0:00

Hey all, Jo here and

0:02

you're listening to Committed. Yesterday

0:04

we got a beautiful, beautiful

0:07

update from Samantha about

0:09

how her life has changed as she began

0:11

to navigate the world as a single woman.

0:16

I thought some of you might wanna

0:18

go back and revisit Samantha's original story,

0:21

her love story with her first wife, Laura.

0:25

Here at Committed, we believe

0:27

that all love stories have

0:29

so much value. No

0:32

matter how our relationship ends, it's

0:35

beginning and it's middle and

0:37

the things we created and the people that

0:39

we became, it all

0:41

matters. So

0:44

here's our original episode with Samantha. It's

0:46

called Suddenly, Samantha. On

0:53

the surface, Laura and her husband had a familiar

0:55

love story. Boy

0:58

meets girl in college at

1:00

marching band practice actually. They

1:03

bonded over a love of weird Al Yankovic, started

1:05

dating, fell in love, eventually

1:08

got married and had four sons. But

1:12

Laura's husband had been keeping a secret that entire

1:14

time. See,

1:16

Laura's husband was born a man but

1:19

always felt like something else. Always

1:22

felt like a woman. Lying

1:24

to Laura, living that lie,

1:28

it took a toll. I

1:30

almost made some really bad decisions

1:34

and I had actually developed a

1:36

plan where instead of

1:38

addressing the issues, I would end my

1:41

life. I

1:44

had a plan to basically hike

1:46

into the Grand Canyon and

1:49

not hike out. That

1:52

voice, that's Laura's husband today.

1:56

A totally different person from the one who walked into

1:58

the Grand Canyon with plans to know. not walk

2:00

out. Because

2:02

that day changed everything. That

2:05

was the day Laura's husband made the decision

2:07

to finally transition. To

2:09

become a woman named Samantha.

2:14

I'm Jo Piazza. This is

2:17

Committed. This

2:46

is Laura and Samantha's love story. It's

2:48

been a little over two years since Laura's husband

2:51

began to transition into a woman named Samantha. Samantha

2:54

now goes by the pronouns she and her. In

2:57

their memories together, memories that go back

3:00

15 years, both Laura and Samantha refer

3:02

to Samantha by those pronouns even before

3:04

her transition. Samantha has

3:06

always been a woman, even when she

3:08

was in the body of a man. So like

3:11

I said, they met in marching band

3:14

practice. I

3:21

remember meeting you. Okay, well then I guess

3:23

you should start. It

3:26

was 2003 at the University of Arizona. It

3:29

was the end of the summer and band

3:31

rehearsals had just started. This is Samantha. And

3:34

there was a new trumpet player that

3:36

I didn't know. It was her first

3:38

year marching and I

3:40

could still see her actually. She was

3:43

sitting over there on her trumpet case.

