[SPEAKER_01]: This episode was proudly brought to you by BeParentSergasy.
[SPEAKER_03]: Head to BeParentSergasy.com to learn more.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never thought I would leave the US.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, people thought we were crazy when we moved from the north to the south in the US.
[SPEAKER_00]: And every time I told them we're moving to Spain, it's like that, oh, that's my dream.
[SPEAKER_00]: Could you take me with you, take me with you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, hey, hey, y'all, welcome to the Clear Family Podcast, the show all about family, but look game.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am Jamie, your gay host, and this is the show, as you know, that highlights, celebrates, uplifts, and normalizes LGBTQIA plus families in all of our fab, you, less identities.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I say fabulous, I really mean it in this episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got to sit down with TJ.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we talked about the hetero life he built,
[SPEAKER_01]: The life that unraveled from it, I think you know where that's going, and the brave, beautiful life, he created on the other side of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is such a good conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: We get into coming out after marriage, co-parenting with his ex, raising a transgender daughter, and the very, very real reasons why his family chose to leave the US for a new life in Spain.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, you're all going to want to lean in real close to this one because I know many of us have thought about leaving the US in these days, many of us take a listen because this is a conversation about identity, reinvention, safety, and what it means to finally build a life that fits.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so sweet and lovely and you're going to love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And before I roll the tape or before Helen and
[SPEAKER_01]: The fish saga that continues to brew in our house.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, if you listened last week to my intro, you know that I recently tried to upgrade our fish tank.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had two goldfish that my son had one at a fair last summer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they were thriving.
[SPEAKER_01]: But everybody kept telling me, oh, goldfish need a bigger tank.
[SPEAKER_01]: Goldfish need a bigger tank.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I had finally made the move.
[SPEAKER_01]: We upgraded to a 20 gallon tank.
[SPEAKER_01]: We moved the fish.
[SPEAKER_01]: They died the next morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: Devastating.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were in mourning all day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Told you that story in the last intro.
[SPEAKER_01]: So go listen, it's heartbreaking, heartbreaking.
[SPEAKER_01]: So then this past weekend, we got new fish.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got different kinds of fish.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got a school of fish.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was beautiful.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were gorgeous.
[SPEAKER_01]: We named them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I made a social media story all about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: My son was so excited.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, we were in heaven.
[SPEAKER_01]: woke up the next morning y'all, woke up the next morning and most of them had died.
[SPEAKER_01]: I kid you not.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like a fish tank morgue in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: There were fish lying on the trees.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean devastating.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what is happening and I talk to the people at the pet store about it at the query in the aquarium section and they tested my water both times.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like everything looks right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what's happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lord the saga continues and losing these little fish is killing me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like a fish serial killer at this point.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel so terrible and I love every single one of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, so I've done a lot more reading.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're getting new fish this weekend.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is breaking my heart, but we still have a couple of little catfish that are thriving.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're making it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm hoping it was just a fluke.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to get new fish.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to keep you updated.
[SPEAKER_01]: But this is family life right here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we have to have a burial for the fish.
[SPEAKER_01]: This coming weekend too.
[SPEAKER_01]: The pet store gives us a refund on the fish if they die within the first two weeks.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I have to bring the fish in and I said, well, my son wants to bury them.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do I do?
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're like, okay, you can just take a picture because if you bring
[SPEAKER_01]: deal with them the way we're supposed to deal with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we need to do a burial.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to do a proper burial.
[SPEAKER_01]: These were members of our family for crime and is safe.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my God.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is so depressing.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what's happening on the home trend.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hug your baby's tight, even the little swimming ones.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even them hug everyone tight and give everyone your love right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And soon we will have a lovely thriving aquarium and lots of little fishy angels watching over us and sending us love.
[SPEAKER_01]: God, you can't make this.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't make it up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Parent life, am I right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, let's get into TJ's story because it's gonna give you good feels.
[SPEAKER_01]: Gonna give you good feels after I just broke your hearts with my fish story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't think I'm a bad person.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm really trying with these fish.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't judge me for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I almost didn't tell my friends because they felt like a such a fitlier.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like I do these fish wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really loved them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, anyway, let's get to the hell and view a stopwatch in the catfish.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're okay right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to make this work.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's roll this tape.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here we go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Roll in the tape.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Lord.
