Creation Myth, Episode 4: Freedom Form

With her sterilization scheduled, Helena sits down with her new lover to explain her decision. But the conversation leads in an unexpected direction. More confused than ever, she reaches out to Alejandra, a woman who underwent the same procedure and doesn’t regret her decision—it confirmed her true identity. Helena is not so sure. The clock is ticking. What is she scared of? Hear all episodes of Personally: Creation Myth now, early and ad-free, on CBC Stories Premium on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/channel/cbc-stories/id6443681642.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:29Speaker 01

  This is a CBC Podcast.

• 0:37Speaker 02

  Good afternoon, beautiful people on this train. Next stop is 59th Street. On behalf of the train crew, please continue to have a safe, wonderful, wonderful, uplifting Wednesday afternoon.

• 0:55Speaker 03

  On the subway home back from the doctor, I kept rereading the words on the document, sterilization consent form. Signing it had felt momentous.

• 1:10Speaker 03

  But once I was in my kitchen, this product of New York state legislation looked about as exciting as a notice from the IRS. So I peeled off a sticky note in the happiest sunflower yellow and drew as best I could two ovaries with a cut through the fallopian tubes and added the words, "Freedom Form." I stuck both under a magnet on my fridge.

• 1:38Speaker 03

  The surgery was in two months.

• 1:46Speaker 03

  Now, all I had to do was tell my new love, Brendan. He still thought I'd gone in for an IUD. And I was worried about his reaction if I told him I'd decided to get sterilized instead. Sterilized, that did not sound hot. He would be too polite to say, of course. Maybe he wouldn't even think it. But what if, deep in his subconscious, it would change how he looked at me?

• 2:15Speaker 03

  He was coming over that night. But before I was ready to talk to him, I needed to do some talking to myself.

• 2:26Speaker 04

  I just keep recording messages, but you know, I'm thinking and feeling.

• 2:32Speaker 04

  Part of me feels defensive all over again, you know, like this is my choice and we're not having a conversation. I'm just informing you that this is happening.

• 2:41Speaker 04

  And of course, it is none of his business. But of course, it is.

• 2:46Speaker 04

  I mean, we are exploring intimacy and I mean, we're not at the stage where we're like talking about a future together and kids or no kid, like we haven't really, I mean, he knows I don't want them, obviously. Uh, I was very clear about that, but yeah, he, he has not been so, uh, clear. He just says, oh, I'm not ready, you know, to have kids, I know that. Okay, not ready when you're 40 years old is, I don't know what that means. I don't want to comment on that, you know, it's his trajectory. It doesn't change mine, you know?

• 3:24Speaker 04

  If he decides he wants kids, then, uh, good luck and good night.

• 3:30Speaker 04

  Um, yeah, I am cleaning the toilet as I'm recording this. Because, um, because I want him to feel comfortable in a very clean house. His place is so clean. I think he always cleans everything before I come. Especially the bathroom, so I don't want him to think I'm some sort of slob.

• 3:53Speaker 04

  I have my life in order. I do, I do, I do. I do.

• 4:00Speaker 04

  Ugh, but yeah. I'm happy that he's coming over. Oh, he's so beautiful.

• 4:10Speaker 04

  And I hope he doesn't leave because I, uh, I'm gonna be a tube tied lady.

• 4:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:25Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 4:28Speaker 03

  I'm Helena de Groot. And from CBC's Personally, this is Creation Myth.

• 4:48Speaker 03

  Brendan came in with a bag full of groceries. I put them on the counter for now and led him to the living room, where we sat down, not on the couch, but the floor. Something about the smooth surface of the wood was calming to me.

• 5:02Speaker 04

  You want a pill?

• 5:03Speaker 03

  No. He took my hands in his.

• 5:05Speaker 04

  I think...

• 5:07Speaker 03

  He already knew about the surgery. I told him pretty much the moment he'd come in. But I also wanted him to agree that it was a good idea. So I started making the case. I told him I'd gone in to ask for an IUD. The old school copper kind, hormones made me depressed. But the doctor told me those work by causing a constant inflammation in the uterine lining. Who wants to have constant inflammation? Oh, and a common side effect was heavier period cramps. I wanted him to understand how exhausting it was. Fighting your body and losing for, what, over 25 years?

