Dr. Gwen Patrone explores how transforming fear, anxiety and dysphoria into strengths can unlock profound resilience, authenticity, and clarity, offering nuanced insights into identity, acceptance, and the journey towards self-belonging.
Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuaryfor bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood,your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart ofinclusion, belonging and societal transformation.Ever wondered what it truly takes to create a world? Remember, everyonenot only belongs, but thrives. You're not alone.Join me as we uncover the unseen, challengethe status quo and share storeys that resonatedeep within. Ready to dive in? Whether you'resipping your morning coffee or winding down after a long day, let'sconnect, reflect and inspire action together.Don't forget, you can be part of the conversation too. Reach outto jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.ukto share your insights or to join me on the show.So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time toignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites.And today is episode 210 withthe title Fear as a Superpower.And I have the absolute honour and Privilege to welcome Dr. GwenPetrone. Gwen is a former US Marine sergeant,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
author and coach who supports gender diverse people to transformfear, anxiety and dysphoria into strengthsthat shape resilience and self belief. When I asked Gwento describe her superpower, she said it is her ability tosee fear in slow motion. I love that. Andrepurpose it from something that debilitates into something thatcreates strength, clarity and growth. Hello, Gwen,welcome to the show. Hey, Jo, good to see you. Good. I'll say good morning
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
here in Florida and hi everybody. Still good morning here in the uk. So
Joanne Lockwoodhost
we're both the same side of the midday at the moment for another 10minutes. So Florida, the SunshineState, is it, is it sunny there today? It is currently sun
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
coming up, so it'll be sunny soon. Thank goodness. It's so cold out right now.Cold is all relative. So our whole country is going through a big deepfreeze over the last week. But in Florida, you know, it warms up alittle bit, so. So I love it. I used to be in New York City.So all the, the winter and the cold and the snow and the northeast kindof stuff, I got over that after so many years. I just said, I'm gettingout of here, I'm going down south, I want to be warmer.Oh, 35 years in New York. I moved to Florida about five years ago. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
because I remember being in New York in, in the November time.I think it was just after Thanksgiving one year and I was surprised howbitterly cold it was. You know, the, the wind that whistles through theskyscrapers, the just the temperature and considering was it New Yorkis south of Paris. It's, it's, it's quite a way south even from the uk.It's a lot colder than I was expecting. Well, what happens is you have.
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
New York is very vertical, right? Yes. So if you get the wind in justthe right angle, it' just shoot down the corridors of the streets, whetherit's the avenues or the streets, and it'll pick up speed and just focus. Right.It's a big wind tunnel in certain areas. So yeah, I used to like towalk around Central park, which is really very beautiful and many, manytimes. And you get that, you get that wind because it's over there. There's nobuilding. So it'll, it'll just pick up speed and get a nice breeze. So.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah, I mean, it's like the Pogue song, isn't it? Fairytale in New York atChristmas time. It's a very magical city at Christmas with all the lights in thetrees. And the, it's, it's Christmas time and. Thanks. Living time is
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
beautiful. Except about an hour after it snows, then it gets dirty.Yes, it gets dirty real quick when it's snowing and, or icing orwhatever. It looks really, really, really beautiful. And then you have RockefellerCentre with a tree and, and all the lights and all the, the shopping andit's, it's a magical time. But as you say, you're
Joanne Lockwoodhost
in Florida now. And my memory of Florida was back in, I think it's2004, when I, I took our family for a standardDisney experience, Universal Studios. I remembermy biggest memory of the time was the humidity was thefirst thing that really struck me. But also the lightning, the thunderand lightning, the fault lightning, the power of thatnature that was going on overhead. But you must
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
have gone in July or August or something. It was, it's probably July time.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah. That's brutal. Yeah, June, July, August is not fun over here. But all the
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
other months are great. Yes. I have a twin sister and she wouldgo and have her family there and her daughter and she was thegrandma so she had to watch all the kids. And so she was designatedto do that. She says not doing that anymore. Not doing that anymore. No more.I'm the babysitter and it's humid and her and I, we don't get moist, wesweat. So it's just, it's just like, you know. So she says,no more in August, no more in July. Grandma, don't do it. Us
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Brits, we perspire. Yeah. We perspire, we don't sweat. Yes,
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
right. Profusely, yes. So
Joanne Lockwoodhost
as I was reading out your superpower and I comment on the bit,seeing fear in slow motion, and that conjures up this vision in myhead of that scene in the Matrix where Neo has finallygrasped who he is, what the Matrix is all about. And he'snow able to now cut through all of that kind of social construct and the.When, when was it Mr. Anderson fires a bullet at him, he's able to seeit in slow motion as the ball holds it and stopsand able to freeze time. Is that the metaphor that you know, that thatcreates for you as well? Yeah, it, it's, it doesn't. Normally you
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
don't have something like that. It's. And this is really cultivated when I went intoservice and I was in the Marine Corps, is they, they. And that's what my,my book Dysphoria Hacks is really honing in on, is the lessons learnedfrom that and then how you can desensitise yourselfto certain things. So this way you don't do what it's expecting you todo. And then you can freeze time and slow it down. So this way youcan see things that would normally scare other people orfrighten other people and remould it to your purpose and thususe it as a positive. And thus I say see things in slow motion.And that comes very handy in sports. I wasalways very good in sports. Muscles. Soccer, baseball, football, everything.Everybody's freaking out and running, really. And I would see things in slowmotion. I'd like looking and I'm scanning and making decisions when other people arefreaking out. And then they're like, how did you do that? And. Well, because youhave a. You calm down and your mind is calmer. And then thebusiness, business arena. As a CEO of my own company fora few decades, people freaking out and everything, and you're seeing things come. You don'twant to get too high or too low and you want to make rational decisionsbased on overall the common good of the company, so to speak.And so that's what I mean is seeing things in slow. The slow motion isyou learn, analyse the situation, see what's really happeningand then you understand what's happening to be able to repurpose itto your. Your purposes. Yeah. So being a Marine sergeant, do you
Joanne Lockwoodhost
see active duty? Yeah, well, I, I was in. During a
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
time that it was like right in between different things that were happening. So Ididn't see action, but I was in a technical field, so in,in cryptographic electronics. So I jokingly say if I told youexactly what I did, I'd have to kill you. So I don't want to dothat. But yeah, it was, I was, I did electronics on cryptographic machinesthat were coding and decoding and sending messages and all that kind of stuff.So I was, I was in a bunker, you know, or a, you know, fourfoot metal bunker where people couldn't get in. And when they trained us on allthat stuff, we, they wouldn't let us take notes or anything, you know, because theydidn't want anything getting out. So we would learn and then it would have toleave everything there and then, then we can go out and back to our, ourplace where we were staying. So it was pretty secretive.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
So were you utilising this equipment or were you supporting, maintainingand designing it? I was supporting and maintaining it, yeah. Yeah,
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
I made sure it worked if something went wrong, that I was able to goin and do electronic stuff to be able to fix it and. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Sort out circuit boards and recalibrate and. My background'selectronics. I was in the Royal Air Force in the UK as aelectronics engineer working on radars and radio and airborne stuff. Well,
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
it was funny that we, we were working on, we were using.On older machines that were using tubes and things like that and theynever wanted to really get rid of it because it worked, it worked really well.And, and some of the electronics in today's age, they can hack and so onand that type of thing. They really couldn't do that. So they kept them aroundfor whatever purposes. So if something would break or, you know, atube would, would burn out or something, I have to be able to research thatwhere's it coming from, where's it going and be able to try toscope out and get that part that may not be readily available, that type ofthing. Yeah, it's very interesting.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Those analogue error. Not susceptible to electromagnetic pulsesand the like, are they? They're very resilient. Exactly. So it came in handy for
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
whatever purposes they wanted it for. So usually it was setting codedmessages and, you know, whatever secretive things they did. And I really didn't get intothat stuff. I just had to make it work. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I remember my time with it recognising that some of the voltageson that valve technology is 3,000 volts or something, or 3 kilovoltson the anode. And you think that burns if you touch it?