3:45

You remember that blue sports bra? Yes,

3:48

I do. Blue

3:51

sports bra, workout shorts, and

3:53

a big floppy hat. And I remember going over

3:55

and introducing myself to her. One

3:57

day they ended up alone in Laura's car together. Samantha

12:00

couldn't take it anymore. Couldn't

12:02

take the stress of living a lie and living in a body

12:04

that didn't feel like her own. She

12:08

planned her death meticulously. They

12:11

had this group of friends who regularly hiked in the Grand

12:13

Canyon. I

12:15

knew that it would provide me the opportunity that

12:18

I needed to end my life. I

12:23

had this plan where it would look like an accident. I

12:26

would just go into the Colorado River and not

12:28

come out. Their

12:30

friends planned to hike the canyon rim to rim. Samantha

12:34

told them she wasn't up for the whole hike. She

12:36

said she'd join them for the hike down and then break away

12:38

from the group and hike down to the river. Once

12:42

she was there, she knew she'd have the privacy to end

12:44

her life. The

12:46

idea was simple enough, but

12:49

at the last minute, there was a small,

12:51

seemingly insignificant change in the plans. At

12:54

the last minute, one of our friends brought his wife. Their

12:58

spouse wasn't in shape enough to

13:00

do that full hike. They asked, could they

13:02

join me on my hike? We

13:06

talked about a lot of things in

13:08

life. Some

13:10

of the struggles that I faced and the struggles that

13:12

they faced, and it sort

13:14

of opened my eyes to the situation. You

13:17

know, it's... When

13:21

they bring in the hostage negotiator to talk someone off

13:23

the ledge, they

13:25

never talk to them about the ledge. They

13:27

talk to them about their life. And

13:30

this person doesn't even realize what they did for me. I

13:33

don't know if they've realized it today. I've never told them. But

13:37

what it came to was by the time I finally got to the

13:39

river, it just didn't

13:41

feel right. I

13:43

couldn't go through with it. I

13:48

came out of that canyon a different person than when I

13:50

went in. Or maybe it was the

13:52

person I was always supposed to be. And

13:55

that was basically the beginning of the end. I knew

13:57

that at that moment that I

13:59

would have to... to tell Laura. I

14:02

knew I wanted to live and the reality

14:04

is I never wanted to die. That wasn't

14:06

my desire. I didn't want to die. I

14:09

just didn't want to burden other people with

14:11

this. But I

14:13

was reminded in that conversation just how important

14:15

we all are to each other and how

14:18

important I was to her and to my children and

14:20

my family and friends. So

14:23

after the canyon I came home, I shaved

14:26

my beard and

14:29

started to open up. Samantha

14:32

told Laura that she wanted to see a therapist.

14:35

She did some research and gave her wife a

14:37

list of potential doctors. She

14:40

gave me three names and so

14:42

I googled all three of them and noticed

14:44

in their list of expertise all three of

14:46

them listed LGBT. And so

14:48

my first thought was no,

14:51

that just has to be a coincidence. That

14:54

can't be what's going on. Then

14:56

I started mildly panicking and I

14:59

googled looking for a quiz for is

15:01

my husband transgender which I'm here to

15:03

tell you is not a very helpful

15:05

Google search. They

15:07

don't really have quizzes for that. And so

15:11

I was just kind of thinking to myself like

15:14

this is kind of like you don't you don't ask

15:16

a lady if she's pregnant like this isn't a question

15:18

you can ask someone and be wrong. You know

15:20

what I mean? And

15:22

also just you know panicking and trying to

15:25

re-examine every interaction we'd ever had over the

15:27

previous at that point 14 years

15:30

15 years. And so

15:32

I was trying to figure out if this

15:34

could possibly be it. Eventually

15:39

Laura had to say something. I said

15:42

okay I have to ask you this and I just knew

15:44

that I was going to be wrong and then she was

15:46

going to get insulted and even more hurt and upset. I

15:49

said okay I feel really weird asking you this but

15:51

I have to ask it. I said

15:53

I googled all the therapists and she's just looking

15:56

straight ahead she won't even look at me. She's

15:58

like uh-huh. Like

16:00

I noticed they all have something in

16:02

common. Uh-huh So

16:05

they all listed LGBT Uh-huh

16:09

They said so do you think you could have a gender issue?

16:13

She said maybe So

16:15

then my reaction in that moment was

16:17

don't freak out. Don't panic

16:20

have the right reaction be supportive

16:24

try to have a conversation here and figure out what

16:26

this all means and I

16:28

think that I was probably eerily calm

16:31

if anything that evening, but internally I

16:33

was completely freaking out I

16:35

remember my heart was racing out of my

16:37

chest. My face kept doing this weird twitching

16:40

thing it was I think

16:43

just shock and so

16:45

we were gonna go out to dinner but we ended

16:47

up getting in and out and sitting in the car

16:49

and Eating burgers in the car instead and talking as

16:52

long as we could and then from

16:54

that point It started just a series

16:56

of serious conversations where I tried to

16:59

understand how long she'd been feeling this

17:01

way if she'd ever tried dressing up

17:03

or Experimented with anything like

17:05

that before transitioning. I

17:07

never tried on women's clothing or anything

17:09

like that I was too afraid to do it I know

17:12

a lot of people who do transition try

17:14

that beforehand, but I mean literally I

17:16

had not tried anything on at that point So

17:19

it was brand new to me.