• 5:42Speaker 04

  Like, I don't want any of this.

• 5:44Speaker 03

  I was ready to snip, snap, be done.

• 5:47Speaker 04

  And then so I asked her about that tubal ligation. She told me...

• 5:52Speaker 03

  I glanced up at his face to know what he was thinking. But all I saw was that Brendan was looking at me with soft eyes, attentive. I wanted to tell him what was happening inside me. But I wasn't even sure what it was. I kept going, hoping the words would come.

• 6:13Speaker 04

  I've never really understood why people want kids, like, what that feels like to want them. And I think I understand now. Like, I like...

• 6:30Speaker 04

  I want to make a world with you.

• 6:40Speaker 03

  What was I saying?

• 6:44Speaker 03

  I felt insane. We'd only been together for a month and a half, and he still got nervous about the commitment of planning a concert or a camping trip two weeks into the future. Meanwhile, I'd seen this image, as if out of the corner of my eye. I blinked and it was gone. But it was long enough to know that it was a scene of Brendan on the bed, with on his chest, our sleeping baby.

• 7:14Speaker 05

  And how does that make you feel? What do you think about that?

• 7:21Speaker 03

  It's scary to live, living daylight on me.

• 7:24Speaker 05

  Yeah. I don't think I'm really letting that feeling in completely. I'm scary.

• 7:28Speaker 03

  No, yeah, it's so scary. I've never, I'd never had it.

• 7:34Speaker 03

  So why did I have it now? Why with Brendan? I tried to explain to myself as much as to him.

• 7:44Speaker 03

  I have this tremendous nostalgia for my own childhood, you know? With my own childhood, I meant early childhood. Things changed when I was 10. But the time before, I remember as straight up mythical.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  My sister and I didn't have toys, but things like paint and fabric. We'd wrap ourselves in gold turbans, play puppet theater with nothing but our hands. My parents would make music. My father played the piano. My mother sang.

• 8:19Speaker 03

  I had never stopped longing for what it seemed like, our perfect little world.

• 8:31Speaker 04

  And of course, now that I'm finally like, I'm so sure I'm gonna get my tubes tied, in walks, basically, the embodiment of that nostalgic fantasy, you know?

• 8:49Speaker 03

  I'd always just assumed those days were gone. But now I saw it, they didn't have to be, not completely. I could still make stuff, be creative, not because of some deadline, but because it was fun to fill the house with music on a random Tuesday night. That's what Brendan did. It made me remember what it was like to be a kid, to try things, failure be damned. When I was little, I loved pressing keys on the piano, drunk on the power to make sound. But the few times I tried playing in front of someone as an adult, I got up midway through the piece enraged with myself for those wrong notes that hung over everything like a bad smell.

• 9:34Speaker 03

  But the weekend before, Brendan had suggested we improvise together. He'd gotten out his guitar and I'd sat at the piano, my hands shaking.

• 9:46Speaker 03

  I never improvised. Piano, for me, was playing whatever some long-dead composer had committed to paper. Now we just picked a scale and went for it.

• 10:08Speaker 03

  It was as if he turned down the volume on so many of my fears.

• 10:15Speaker 05

  I feel really honored that you're feeling so much more secure in the idea of attempting things that might lead to failure and being okay with that. And I think...

• 10:30Speaker 06

  The idea of building a world, like I like that idea a lot. And, yeah, and, and, and all those reasons are not reasons to have a kid.

• 10:42Speaker 04

  You're not sufficient reasons, no.

• 10:43Speaker 06

  No.

• 10:47Speaker 06

  I don't think that I am yet at the place where I couldn't even like imagine the having a kid. But it's just the permanent irreversible aspect of the surgery feels really heavy and it feels hard to be, to feel like I'm part of that decision.

• 11:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, uh huh.

• 11:10Speaker 04

  It's just, I don't know, it's just been confusing.

• 11:16Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 11:19Speaker 04

  I don't even know you. We've never had a fight, we haven't traveled together.

• 11:27Speaker 04

  You just met me at a weird time, it's like, mm, very fresh, you know?

• 11:32Speaker 06

  Well, I had that impression for what it's worth.

• 11:35Speaker 04

  Oh, really?