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
Yeah, it's like clear. It is.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
And the capacitors are holding massive charges, aren't they? You've got to be careful you'renot electric yourself off a capacitor. So,you know, sorry, we're diving off into the wrong direction. So coming back tobeing able to use this as a resilience, as a strength and slowing downso that you can really observe what's goingon without your chimp brain or your amygdala kicking in, you want to bring thisinto your prefrontal cortex where you really kind of understand what's going on. Howdid you, how did you. Was that the military that taught you that or wasthat a kind of a life, life lesson you learned as you, as you grew?
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
It's funny you mentioned that because it's, it's, I would say themilitary magnified that. But Ihad that type of personality where in any kind of stressful situation,the best way I can explain it, and it comes in handy forcertain situations and it's a pain in the ass for other situations ifsomething stressful would happen. The way I feel is I'm in a shower andthe water comes over me and this is emotion, right? The water comesover me and I feel it leave my body and it's like, it'slike all the emotion rinses off and I go calm,relax, and I feel nothing, right? SoI get very unemotional and I get very analytical. So it's like I havea entrepreneurial business brain and I havean artistic brain. Shocker. So I kind of have both. And I've learnedmore now to turn it on and turn it off. But back then it was,it was just happening. And in the, in the Marines,
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
it allowed me to focus in on that. And I, later on inlife, when I wrote my book and fine tuned it a little bitmore, was, I call it domesticating fear. So it's. Wetalked about earlier dogs, right? You domesticate the dog where youtry to get out the instinct of the dog. So this way it doesn't justrun for the car or it doesn't just do something and you, you kind ofget that out. And that takes systematic and longterm training to be able to do that. And then you also do that tofear. You can systematically get what you don't want in you,out of you, and more control it. It'll always be there, but you control it.So this way it's not a master of you, you become a master of itand then you can repurpose it to your advantage. So, andI say many Times in dysphoria with people, trans people such asmyself, is. It's a pressure that builds up in youand through whatever your trigger points are, whether it'smisgendering or it's a situation or it's whatever. When Ifirst started dressing female, it was a pressure that I feel and I had tolet it out. I just had to let it out. And that was the dysphoriainside of me getting like that. And now it's. I call it in my book,I call it the pressure valve situation. The pressure valve technique, whereit's like a plumber. You have to let the steam out. So you have tohave a valve to let the steam out. Otherwise it builds, it builds, it builds.And then you hurt yourself or you hurt other people, right? Because you. Andyou explode, right? And you don't want to explode. You got to let. You gotto let it out, and you got to let it out in the right situation.So this way the pressure goes down. And thenI would dress female, I would feel so much better. And now it's like thepressure was gone. So people can use that in certainsituations. And that was one of the reasons why I really wanted to writethat book, was I wanted to help people. And that there's so manypeople who commit suicide that hurt themselves or hurt other people. And if I couldjust save some lives. Lives. Or have them get control of thatissue that they're going through, then it just makes it all worthwhile.While for me to be able to do that. The same thing with veterans.Veterans. As many as 6,000 veterans a year inthe United States commit suicide. I was shocked that the number was so high.And because they can't deal with the PTSD and all the otherpressures. So that's another project I'm working on, is to be able to help them.How do you deal with that? And using those techniques to deal with that aswell too, to allow them to diffuse that and to be able to calmand make better decisions. Most. Most humans, in my understanding,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
have a fear of the unknown, the fear of next.That's the biggest debilitator, isn't it? This unfounded fear.This. And people are worried about, anxious about being humiliated, beingrejected, being all these things. And you know, as you. As you put it there,one of the big challenges of people who have gender dysphoria, agenda,diverse or not, does. Don't conform to the stereotypical version ofwhat's expected, have this fear of unwrapping themselves,taking the COVID off and showing the world who they are. Andit could be really insurmountable that. That barrier to doing that.