[SPEAKER_03]: Clear family, but good, love is love.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, TJ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, Jay.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are you today.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am good.
[SPEAKER_01]: How are you?
[SPEAKER_00]: doing wonderful, wonderful, excited to be talking to you and sitting down and going through this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm excited for this too because you have the guests will hear, you have done something that I think a lot of us folks on the queer spectrum have thought about doing in these days and times.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm excited to get dig into this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So without further ado, TJ, let's just dive right into your
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I had shrunk myself into the American dream, had the wife, the house, little boy, job, benefits, all of that kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I am living my dream in Spain with my husband transgender daughter, and being a author, speaker, and a life coach.
[SPEAKER_01]: boom, you did it.
[SPEAKER_01]: TJ, you said under 30 seconds, you know, I'm impressed.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't sure you're going to be able to do it to be quite on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm proud of you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good job, TJ.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, this is amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we have some stuff to dig into for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have left the states.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have left the states, and I, I think I think we all know why so let's Let's dig into your story TJ.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you fit the American box.
[SPEAKER_01]: You had a wife and a kid and Then what happened to you?
[SPEAKER_00]: And life comes in and makes it more interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we decided that we were going to move, we ended up moving south to North Carolina and to start our family.
[SPEAKER_00]: Couple months after we had moved there, we were in the rather severe car accident.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well.
[SPEAKER_00]: my parents actually followed the grandchild down to North Carolina.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we were getting them settled into their new home and as we were driving home, we were sort of forced off the road by a car passing in a no-pass zone.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had feared off the road and back on and we...
[SPEAKER_00]: averted the head on collision, but my car kind of passed over the lines, got hit by the oncoming traffic, my hand broke through the window, my head broke through the window and I was out of work.
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt like a failure is a father, a failure as a husband, because I couldn't work.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to cancel all these shows.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was never supposed to get the movement back in my left hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in that moment, our life had changed so much in a split second.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm getting chills actually thinking about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the car hit us,
[SPEAKER_00]: and my wife was in the passenger seat our son at the time was in the back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember sitting getting us out onto the side of the road.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jen was okay, baby's okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am hurt, pain, glass is broken, can't see out of one of my eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember looking up and seeing the stars as best I could without my glasses.
[SPEAKER_00]: and just realizing that I can't die now that I would be leaving my family and not only that, but I never told my wife that I was gay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life comes in, life happens, you know, I've got a better, and that was always in the back of my mind thinking, you know, I haven't told her, but I'll tell her, you know, that's a conversation for another day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your plan was to kind of tell her, but continue living the way you were living.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, so I finally did,
[SPEAKER_00]: build up the courage to come out to her actually after a very big fight with her and one of our first big fights ever.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were high school sweet hearts and grown up together in all of this and I realized that was the way I could forgive her in this argument is that I never told her
[SPEAKER_00]: about me, about my feelings, about, and, you know, I finally did and sat down and that was a difficult conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can imagine.
[SPEAKER_00]: But she, she had looked at me and said, why didn't you tell me sooner?
[SPEAKER_00]: We could have watched gay porn together.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was like, why didn't you tell me?
[SPEAKER_00]: It was not the reaction I had expected at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: validated with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, she had told me when she first had met me in high school, she thought I was gay, but one of my best friends, that he turned out to be gay later on in life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we tried the whole like, because she said, well, you should go out and try it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We tried a whole open marriage thing for years, and I didn't think it was fair if I went out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, well, if I could go out, you could go out and
[SPEAKER_00]: there was on my part a lot of jealousy on your point to that even though I was much more you know on the gay side than the straight side looking now in my life and looking back at the the trajectory there was much much more the gay side than the straight side we stayed together for quite some time thereafter and
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it wasn't until years later that we realized that we started out as friends in high school, we had the met doing, doing the play, the mouse that roared.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we really should have stayed friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I'm very thankful we did get together because we have a child together and so we sort of as as people said to us nobody outside, you know, even our friends, our family didn't really know that we were having kind of marital issues.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was like, people were very surprised when we said that we were going to get a divorce because it was just, we just both sat down and realized, you know, very no drama, no lawyers, no nothing, saying, you know, we work better this friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just realized that it wasn't it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we were high school sweet hearts.