17:22

I had no idea of where to even begin

17:24

I had no idea of where to

17:26

begin Laura

17:28

had so many questions What

17:32

this meant for our relationship our

17:34

marriage if she was still attracted to

17:36

me You know

17:38

the list goes on and on and just these

17:40

endless conversations to try to figure out where we

17:42

were both at with everything and

17:44

honestly in the first week or so I Kind

17:49

of found myself thinking okay, so I guess I'm gonna be

17:51

a single mom now And what does that look

17:53

like got four young kids and

17:56

they have special needs and how is that gonna play out

17:58

for me in my future? But

18:02

Laura finally came to the conclusion that she didn't want to

18:04

be a single mom. She

18:06

didn't want to lose her husband. And

18:08

so in that moment I thought, okay, I'm going to give all

18:10

this a year and just see how I

18:13

feel after a year because I can't

18:15

predict how this is going to go. I mean,

18:17

at that time I literally could not picture her

18:19

as a woman whatsoever.

18:22

So I told her, I can't promise how

18:24

I'm going to feel as each

18:26

day progresses, but right now I want to try to

18:28

stay and figure this out with you. So

18:32

that was all in the first probably

18:35

two weeks. For

18:37

me, the floodgates just sort of

18:39

opened from repressing all of this

18:42

for so long. And

18:44

I just remember for those first couple months, those first

18:46

three months or so, every night we'd get the kids

18:48

to bed and we'd just start talking. And

18:51

we'd talk until midnight, one o'clock in

18:53

the morning, every night to start working

18:56

through some of what I was feeling

18:58

and how she was feeling

19:00

and what does this mean? How are we moving

19:02

forward? And

19:04

the funny thing is it's almost like we

19:06

were dating again, those

19:08

long late night conversations. And

19:12

in a way we kind of were because

19:14

our entire relationship had been called to

19:16

question. And

19:19

I think we've been pretty clear with each other from the beginning

19:21

that, you know, we only wanted to be here if we

19:24

both wanted to be here. We

19:26

had that conversation multiple times where if either

19:28

of us weren't happy, we kind of reserved

19:30

the right that we could walk away,

19:32

no hard feelings. And

19:34

she told me from the beginning that she wouldn't

19:36

blame me for going. She would

19:39

completely understand. She said no one would blame me for

19:41

going. This wasn't what I signed up for. I

19:43

didn't have all the information when we got married. And

19:46

that's all true. I

19:48

do believe in my heart of hearts that

19:50

she didn't enter into our marriage willingly intending

19:52

to deceive me. I

19:54

think that she really thought she could

19:56

just control it and push it away.