• 11:35Speaker 06

  That you're a fresh kind of version of yourself right now.

• 11:41Speaker 06

  And maybe it's worth, I'm afraid to say this because it sounds like I'm giving advice or something, or sharing an opinion about what, about the tubal ligation thing.

• 11:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:54Speaker 06

  And I don't feel like that's my place.

• 11:55Speaker 04

  That's okay, I can just discard it.

• 11:58Speaker 06

  But like we were talking about tattoos the other day and like,

• 12:03Speaker 06

  if this is a newer version of yourself and you're living in these circumstances, I think you, I think if it were me, that's all, because that's all I can speak, if it were me, I would want to live in that space a little bit longer before making a permanent decision.

• 12:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:24Speaker 04

  The way he gave advice, almost not wanting to, made me more inclined to take it. Plus, what he said made sense. Sit with yourself, think, don't do anything permanent just yet. But the idea of sitting and thinking more made me feel ill. How long had I been tossing the kid question back and forth? Years? A decade? Probably closer to two. I'd filled up journals, recorded hours of tape, talked to my therapist, my sister, my mom, my friends. I was ready to do something, something bold. But what? The fact that I still didn't know made me want to strangle myself.

• 13:07Speaker 04

  All I had to do was decide so I could move on. Either have a kid or make it impossible forever.

• 13:19Speaker 06

  Can I ask you about one other thing?

• 13:21Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 13:22Speaker 06

  I saw the form on your refrigerator.

• 13:26Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 13:26Speaker 06

  And I saw the post-it note on it.

• 13:28Speaker 04

  My Freedom Form?

• 13:30Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 13:31Speaker 04

  What do you want to ask?

• 13:33Speaker 06

  Well, motivated framing it in that way.

• 13:38Speaker 04

  Well, this is a note to myself, right? And if it's a note to self, what do I want the note to say? And Freedom Form was just encouragement for myself. Like, yes, it's scary. Yes, it's formal. Yes, it's weird bureaucracy and there's laws apparently about this. And I have to go under the knife. And everything about this is very scary. But remind yourself of why you want this. It's like freedom from this fear of getting pregnant, freedom from losing control over my choices, like Roe v. Wade being overturned and Republicans wanting to spread their bullshit. Like, just the freedom from all that.

• 14:20Speaker 04

  Freedom from other people deciding what's good for me, you know? And also freedom in my own mind. Like, I don't want to have to... This is why I'm so fucking confused right now, you know? I was so ready to be done with having that little, tiny little bit of like...

• 14:42Speaker 04

  Well, but maybe I want one day, like, no. And so it was just a freedom from that, too.

• 14:49Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 14:50Speaker 04

  And every woman of childbearing age that I know, they just spend like their twenties, their thirties, sometimes mid forties, like agonizing over this question, right? Do I want children or not? If they even know that they want them, when, right? All of this energy that goes into it. And then I asked you, like, you said, well, I don't really know yet if I wanna have kids. I mean, I haven't really seriously thought about it.

• 15:19Speaker 06

  Right.

• 15:19Speaker 04

  I just felt like, oh, man, to be a man and to be like almost forty and be able to say, I haven't really given it much thought.

• 15:29Speaker 06

  Yeah, I can imagine that it might be upsetting or like make you angry or.

• 15:36Speaker 04

  A little bit. I mean, I'm not angry with you, I'm just.

• 15:39Speaker 06

  No, but like at the, at the sort of injustice of, of that, yeah.

• 15:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:45Speaker 06

  Well,

• 15:48Speaker 06

  yeah, I don't know. It's occurring to me now that like all of my close guy friends all have kids. And, you know, I'll go and see them and see the kids. And I've seen some of them grow up. But I have not really talked with, with any of my friends deeply about what that process and decision was like for them.

• 16:09Speaker 06

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 16:11Speaker 04

  So what's it been like this week to think about it for the first time?

• 16:18Speaker 06

  Well,

• 16:23Speaker 06

  I guess I'm sort of surprised right now that talking about the stuff with you is not frightening.

• 16:33Speaker 06

  Because it surprised me when you even suggested that you were softening your perspective.

• 16:41Speaker 04

  I mean, it shocked me, so, I mean, of course you were surprised. I'm still not over the, anyway, continue.