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
Oh, it's, It's. It's a ve. You know, it's.I don't want to diminish it because it's a big barrier, but once you crossit, you're like, oh, that wasn't that bad. Is that. It was like,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
paper thin. Yeah, it's like paper. I was like, is that it? But there's the
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
barrier. Once you break through, I call it the terror barrier. And whateveryour terror barrier is, once you break through that, you're like, oh, I feel somuch better. But then there's another terror barrier, and it never goes away. It's alwaysthere. You're just expanding your comfort zone. You're domesticating that fear,and you're domesticated further and further and further. So one of thetechniques that you do in the military is you do it. You keepon doing something so that this way you desensitise yourself to it and yourun. You can run toward the fear instead of a waste. Whatever scares youand whatever happens to be, if you can do it little by little. Andso one of the things that I do all the time is like, okay, haveI done this before? Does this really scare me? I want to do it becauseit's going to allow me to expand. So then if I. If I'm in anothersituation, then I'm like, wow, if I. If I didthat, I could do that. And that's. That's what we call the stoic philosophy,too. Stoicism, if you've ever followed that. Well, the. The philosophy ofstoicism is do as much of what scares you. So this way, when somethingelse happens, you're like, if I did that, I could do that. So. Sothese, all these techniques are universal, and we just kind of put them together toallow people to get a handle on it. Yeah, but it boils down to it
Joanne Lockwoodhost
is what are you scared of? Is it rejection? Is it this? Isit the other? And what other people think? That's a big one.I think from my experience and personal experience and the peopleI've met and known before, is that. Actually, one of my friends said this tome. He said, you can't have your cake and eat it. You have to makea decision. If that's what you want, that's what you want. You can't have afoot in every camp and hedge your bets. At some point, you have todecide because the people around you want to know who you areas well. Because if you're not careful, what you end up being is indeterminate.And people need, in our human society, they need to understand who people are. Theywant to put you in a box somehow. And people appreciate that. They want you
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
to be authentic, right? Yeah, they want you to be authentic. And right now theInternet is so, I mean, AI is really cool, but after a while I'mlike, I feel duped. I feel duped. Like, like, oh,that's an AI picture. I thought it was really cool at the beginning. And thenafter a while I'm like, you know, I feel like I'm being tricked a littlebit, and I want authenticity and just, just let it out.Just, just be you. And I'd rather see that and all the bumps in thewarts and all of that kind of thing. I'd rather see that than, than havesomething look perfect. But it's all fake, right? Yeah,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I'm with you on that. I, I, I didn't transition about12, 13 years ago, if you want to put a mark on it. And inthose days, there was less face tuning andediting, and Photoshop skills were, were not as advanced. I mean, todayI see people who have forensically or AI altered theirphotos and their images. Be yourself. Be yourself. Because otherwise, when you go outin the real world, when you go and meet people, I have to come outeach time. Whereas if you're just publicly you all the time, there's never,there's no two versions. And I remember thinking to myself, I didn't want a gendertransition to become somebody else. I wanted to come gender transition to becomemyself and one version and not have 15 versions of me, justhave one version. So if I'm massaging how you see meonline, I'm, I'm faking it again. I spent40, 50 years faking it. I don't do that anymore. Yeah, and so many people,
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
they see like a little bitty clip of somebody and they think that's their wholelife. It's really not. But I went on a, Ilike cruises. So I went on a cruise just a week or two ago, anda lot of business people, and we joint venture together and talk to people, andI talked to someone, two or three people, and I hadone of those aha moments because I, you know, I never hated beinga guy. I enjoyed being a guy, but I really, really enjoyedbeing female. So for me, it was more of a fluid type of thing. Andfor many people, they felt like myself, they felt like therewere a female in A male body, and they just gotta get out. And that'sfine, because everybody's different. I felt more of a yin and yang, where the Most.The first 60 years of my life, the male side was moredominant. And then after that, the female side became more dominant because that's.I fed into that and I rediscovered Read and I. And overthose years, I was pushing my male side away because I wanted to beGwen and have her bloom. And he says, listen,you can be even more powerful, stronger,better, a better person if you embrace the positivesides of your male Persona into your female Persona, andyou become that much better. So you can become a unicorn. You're. You're blooming asa female, as close to female as you can be. And. But you're also takingthe attributes of the. Of your male self that you like, like, andnow you become even more than you could separate. And I was like,wow, okay, that makes a lot of sense to me. And so, because Iwas trying to escape my. My life as a guy and said, I want tobe female, and I'm just trying to get into this. This life and change. Changemy name and do the female stuff that. Everything we do. And I said, well,you know, I did, like, some stuff as a guy, and I. I did havesome very strong, strong things that I did as Peter. And then I can bringthat over to be female. And so many peoplecan use that one. Storey, I'll tell you, is that I saw an interviewof a Olympic downhill skier, and he waspretty good. And he said, listen, I'm gay.And he never told anybody. And he said that limited me because, like yousaid, he was hiding from everybody. And seewhat he was straddling two worlds. So you're almost like, separating yourself and, like,you're saying being authentic and being yourself. And he said, once I told everybody,it released that burden from him, and it became so much betterbecause he didn't have that weight on him all the time. And such aspeople like ourselves or anybody that wants to be authentic, beyourself. People appreciate that. And yes, you're gonna shedsome people that don't want that, but you're gonna gain so many more people thatappreciate that. Yeah, I think we said it earlier that people like authenticity.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
They like to know who you are. Our social constructs work better that way.And also, you yourself haveone voice in your head. One identity, one thing. Okay,we wear different hats in different situations, but I spent much of my lifewith two conflicting halves of my head trying to have differentconversations. One of the things I found when I alignedwas my head became really, really quiet and one, onevoice, one thought, one me. Whereas in the past I've alwayshad these two elements. And that was the biggest notice to me. The silence Ihad in my head was incredible. And the claritythat I had allowed me to go, whoa. This is my Matrix momentwhen I go, whoa. I see the world clearly now. I'm not trying to doublethink everything. I'm not trying to go, oh, should I say that? How am Ithinking that? What am I doing now? I'm just me. And it'sincredibly powerful. And you don't have to gender transition to do that. You just gotto find yourself. But you have the male and a female and one's more dominant
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
and the other one becomes more dominant. But then you're. You have the most separate.Put it like that, and you merge them together and then it's like,it's like it becomes in focus. Like you said, the Matrix happens, right? Andyou can see clearly, oh, this is what's really happening. You could do that andcombine them. At least I combine them. So many people want to totally separate, whichis fine. And that's for other people's. Hey, whatever, Whatever floatsyour body. If you're gender fluid, you have no fixed sense of gender,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
then it may well be that those elements of your identity nevermix. They stay disparate potions. And you're able to bring them in and outof focus as you need to. And if you can exist that way,that's absolutely wonderful. I just found that it would just bend in mymind. I was losing it. And have youseen that Disney Pixar film Inside Out? We've got the littlecharacters in the girl's head. And that really was the metaphorof what I was feeling. The little angry character, the little angry redcharacter was driving my head for most of my life. And then suddenlyJoy took over and I went, this is me. Joy is nowdriving my brain. Everything is orientated around the joy. The female character, if youlike, not the little angry red man. Okay, the little angry red man.All anxiety and fear, all those other things still in my head. But Joy isthe driver. It's a feminine Persona. And that kind ofreally, really struck me when I was watching that film. That's so true. And I
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