[SPEAKER_00]: We really hadn't
[SPEAKER_00]: People said, it's like the best divorce they had ever seen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, they happy to divorce their son.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Co-parents with our child, you know, we had it all arranged out.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it worked.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: The worked.
[SPEAKER_01]: It worked out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm conventional.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's nice to hear.
[SPEAKER_01]: That you know, good job, and then you're able to live your truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: and still keep the friendship with your ex.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, which that's like the best of all worlds.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a mate.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's like what we hope, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we still text each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: We still friends and all that are trials now in adult is 20 years old.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dancing around that, as I said, we do have a transgender child.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So her name is Opel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sort of dancing around because at the time, the divorce and all that, it was
[SPEAKER_01]: something else so you're different.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes, right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Different gender.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you have to navigate that as you tell the story, totally understood, totally get everybody here, totally understands.
[SPEAKER_01]: The co-parenting is going well, the divorce went as good as can be imagined.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I'm imagining you, you ended up finding, I know you ended up finding someone.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you found someone that now you are
[SPEAKER_00]: North Carolina, like I said, a little little town in North Carolina.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the only way you ever meet any other like gay person is online and talk to
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm 48.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a little bit of that age gap thing going on there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did everything I could to not like him because of the age difference.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just thought, no, this can't.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not good work.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's too young.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's no, no, no, no, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet I just kept coming back to him and
[SPEAKER_01]: you've found your person and he happens to be very young, but you found your person.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, again, the beautiful thing of that is, you know, I said my, my daughter is 20 years old and Tyler's 26 is not much of a difference there, but the two of them got along like, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: and so she was big into Minecraft gaming online and all that they were just talking about games, Minecraft and on and on and on and it was like meant to be kind of thing that the two of them get along so well and to be able to integrate him kind of into our family and he gets along with
[SPEAKER_00]: Just sort of works.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't explain why it works or how it works, but it works.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you found your person and it's fitting it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And everything's fitting nicely.
[SPEAKER_01]: It sounds like, which is wonderful.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll be right back.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for the podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: Love this love.
[SPEAKER_01]: Alright folks, before we carry on with the episode, I want to take a second to talk about something that came up a lot during and in my fertility journey to parenthood.
[SPEAKER_01]: When we started IVF, it was with Anne first.
[SPEAKER_01]: We thought we had a good understanding of what things we caused and what insurance would cover.
[SPEAKER_01]: And halfway through it, when we were in the process of IVF, we found out that we suddenly had to pay.
[SPEAKER_01]: about $15,000 out of pocket after we had already started the process and we were ready to do the transfer.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we ended up having to take a loan out to cover it so that we could carry on.
[SPEAKER_01]: That IVF ended up working.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hallelujah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then when it was my turn to go, we had to do three rounds of IVF and so we had to take another loan out to cover it because insurance was not footing the bill.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then those three IVFs didn't even end up working out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why am I telling you all this?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm telling you all this because queer family building often comes with a lot of financial surprises.
[SPEAKER_01]: And every single dollar you can save can really, really matter.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why I'm super excited to partner with B-parent surrogacy.
[SPEAKER_01]: They help guide intended parents through the entire process for matching with a surrogate to a coordinating medical care, to navigating their legal steps.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there are fewer unexpected moments along the way and trust me you want to do your best to avoid those unexpected moments.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to come, but do your best to find the ways to not do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if surrogacy or IVF, because they cover that as well, are a part of your path to parenting.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can learn more or schedule a free consultation at bparentsurrogacy.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, and if you mentioned the queer family podcast, you're going to get $2,000 off any service you book.
[SPEAKER_01]: So go make those babies and then come tell me about them because every dollar counts y'all, every dollar counts.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's get back to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And how did we get to the place where you're leaving the country?
[SPEAKER_00]: And now we're in Spain.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now you're in Spain.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so jealous.
[SPEAKER_01]: But how did we get there?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would love to hear it all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had never been out of the country myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had planned trips kind of growing up in New England area.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've planned trips to to go to Canada.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they always fell through.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had never left the country.
[SPEAKER_00]: Things started changing.