• 16:51Speaker 06

  Yeah, I'm just, I don't know what to say other than I don't think I totally understand.

• 16:57Speaker 04

  I don't either.

• 17:00Speaker 04

  And I've been trying to feel the contours of it, you know, like, how.

• 17:09Speaker 04

  How big is this shift? How large is this opening? You know?

• 17:15Speaker 06

  It's about this big.

• 17:16Speaker 04

  Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Of course, I set it up. You know, you had to go there. My god. How did I not see this coming?

• 17:31Speaker 06

  Sorry. That's probably also an avoidance tactic on my part.

• 17:37Speaker 04

  No, but it's good. I need this. It's too heavy to think about it all at once.

• 17:42Speaker 06

  I'm only about eight pounds, nine pounds.

• 17:44Speaker 04

  Oh, stop it.

• 17:48Speaker 04

  Oh, my god.

• 17:56Speaker 03

  I had to sort out the kid question. But I also wanted to better understand the surgery I'd signed up for. So I sat down at my desk to do some research. And because this was a medical decision, I started on Reddit.

• 18:14Speaker 03

  I scrolled right past the success stories and looked for what could go wrong. The posters who'd gotten their tubes tied reported heavier periods, decreased libido, weight gain, bad acne, chronic pain, freak pregnancies, not always in the womb.

• 18:31Speaker 03

  And then there was the repressed despair, particular to women married to men. Like in this post. My husband is scared of getting a vasectomy because in a study, it showed that some men can have long-term pain from it. And he has really bad anxiety, so he thinks it'll happen to him. So now I'm thinking about getting my tubes tied. What were some side effects you guys had or are still having? Thank you, everyone.

• 19:02Speaker 03

  The replies were swift. "Have 'em Google all the stuff that could happen to you," said one, the "you" in all caps. Others chimed in. It was brutal. I was in extreme pain for days. I felt like I was being stabbed with every breath I took. Sick of men being handled like they're so fragile.

• 19:21Speaker 03

  But the post that got to me had a different tone altogether. "I want to gently remind you," it read, "that your husband's anxiety is not a good reason to have major abdominal surgery."

• 19:37Speaker 03

  On the next line, this person had posted two video links for side-by-side comparison. I clicked on the tubal ligation first. "You should skip ahead a minute if you're squeamish."

• 19:52Speaker 03

  It starts innocently enough. The camera takes us from the patient, flat on the operating table, knocked out by the anesthesia, to a close-up of the incision. And finally, we plunge inside into this pink and orange world. It looked like a bouncy house, where everything was swaying and lolling, uterus, ovaries, bladder, intestines, all dangerously close together. Then something like pliers or tweezers came in and started tugging and pulling at the flesh. But when I saw white smoke rise up like at a barbecue, I clicked away and started watching the vasectomy.

• 20:36Speaker 03

  Three white-gloved fingers cradling a ball sack. "Feeling okay so far?" the doctor says. "Yep, we're good," the owner of the ball sack responds, "because with a vasectomy, there's no need for heavy anesthesia." That, by the way, carries the risk of death.

• 20:54Speaker 03

  Only when I was halfway through did I see a single drop of blood.

• 21:03Speaker 03

  I stepped away from my desk, all women's lib righteous. But I knew this was not about the patriarchy. Sure, I was a woman, and Brendan was a man, and the risks for me were greater than the risks for him. But that did not mean he had to be the one to alter his body because of the wishes of a woman he met not even two months before.

• 21:30Speaker 03

  The choice was mine. The risk was mine. And the freedom would be all mine.

• 21:45Speaker 07

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• 21:52Speaker 08

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• 22:06Speaker 07

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• 22:20Speaker 03

  I kept thinking about the surgery, making the case for, against, going round and round. What I needed was an outside judge. So when I met up with my friend Elise for breakfast at a cafe next to the park, I recruited her. I was just thinking, okay, because here's one thing. I have scheduled my sterilization procedure for the end of June. Tomorrow is June. Should I just postpone the surgery so that I have more time?

• 22:52Speaker 09

  I think you should. I think you should absolutely push it out if you don't feel 100% certain.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  Will I ever feel 100% certain?

• 23:04Speaker 09

  Maybe not, but there are other ways to not have kids.