never thought about it. But there's some people around me here, they know meand they've seen me as a guy and they've seen me as Gwen and they'veseen the years of evolution that I've had. And they said, youknow, as a guy, we like you, butyou're very reserved and you're quiet and you don't. But as Gwen, you'relike. You're almost like you, like you. And I said, the only way I canexplain it is as a guy, I see things in black and white because I'mreserved. As a woman, I see things in colour. I just bloom andmy personality comes out more. I'm more bubbly, I'm more interactive with people.It's just like I release. Everything's released and I become moreauthentically of who that I feel that I am. And then I pick a fewthings that I like as a guy and I stick it in there, you know,use it as I see fit and then to enhance, so to speak.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah. The other thing I figured out back in those early stages,about 10, 15 years ago, was trying to define who I was again. I thinkfor so many years, I tried to aspireto a stereotypical view of femininity, orprobably one that I'd held in my head since my teens. And thenI realised that I was chasing this ideal thatthe world wasn't really embracing. And I realised most women I knew wererunning the other way as I was running that way. And I thought, hang ona minute. I need to park myself here for a minute and actually figure outwho I am, not figure out my. The stereotype. Andthat really helped. I. I started acting my age. I was 53at the time. I thought, hang on a minute. I'm not 19 anymore. I don'thave to do this, I don't have to do that. I can be. I canwear jeans, I can wear slacks and trainers, and I can, I cannot bother putting my bra on one day if I don't want to. You know,I can be like every other woman out there. And when Irealised I didn't have to live by rules that I'd inventedin my head, again, it simplified that visionfor me. Just, just to go, it must be me. Did you. Have
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
you. Did you know your entire life, or was it something that more. You realisedlater on in life? We're, we're not too dissimilar in age. And, you
Joanne Lockwoodhost
know, you look back in the early 70s, there was no, no language to describeit, but no something there. Yeah, I, I,
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
when I was 12, 13, 14, 15, Iwould look at a. Because I'm very heterosexual, soI would look at a woman, I'd be like, she's gorgeous. I want to doher, you know, hormones, right? Then Ilook at her, I'm like, I wonder what it's like to be her. Wow. Iwonder what it's like to be pretty. And I would find it fascinating to flipthe script and to put myself in that situation. AndI did that for a number of years. And nobody's home, and I'm putting onfemale clothes. And I was looking for that. I was searching for thatfeeling. But in the 70s, nobody to talk to, no Internet, no way tofind out anything. And I. I'm like, okay. I feel alone. Andso then I told you my personality happened was that Icompartmentized it. And I just shut it off and I. I forgot for45 years. Didn't remember. And when I was 59, my wife atthe time, we. We're still married 35 years, and she says, we're gonna go outfor Halloween. I'm like, okay. She says, I'm dress you female. And I'm like, why?Because I didn't remember. And. And that's after the Marines, right? I. I didn'tremember. I'm like, why? Then she dressed me female. And I'm like, I was reallynervous. I had such a great time of like, wow. Why did it. BecauseI coach people too. I'm like, wow, what did I have a good, great time.And as a coach, a mentor teaches what they know. And a coach pulls thingsout of you that's already there, and they ask questions. So I'm asking questions ofmyself and I'm peeling the onion. I'm like. And after about an hour, I'm like,oh, my God, I forgot. I forgot. I used to do that.And so that lit the fire again and re germinated Gwen, that wasalready, like, she was sleeping. She was there, but sleeping. Andso fast forward. Then little by little, and now that Gwenstarted to overtake the male side. And then after a number of years, I'm like,you know, I'd rather. I really want to be female full time. Andthen I just took the next. I went over the red line, so tospeak, versus just cross dressing, and therest is history. So I feel. Ifeel me, the new me. So that's kind of howI see it. Yeah, I don't think I was ever
Joanne Lockwoodhost
sleeping or away, but I was able tofunction in the other direction asa male Persona for 30, 40 years. Have family,have kids, get house. Stoicism, thatdrive to provide that expectations. And then in my40s, I guess with the advent ofknowledge and familiarity and understanding and meetingother People I realised that my storey wasin there and it needs to be told. And I was lucky. My wife wasand still is supportive and we've been married for38 and a bit years, 40 plus years together, a couple ofkids. So yeah, I've been very fortunate that I'veable to move on in my life with the love and support of people aroundme. Yeah, me too. We've been married 35 years together
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
and I count my blessings that she said,listen, I know you, I love you, I know you, we're going to dietogether. And that you are you and you evolve. But this isa presentation of how I feel inside. And she'sokay with that. That's beautiful. I appreciate,
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
I appreciate many, many people,they don't get that luxury and people just feel like adios and they're gone.I, I write a lot on Facebook, like really long stuff because I like towrite. I wrote one piece that says,it just says the word of the day is lonely andbecause when I go out and if I meet other trans people or gender nonconforming people, I talk to them because I'm trying to get information and for maybeideas for writing stuff and they're like, they're stunningly beautiful and they'relike, listen, I, I can get sex anytime I want because many, many people,they want the fantasy of being with them and they said, but I can't,can't get a boyfriend because they don't want to be seen in public with them.So they have so many people around them, but they're so lonely.And that's why I said, I count my blessing because I have my family andmy wife and, and so on, and then I have that blessing in that areato be able to have that. But that, that loneliness is a big thing totry to overcome internal loneliness, you know? Yeah. And that
Joanne Lockwoodhost
fear, that barrier, that fear at the beginning, it's that fear of being aloneand being lonely is, is real, you know, the fear oflosing everything. Yeah. It's not losing the material things, it's losing the emotionalthings, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. And I mean, I live, I live here in Florida
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
and for five years I don't think I've met one person, one trans person likemyself. I don't bump into them at all. So I have to go to eventsthat we go and congregate like friends that I know online that Isee and we'll go to an event, either we'll go to a cruise together orgo to go out to a dinner Together or we'll go to an event likethere's one coming up next month in Pennsylvania. There's like 500 people. We justgo, we just take over to town, right. Pennsylvania, andjust able to physically touch other people that think as you do andthat are like you and like, oh, I'm not alone. Right. And that kind ofsets you off at least for the next year until you can do that againwith other people. So that connection is vitally important to beable to connect with people, even if it's for dinner or just go out shoppingwith someone or have a lunch with someone. It's, it's important for that human connectionwith other people. I figure that is often we're quite different from people who
Joanne Lockwoodhost
are from the LGB spectrum because they tend to find that peoplewho are gay or lesbian, they want to go clubbing, they want to go tosame sex or same gender events a lot more. ButI don't crave the environment,the queer, the gay environment, because I craveeveryday life. I crave CIS world, hetero world, whateverit may be, because I've not orientated myself around myidentity in that way. I just want to get on and be like everybody else.So I don't feel that same allegiance to a flag or to a club orto a, to a, to a movement. I just want to be accepted for beingJoanne, the woman who goes shopping, who goes to work, who doesthis and does that. But you're right, I do have thisneed to have some close friends who I, who I seenot regularly, maybe twice, three times a year for dinner, for lunch, or ifwe bump into each other or do have a good natter. But I don't feelthe need to segregate myself into a trans space.
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
I do the same thing. I do the same thing. I want to connect withthem on occasion, but I don't necessarily have to. Being trans is notwho I am. It's just part of me. I look, it's what I call normaltrans. I call it normal trans, whatever that means is this. I want to bea good neighbour. I want to be assimilating to society. Someonedoesn't see this, they just say, oh, you're just Gwen.And like when I go on a cruise, a lot of times I have peoplethat look at me, they look at my wife goes, they're looking, they're staring atyou. I'm like 6 foot 5 in heels.I don't blend, say, gwen, don't blend. And eventually I'm in the hot tub orthey're in the hot tub. And it gets around to talking, talking. And it's myopportunity to get them to ask about me because I want to tell. I want
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
to talk to them, and I want to shedmisconceptions for people. And inevitably it always gets down to, wow, you'renothing like I thought you would be. And what I thought you would be isalways something that's driven by the media, because how often do they really meet someonelike me? And so what their misconception is driven byother things, and usually that's not good. And because the mediais usually driven by clicks and eyeballs and money, so they're showingthe fantastical parts and sometimes not the good parts.And the 95% in the middle that want tobe good people and be us and be good neighbours, they don't see, andthey're like, wow, you're actually pretty funny. Wow, you're actually pretty nice.And they got to know me, and then we're joking and we're laughing and havinga great time, but we get to loosen up together. Sonext time, when they meet someone such as myself, they cut them a break. Andthey don't kind of judge as much as they may have before because they metme and they're like, oh, okay, she was pretty cool. And so, you know,changing perceptions one person at a time is one of my goals.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah. And it's. That's actually quite a burden, though, isn't it?Feeling responsible for being the best version of you.To represent not only yourself, but other people who'vefit into the category that you fit in and not lettingdown the side. That's a big responsibility for anyone to adopt, isn't it?