[SPEAKER_00]: in my mind in 2016, during the first regime, when that happened, I mean, I remember waking up that night going from like, you know, to me, Hillary Clinton seemed to be like the most qualified individual that has ever existed to be president.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, if just her for background, everything,
[SPEAKER_00]: to have this other guy just come in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember I went into like this protective mode.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I was living in the south.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: As a gay guy, I mean, in 2016 to our divorce, just had gone through in 2016.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm like, feel in my way as being now, like, you're newly out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and this is, and it's scary territory, like coming out is so scary, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're doing it now, and then here comes 45.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it made me feel like this was not the country I thought it was.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, 100%.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the US, the grief, was terrified to leave the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it was a state of depression, not only, you know, I was suffering through with
[SPEAKER_00]: the divorce and different things and there's emotional things there that now my future is not what I pictured it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was in therapy and on depression medication and all of that stuff and this added on to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just remember it was like a week before I like didn't want to go to Walmart.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't want to go out of the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would go out of the house to work and come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't want to socialize.
[SPEAKER_01]: It just was you're touching on something that I haven't really been able to put into words until I feel like just now it's kind of like the sense of betrayal you felt from your country like that's and that's how I think many of us feel today and felt when that election.
[SPEAKER_01]: happened, the sense of betrayal from the country that we thought was something else.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's still so hard to come to terms with the fact that this has come to pass and there's a betrayal there that I've never actually realized until you just said that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, the sense of betrayal is deep and really hard to grapple with.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that is a perfect work because it's really when I started thinking, well, this, you know, how could my country vote for this person, like how are people really like that, like our people, and it really, that those, those would the beginnings.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just the beginning and now it's so much worse.
[SPEAKER_00]: The unraveling of the American stream.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's so, and I'm just realizing it now,
[SPEAKER_00]: change into what my American dream was.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was to the difficulty, you know, the job I was into.
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt like I was sort of in this dead end job that I'd have to go back to school if I wanted to continue.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was really a dismantling of so many aspects of my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fast forward a little bit so Opel came out to us as transgender and you know all of that of what that entailed adjusting to that and when
[SPEAKER_00]: leading up to our departure from the US.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were feeling that crunch of just in North Carolina, it was like all the laws in the other states around us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just like starting to close in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Opa had a wonderful transgender doctor in Western North Carolina in Asheville, North Carolina,
[SPEAKER_00]: and she was telling us that how the people in Tennessee, because of all the laws passed there, that they were traveling hours to come across the border, to see her, so they could get their medication, your doctor, just to, you know, and so it's like, we just saw everything starting to like close in around us.
[SPEAKER_00]: who came up with the idea, said, well, we don't need to stay here in this country.
[SPEAKER_00]: this other countries that are so much better.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, when I had never really considered it, because it's like, this is my country.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to leave it, but because of 2016 and everything that building that, like I said, it really was that dismantling of the American dream because I was realizing that the job I had, you know, the good benefits and all of that kind of stuff wasn't fulfilling me marriage fell upon.
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt like the country's falling part, everything's collapsing around me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we started looking, you know, talk about autism, 90% I guess, of autism comes from the father.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm starting to find my own things that, yep, that autism is like the father side of the family and autism doesn't just come out of anywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm starting to like see things in myself with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I remember sitting down with like,
[SPEAKER_00]: Patta paper, pen, we sat down, we all had our phones out, and we're just like researching, okay, where could we go?
[SPEAKER_01]: What countries are the good ones for us?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we ended up narrowing it down to Malta.
[SPEAKER_00]: or Spain, Malta had the great advantage that they speak English there is the primary language.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was like, why am I speaking English?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is right.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the more we were looking, you know, Spain really seemed good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, Opel had taken Spanish since she was in kindergarten, like all throughout school.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like she had a familiarity with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I took French.
[SPEAKER_00]: So my whole concept to get by, you know, I took French and high school and into college and I said, well, maybe we'll move to like the north of Spain.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're like right near the border.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's kind of French-ish.
[SPEAKER_00]: We decided we'd take like three week vacation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Came out to Spain just to see that the main thing was to see if we could get by
[SPEAKER_00]: And we ended up going to this this little village like north of Barcelona, this beautiful right on the beach it was just so it's like when we're there it's just so gorgeous it's so beautiful and the little like shocks of you know, yes we're on vacation.