• 23:07Speaker 03

  Like what? We talked through the other options. Like most of my friends trying not to get pregnant, Elise and I had tried most of them, and each of them, in their own way, sucked. So Elise said, what about just timing it right? There's the pullout method, tracking your cycle. I was a fan of all that. It made me feel connected to our earliest ancestors, who were probably gaming the system the exact same way. But Brendan was not sure if that was reliable enough.

• 23:43Speaker 03

  I mean, and I told him, like, well, already, the fact that I'm close to 40 years old.

• 23:48Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 23:48Speaker 03

  My likelihood to get pregnant, even when I'm

• 23:50Speaker 09

  Is low.

• 23:50Speaker 03

  ovulating is 5%. 5. That's how low.

• 23:54Speaker 09

  Seriously?

• 23:55Speaker 03

  There's a cliff, and it drops steeply off that.

• 23:58Speaker 09

  5%?

• 23:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:04Speaker 03

  But even at peak fertility is like 25%.

• 24:06Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 24:06Speaker 03

  It's like never, like, yeah.

• 24:08Speaker 09

  Is your period regular?

• 24:09Speaker 03

  Very.

• 24:11Speaker 09

  To me, that feels really safe. And I feel a little uncomfortable saying this because it is such a personal decision, and I don't wanna...

• 24:27Speaker 09

  I'm just gonna say it, no more preamble.

• 24:28Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 24:29Speaker 09

  Um, I would do anything I could to avoid a surgery. I do not fuck with surgery, personally. I don't like going under anesthesia. Shit can happen. People can fuck up. So surgery scares me.

• 24:44Speaker 03

  Me too.

• 24:46Speaker 03

  I mean, you know, and US healthcare scares me. The fact that everyone is like armed to the teeth with liability protections, and like, who the hell knows what kind of paper I sign that signs away my rights to sue. And also suing is like small comfort for like

• 25:07Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 25:08Speaker 03

  a lifetime of possible physical distress. Yeah, so I am terrified of it also.

• 25:17Speaker 03

  But, ah, I'm so sick of that anxiety that I might be pregnant.

• 25:24Speaker 03

  I mean,

• 25:26Speaker 03

  who the hell knows how long I can get pregnant for, but

• 25:29Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 25:30Speaker 03

  I don't feel I'm out of the danger zone yet, you know?

• 25:36Speaker 03

  My friends were kind and patient and helpful. The more I thought, the more my thoughts went round and round. Pregnancy scary. Surgery scary. Healthcare expensive. Kid more expensive. Day after day after day. I needed to talk to someone who actually knew what they were talking about. Someone who'd gotten their tubes tied.

• 26:00Speaker 10

  Thank you for having me.

• 26:01Speaker 03

  I was so glad that like not only- Her name was Alejandra Matoni, and I Googled my way to an essay of hers. I wasn't sure how comfortable she'd be talking about all this personal stuff with a total stranger, but as it turned out, she was used to it.

• 26:17Speaker 10

  About once every three months, I get either an email. Twice, I've gotten a text from women saying, "Hey, I'm thinking of undergoing tubal ligation. Can you talk to me about it?" Because there's so much pressure not to do it. So usually, I answered the call by saying, "Yes, I will talk to you as long as you want."

• 26:37Speaker 03

  I really appreciate that.

• 26:39Speaker 10

  And you're doing a project about, I guess, women who have had their tubes tied?

• 26:44Speaker 03

  Well, the project is really a podcast about my... Well, I pulled out one vague word after another. The ultimate point of the podcast. But the project was not what was on my mind. It was the surgery. I only had 11 more days, and I wanted her to tell me what to do. So I wanted to hear her story.

• 27:10Speaker 10

  Yeah, I always knew I didn't want kids. Just instinctually.

• 27:14Speaker 03

  So when she was 29, Alejandra decided to get her tubes tied. One doctor she went to told her what I'd been told too. "Maybe this is something you want to discuss with your husband." She didn't have a husband. "And if you really want a tubal ligation, you can always get one after experiencing the joy of having a kid or two." The second doctor she visited also declined.

• 27:37Speaker 10

  So I went to the third. And he had lived through the period before abortion was legal. Because he was in his 70s. So when I said, "Can I get my tubes tied?" And he's like, "Yes." And I did say, "You're the first doctor who was just like, 'You're a woman who knows what to do with her body and knows what she wants.'"