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
Yeah, it is. I mean, you want to be yourself and you're responsible for yourself,but you also have a larger responsibility for the community that youlive in. You want to leave a good mark to other people. So, yeah, that's.I try to do that as much as I can, and I do that throughhow I carry myself. And I mean, when I go out around whereI live, there's. I like. I like live music and I like, like to godancing. And so we go out and a lot of people and my friends are.They're like, you go where you go there. And it's a very cisgender place. Imean, it's like almost like cowboy R Truckers kind of thing. And I'm like.I'm like. And. But it's one of the things in psychology is.Is you tend to get more of what you think about and what youanticipate. So if you go in anticipating problems, you anticipatenegative things happening, getting misgendered or getting ticked off or whatever, you're going toget more because your brain sees that, because it's what it's looking for. SoI go in to any situation, I look and I looking for the goodin people first and I expect to be treated well. AndI go in with confidence and I go in with a smile and I laughwith people and it brings down the walls and they just, they treat me totallydifferent because I, I break that, I break that ice barrier.So this way they're like, you're pretty cool. And so I never have any problemsanywhere. I go with people. Plus I'm pretty imposing. I'm, I'm not small,so I could probably defend myself with people, but I don't go in looking forthat. And if you carry yourself in and you go in with confidence and yougo in with a smile and you're expecting to be treated well, and so Iam. You look at the media, your media, our media, this side of the
Joanne Lockwoodhost
pond, global media, there's a lot ofmisinterpretation, a lot of misrepresentation, a lot of myths, a lot ofstereotypes that are amplified, as you say, for eyeballs,clicks and revenue. How is day to day life? I wouldimagine on my side of the pond that Floridais one of the worst places in the U.S. i mean, it's all relative. Thereare lots of places in the US that are probably as bad or different. Butis day to day life positive and okay fora trans woman as yourself? Yeah, I've been here for
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
five years, never had a problem, and I'm in a 55 or oldercommunity, never had a problem. Now, it's not to say that everybody's going toinvite me over for lunch, we're not going to braid each other's hair. Butthey smile and say goodbye morning and everything. So superficially they're cool.But that, but in that community in Florida, there's people from all over the UnitedStates and internationally that come and they retire over here. So there's, there'san older population and they're from, they're from all over, not justFlorida. So I'm going to get people from all varieties of people. So in ourcommunity, I don't think there's any trans people, but there's some gay, lesbian couplesand so on here, not many, but a few, and people from all walks oflife. So I get Everything. So see, I'm, I'm a talk of the cool ofthe pickleball court. I'm like, you know, whatever, you know, but when I, when Igo out, it's, you know, some of the clubs over here are very. What I.They're very deep red. They call it red. Yes. Yeah,deep red. I'm like, you know, I don't care. I just,I see, I, like I said, I see people. I judge them based onthem first and I judge them based on energy, how I feel around themand, and I don't put myself in bad situations to, to worry about it somuch. Um, and I, I decide. It's important to decidewhere you're going to plant your flag and, and fight to the death and what'snot worth it. Sometimessomething I'll get all the time, I'll walk up and someone and some out ofa knee jerk reaction, they'll go, oh, thank you, sir. And I'm like,okay, that's not worth planting my flag on. Right. It's just,I look at it as, that's human reaction. I'm big. I got man hands.Okay? I'm big. My voice, you know, and they make these snapdecisions and then after they look and they're, oh, thank you, ma'. Am. And theychange, you know, because they made it, they made that snap knee jerk decision andyou cut people a break. I just cut people a break. And. But when someone'strying to be a, how I was going to put it, a dick about it.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Dick. Yeah. You know, that's when I get pissed because I can tell,
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
you know, so, so. But that luckily happens very, very rare.And you just decide where you want to plant your flag. So. ButI find that most people, the vast majority of people, and even in Florida, theyjust want to live and let live. They want to, they want to be. Theywant to live and let live. Just don't impose it on them, whatever it is,you know, just don't oppose them. Just live and let live. You know,you have your life, I have my life. We can be friends. We're good, we'recool. That's. That's how I find most people are living their life.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah, I mean, as a Brit, you know, I used to do work from timeto time in the States. I'd do a conference, I go and speak out there.I'd host a, host a conference or something. But inthe last year I've made a decision that it's probably not the best place forme to come because is it that bad? You know, it's the tsa. Is theimmigration. Are they going to look at me and go, I don't need passport? Youknow, they're going to cheque my social media out in advance and go, you're notthe kind of person we want in this country. There's a hell of a lotmore risk now than ever used to be.
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
Yeah. I have not changed mydriver's licence and my passport yet. When I go through customs, they're like, looking.They're like. And then they kill somebody over. And they go, isthis really the same person? Because I look really different. Is that really the sameperson? I'm like, yes. I'm like, not today. So. And I joke and laugh andthey're like, okay, you can go through. Finally, before I went on the cruise, Iactually went to change my name and everything. So I'm waiting on court dates andall sorts of stuff. I think that'll help bringeverything more into focus. I get a kick outof it. It showed my licence and my passport and they're looking at me likeI go into vote or something. And I'm like. They're like, yeah, I've been lazy.I haven't gotten to it yet. I mean,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
is that still possible? I mean, I was under the impression of. And that Floridawas one of the places where they were revoking driving licences, whereyou changed your name or it didn't align with your. Your birth
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
is the. The male and female part. It's supposed to be assigned at birth.So if you're a male at birth, you can't be female. But you can changeeverything else. You just can't change the male or female part. When Iwent to Fort Lauderdale, which is below where I live in Naples, Iwent to get breast augmentation. And Dr.He's freaking unbelievable. He's great. And I went for a second procedure because I wantedto get bigger. And I just snuck in and I was referring people becausethe guy's so good. He's like one of the world's best, best doctors in thatarea. And he said, we can't do trans anymore. And he's not because wedon't want to. It's because the hospital won't take your ID if it says mailon it, do that. Do that specific operation. He said, welove. We love you guys and our staff and everybody loves it. And I dothem all. I've been doing that for 20 years. I just can't do it anymorebecause of the recent law changes. So I snuck in at the last minute andthen the law changed. Wow. So, yeah, if I went in nowand my licence said M instead of F, they wouldn't be able to do it.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
That's a real impact, isn't it? I mean, it's not just about beingblocked from a toilet. This is now denying you aconsensual operation. But that's standard insurance for me. It's like if
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
it says M, it says F. I know internally who I am and it doesn't,it's not a big deal. But for something like that, it's a big deal. Right.And so if I wanted to now, if I wanted to go do it, Icouldn't do it in Florida. I have to go somewhere else or I'll take amedical vacation and go to Thailand or Turkey or someplace, you know, and,and have it over there. But yeah, that's. So that's when it gets more much.I'll say a challenge to do that. I mean, all my ID
Joanne Lockwoodhost
is, is F, top to bottom. I. I couldn't. I can't. I can no longerprove who I used to be in any shape or form. I've got birth certificate,passport, driving licence, everything about it. I want to tell you I was born in
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
New York, just outside New York City, and I looked up on one of theAI bots about changing birth certificates and everything, and they're likevery much more progressive over there, so they don't really have a big dealabout it. So I'm going to see if I can change it over there andthen bring it to Florida and then show it on my birth certificate andthen change my licence and, you know, my passport and see what happens. I'm stillnot. They probably not do it because it's. It's not what your birth certificate says.It's assigned at birth, which is two different things. Yeah, right. So
Joanne Lockwoodhost
they've now clarified that that mark is assigned at birth, not assigned at birth.