20:00

That is something that does still hurt, the

20:02

fact that I was kept in the dark for so long. I'm

20:04

not gonna sit here and pretend like it's not. And

20:07

not all spouses do stay, and not

20:09

all spouses should stay. And

20:12

that's okay. Yeah, I think we

20:14

really had to build our relationship almost from the ground

20:16

up again. I mean, even while

20:18

everything else was absolute chaos in my life,

20:20

just not having to carry that around was

20:23

unbelievably freeing, even if it was just Laura that knew

20:25

at the time. That

20:28

was my only secret. And

20:30

being able to finally tell her was

20:32

a huge relief. And I wish I could have told

20:34

her when we first started dating. I wish I could

20:36

have told her before we got married that this was

20:39

something I was dealing with. And I

20:42

don't know what would have happened if I told you then. I

20:44

mean, there's no way of knowing. It's

20:49

important to note here that gender and sexuality

20:51

are not the same thing. Samantha

20:54

was ready to transition into a woman, but

20:56

her attraction to women wouldn't change. She

20:59

was still very attracted to her wife. My

21:02

attractions had always been towards

21:04

other women. And

21:06

I knew that in transition, that's

21:09

still what I wanted. As

21:11

far as I was concerned, even though I

21:13

had come out to Laura through that conversation,

21:17

I was afraid that she would leave. But the

21:19

reality is she's still the only person I wanted

21:21

in the world. But

21:23

what did Laura want? How

21:25

did Laura's sexuality come into play in this? Laura

21:29

had always been attracted to men and she

21:31

married a man. I

21:33

was curious about how she felt about being married to a woman

21:35

and being intimate with a woman. That's

21:39

a difficult question to answer quickly. Initially,

21:42

it was hard to picture and

21:45

imagine what it would be like. But

21:47

as her transition progressed, I

21:49

never found myself not attracted

21:51

to her, which caused

21:54

me to be introspective within myself

21:56

and examine my own sexuality. and

22:01

I came to identify as pansexual, which

22:04

means that you are attracted to people regardless

22:06

of their gender. And

22:09

that just seemed to fit because I knew

22:11

that I still loved her and wanted to be with

22:13

her and was attracted to her in that way. But

22:17

if something were ever to happen to the

22:19

two of us, I wouldn't foresee myself seeking

22:21

out dating women. So

22:23

I think it's kind of situational, if that makes

22:26

sense. I've actually used the phrase that I'm Samantha

22:28

sexual because I'm

22:30

specifically attracted to and

22:32

built for her, and

22:35

I've always felt that way. Not

22:38

carrying around her secret anymore changed Samantha. Yes,

22:42

in obvious ways, but in some not so obvious

22:44

ways too. After coming

22:46

out, I felt amazing because

22:49

to have to carry a secret like that

22:51

for so long in your life was unbelievably

22:53

freeing, even if it was just Laura that knew at the

22:55

time. As you've seen

22:57

in her very public Instagram posts, she's

23:01

outgoing and she's a social butterfly. She

23:03

was never like that before. She was basically

23:05

a hermit. She would hang out with

23:08

friends maybe once or twice a year, never

23:10

posted on social media, maybe five or six times

23:12

in a year, never took

23:14

pictures, never selfies. I

23:16

was her only friend. And so when

23:19

we encounter people that we meet

23:21

post-transition, they tell

23:23

me I seem like the introverted one and I'm just

23:25

kind of like, wait, what? Because

23:27

I still don't even see her that way just

23:29

because that's never been our roles. But I mean,

23:31

it's true now. She is definitely

23:33

the more outgoing and social one. And

23:36

so that's still been a relearning

23:39

process for us. It's

23:41

kind of like being married to a brand new person after all these

23:43

years in a lot of ways. I

23:45

was really stunted before in my life and

23:47

in my role as a spouse and parent.

23:50

Being able to be myself has

23:52

allowed me to open up in ways that I

23:55

could never have expected. Just

23:57

how much more outgoing I am and

23:59

involved. It goes beyond just being outgoing

24:01

in the world. It's also in the

24:03

house and being more involved as a

24:05

parent and being more involved as a

24:07

spouse and being more engaged with

24:09

the kids and more emotionally available. And

24:12

that's been a really beautiful experience for

24:14

me. We're

24:16

gonna take a quick break here. When

24:19

we get back, we'll start Samantha's transition. It

24:30

was November of 2016 when Samantha told Laura

24:32

about her plan to transition to being a

24:34

woman. Finally coming

24:36

to terms with being transgender and saying

24:39

it out loud for the first time ever feels

24:42

like such an accomplishment. You feel like you finally got

24:44

to the top of the mountain, right? You're finally there.

24:47

And then you realize that you actually need to

24:49

move forward. And that's

24:52

such a daunting task. Early

24:55

on, they sat down together and came up with

24:57

a proposed timeline for the transition. And

24:59

then we might as well set it on fire and thrown it

25:01

out a window because we didn't really stick to it. But it

25:04

was nice for me being so overwhelmed to

25:06

just see a black and white list of

25:09

this is what I'm expecting to do and

25:12

in which order and approximately when. And

25:14

it helped me kind of wrap my head around it a little

25:16

bit too. And I'm a

25:19

planner anyway in general. I like to know what's

25:21

the plan, what's the plan. So that

25:24

helped me know where things were headed.

25:26

It's tough to plan a transition out

25:28

on paper upfront. It's a very fluid

25:30

process. It's something that changes on a

25:32

day to day basis. And I

25:35

think you do have to live it day to day. It's

25:37

nice to have kind of a general idea of when things

25:39

are going to happen. But it happened a lot faster than

25:41

originally planned. I think she's

25:43

had the fastest transition of anyone I've ever

25:45

encountered. Went pretty quick.

25:47

Yeah. To mark just

25:50

how quick it all was, Samantha's Instagram

25:52

is actually called Suddenly Samantha. She

25:55

looks so different now. I've

25:57

spent hours looking at her before and after pictures. The

26:01

first step of the transition to change from male

26:03

to female was hormone therapy. That

26:06

meant a regiment of estrogen

26:09

and a testosterone blocker. So

26:12

it wasn't more than a month after that

26:14

first conversation with the therapist that I actually

26:16

had my prescription for the hormones.