• 27:59Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 28:01Speaker 03

  The search for that doctor had started at 29. Now, at 42, she was finally being prepped for surgery. Her mom sat knitting while they waited. Then the doctor arrived.

• 28:16Speaker 10

  You know, we're gonna do this, we're gonna go through here. And I realized, there's no going back after this. You know? So yes, this decision is scary and I could get hurt. Yeah.

• 28:31Speaker 10

  It's getting me to where I want to go.

• 28:40Speaker 03

  They wheeled her into the operating room, put her under, made a tiny incision under her belly button, went in with a laparoscopic camera, and burned off her tubes.

• 28:51Speaker 10

  They don't actually tie them.

• 28:54Speaker 03

  When she woke up from the anesthesia, it was morning.

• 28:58Speaker 10

  The nurse came in. She was very kind and just said, "Good morning" to me. "How are you doing?" Offered me juice.

• 29:07Speaker 10

  And it was done.

• 29:12Speaker 03

  At her follow-up appointment, the doctor gave her something. A picture of her tubes in their new state.

• 29:19Speaker 04

  That's so beautiful. And I also love, you know, usually you go to that kind of doctor and you get a picture like of your baby, right? Like your embryo.

• 29:28Speaker 10

  Right? Yes. But it really made me realize I can make decisions over myself and what I want. Like a year and a half after I got my tube side, you know, I literally sat down with the planner, which I can show you.

• 29:49Speaker 10

  I love knitting and sewing and all that stuff. I knit, okay. I sew badly. But I even made like a little cover for it.

• 29:57Speaker 04

  That's so cute.

• 29:58Speaker 10

  But I sat down and I just asked myself, if I'm not gonna be a mother, what do I really want in my life? Because you could do whatever you want. You've already broken a big taboo, right?

• 30:14Speaker 03

  She started telling me what she wrote in her planner. A better job, eating better, exercising.

• 30:23Speaker 03

  I was waiting for her big plan, something people could look at and say, you know what? She was right not to have a kid. Otherwise, she would have never been able to dedicate her life to clearing the plastic out of the ocean or setting up a symphony orchestra for kids from disadvantaged backgrounds.

• 30:41Speaker 03

  Instead, she told me about going to her knitting club, her book club, and she liked to write at her desk by the window that looked out over her building's pool, where all summer long, she could hear kids swim and play and laugh.

• 30:58Speaker 10

  It's very life-affirming.

• 31:00Speaker 03

  She told me she wanted to be there for her family, like when her little nephew got cancer and her sister dropped everything to take care of him for almost a year and a half as he got treated. She wanted to work on repairing the relationships that deserved repair and let go of the others.

• 31:19Speaker 03

  And she wanted to deepen her relationship with herself, including by coming up with her own rites and rhythms.

• 31:29Speaker 10

  I wake up at four. I light a little candle. I have a statue of Buddha, a statue of St. Joseph lying down.

• 31:38Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 31:39Speaker 10

  Of course, I'm Mexican, the Virgin Mary. And I just sit in front of them with a candle, and I meditate until the candle burns out.

• 31:53Speaker 03

  Why did I insist on doing something big? Was it guilt? The fact that my decision had to count for something? That my life, just living it one day and then another, was somehow not enough?

• 32:12Speaker 03

  It made me think of one of my favorite poems. It's by Philip Larkin, and it starts,

• 32:19Speaker 03

  "Days are where we live. They come, they wake us, time and time over. They are to be happy, and where can we live but days?"

• 32:32Speaker 03

  I wanted to let Alejandra get back to hers. I had just a few more questions.

• 32:37Speaker 04

  Okay, the first thing. How do you see yourself as a woman? I mean, it is like 50s idea, like, you know, when you're a woman, you're fertile. When you're not fertile, you're no longer a woman or whatever, you know? Like, that is all terrible. And of course, rationally, I cannot disagree more. And at the same time.

• 32:57Speaker 10

  That's the world we exist in. Yes.

• 33:00Speaker 04

  So do you feel like you've had to invent what being a woman means to you?