[SPEAKER_00]: but there's already that cultural relaxation of, you know, the first time we went to a restaurant.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I've got to tell you that, Opel being autistic, she, you know, how I felt after I heard the results of the 2016 election and I sort of isolated myself for like a week.
[SPEAKER_00]: As Opel was getting older,
[SPEAKER_00]: getting into her self as transgender and autistic.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was more and more isolating herself.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was, we ended up, you know, she went to her transition.
[SPEAKER_00]: She went from a kind of small school where she had known everyone to like, if it's high school.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she lasted like a week in high school.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like she just was so overwhelmed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so she, it was right, turn COVID too.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she had like a year online.
[SPEAKER_00]: and then trying to transition back so we ended up she was able to do like online schooling for like a year and then we ended up home schooling her for the last two years but she was at the point that she she wouldn't leave she'd go to my house she'd go to her mother's house she'd go to her
[SPEAKER_00]: my parents house and that was it.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had that like that fear in a way of going out.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just the trend not only that the autism like overwhelm, but the transgender thing being putting the South and all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so to have her in a restaurant,
[SPEAKER_00]: was like astounding.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can imagine it's like, all right, this is it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're doing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: In a restaurant, and I remember taking a picture of her, which she will not be on video one of them, but a picture of her, and my mother's saying, like, she cried seeing her granddaughter, like out and in public on, you know, public transportation here on on the metro, like she was doing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember looking at her, sitting on the train once and she just looked so, you know, she's got this beautiful curly long blonde hair and she was sitting there so poised and so like European and I was just like, this is, this is her home.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we, we've got to do this and she really blossomed in Spain that, you know, where in the United States as an artistic individual, she is a, the kind of level two autism.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she can do a lot, but she'll still need help.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here,
[SPEAKER_00]: Because of the public transportation, because of the walking distance, the grocery show she can't drive, she could live.
[SPEAKER_00]: virtually independent here is in the United States or whole life she always need services.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unless we're moving to like you there and in New York City or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or one of the big cities, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that big city, like New York is not.
[SPEAKER_01]: Doesn't sound like it's good to sit.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's good to sit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just fell in love with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We ended up spending like our last three days in Madrid.
[SPEAKER_00]: visiting my friend, and it's like the difference between Barcelona and Madrid, like Barcelona, felt very big city, like a little bit too much.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Madrid, even though it's big city, you know, capital city, there was just something so quaint about it as well that we just fell in love with it and said, you know, we're we're doing this.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to do this and our goal was to be out of the country before that last election.
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt either way it went.
[SPEAKER_00]: that there would just be like civil unrest and just, it just was not, there's a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a happy place here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there was that difference in my child, instant new person, but the acceptance of gay people here and to walk down the street
[SPEAKER_00]: and hold my husband's hand, has been tremendous, we never did that in the United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: We did it one time when we went to the Key West.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the first time we saw, yeah, we saw like gay couples holding him not only gay couples holding hands, but there was a lot of like the the older gay and the younger gay couples.
[SPEAKER_00]: Interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was our first time.
[SPEAKER_00]: holding hands in public.
[SPEAKER_00]: We could never do that in North Carolina.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just never felt, I mean, I'm not a big public display of affection kind of guy anyway, but holding hands is just something I did with my wife all the time and I couldn't do that with my husband.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's funny.
[SPEAKER_01]: My wife and I don't really don't hold hands every once in a while.
[SPEAKER_01]: We will.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're pretty safe where we live.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fact is that you have to be in certain, there are certain places where you know it's probably not a good idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the issue.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the issue here.
[SPEAKER_01]: That we're talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: The fact that there are places that we know, like there are places like if we're going to take a trip to Florida, my wife can't wear any of her shirts.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know this already.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're like, what are we going to do?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because all of her shirts are political, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like, we got about we got to go buy you some new shirts and because you can't wear your you can't wear them.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to buy you a new wardrobe for Florida, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the issue.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the freaking issue.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're saving New York.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're lucky.
[SPEAKER_01]: But for the most part,
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the always to the second guessing in how we, and like I said, I've been studying to a lot about autism for myself and all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: it's very like autism and being gay transgender, all of that, that it's always the scanning the room and realizing, you know, is this safe?
[SPEAKER_00]: What can, who can I be in this room?