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
Yeah. Who you are today. Right? Yeah. And,yeah, I'll try. I'll see what I can do. And, you know. Yeah, but ifit says, you know, I know who I am and I'm not going to worryabout it, you know, so I'll. I'll. I'll go like this. I'll beokay. It's nice to have a. But I think, I think it's what you're saying
Joanne Lockwoodhost
just now about it's not a flag, it's not a hill you want to plantyour flag on. It's not a hill you want to Die on, is it? Yeah.
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
It's not something to plant my flag on. Yeah. It's. You're not getting
Joanne Lockwoodhost
your driving licence or your passport every five seconds and seeing that andgetting a problem with it. I mean. Yeah, yeah. It doesn'taffect me day to day. Just as you say, if you're going through immigration,it has the wrong gender marker on it. It's. It's dysphoric, itcauses dysphoria and it would to me, butthe times I show it, it matters not. And it's only if you're beingdenied something, as you said. I think the impact is being deniedsurgery or other situations where that letter ispreventing you accessing something that's necessary. Yeah. That's
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
where it becomes a much bigger factor. Like, I go to somepride centres on occasion on certain nights of the. Of themonth, and they have younger people,I'd say 15 to 25 there, and they'regoing. Thinking about or going through transition or whatever. The. Just thecommon thread that I see with all of them issome. Like when I was in the Marines, I call it, I developed a spine.Like, I got tough, right? And just things just bounce off me and they don't.Don't. They don't affect me that much. But when they would speak abouttheir life or what's happening to them, they're all on medication,they all have some kind of a mental issue or they perceive they have amental issue or they have Tourette's or they have somethingunderlying and everything devastates them. So even if they'remisgendered, it's like crushing, because they don't have. I call it aspine, right? And you have to get. Eventually you have to go in where the.Where the broken glass is to develop toughness, so you can deal with thebroken glass later on. And if you avoid and you try to go in safe
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
spaces all the time, you don't get that toughness to deal with life, you gottadeal with life. And they're young and they've been avoiding all thisstuff throughout their young life. And so now everything crushes them.So I do thank being in the service thatprovided that to me, to be able to be in that era tough like that.And so with the stuff that I come out with now, I try to helpthem to develop that toughness again, to decide where you're going to plant yourflag and what's going to affect you, what to let go and what to. Whatto keep and have. Have more of a rational decision about it so this wayyou can let it go if it's not there and not hold onto it andbe like this. And we also live in a noisier world, don't we?
Joanne Lockwoodhost
With social media, we're judged online keyword warriors.The news, the polarisation, the polemic debates that are around all the time.It's hard, it must be hard for a young person to develop that, asyou say, that stoicism, that resilience, that bounce back ability.Because resilience you have, as you say, you have topush to understand that it doesn't matter. Thenext time you push, it's not so bad. You can expand, expand, expand. But ifyou're constantly in a bubble where people go there, there, don't worry, we'll talkabout it together, we'll support each other. But you're never really testing those barriers.
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
You can see a little bit of the other people's lifeand at that age social acceptance is like oxygen for them.It's like oxygen and it means so much to them and there's very, and theirbrain is still forming and so on and they're, they're easily influenced and that's whymany countries, I think Australia and I think France just did this wherethey, they just say young people from a certain age below, they don't even get,they won't get let them on social media. Yeah, Australia just passed
Joanne Lockwoodhost
16 and we talk about in the UK as well too. Yeah, it influences their
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
mind so much that they won't even let them on.And it's become a big problem with learning in school because even with learningin the United States they're like, oh, every, every kid gets a laptop and theythought that was helping people, but it's really. People are getting morestupid because they're letting machinery do the work and they'renot doing critical thinking in their brain to solve problems themselves.Everything is going through the machine and it's not going through you. Andso you're, you're increasing on one side, but you're decreasing the humanelement of, of critical thinking and actually using your green matter,your grey matter up here, you know, that's starting tobe a big problem that the one, one thing that though is helping is reallyhindering. Yeah, no, I get that. Yeah. The power of
Joanne Lockwoodhost
rhetoric, the power of debate, the power of considering other people's perspectivesand opinions. So busy polar opposites.And it's really hard to be in the middle, isn't it, and see both perspectivesand be equanimity, equanimity it's part of the matrix.
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
It's what the algorithm does. It makes everybody polariz. There's a show, if you haveNetflix, called the God. I can't remember what it is now. It'll come tome. But it goes into that problem with thealgorithm and how it. It polarises society because it gives youmore of what you want and not the other stuff. So you don't get achance to see both. You see one and the other one sees one and theygo like this. And so you, like you said, you don't able to have debateand just compromise and everything. And still they just go like this. And that'swhat's happening in society quite a bit now. Now. And
Joanne Lockwoodhost
it's not just a bit of that. It's actually that thosemagnetic poles repelling each other. It's getting worse and worse and worseover time. Those opinions are drifting further and further apartand you become entrenched, you become wedded because yourwhole community, the people you hang out with, everybody you talk to believes the samething as you do. And it's pushing everyone apart and. Yeah, yeah,
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
exactly. Even the centre ground to people who
Joanne Lockwoodhost
are on the extremes looks extreme from that perspective,you know, because I could be in the middle of those views and I lookpolar opposite. It's crazy. We can't even meet in the middle anymore. There's no middle.