26:19

And I think that was a moment, right,

26:21

a daunting moment in our relationship. The

26:24

reality is for every milestone

26:27

I hit in my own transition,

26:30

that was a moment too where I

26:32

was taking away part of

26:34

who I was from Laura. But

26:37

as far as the start of hormones, for

26:40

me there was a lot of emotion tied up in

26:42

taking that first pill and

26:44

fear of the unknown and what's going

26:46

to happen. Like she alluded

26:48

to, just the loss of the person that I

26:50

originally fell in love with. But

26:53

it turned out that when she took the

26:55

first pill it was just a pill and

26:57

it takes months for any noticeable changes anyway.

27:00

So it was really more just symbolic than

27:02

anything actually happening on that day. And

27:05

I've been 100% on board with all of it because I

27:07

knew that she needed it in

27:09

order to live and

27:11

live freely and be happy. And

27:14

although every step has been hard for

27:16

me and has been in a lot of ways

27:18

a loss for me or even

27:20

to an extent a bit of a grieving

27:22

process, I'm still on board

27:25

with it because I would never stand in the

27:27

way of the person I love more than anything

27:29

in the world having the opportunity to be happy.

27:33

In addition to the hormones, Samantha has had five

27:35

surgeries in two years to transition from being

27:37

a man to a woman. And

27:39

during those surgeries I was out

27:42

of commission for anywhere between a week

27:45

to almost two months.

27:48

And that put a huge burden on Laura to

27:50

keep the house running and keep the kids going

27:53

with school and everything else while I was recovering.

27:56

And I asked her to do that multiple times. And

27:59

those... dresses definitely tested our ability

28:01

to keep this marriage in a good place.

28:03

And along with that too, each of those

28:06

surgeries was a bit of a trauma for

28:08

me. Just seeing her in

28:10

so much pain, the loss

28:12

of whatever thing was being surgically

28:14

changed into something new, the fear

28:16

of the unknown. Samantha

28:19

and Laura's kids are all on the autism

28:21

spectrum. One way

28:23

they help communicate new and different things that are

28:25

happening in their lives are these things called social

28:27

stories. Social stories

28:29

break down a new idea into simple parts,

28:32

often incorporating pictures to help the kids

28:34

understand something new. And

28:36

so we wrote two different stories. I think it was

28:38

two. Because the baby, I

28:40

mean, he was six months old. He'll never

28:43

remember anything different. And

28:45

then the other ones were six,

28:47

four and two. So

28:49

we wrote one story for the six year old. He's

28:52

very bright, very verbal, and he's

28:54

already able to read at that point. So

28:56

his story was just text. And

28:59

in that story, we explained to him

29:01

that she had always felt like a

29:03

girl on the inside. And

29:05

she was going to be using a new name and

29:07

new pronouns. And we got his input on the name,

29:10

which was kind of a whole other story. But we

29:12

did get his input on it. So he felt like

29:14

he was helping decide. And

29:17

we specifically said, Mama's still going to do

29:19

all your favorite things with you, like chase

29:21

you and tickle you and build Legos with

29:23

you. And about two or

29:25

three days later, we were putting him to bed and

29:28

he's just distraught. He's in tears. And

29:30

we're asking him, what's going on? Why are you upset? And

29:33

he said, Mama hasn't chased me yet. And

29:36

because he thinks very black and white, it

29:38

was in the story. And

29:41

we said she was going to do it and she hadn't done it yet.

29:43

So something must be wrong. And so, of

29:45

course, she tossed him out of bed and chased him

29:47

around for 10 minutes and tickle attacked him. And then

29:49

he felt better about it. And

29:52

not to say that as he gets older,

29:54

he won't have questions and struggle with different

29:56

aspects of this transition. But

29:58

as much as any six year old. can wrap their

30:00

head around it. He did. And within

30:02

two to three weeks, he was using the right

30:04

name, the right pronouns, 100%. He

30:06

jumps to her defense if anyone uses the wrong one

30:08

and has a slip up, he'll immediately

30:11

correct them. So he's been really great. For

30:14

the younger two, like I

30:16

said, at the time, they were four

30:18

and two. The four-year-old is still nonverbal.