[SPEAKER_00]: How can I be in this room?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do I introduce my husband as my friend?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or this is my husband?
[SPEAKER_00]: Here in Spain,
[SPEAKER_00]: It was really a detoxing from the United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's really interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's relaxing because everyone we've met here, it's like, I don't even think about it now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, this is my husband Tyler.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And everybody's fine with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is just, you know, when we have multinational friends here from Portugal and France, England and all of that, and it's just like, it's just accepted.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's interesting because, you know, I feel very safe where I live.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm in a bubble, I'm in a great bubble, bubble.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we can totally show up.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, I do how I still do have those moments where like depending on the person I'm talking to if they're an older person.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do in my head if I'm going to talk about and I always think, do I say why for am I going to say my spouse am I going to who who's the audience I'm talking to and how is it going to be taken and most times I just say why because I've made it my mission to just like normalize the shit out of it but it it still runs through my head the fear of maybe they're
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're right.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're touching on something that's deep deep deep.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I am shocked that Spain is a place that is as accepting as it is because I think of Spain as a very Catholic country.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I would think that those Catholic values would kind of permeate the way they view our alternative
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, but what is fascinating because it the religion here feels different than in the United States, like in the South, there's, you know, it's all back to and all of that and it just feels very different.
[SPEAKER_01]: like in what way.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's to like accepting.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, it's, it's very much as, as I feel it, is the, you know, the, the true Christian Jesus values of just loving everybody.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And go think you're happy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Treating people right and all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And
[SPEAKER_00]: I have never had anybody here come up to me with any religious propaganda or anything you you do see you know in Madrid you'll see people that do they'll they'll stand very politely with you know there's like little like things set up or something for religious propaganda but they're not shoving it in your hands they're not even like overly zealous to talk to you they're just standing there
[SPEAKER_00]: They're there to talk about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got those in New York.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got those.
[SPEAKER_01]: We also have those who bring a microphone onto the subway and screened Helen Dem Nation for your entire life.
[SPEAKER_00]: That makes you want to convert to their relationship.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got all of that here.
[SPEAKER_01]: But sounds like it's a lot less Helen Dem Nation there and just more live and let live.
[SPEAKER_00]: What really brought it to a point to us are, so we moved here May of 2024.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was out of there before the election, even like we voted from here and all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Literally the day after Opel graduated from high school, we were on a plane flying to Spain.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was the our first ever pride event.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, Madrid does a huge pride in it and they've had pride, I believe, and now don't quote me on that, that like Spain was one of the first countries in Europe to have pride.
[SPEAKER_00]: events and all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a very big and Madrid.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like a whole week long celebration.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are stages all over the pride parade.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the first pride parade because I had never wanted to go to a pride parade in the U.S. because I was scared of
[SPEAKER_00]: the religious right, being there and demonstrating and all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I never wanted to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was amazing to see.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like the whole city celebrated it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the whole city came out.
[SPEAKER_00]: We saw, you know, these little grandma and grandpa's sitting there watching the parade.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was like these young, straight families with their little kids waving pride flags,
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it just felt that we were embraced for who we are.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I never felt that way in the United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I just having that constant, I mean, it's activating the nervous system, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You're always in that mode, even that little bit when you're thinking, like, is it safe to say this is my husband?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a safe to, and it's like a constant,
[SPEAKER_00]: running our nervous system like that 24-7 isn't healthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I felt moving to here, there was also the aspect that, you know, I will go out.
[SPEAKER_00]: especially in the warmer weather it's cold now relatively speaking to you for here is it's chilly I'll go out on these my midnight walks and I'll walk around the city and it's just so peaceful at night and I don't have that
[SPEAKER_00]: vigilance that I felt in the United States that you always have to just be aware of your surroundings, just be, and you see, you know, women here walking alone, in the middle of the night, a safer environment, the quieter environment, just the whole aspect, like I was mentioning our friends, you don't ask someone when you first meet them like, well, what do you do?
[SPEAKER_00]: for living.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, you know, who are you?
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you do for fun?
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's one of my friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know what he does for a job.