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
Yeah. Everybody has to be right. There's no compromise. It's like I have to beright at all costs and I'll defend myself to the death just to beright. And there's, you know, no possibility I could beeven a little wrong. No, compromise isn't a thing anymore.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
But that's the framing, isn't it? It's about being right or wrong.We've lost the ability to see that. Well, actually, it's just my perspective, it's myview, it's my belief, and I have a right to be right.It's like, hang on a minute, that's free speech, isn't it? Being right.It's trying to teach people how to be accountable for those views as well.
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
Yeah. One of the things that I learned over years of leadership andperspective, and I used to speak about leadership quite a bit when I did onstage, is in order to, as people and human beings,the purpose is to grow. We want to grow and get better. We just don'tgraduate from school, spike the football or hit the soccer ball and you're done.Right. And you don't grow anymore. The whole purpose is to grow, to get better,to get better, to get better. But if you're full of whatever youthink is right, there's no room for anything else. So you have to have the
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
knowledge and the willingness to get rid of old thingsand old thoughts and beliefs that maybe don't service you anymore. So you make roomfor the new stuff to come in that have maybe been updated, thatyou're like, oh, I never thought of it that way. But now there's no roomfor that, right? Because you just overflow and you're pissed offon everything because you have no room for any kind of concept anymore,maybe even old things that you. Old beliefs that you've cherishedso long and maybe don't service you anymore. And you just have to be ableto let them go because they don't service you anymore. So you have room fornew concepts, new ideas to grow as a person. And there's abook was written in the early 90s by Wallace Wattlescalled the Science of Getting Rich. It's much more than just the title,but he says we all deserve to be rich. And he's notnecessarily talking about rich in money terms, but he does talk about that. Butit serves its purpose so that this way it allows you to accesslife experiences that you would never be able to access if you didn't have money.So you can become a better person, experience, travel the world and see newcultures, new ideas and become diverse and be able to see,wow, there's more beyond the pond, there's more beyond America. And the world issuch a big place. And I can go to India and Thailand and see, oh,my God, the cultures are crazy good, they're so cool. But you would never know.And you couldn't access that if you didn't have the money to do that. Sothe purpose of the book, I call it literary artwork. It's a beautifully written book.It's short, really small, but. But to allow your. The point is to really.Life's purpose is to grow and to be able to gain more knowledge and newinformation and more experiences to become better as you grow and not just spike theball. Fabulous. Okay, I'm guessing we're going to have. I'm going
Joanne Lockwoodhost
to be really stereotypical here. Two types of listeners listening to us in this conversation.We're going to have people who are maybe questioning their gender,maybe they've or have questioned their gender, and people who haven't.So let's just think about the people who are questioning their gender. They may beliving in a state of flux Maybe they're not sure about themselves or maybe they'vegot their shit together and they've sorted it. So what advice would you give peoplethat you're coaching and mentoring when they're in thatvortex of confusion and uncertainty and not knowing how to go forward?Where would you encourage them to go? If their
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
questioning is to not is to. Don't deny it.But I described the female side of me, inside ofme as a seed. Andthere's what I call the laws of the universe, gravity and different things. There's onecalled law of gestation. And that's everything gives birth in its owntime. And so you have, if you plant corn, you know, in acertain amount of days it's going to germinate. You just don't dig it up aftera week and say, well, we don't have corn. I'm going to plant cucumbers. Youknow, it's going to take a while to germinate. So gwen took, took 60 yearsto germinate inside of me and bloomed at a certain point.And if you're questioning your gender, you, you, you have thesetwo parts inside of you, this yin and yang that you're playing with. Andwhichever one you feed more is the one that's going to dominate. And it'sokay that if you have male on one side, female on the other side, andyou're in the middle, it's okay to be in the middle, right? It's okay tobe, hey, I want to be male this day or this week. If you knowperfectly fine. Other people are more polarised and they want to, they want to gravitymore or the other side. There's so many of the spectrum, as they call it,is. I would say embrace it, but think about also you have to think aboutyour life, your finances, your relationships and the collateraldamage. Nobody wants to think about that. Friendships, love,lives, all this type of thing that you have to think about as well too.If I do this, what is, is what may happen and anticipate.But to. If you're, if you want to explore more female or moremale, then find meetup groups and other groups around you that you cantalk to. That was one of the things that, that helped me when I firststarted coming out and dressing was just around Covid time. Just before that,I found a meetup group in New York and they would get together once aweek and we would talk and they would answer questions for me that I neverhad 50 years ago, 40 years ago. And we'd have, they'dhave A kitchen and food and cook. And I was able to meet my people,right? And they were able to help me to explore this. And if I didn'thave that, I don't even know if Gwen will be here today because I wouldjust be alone. I don't know. Or maybe she would have bloomed another fiveyears from now. So I guess it's a long winded answer to your question. HopefullyI answer that. No, it's a good answer. And finally then,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
would you. What would you offer to people whoare trying to support people who areexploring their gender feeling dysphoria either as a loved one, a friend,a colleague, even a stranger in a bar?What would you offer them as some guidance forthem? Tolerance is much more than tolerating
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
people. As long as they agree with you. So many times people, oh, I'm sotolerant, but if you don't agree with me, you're dirt to me. That's not tolerance.Tolerance is being able to accept people as they are andto be able to see them for the essence of the person that they reallyare and how they're presenting. And like I said, I judge people byenergy, not so much the initial perception. And togo a little bit deeper with the people. So this way you can. Everybody needs
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
to be cut a break once in a while. And if they'reangry or something, or you're kind of rubbing like this with them, hey, did theyhave a bad day today or something? You don't know the backstory as well. Socut them a break, deal with that and be able to treat them as theyare. Even compliment, compliment, you look great today,or I love your hair today, or I love your clothes today. Even something likethat, you never know. Even something little like that because youdon't know their backstory can change a person's life. There's a storeyof this world renowned speaker called Nick Wojciech. He has no arms and no legs,right? And he would go to school and he would get ragged on, ragged on,ragged on. And he. And, and he said to himself, listen, if another person comesup to me and just insults me and stuff like that, I'm just gonna killmyself. I just can't deal with it anymore. And then this girl came up tohim and she goes, here he goes, here comes. And she goes, nick, you're lookinggreat today. And that just really. And thatmade him feel so much better. Even one compliment. Cause you don't know the backstoryof someone's life. Give them a compliment, smile to them Give them something good,even pay it forward. I'm on a line paying for food. I'll pay for theirfood or something. Just pay it forward. You know, what's a few dollars? You know,it's not gonna mean anything to me, but it might be something great to asenior or to somebody else that you do that for. Be kind to people andpeople appreciate it. Yeah, I often describe that as
Joanne Lockwoodhost
micro validations. Just those little touches, that little.I see you, I'm smiling at you, and this is going to make yousmile back. Just those little things. Exactly, exactly. That's a short way to put
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
it, but you did great. Yeah, I love it. I love your nails. Or.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Wow, you look great today. Oh, that's a lovely dress. Just something or justsmile at someone. Hi, honey. How are you doing?Anything that is. You don't have to draw attention tosomeone's difference or something. You just want to go,you look great. Nice one. Yeah. That's all you want.And if it's a trans man, you can say, wow, man, you're looking buff today.Love you. Love it. Love your guns, whatever it may be. Love the cannons.