30:21

The two-year-old at this point, he's limited verbal.

30:23

And so that story had to be a little bit different.

30:26

So it incorporated a lot of pictures, the

30:28

same concepts, but just simpler terms

30:30

and a little bit less verbiage.

30:34

So now that the kids were on board, things seem to

30:36

be going smoothly. But

30:38

sometimes it's the small things that can become sticking

30:41

points. One

30:43

of the things that was really hard for Laura that

30:45

she didn't expect was sharing the title of mom. Because

30:48

my initial reaction with all

30:50

of this was, I'm mom, mommy, all

30:52

variations of mom and mother. That's

30:55

me. I'm not sharing. That's my title. I

30:58

carried these babies. I gave birth to them. I

31:00

nursed them. That's my

31:02

title. And her

31:05

initial reaction was completely supportive of that.

31:08

I could see how much it hurt

31:10

Laura to have to consider sharing the

31:12

title that she rightfully earned. And

31:14

so we kind of went back and forth for a month or

31:16

two with some alternatives. Some people in

31:19

our situations, they go by a name,

31:21

Maddie, which is a combination of mom

31:23

and daddy. Some people just

31:25

use their first name. Some people choose

31:27

mother from a different language. They

31:31

initially settled on an alternative name. But

31:33

I could tell she wasn't really jazzed about it. And

31:36

so I kind of called her out on it

31:38

one night and I said, so what's the deal?

31:41

What are you really thinking? And she told me

31:43

that she wanted to be a variation on mom.

31:45

And my initial reaction was to be very upset

31:47

and very hurt because I said this was my

31:50

territory and I'm not sharing. But then

31:53

she started to explain that in a

31:55

situation like ours, if one

31:57

person is called mom and the other person is called

31:59

Samantha, or is called

32:02

some variation or nickname, they

32:05

would not necessarily be seen as a part of the family unit. They

32:09

would be seen potentially as a step-parent.

32:11

She's definitely their parent. She's been there

32:14

from day one. So

32:16

once I kind of had that perspective, I said,

32:18

okay, I guess that makes sense. Yeah,

32:20

I mean, there are some people that transition,

32:22

and they're perfectly fine using the title, Daddy.

32:24

I couldn't use that title. That was a

32:26

title I just did not feel comfortable with.

32:30

So I really needed to be

32:32

a mom in the eyes of my

32:34

kids. I don't mean

32:36

to sound greedy or selfish, but

32:40

if it wasn't going to be mom or some

32:42

variation of that, I would

32:44

have rather have just been Samantha

32:46

to the kids. It's impersonal. It

32:49

would have hurt to have to give up that

32:51

title. But it would have been better

32:53

than having to keep the old one or try to invent a

32:55

new word to describe what I was. I

32:59

still sat on it for probably another month or

33:01

so before I finally said, okay, I'll keep mommy, and

33:03

you can be mama, and we'll let our oldest

33:05

decide how he wants us to spell it. So

33:08

that was his decision-making portion of it. So

33:12

he picked M-A-M-A. But

33:14

that was probably one of the

33:17

bigger points of contention for me was

33:20

what the kids were going to call her. It

33:23

was hard. I remember using this

33:25

analogy a lot when we first started. Let's

33:28

always move forward. Let's always

33:30

break bigger issues down into smaller pieces,

33:32

get through those smaller pieces. Once

33:35

we solve something, once we come to an answer,

33:37

and we're agreed on both sides, move

33:39

it out of the way, move on to the next thing. Just

33:41

keep knocking things out. Try not to fall back.

33:44

Try not to get stuck in the weeds. And

33:48

with the mom and the title conversation,

33:50

it's something that really had to be

33:52

broken down into very small chunks and

33:54

really thought about multiple times. are

34:00

over. Laura and Samantha

34:02

are finally beyond the medical portion of the

34:04

transition. Samantha has come out to everyone in

34:06

their lives. But

34:08

in a lot of other ways, they're just starting

34:10

to rebuild their marriage. There's

34:13

no more surgeries on schedule and things have

34:15

finally been allowed to get back to

34:17

normal. But we spent so

34:19

long in that mode of surgery

34:22

recovery, surgery recovery that I

34:24

think we lost a little bit of our

34:27

own cadence in life. And

34:29

we've been working on that. We've been

34:31

working to make sure to make time for ourselves.