[SPEAKER_00]: The others, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've never discussed it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's never come up.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just that different laid-back culture, we go out to restaurants or eating later at night, and it's, you know, you don't go to eat for an hour.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's two hours, three hours, four hours.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an event.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all about, you know, you're, you're working just enough to make the money you need to live your life as opposed to the United States mentality of that you are, you know, work is your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you work for the weekend and maybe you have some energy to go out or do something of the weekend, maybe not.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you can't afford to go out anymore because everything's too expensive here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't understand how to like,
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all, it's all, it's just don't, TJ, it's a mess.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a mess over here.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're giving me a lot of things to think about.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know if there's a single legipet to co-op person out there who hasn't thought to themselves, I'm going to leave this country.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think there's a single one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even my wife who is like, no, we're staying here.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is my country.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think she's even actually like contemplate it for real.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're giving me some, I'm going to go visit Spain.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to see how I feel in Spain.
[SPEAKER_01]: What the hell?
[SPEAKER_01]: What are we doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: It is doable, and they have, you know, many different visas of possibilities.
[SPEAKER_00]: We came over on what they call a non-lucrative visa, so I, one of my, one of my many hats, I'm a real estate investor, I have properties in the United States that I rent out, so I'm able to get rental income or,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, non lucrative visas, a lot of times are for people who are retired that they're getting.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's basically that you're won't, you're not coming over to take a job from some of these.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, but I could host my podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: I could go.
[SPEAKER_01]: I could move there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And still host my podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: they have digital nomad visas, it's called.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're working online in all of that, and of course you can always start a business here and live that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course there's work visas as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're actually, they just came out, I don't know what they're calling it.
[SPEAKER_00]: They just came out with a visa that you can come over for a year.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can search for a job during that year.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you just have to show, I forget what it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have different standards of you have to show so much money in your savings account or something, you can be able to come.
[SPEAKER_01]: Listen, this has been informative and I'm glad you found a safe space to land and I'm glad Opel is doing as well as she is and they wish you all the best and I'm you know Keep in touch keep me posted let me know what kind of money school so you had the other night like you're
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like my dream come true.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I never knew I never thought I would leave the US.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, people thought we were crazy when we moved from like the north to the south in the US.
[SPEAKER_00]: And every time I told them we're moving to Spain, it's like that, oh, that's my dream.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you take me with you?
[SPEAKER_01]: So if people want to reach out to you for some help, where should they go?
[SPEAKER_00]: You could go quantumaditions.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll be the ideal place or me TJ Shimmold, a very unique last name that SHIMLD, you can find me on all the different social media platforms.
[SPEAKER_00]: TJ Shimmold, I'm literally the only one in the world Thomas James Shimmold.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you need that way, I think you're right.
[SPEAKER_00]: You just have to find it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if anybody wants to reach out and gets, get your help, they can and that'll be in the show notes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, if anyone has any questions about like moving to Spain, that's like obviously a passion of mine too.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we have a wonderful lawyer here that helped us renew our visa.
[SPEAKER_00]: We first came for a year.
[SPEAKER_00]: and we just renewed for another two years and, you know, we're just, we're not going anywhere, we're here.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're here, you're clear, get used to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is right.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: This has been wonderful.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love, you know, what you're doing with getting more representation out there and all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So thank you for doing what you do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And congratulations, I just was seeing that you have another
[SPEAKER_01]: Plus, that you feel like you, I have a, uh, yeah, I launched a new one and it's, um, so far it's going well, go check it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Love Take Two.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's good.
[SPEAKER_01]: So about the Take Two's in life.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think you know something about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I am all about second act, so.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's what it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much, TJ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Jamie.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wonderful.
[SPEAKER_01]: A huge thank you to our sponsors of this here episode, be parent, surrogacy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Learn more about them, find the links to their websites in the show notes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Make those babies y'all and then come tell me about them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whew, well folks, I hope you enjoyed that episode as much as I enjoyed it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you did enjoy it, feel free to listen to another or watch another.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have so many episodes for your listening or viewing pleasure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just go pick one and enjoy.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're really good.
[SPEAKER_01]: And also, if you really do like this show, please, I know I say it all the time, but please do consider supporting the show on Patreon.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're just gonna go to patreon.com, slash the queer family podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're gonna pick a tear, you're gonna join, and you're gonna get that bonus content.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're also gonna get my love and adoration for the rest of my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love you all, thanks for tuning in, keep on tuning in, and I'll see you next time.