Transcript
Glenn Washington (0:02)
SNAP Studios.
Eric Glass (0:07)
I'm Eric Glass. On this American Life. We tell real life stories, really good ones.
Glenn Washington (0:12)
My mother said, I'm sorry you weren't.
Eric Glass (0:15)
Here because Father Sager was here visiting.
Glenn Washington (0:20)
And he found a very nice orphanage for you. And I said, but I'm not an orphan, Ma.
Eric Glass (0:30)
Surprising stories every week.
Glenn Washington (0:32)
This American Life.
Eric Glass (0:34)
Listen, wherever you get your podcasts.
Glenn Washington (0:49)
There is a book, a novel that I love. It evokes this ineffable sense, one that we don't have a great word for in English. A feeling of the monumental choice you can never revisit, of loss, of consequence, of not quite regret. So when I hear the author is coming to my favorite bookstore to give a reading, I flip grab my dog eared hardcover, hoping to score a signature. Sure. But more than anything, wanting to connect with someone who's world building, whose characters, whose ideas have touched me. Reading a book the way I read this one, it creates this sense of traveling through someone's mind with them. It's intimate, revelatory, it's charged. And this particular text, for me, it's also kind of a North Star, lighting the way toward the writer I'd like to someday become. That is how strongly I feel and how disappointed I am when the author sits down in front of a crowded room, reads a few lines, says he has just enough time for a couple signatures, then stands up to leave. And I don't know what I expected from this guy, what we're gonna become. Best pals? Exchange midnight text drafts of new stories? What am I asking for? I've got his book. What more do I want? Wow. Today on Snap Judgment, we can't just leave well enough alone. SNAP proudly presents Jorge Gina Ev Dante. My name is Glenn Washington, and please remember, stories on the radio are always better than stories from books. At least when you're listening to Snap Judgment. Now I want you to meet Dante. Dante grew up in a small beach town called Los Mochis, but now lives in Guadalajara. It's the second largest city in Mexico with one of the largest gay populations. And was there he found something he'd been looking for for a very long time. Snap Judgment.
Eric Glass (3:49)
When I first moved to this neighborhood, I wanted to get a haircut. So I went to the salon around the corner. And that's where I met Jorge. Jorge appears to be a gay man. He's around 50. He's wearing a rainbow face mask. And the first thing I see is a big poster of Marilyn Monroe. And right next to it, there's a huge ioana inside an open Cage. Jorge tells me that it's been on tv. I don't know why, but I suppose it's because it's a very big 9 year old Ioana. I sit down, he starts cutting my hair and we start talking. And neither of us is willing to ask the other if they're queer. So we're going around in circles until I finally say I'm trans. And he asks me, so when will you start taking hormones? And I say, girl, I've already started. And he's like, what? And I'm like, yeah. He says, okay, I get it. He thought I was a trans woman. And he says, well, you pass so well that I wonder how big your dick was. So Jorge likes to joke a lot. He tells me that the neighborhood we live in has always been full of queer people. And he gives me his friends names. One is called La Flaca, the other La Modelo, he says. He showed me a photo of him when he lived in San Francisco. Back when his friends called him Gina and he was on hormones. This makes me think he's a trans woman who has detransitioned. Now that I see up close, the hormones have left their trace on his body. He has small breasts that look like mine before I had my surgery. I can't believe my luck. All these years I've wanted to meet a trans person older than me. In the small town where I grew up, I never saw queer people. The only trans person I knew was a client who would go to my mom's vet clinic. They were around 50 and I was just a kid, so I never talked to them. And now here I am with Jorge, with someone who could finally tell me their story. We keep talking, and then he says, if you had seen me back then, you would have sworn I was a woman. I'm confused now. So I ask him if he still identifies as a woman, and he tells me he does. With his friends, he's Gina, but with everyone else he's Jorge, and he uses masculine pronouns. Now I'm intrigued. I want to understand what led him to become Jorge and Gina. So I ask him if I can interview him. He agrees. The next day, I show up at the salon with my recorder. Or he's smoking a cigarette in the lobby. Or maybe that's just an image I have stuck in my mind because every time I see him, he's smoking a cigarette. He offers me some water. We sit down. I ask him where should we start.