34:33

And again, with four kids, it's

34:35

a very busy house. With

34:37

four special needs kids, it's even busier. It's harder

34:40

for us to get away. So we've been working

34:42

really hard to make sure that we do get

34:44

time to ourselves and we are allowed to talk

34:47

to each other and have those date nights

34:49

and go be wives

34:52

somewhere outside of our living room or kitchen

34:54

for a couple hours every week. Exactly

34:59

a year after Samantha walked out of the Grand

35:01

Canyon ready to completely change her life, Laura

35:04

proposed at the

35:06

Grand Canyon. They had a

35:08

vow renewal on their 12th anniversary. Same

35:11

venue, same photographer. Laura even wore the

35:13

same dress. The difference

35:15

was that this time Samantha got to wear one too.

35:18

I know initially in the

35:21

transition, I had this sort of gut reaction like,

35:23

well, if you're going to be a wife now,

35:25

then I expect you to step up and do

35:27

XYZ, whether it was more laundry

35:30

or cooking or cleaning or

35:32

dishes or whatever it was,

35:34

those kind of more stereotypically

35:37

wife duties. And

35:39

the reality is in our relationship, she's

35:41

the career mom and I'm the at

35:44

home mom. And that's what our

35:46

roles always were. Just hers was the other

35:48

gender before. This

35:51

hasn't been easy by any stretch and I

35:53

don't want it to come across that way,

35:55

but it has been

35:57

worth it. And like I said earlier,

36:00

I don't think everyone can stay, and

36:02

I don't think everyone should stay. But

36:04

just try to give it your best,

36:07

whatever that looks like, and

36:09

just try to be kind to each other no matter how it

36:11

turns out. I think that's the big thing, right?

36:14

Yeah. I

36:16

have one last question. Samantha,

36:43

could you have done this without Laura? Yes.

36:47

I could have done this without her. Could

36:49

I have been as successful?

36:52

Could I have been as happy as I am

36:55

now without her? No.

36:58

Her support, her unwavering commitment

37:00

to me through this process

37:03

has been absolutely incredible. When

37:06

you're recovering from a major surgery, and you

37:08

can barely even lift yourself out of bed,

37:11

and you have someone there who loves

37:13

you unconditionally as you're basically

37:16

in pieces, what

37:18

can you even say to that? Her

37:21

love for me has been

37:23

absolutely incredible. And when I say

37:25

her love for me, I mean, you know, before

37:28

transitioning and since transitioning. So

37:32

sure, I could have transitioned, but I'm

37:34

a better person because of her. And

37:38

it's so exciting to be on the other side

37:40

of transition now and still

37:42

have her by my side and

37:45

all the amazing things that are still yet to come.

37:47

I'm just so excited for what the future will bring.

38:02

This episode was hosted and reported by

38:04

Joe Piazza. A special thanks to Samantha

38:06

and Laura Filoso. It

38:09

was produced and edited by Ramsey Yunt, with

38:11

live sound recording by Sarah Ventry. Mixing

38:13

by Tristan McNeil. The

38:16

executive producers are Joe Piazza, Julie Douglas,

38:18

and Tyler Klang. Theme song

38:20

and music by Tristan McNeil. For

38:22

comments, suggestions, or to be part of the show,

38:24

give us a call at 404-996-1173. That's

38:30

404-996-1173. Or

38:34

send us an email at joe at committed

38:37

podcast dot com. That's

38:39

jo at committed podcast dot com.

38:42

You can grab a copy of Joe's new book,

38:44

Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win, on Amazon or wherever

38:46

books are sold. If you

38:48

or someone you know is trans or

38:50

questioning and experiencing crisis, or

38:52

if you just need to talk, please

38:54

call Trans Lifeline at 877-565-8860. That's

39:02

877-565-8860. Or

39:08

go visit translifeline.org. That's

39:12

translifeline.org. Committed

39:14

is a production of iHeart Radio and produced

39:16

in our studios located in Atlanta, Georgia. For

39:19

more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart

39:21

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39:23

to your favorite shows.