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
Right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, yeah, no, it's. That's a
Joanne Lockwoodhost
beautiful way of putting it. Thank you. So, Gwen, it's been absolutely fascinating talking toyou for the last hour and a bit, actually, we've been yakking away, how canpeople get hold of you? What's the best way? Have you got a book? Andwhat do you want people to do? Yeah, well, I kind of hinted. I don't
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
know if you could see, it's a little bit backwards. Dysphoria hacks.Yeah, but it's Dysphoria hacks. If you go to dysphoriahacks.com, you'llsee the book there. There's also a companion book. So Dysphoria Hacks isthe philosophy that I talked about, about diffusing anger, fear,and you don't have to have just a storey. It could be that you're afraidof. It's going to help you combat that and know what it is and howto work with it. And then there's a workbook in it. I call it. Well,in the Marine, we have a saying. It says Semper Fi. We say semper fiall the time, so it's called Semper Fi to Semper Femme. And it's theworkbook that goes with that. And you have an option of getting that as well,too, if you want to. And that goes a Lot deeper into different things forpeople. Very affordable. It's all digital. They can go get it there eventually be onAmazon, but not yet. And if they want to. Want to contact me,I'm on Facebook all the time. I write a lot on Facebook. Reallydeep, long stuff. It's just Gwen Patron. It's like the tequilapatron, but you have to add an E at the end because I'm a littlespicy. I'm a little spicy. And. And you can, you know, contact meon those. Instagram, Facebook. And I'm also. I also lovefood. So I'm a foodie and I'm starting acooking channel. Cause I used to be in the restaurant business and I love tocook and culinary and. But it's how to. How. How.Using food as energy, but romance. A little bit flirty, alittle bit sexual. And the channel is called Culinary and Cleavage.Culinary and Cleavage. So I have a lot of fun with it. So I havea lot of liberty with. With it. My recipes aren't just recipes,but it's. It's like. Well, you'll see it. You'll see the recipe. When I getto. They're. They're there. But I'm gonna start doing the recipes in the next week
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
and you'll see that. And I'll dress like very suggestively and all different things.Just. I want to make cooking fun. Not too serious, veryflirty, very suggestive. But to bring couples together,to enjoy the process of cooking together and. And bring couples togetherthere or to go enjoy the process of cooking. So I'll go and I'll goshopping for food, look at different things and I'll be describing. And I'll video thatand I'll have bloopers on there and all sorts of stuff. So. Because that's mypersonality. Just I love to be goofy and. And. But yeah, Instagram,TikTok, YouTube, culinary and cleavage. I think you'll enjoy it. It'll be fun. Fun. Wow.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I. I've just checked you out on Facebook. I just found your Facebook page. AndI'll put all the details in the notes. Okay. Are you. Are you on LinkedInat all? Or is it mainly Facebook, Instagram? I'm not on LinkedIn. I
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
never went on LinkedIn because I will be on there soon. But I never wenton there because I never legally changed my name. So I didn't. I just didn'tfeel comfortable doing that yet. But I've all the paperwork submitted waiting on my courtdate, and once that happens, I'll be on LinkedIn as Gwen Petrone. Fabulous,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
fabulous, fabulous. Well, well, I do encourage you to, if you'relistening to this, to cheque out Gwen's websites and the bookdigital offering, drop in on Facebook. I noticed we've got 10mutual friends on Facebook, so I have a ping you a friend's request and maybewe can keep in touch. Yeah, I already posted this morning. I said
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
I'm on doing a podcast right now and I put your name tagged you onthere as well too. And so once this airs, I'll post it again. So
Joanne Lockwoodhost
absolutely fantastic. So, Gwen, thank you so much. Thank you, Jo, thank
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Dr. Gwen Petrone
you so much. Thanks, everybody. As we bring this
Joanne Lockwoodhost
conversation to a close, I want to express my deepestgratitude to you, our listener, for lending your earand heart to the cause of inclusion.Today's discussion struck a chord. Consider subscribing toInclusion Bites and become part of our ever growing communitydriving real change. Share this journey with friends, family andcolleagues. Let's amplify the voices that matter.Got thoughts, storeys or a vision to share? I'm allears. Reach out tojo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.ukand let's make your voice heard. Until next time, thisis Joanne Lockwood signing off with a promise to return withmore enriching narratives that challenge, inspire andunite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world oneepisode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.
In this episode of The Inclusion Bites Podcast, Joanne Lockwood welcomes Dr. Gwen Patrone to explore the theme “Fear as a Superpower.” Their conversation traverses the landscape of fear, resilience, and authentic living, particularly through the lens of trans and gender diverse experience. Joanne and Gwen draw compelling parallels with pop culture, likening Gwen’s ability to "see fear in slow motion" to the iconic Matrix scene, and discuss how strategies honed in the military can help reframe fear as a catalyst for clarity, strength, and growth. Together, they unpack the complex emotional barriers—dubbed “terror barriers”—that can accompany authenticity and how repeated, incremental exposure to fear can desensitise and empower.
Gwen is a former US Marine sergeant, author, and coach whose journey spans technical expertise in cryptographic electronics to lived experience as a gender diverse advocate. After moving from New York City to Florida, she has channelled her resilience into supporting trans and gender diverse people seeking to transform anxiety and dysphoria into sources of self-belief. Her book, Dysphoria Hacks, draws on insights from her military career, leadership roles, and her evolution as both Peter and Gwen, blending practical techniques with philosophical reflection. Gwen’s candid anecdotes reveal her commitment to authenticity, whether navigating societal expectations, participating in the local community, or connecting with others seeking belonging. Through her writing, coaching, and public engagement, Gwen highlights the importance of finding strength in vulnerability and fostering inclusive connections, all while embracing the multiplicities of her identity.
Joanne and Gwen’s dialogue offers a nuanced dissection of internal and external fears—whether paralysing uncertainty, fear of rejection, or the challenges of systemic barriers in contemporary society. They advocate for authenticity, encourage incremental acts of courage, and emphasise the transformative power of micro validations and kindness. A key takeaway from this episode is the idea that fear, once understood and domesticated, can become a powerful tool for personal growth and positive change—urging listeners to embrace discomfort, cultivate resilience, and build genuine connections. This episode will particularly resonate with those searching for self-acceptance, allyship, or pathways to thriving amidst adversity.
The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Inclusion Bites, SEE Change Happen Ltd or Joanne Lockwood. This episode is shared for general interest and discussion; we accept no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of any statements made.