• 33:10Speaker 10

  I... To me, it's some sort like, if you say you're male, you're male. If you say you're female, you're female. And I feel that way about everyone. Like, if that's what you say you are, I am happy to accept it. And that goes for me, too. I am just feminine, because I have decided I am. It's interesting. I worked for a plastic surgeon for a while. And right next to him was a man who specialized in doing transgender surgery. And I had a few talks with him, because he was fascinating. But what he made me realize was that whether you want to get your breasts done

• 33:55Speaker 10

  or you want your gender reassigned, it's confirmation of who you really feel you are. And I think my tube side was also confirming who I really am. Yeah.

• 34:15Speaker 04

  I really feel like you're speaking directly to me. I mean, you are speaking directly to me, but you know what I mean? It's hitting me with the force of... Like, I needed to hear this. I needed to hear this.

• 34:26Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 34:31Speaker 03

  We hung up. But instead of stepping out of my studio slash closet, I turned the light off and just sat there. It was not a bad place to think, the closet. It smelled like soap and lotion. Alejandra had made it sound so simple. The surgery confirmed who she really was. But who was I? I couldn't believe I had to ask myself. I knew who I was. I was a woman who did not want kids and did not want to discuss it ever again. I'd said why I didn't want to have a child. I didn't have the money. I didn't have the time. I lived far from my family, my language.

• 35:15Speaker 03

  And where the hell did I live?

• 35:17Speaker 11

  Where in the high school is the problem? Cafeteria, they ought to know they're starting shooting. Did you say somebody's shooting? Everybody started running out. Um, I'm a high school student.

• 35:31Speaker 03

  What would it be like to drop off my kid at school and then go about my day, knowing someone could drive up to that same building and shoot my baby? People didn't matter in this country. I saw it every time I opened the newspaper. Amazon, OpenAI, the FBI, ICE, IRS data leaks, big oil book bans, travel bans, bans on gender-affirming care, don't say gay, jobs, the defense lobby, finance lobby, Israel lobby, lead in the water, libertarians, Moms for Liberty, militias, Stephen Miller, Peter Thiel, Epstein, Elon Musk, Trump, Tucker Carlson, qualified immunity, criminalizing doctors, journalists, protesters, students, the Supreme Court, conspiracies, Citizens United, student debt, school shootings, surveillance, voter suppression, anti-vaxxers, evictions, vigilantes,

• 36:15Speaker 03

  for-profit prisons, predictive policing, patriotic education, private equity, the death penalty, Project 2025, privatized healthcare, Heritage Foundation, homelessness, harassing librarians, cuts to foreign aid, Medicare, medical research, SNAP, education, environmental protection, to epidemic preparedness, programs for energy efficiency, English language learners. I was scared of rising sea levels, toxic waste, wildfires, water shortages, wealth inequality, and war.

• 36:45Speaker 03

  But that's not even what scared me most.

• 36:49Speaker 03

  What scared me most was me.

• 37:13Speaker 03

  Creation Myth is written, produced, hosted and sound designed by me, Helena De Groot. My story editor and senior producer is Veronica Simmons. Editorial sound design support by Brendan Baker, who also mixed and mastered the episode. Special thanks to Alejandra Matoni for taking the time to make a stranger feel less alone, to my friend Elise Mendelson for never giving unsolicited advice, but understanding that in this case, I was very much soliciting, and to my love Brendan Baker for not freaking out when I started talking about kids, not even two months into our relationship. The team behind Creation Myth further includes Anna Ashite, who is our coordinating producer.

• 37:58Speaker 03

  Executive producers are Cecil Fernandez and Chris Oak. Tanya Springer is the senior manager. Arif Nurani is the director and Leslie Merklinger is the executive director of CBC Podcasts. This project was made possible with the support of VPM Media Corporation. I'll be back next week with a new episode, but while you're waiting, you can listen to another show on Personally, Welcome to Paradise. That series was made by a journalist, Anna Maria Tremonti, who spent her career reporting on horrific gender-based violence, including in war zones. But the story she never told was her own, until now.

• 38:41Speaker 03

  See you next week and thank you so much for listening.

• 38:51Speaker 03

  And if you want to binge the whole series ad-free, you can subscribe to our CBC Stories Premium channel on Apple Podcasts. Just click the link in the show description.