Becoming the Man I Always Knew I Was | Julian Melson

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Available Summary:

Julian, a trans man, shares his journey of growing up trapped in a female body and ultimately becoming the man he always knew himself to be. Theresa, a bisexual woman, reflects on being a big part of Julian’s journey.

-Dan Bolen, YouTube.

Jack's Summary:

This is a very beautiful interview, and I highly recommend watching it.

The interviewer, Dan Bolen, identifies himself as a gay man who grew up with an "overbearing father" and a "Jehovah’s Witness mother". When Julian discusses using drugs and alcohol to cope, Dan relates to this by describing his use of religion and work to suppress his identity. I really enjoy this expression of solidarity and relatability across LGBT+ identities. Julian does the same when describing having self-love and security in his identity, saying, "I'm sure you can relate, about being gay," which Dan agrees with.

Julian recalls meeting Theresa when he was newly sober, and the pair describe their initial dynamic as being that of a lesbian couple, although Theresa notes that Julian had struggled with this label due to feeling male.

Alcoholics Anonymous is cited as being central to Julian's coming-out process (both within himself and externally), leading to Julian revealing his identity to Theresa. To his shock, she did not wish to leave him, and instead responded by asking, "What are the next steps that we need to take?" Having so little experience with trans people and their partners, he believed he had found the only woman who would be willing to date him. While she initially struggled to get his pronouns right, Theresa maintains that she was always supportive of him, and never considered leaving him due to his transition.

Theresa, a bisexual woman, defines her attraction as being "in love with this human being," and says that she found Julian's gender irrelevant to that love. The pair talk about Julian's legal transition (name and gender), and how amusingly easy it was to get married, with their legal union lasting eleven years. Julian describes his own emotional immaturity/instability as being the reason for their divorce, with two years of marriage counselling not helping to maintain their relationship.

"We had this beautiful conversation about how much we love each other, and that we were going to commit to end this relationship in a loving way," Julian says, "We had gone through too much, and we loved each other deeply, and Theresa said, "We're not getting a divorce, I don't like saying that. We are transforming our relationship into something different." It was so beautiful, and we honoured that commitment... It was one of the most beautiful experiences I've been through, as a human, to be able to walk that through with somebody, with such grace."

Theresa, agreeing that the relationship ended in a very healthy way, describes their friendship becoming much stronger once they were no longer together romantically, revealing that they remained living together for nine months after separating. When meeting her current husband, she reportedly said, "Look, my ex-husband is a really dear friend of mine, and I could not imagine not having him in my life. If you're not okay with it, then we can't see each other."

Julian's description of coming out to his parents is gorgeous, and particularly the journey of coming out to his father, who was a religious minister largely absent from Julian's early life. His father reacted to well to learning that Julian was gay (pre-transition), and when Julian announced that he was trans, also responded fantastically. He admitted that he had been struggling with Julian's transition, but decided to meet with him shortly after hearing this news. "Don't you know, he never misgendered me once," Julian says, "He called me "he" every time. I was shocked." As Dan responds; "What a gift."

The pair, and the interviewer, give some lovely advice to viewers, to finish the episode.