leave relationships. I left a marriage, you know, I left some some friendships in the form that they were in because they no longer fit who I was showing up. As you know, I felt like I was preaching a really important slogan. Be bold, step into your room, let

people know who you are. Hold your chin up, you know, tell people who they who you are, so that they can adjust. I was telling that to a five year old, a six year old, a seventy year old, be bold, and this forty year old woman was not as bold. So like I was feeling, you know, it was a little it was a little hypocritical that I was demanding this of a five year old and not of the forty year old woman. And so I began to to

turn the mirror to myself. How bold are you? How much of your inner identity is shown to the public, shown to your intimate spouse, shown to your children. How much are you acknowledging, Jody that you are not meant to be a supporting character. You know I had supported I, you know, and moms will understand this. We are supporters, and in particular, I have a very un I can be very submissive and very accommodating. Those are things that are within me, and I don't reject them now, but

they don't dominate. And I'm also a lead character, and I'm also someone who's going to set a tone, and I'm also someone who has a vision. And so I took a different approach to the parenting model that I was doing. And so now not just supporting and nurturing, I am also leading the family. I wasn't doing that then, not at all. And once I said, you know, effort to a lot of things and a lot of demands on me and a lot of people. When I started

saying no, my career changed. I narrowed it into something that I really like, which is writing. I love to write. So I've written two books. I took a leap and joined a board of the Human Rights Campaign, and I took another leap and asked them to elect me as the chair of the Foundation board. And I got that honor. So places where I would not have inserted myself, yeah, I now insert myself doing things that are still really challenging because I've never done them before, but I'm doing them.

I got that. I got that from Pinell, like he would literally. I remember watching Panell in karate, so he was he is, he's been doing karate for years and he goes to karate tournaments and he was competing obviously in the boys section. Boys you know ten and up, so like ten and thirteen year olds are competing together, and I would just like be terrified for him. You know, My brain was kicking and like, oh my god, is he really going to show up like these boys? Right?

Is he really going to be enough for these boys? Is he really boy enough? Was probably what was going through my head. And I was watching him and he said, Mama, one day, he said, at the beginning of his match, Mama, don't be scared. I'm not scared. So he's going into the ring, right, not scared, knowing he may win or he may not win. And so now I I go into these arenas knowing I may or may not be the best, but I'm going to go into them. That

came from him. Wow, oh man. You mentioned earlier in our conversation when we took that time machine back to the period of your life where where your story with Cannell was just beginning, that that you didn't feel full, That your life had had what you thought were the writ ingredients to feel full, but that you didn't feel full. And so I want to know whether you feel full now fuller? No, you know, So here's the interesting thing. I really did have a deficit in my soul. I think, um,

I was feeling empty. My emptiness was because I had a false expectation. The false expectation was get good grades, go to a good school, marry a good man, and it's gonna be okay. I know that sounds very simplistic, and I'm like, I had the same dream, you know what I mean, Like like intellectually you know better, But really I was doing the steps that I thought were good in life, and I thought I was going to have a quote unquote good life and it wasn't. It

wasn't matching. And I think I needed to break out of those four corners just as much as Pannell did. And so now you know, Look, I do love marriage, I do love relationship, I do love children, and I do love being chosen to be the chair of the Human Rights Campaign. But I don't use that to measure the value in the validity of this woman. I'm what I'm using now as like, are you doing a good job, Jody? Is how much of this world are you touching? Like?

How much are you experiencing? What? Don't you know? Go learn some more? And so That is a very fulfilling place to be because you can ingest this world, you can take it in and never accomplish a million dollars right and still feel fulfilled. As Bob Marley says, I'm rich in life. I'm watching my kids and watching them do life, and I'm taking cues from them. That's something new. Hey,

thanks for listening. Join me next week. When I talked to the religious scholar Kate Bowler, she's an expert on the prosperity gospel, which preaches that if you have a strong faith in God, you deserve health, wealth, and happiness. Kate never believed in this idea of people deserving things, or so she thought, until a stage four cancer diagnosis revealed otherwise. I spent years studying people who believe that they deserve what they get, and I never once imagine

myself to be that kind of person. And then when I could hear myself saying, but aren't I kind of a good person? It was like that that bit was so deeply humbling, and I realized, like, oh, things, things come apart. A slight change of Plans is created, written an executive produce by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change family includes Tyler Green our senior producer, Emily Rosteck, our producer and fact checker, Jan Guera, our senior editor, Ben Taliday,

our sound engineer, and Neil LaBelle our executive producer. Louis Skara wrote our theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries. So big thanks to everyone there, including Nicolemrano, Maggie Taylor, Eric Sandler, Heather Faine, and Carly Niggliori, and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker Sola. What did you have for breakfast? Jetty?

I had m breakfast was tea and I had a red velvet cupcake. I think that was it. I usually have like an avocado with egg and sprouts. Just didn't happen today. Yeah, this is a no judgment zone, by the way, we just need audio quality. You can eat whatever the hell you want.